Dιʋιɳιƚყ [Yandere Reverse Harem x Angel Reader]

Chapter 1: The Villa

"We're here, lady." The carriage rumbled to a stop. Footsteps approached as the coachman went over to open the door for you and let down the ramp. As he went to get your belongings, you lightly stepped down the creaking, rusted steps to stand before massive metalwork gates and take in the grand villa that was to be your residence for the next few years.

"That should be all." The coachman breathlessly rested his hands on his knees, "Are you sure you don't want me to help you carry these to the house? There are a lot of these, and they're pretty heavy for a lady like yourself."

"I'll be alright, thank you", you assured him with a smile.

After generously tipping the man in gold bits, you sent him on his way. He bowed to you reverently before hastily starting back towards the city as though pursued by demons. Though you supposed that you were fortunate to even find someone willing to bring you and your numerous belongings all the way up the mountain, especially since everyone knew what the villa was built for.

To the unsuspecting bystander, you were a lady of probable noble heritage, with your graceful manner and crisply spoken Capital dialect, which was very much unlike the heavily accented local dialect that they spoke out in the countryside. Upon closer inspection, however, they would see a golden winged pin on your lapel, a required accessory and identifier for all angels in the Western Empire of Valentia.

The Empire of Valentia, a largely human inhabited land, required its magical visitors to wear pins denoting what species they were. Without it, one would be considered an illegal visitor and had no legal rights, making them targets of trafficking and other criminal activity. Not only that, magicals were also required to stay at certain specified residences and had to report to the local authorities whenever they moved. However, you were an angel, so you had it better than many of the other magical races - historically, the human populace had always worshiped angels as the messenger of god and even now, the imperial Valentian family held strong ties with Heaven.

If you had been any other race, you knew no one would have been willing to bring you. Though deeply flawed in its categorization of species due to the informational limitations of the Empire, this policy of segregation did have the desired effect of driving magical beings away. The Empire was in the process of industrializing, and while it was perhaps the blossoming time of the sciences and whatnot, general societal attitudes had not yet caught up.

Over the recent years, tensions between races escalated to unprecedented levels. Though they'd existed before, humans' rapid technological advancements shifted the delicate balance of power that had long maintained an uneasy equilibrium between all parties. Being as old as you were, you had witnessed the progress with your own eyes. In merely a century, Valentia had advanced so rapidly that their technology was decades ahead of all the other species'. Your theory was that humans focused so intensely on developing technology as a natural reaction to make up for their low inherent magical talent, but that was something for another day.

You breathed in the crisp evening air. The sunset spilled over the surrounding autumn forest, painting your surroundings in brilliant reds and golds. Ruffling through your belt pocket, you retrieved a small notebook and its attached pen. Earlier, you hadn't done this because you didn't want to scare the coachman, but now that he was out of sight, you ripped out the featherlight charms and tethering charms you had prepared on the journey.

Injecting light magic to activate them, you stuck them onto your belongings. With the other end of the tethering charm in your pockets and floating baggage in tow, you walked towards the gate and held up your pin to the small magic imbued plate in the middle. The large doors swung open, and you entered, watching as they shut behind you. Turning, you briskly walked up the long path through the gardens and finally released your wings, which phased through the back of your clothing. The clothing was a useful magic trick that had been inspired by some of your human mage friends in the capital, after you realized that your normal backless wear in Heaven was considered indecent by human standards.

Your thoughts trailed away as you entered the mansion. It was completely dark inside, so you summoned some orbs of light to illuminate your surroundings. Searching through your large pockets, you brought out the map which had been delivered along with your letter of approval to stay at the nearest Residence for Foreign Magical Entities. The villa was very grand: unnecessarily so. You wondered why they had built something that must've taken so many resources to create. Yet another mystery, you supposed.

Opening up the map, you considered the layout of the villa. There was the main building, which you were currently in, along with three other large buildings as well, all built to surround a central garden on three sides. Smaller individual buildings dotted the landscape as well. There were recommendations too, with a guide on what portions were built in the preferences of various species. Surprisingly, the map was considerate like that, though you had a hunch that you were receiving special treatment due to your identity. You had already chosen the central tower of the main building on the way there because of its location and size, so all you had to do was orient yourself before heading in that direction.

In the dead silence, you picked up on rapid footsteps hurtling towards you from afar. Creeped out, you followed your natural instincts to flee, and then started to fly.

'Whether they're friendly or not, I'd rather be in a secured, warded room than take my chances having a conversation out here.' You decided.

Soaring up in the vaulted chamber, you quickly sped through the halls before making it to the winding staircase that led up to the tower. You hurriedly landed and started climbing on foot in the narrow space. Clearly you weren't fast enough compared to whatever was chasing you, because the footsteps were only getting louder as you reached the first balcony. Peeking outside, you decided to take your chances flying up to the top of the tower rather than continuing to go on foot. You leaped onto the railing of the balcony before taking off.

The night time air was cold, but adrenaline and fear caused by your unknown pursuer made you able to ignore the cold winds tearing at your clothes. You ended up making it onto the topmost balcony much quicker than if you had climbed. You searched around in panic for the mechanism that would let you into the room. Cursing, you hurriedly strengthened the light from the orbs so that you could see better

You almost took out your pen to write an unlocking spell on the door when you saw a metal plate similar to the one on the gate. Pressing your pin against it, you pushed at the door and it opened, harshly hitting the wall. You had no time to care though, as the sound of footsteps grew closer, audible even from behind the closed door of the spacious room.

Hurriedly, you pulled out your notebook and searched for a barrier spell. You always had a number of pre-written paper spells just in case unpredictable things like this happened. Just as you stuck one on each side of the doorframe and activated them, the solid door crashed open, and a blur hit the barrier with full speed. You stumbled backwards out of instinct, despite knowing in hindsight that they couldn't actually get in. The sheer force of bumping into the newly constructed ward caused massive golden ripples as the barrier rebounded the stranger, sending them flying into a heap on the ground.