A Villain's Way of Taming Heroines

— That was until he appeared.

In a room filled with chaos, cluttered with various tools and materials, littered with waste paper, and walls adorned with large blueprints, it was hard to imagine that this was an alchemist\'s workshop. Ravenna, holding the design in her hand, frowned and murmured:

"... A weapon?"

She looked up at the blond boy in front of her, who, like her, was dressed in simple work clothes and was personally handling the ether-malleable magi-metal.

"Why a weapon?" Ravenna questioned.

"Because weapons are the things most closely linked to power," Ansel calmly replied.

A long tubular object floated slowly rotating in his palm, its inner wall outlined by an invisible force into perfect rifling.

"Ravenna, the Tower of Babel can\'t hold on for much longer, can it? Although Her Highness has turned her attention to you, preventing you from disbanding under the infinite pressure of the Etheric Academy, this alone is not enough."

He held the magi-metal tube in his hand, put it in front of his eyes, looked through the inner wall at Ravenna in the hole, and laughed lightly:

"You, you all, need to bring out the key weight that can make Her Highness truly choose to stand on your side and make a heavy bet."

"And for her who is determined to conquer the land on the other side of the Celestial Path and rule the entire continent, there is nothing more tempting than pure violence."

"So, with a revolutionary innovation in power, you can make the Tower of Babel stand in the imperial capital."

He threw the tubular object to Ravenna, walked briskly to her side, and whispered in her ear like a devil tempting mortals: "The revolution is in your hands."

"..."

The woman was silent for a long time, and for some reason, her heart was always filled with unspeakable hesitation.

Ravenna had never made weapons, but she would not feel guilty about making weapons. However, in the world she wanted to witness, weapons were not everything, and there should never exist… so many weapons.

If the power of knowledge is only used for violence, what is the difference from a beast that relies on the body?

If possible, she didn\'t want to use weapons to prove herself at all.

But even if the hesitation in her heart that she didn\'t know where it came from was so strong, Ansel\'s words still overwhelmed her inner persistence.

"...You\'re right," Ravenna said softly, "We don\'t have much time left. We must win the full support of the Elder Princess in order to have a chance to continue developing in the imperial capital."

When Ansel came to find her, the Tower of Babel was already on the verge of collapse. Even if they had made remarkable achievements in the past few years, the Etheric Academy\'s relentless pressure had almost driven this fragile new organization to a dead end.

The Elder Princess had been watching, but she had never placed her bets. In her eyes, the current Tower of Babel… was not heavy enough.

They had to make something and had to have the ability to mass-produce it.

"Very good," Ansel\'s slightly immature face showed a pleased smile, "It\'s great that you can understand. Do you need my help in manufacturing?"

"... Hmph, only the stupidest of fools would need help in such a clear idea and design."

"Moreover..."

Ravenna gently stroked the design, her eyes reflecting the dimensions, data, and corresponding concepts of each part, and murmured: "About this thing, I seem to have some... inspiration."

Seven days later, the first ether-driven firearm on this continent officially debuted.

Ravenna Ziegler, as a second-stage extraordinary being, used this weapon to shatter the shield of a third-stage sorcerer in an instant from two hundred meters away, shocking the entire imperial capital.

And when she announced that the Tower of Babel had the ability to mass-produce this kind of weapon... not only the imperial capital, but the entire empire was completely boiling.

Invitations and orders from countless nobles came one after another, and even that Elder Princess who was high in the palace officially placed her heavy bet, announcing that she would personally sponsor the Tower of Babel to engage in firearm research.

This newborn academic organization, on the verge of a dead end, stabilized its footing, and the trajectory of fate, that day… underwent a major shift.

Ravenna stayed in the Tower of Babel, which had a backer, and therefore... the future where Ravenna, who hated the Etheric Academy because the Tower of Babel was completely defeated and disbanded, finally joined the revolutionary army by chance, no longer existed.

The firearms that would not officially debut until six years later and provided the revolutionary army with a powerful armed force... also became a brutal weapon in the hands of the empire.

That year, the name of Ravenna Ziegler\'s genius echoed throughout the empire.

That year, the young Hydral, hidden in the shadows, was only thirteen.

*

A severe pain roused Ravenna from her profound reverie.

The agony of feeling her body twisted and contorted, as if every bone in her body had shattered, would have been enough to render an ordinary person unconscious.

But not Ravenna.

Not because she possessed an extraordinary tolerance for pain, but because she had set the pain perception of her puppet body to a sufficiently low level.

Losing the sense of pain was a perilous affair. Even when using a puppet, Ravenna was reluctant to lower her guard by losing her sense of pain. However, she disliked enduring pain, so she still reduced her pain perception.

She strained to open her eyes amidst the excruciating pain of her simulated muscles tearing and bones breaking. With the slowly awakening rage, she refused to let her will succumb to exhaustion again.

"This is... this is —"

Through her blurred vision, Ravenna saw a round table and around it, a white-robed figure excitedly circling, holding something in his hand.

"This is... an unparalleled creation! Although I am not an expert in this field, I can\'t even imagine the grandeur of its creation just from the blueprint!"

"Hehe, the concept of mechanical armor is indeed remarkable, but it\'s not as exaggerated as you make it out to be, Lord Soren."

Upon hearing this voice, Ravenna\'s puppet body\'s eyes shifted slightly.

-->