‘Not A Villain’ Webcomic – Page 458

Colors by Audrey. Everything else is by me.

Last time we saw "G". Last time he was talked about.

Dude is not having a good day, either.

50 Comments

Love this page! All of Kat’s murderous rage (er, I mean, “power of niceness”) directed at her enemy. Back off, Mani, you don’t know what you’re in for xD

There’s a slightly-darker line along the right side of the bottom of the bottom panel.

as somebody who also likes to draw on digital devises, sometimes you mess up with shading and the amount of time it takes to fix something like this if you don’t catch it immediately isn’t worth it

Bandit’s feet look fine to me, Aneeka 😀

I wonder what plant Kat will use to prove she’s a ranged protector…

I think they look fine, too, though perhaps a little “short”. If you add another ~1-inch-thick layer to the bottom of his boots as soles, they might shape up a little better.

Not that I know anything about drawing or the difficulties of it. I’m a programmer, not an artist. 😛

Okay, yeah, Kat’s not going to be very popular… except she’s going to f***ing wreck this team any time soon I’m anticipating that

Bandit, still defending her and looking after her even now?

I think he likes being tied up. XD

Ah yes – the problem with being the less competent team member on your team and trying to make it at least *look* like you’re being useful.

Though granted, at least they’re all on level, instead of with a massive level gap between members of the team.

…methinks Kat is going crazy.

Oh, wait. It’s just the lack of lights in the eyes. Sorry.

D’oh! Good catch. Can’t believe I forgot those. It’s been fixed now 😀

OK, this is getting a little slow now. I know building up suspense takes time, but this situation has been set up long enough by now. We know there is a full group of people with a mani leader in front of our “heros”. We know it’s 3 vs 5 at the moment and we know it’s a stalmate because none of those people really want to take action.

Can we move on already? The big question, since forever, does Kleya have a plan, does she know how to solve this? Will there be a deus ex jane? Kleya has been quiet appart from some whispers, so we don’t know if or what she has been thinking about. Bandit is not needed, or is he needed but not wanted? If she had won this already there would be thamt smug grin on her face, so she is still working on a solution?

I bet Kat’s plan is to break the spell Mani-girl put some of her party members under to make them follow her. This page reveals Mani-girl can do it to Bandit, so she likely did it already.

Dunno, it’s working fine for me. But then, I think the back-and-forth between Bandit and Dude is cute. (And also, yes, how Bandit is so focused on saving Kat despite the fact that she is so very not cooperating.)

And… well, she’s Kat, and she’s going up against someone who probably doesn’t know what Erbana can do, because nobody remembers what Erbana can do any more. I’m morally certain she can win this. It’s interesting to have the reminder that how also matters.

(Also wouldn’t necessarily assume the Mani is the leader. Jane is technically the leader for their group, but she’s not the one who does most of the talking. Mani is clearly a talk-y alignment…)

I agree with you, Kat most certainly has some trick up her sleeve. I think another part of the reason she’s keeping bandit tied up, is she’s trying to play a few moves ahead and has spotted some reason that the usual means to attack this mani would backfire somehow and is trying to figure out some other way.

You just don’t get it Dude.

The worse the team is the more spectacular and popularity-boosting it will be when it all actually works out! You can’t get ahead in life without risks.

*trying to impersonate an optimist*

Aw, poor Dude…. There must be something in particular that he knows Bandit expects him to do in this situation, and it’s going to cost him his Esone… Meanwhile, Kat has a completely different plan that will probably be made more difficult or impossible by whatever Dude is supposed to do….

Would Dr. Grace really believe Kat was “her” if she wins using Erbana? I think Kat needs to find some way to actually BE nice, not just follow the Erbana rules to the letter. She needs to figure out what her mom would have done, and do that.

(Beats me how to solve this problem as a pacifist when you have others with strong motivations to be violent. I’d be trying to convince Jane to kill only NPCs for a starter, I guess….)

I also don’t see how Kat’s going to take them on and I’m looking forward to finding out.

Now, the problem with your Jane plan is that Kat can’t let anyone die in her area; that includes NPCs as well, not just PCs.

Well the problem of playing the game to much like her mom might also get G’s attention as I think that is also a play-style that hasn’t been seen since.

If it helps to hear from a non-artistic reader, I think your feet look great. 🙂 Good job.

She might talk them down? Or maybe wrap them all up in plants. Who knows. Kat’s kinda crazy.

Kat is her own team.

I love this page. For the first time, Dude is in a tight spot. No one is there to help him this time and he can’t simply surrender. Danni is clueless. Bandit is incapacitated. Jane is MIA. And best of all – Kat is there and more than capable of butchering the enemy team while making it look easy. But – ironically – if she does, that’s technically a mission failure for Bandit and Dude. This whole game, Dude has never shown his hand since the *first* time we have ever seen him and we all wonder if he’s much smarter than he lets on. But he might be forced to now; this is finally the test. ?????????!

I don’t wonder, because if he really were stupid he wouldn’t have won the tournament. 🙂

Virtually everyone in the comic already knows what he can do. The readers, Kat and Danni are probably the only ones who don’t know.

Not just a fail for Bandit and dude but for herself as well. As not only would that totally undermine her Erbana status, but it would also be a very not nice thing. And would give a rather strong hint at who she really is to everyone who finds out about this event which is something she really does not want to do.

And Kat buys enough time for Jane to flank these guys and…….Kill for the win!

Kat would have to stop her… No killing, remember? Though that would be an amazing scene!

They’re all gonna turn into trees

I think it would be funny if everyone but The Dude turned into trees.

Wow, she really can turn players against their groups even though there are real people behind them? This makes me wonder how many people in her own group have their free will. This reinforces my belief that this is actually supposed to be a Hero group, with the 3 unknown alignments all having Hero alignments, but maybe no all of them are controlled. I think 2 Kesti, 1 Cardista.

I call Kat winning the battle by breaking the spell the others are under. It would be interesting if the other three guys would then ask her and Danni to join them to form a new party.

Or a bunch of enemies attack the Dude who runs away into the forest and after all the action with the others is done, the Dude returns out of breath and the enemies are never to be seen again. Since the Dude keeps refusing to reveal his abilities I kinda expect him to take on a temporary Bermuda triangle role or something. ^^

I would love to see that.

And I love your theory on the opposing team not actually being all villains.

Thanks! ^^ Even if they’re a Villain group, I can’t help but think there’s at least one Kesti among them, because especially the blue-haired big dude looks like an adventurer. Also it was already established that there is no Morto and one Demoli in the group, so the other three would have to be all Mani if it were a pure Villain group.

I don’t think her comrades are controlled.
One: they’re most probably not that easy to ensnare.
Two: there’s got to be some more limits to manipulation we don’t know about yet.
Three: we didn’t see her cast influence on them.

One: Turning someone might not require ensnarement.
Two: Well, the dude who controlled this island was nearly unstoppable, so I won’t rule out that mid-level Mani can control a handful of other players permanently.
Three: We also didn’t see it when all those NPCs were turned into trees. 😉

Four: proximity is evidently important to mani, and she isn’t standing next to her teammates. They probably arn’t controlled, and may instead be keeping their distance to avoid friendly fire from her.

Since we’re talking mani, may as well resurrect an old advert from the days of yore…
—
‘Radithor, the Perpetual Sunshine and Cure for the Living Dead’

What’s wrong with the feet? I can’t see Bandit’s, because he’s wearing boots. 😉
Also I can’t see most of his boots because of the whisper dialogues. But the small parts that are visible look perfectly fine to me.

if there is a problem with them he did a good job hiding it under dialogue

I had some trouble reading the dialogue in the first panel. I didn’t realize at first I had to look back and forth and it was confusing.

It took me a second too, but in panel 2 I found myself following the whispers in order, despite that being from right to left.

I realised it pretty quickly.

Lol! This is the worst team ever!

Come on story, move along!

Ok dude is slowly becoming my favorite character. But d*** I love Kat’s murderous eyes too much T_T

Do they have schools in this virtual reality?

So, what’s the benefit of having an Erbana? It obviously offers some defensive & support bonuses to the team, but that doesn’t mean much if it literally means nobody on your team is allowed to attack at the expense of their high-end skills. Especially if the No Violence Zone is large enough that a long-range Demoli attack still falls within it. I mean, the problems are meant to be a driving conflict in this arc, yeah, but there has to be SOMETHING. Kat’s mother doesn’t strike me as someone who would invest her programming and design skills in something negatively unbalanced to the point of uselessness, based on what we do know of her…

Her condition isn’t “No Violence,” it is “No Killing.” Technically, she could thrash someone within an inch of their life, but if she didn’t kill him, wouldn’t suffer any consequences. However, Kat wants to “be nice,” and that wouldn’t be nice…

You kinda know… if Kat’s player actually was some other person mistaken for the DM leader, she’d have every reason to be incredibly annoyed by this point.
I once got mistaken for a banned user because I yelled at a moderator and didn’t act like a complete newbie, so I know what I’m talking about.

One thing seems to be pretty clear, though. Whatever control Tenka had once over their game, ability to see detailed activity logs of any player (like, for example, Whisper logs) is no longer there. That last whisper to Kat was already suspicious, but this one clearly shows Bandit is protecting her.

Wouldn’t it be “nice” if they all had wonderful dreams while taking a sudden nap? Opium is plant based, especially if you have Oz poppies…

Sudden thought: what alignment would a mercenary/assassin be? I mean, if they take on requests to kill people and get rewarded for their job… would that be Kesti or Morto?
Also, there’s no spy alignment, either… imagine – Erbana Spy xD

I’m going to make a prediction here, and say that Kat is stalling with the expectation that Jane is about to appear. Alternatively, we will find out that a high alignment of her type has an incredibly extended whisper range, thus permitting her to *call* to Jane & guide her up from behind the group whom Kat has their undivided attention. How far away from the carnage does Kat have to be to avoid harm to her alignment?

Not A Villain Webcomic

Webcomic of a semi- reformed hacker trying to redeem herself in a post- apocalyptic world she may have created.

‘Not A Villain’ Webcomic – Page 458