Yumiella Dolkness is the much-despised daughter of the Dolkness noble family, shunned by everyone because of her black hair, which is regarded as a sign of misfortune. At the age of 5, Yumiella discovers that she's the reincarnation of a Japanese college student who enjoyed playing a videogame called Light Magic and the Hero (or LMH), a mixture of an otome game and an RPG. She remembers that Yumiella is supposed to be a side character who harasses the heroine, but still has nothing to do with the actual plot... until she suddenly shows up in the post-game as an incredibly tough Super Boss that the heroine and her companion have to put down.
Yumiella has a realization: doesn't that make her potentially the strongest character in the story? If she wants to avoid dying at the hands of the heroine and her party, all she has to do is not have anything to do with the heroine or her capture targets. And if they fail, she can defeat the demon lord by herself. All she has to do is get strong enough to be able to fight the demon lord if worse comes to worse.
Fast forward ten years, Yumiella is enrolled at the Royal Academy, along with the heroine Alicia and the three "capture targets". All the students are put through a test in order to determine their current level, which is usually under 10. Yumiella takes the test herself... and discovers that she's gotten to Level 99.
So much for her days of peace and quiet...
Villainess Level 99: I May Be the Hidden Boss but I'm Not the Demon Lord (Akuyaku Reijou Level 99: Watashi wa UraBoss desu ga Maou de wa arimasen) is a light novel by Satori Tanabata. The series began serialization as a web novel on the website Shōsetsuka ni Narō on June 2018, it was picked up for print publication by Fujimi Shobo in 2019. It was later adapted in a manga by Nokomi in B'Log Comic. The novel is licensed to J-Novel Club, while the manga adaptation is licensed to One Peace Press.
An anime adaptation by Jumondo was announced in March 2023 and premiered on January 2024.
Provides examples of:
- Abuse Mistake: After Patrick turns Yumiella's request down to do something after school with her by stating that he's busy, she sees him looking dusty and battered. She guesses that he has a girlfriend with a Hair-Trigger Temper that hits him. He denies this but doesn't tell her what he's actually been doing: Level Grinding in a dungeon because he's in love with her and thinks that trying to catch up to her level is the only way she'd agree to date him.
- Adaptational Alternate Ending: The anime changes the ending of the first light novel and the webnovel (which are also adaptational alternate endings of each other. Alicia does not lead William and Oswald in attacking Yumiella. Rather Alicia attacks Yumiella due to being compelled by some outside force, one that seems to be trying to enforce the plot of LMH. The group manages to win a "I Know You Are in There Somewhere" Fight and all five of them return as heroes.
- Adaptational Early Appearance: In the anime, Patrick and Eleanora appear in the background in Episode 1 and 2, even appearing in "LMH"'s game's opening, while in the original novel they are not properly introduced until a bit later on.
- Adaptation Expansion: The first 14 minutes of the anime adaptation's first episode show Alicia's POV on her first day of school just before she meets Yumiella and details how she encountered each of her love interests from the game. The anime even features LMH's game's own opening theme exclusive to the adaptation.
- An Arm and a Leg: Yumiella notes that she once had her arm cut clean off as a child, but her healing magic was able to regrow it. She has zero interest in figuring out if doing the same for a missing head would somehow be possible though.
- Anachronism Stew: Despite being in a Medieval European Fantasy universe...
- Photography is strangely common enough that nobles routinely exchange pictures of their children for marriage purposes, like what modern Japanese do.
- People add sugar cubes to tea. The first commercially successful sugar cube appeared in 1875.
- An extra in the manga implies teabag (the earliest record comes from 1903) exists in this universe.
- Assassination Attempt: In the later half of Volume 1, Yumiella is the target of several assassination attempts, which all fail because of her absurd level giving her insurmountable durability. As it turns out, her own parents tried to kill her, because she is close to the king and her parents belong to a more radical faction of nobles.
- Arranged Marriage: Yumiella's parents try to do this when her level is publicized, by sending Yumiella a whole stack of marriage prospects' photos. Yumiella is able to hold it out to a point that she can freely choose her romantic interest.
- Beyond the Impossible:
- The fact that Yumiella is Level 99. It is so inconceivable that one of the first problems Yumiella has to deal with is proving that she really is that high of a level, as her fellow students and teachers assume she cheated on the test somehow.
- In the game, you must have a party of four Level 99 characters (Alicia and her love interests) in order to have a chance of beating Yumiella. This implies that Yumiella is remarkably powerful even compared to other Level 99 characters.
- It is also mentioned that, in their world, nobody in recorded history has ever gotten close to level 99, to the point that 99 being the level limit is only a theory. The king notes it will be interesting to see if the theory is true or if she can level up further.
- Boxing Lessons for Superman: Yumiella is very physically powerful, but doesn't know proper swordsmanship, so she requests that Patrick teach her.
- Bullying a Dragon: The men around Alicia have seen what Yumiella can do, including catapulting one of them across a training ground with a swing of a wooden sword, and summoning a freaking black hole, yet they keep antagonizing her.
- Casting Gag: Makoto Furukawa, who plays Ronald in this series, played another absurdly strong, deadpan protagonist.
- Connected All Along: The new headmaster, Ronald, is the oldest son of Duke Hillrose, making him Eleanora’s older brother.
- Creator's Culture Carryover: Doubles as an anachronism. When Yumiella returns from her initial audience with the King, she receives photographs from her parents of her marriage prospects. The anachronism of having photography in a Medieval European Fantasy aside, the exchange of the prospects' photographs in decorated albums is a standard in the modern form of (Japanese) omiai.
- Create Your Own Villain: The truth behind the Demon Lord is he's in fact only an incredibly powerful dark magic user and was actually a loyal ally of the first king and saintess who helped him unite the territories and found the kingdom. While he had no issues with being banished to a remote territory after the king turned his back on him, it was when the king and saintess tried to kill him out of fear that lead him hating them and even then, that grudge is only directed toward the royal family and government, as he has no interest in harming the country's people.
- Dark Is Not Evil: There is extreme discrimination against dark magic users and dark-haired people in Valschein, although it's known that most people with these traits aren't actually evil. Yumiella hopes to use her powers to help eliminate this stigma.
- Darwinist Desire: A lot of world renowned and prestigious families want to have their sons marry Yumiella due to her incredible power. Yumiella is aware of this and purposely gives an impossible challenge that she'll only marry someone stronger than her to ward off unwanted suitors.
- Death of the Author: In-Universe. Officially, Yumiella unlocked ridiculous mastery of dark magic and strength basically through The Power of Hate, but the Yumiella in the story thinks that's bullshit. She believes that Yumiella could always use dark magic and always had that kind of talent, but couldn't show it off due to the negative reputation dark magic has amongst the population, and her resentment towards the heroine having everything in contrast led her into becoming the Super Boss. The current Yumiella proves her point by power leveling from an early age and not bothering to hide her magic, which while still having to navigate the fear and suspicion of the other nobles, does lead her to making friends.
- Deconstruction: Of the otome game genre.
- The villainess is the main character of the story, instead of the original otome game's protagonist.
- Because the main character has the knowledge on how otomes and rpgs work, it causes deviations (paths that likely aren’t supposed to happen in said game) to the story and directly conflicts with the true heroine’s story.
- The heroine’s harem stunting her growth by being overprotective and preventing any growth. The heroine not being bad in any way is therefore prevented from speaking her mind, and thus gains unwanted attention and secret animosity among her peers.
- The heroic founding story of the Kingdom, in which the hero and the saintess sealed the evil Demon Lord before settling down and founding the Kingdom, turns out to be almost a complete lie: In reality, the "Demon Lord" was not only human, but the right hand man of the first king. The land now ruled by the kingdom were a mess of independent warlords until the first king conquered and unified them with the help of the "Demon Lord", a powerful dark magic user with black hair, and the "saintess", a powerful white magic user. Once the land was unified, the first king turned his back on the "Demon Lord", despite the man being absolutely loyal to him, and all but banished him to a remote area of the country. Despite this, the "Demon Lord" remained loyal... until the king and saintess, afraid of his power, raised an army to try and kill him, though his sheer power meant they could only seal him. Even then, it is made clear that, despite what the kingdom officially claims, he is no threat to humanity as a whole, or even the people living in the kingdom, only wanting to destroy the government.
- Eleanora is a deconstruction of a specific character: Catarina Claes of My Next Life as a Villainess: All Routes Lead to Doom!. Specifically, both are highborn Kindhearted Simpletons, but while Catarina has been improving the lives of everyone around her, Eleanora is being manipulated into being a Peer-Pressured Bully toward Alicia.
- Defeating the Undefeatable: Yumiella is able to fight on par with the God of Evil, and win, though thanks in part to Patrick and the other gods, as well as Yumiella 2’s sacrifice.
- Deliberate Under-Performance: Due to her Super Boss level stats, Yumiella has to hold back immensely when pitted against other people in training scenarios.
- When sparring with William for the first time, Yumiella has to ensure that she does not immediately render him into quote "mincemeat" in a single hit.
- When she's challenged by Edwin and the Headmaster to demonstrate her power as a Level 99, Yumiella has to modulate the power of her Black Hole spell so that it would be impressive without causing a calamity to the kingdom.
- During the Tournament Arc, Yumiella has to carefully regulate her strength because breaking her weapon is immediate grounds for disqualification, since she has yet to encounter a weapon that could withstand her full force for more than a few swings. Yumiella almost does break her sword while facing William during the swordsmanship finals, but quickly punches his sword to pieces to hide it. Despite her movements being so quick the normal human eye couldn't detect it, Captain Adolf and Patrick caught her, but she isn't disqualified.
- Didn't Think This Through:
- Partially out of boredom and her gamer nature, but also because she wanted to be strong enough to not get killed by the protagonist / defeat the demon lord in case the protagonist and her love interests can't do it, Yumiella raised her level as high as possible before she even entered the academy. It didn't occur to her that at the start of her school life, they would measure her level and that this completely contradicts her goal to not stand out in school and live a quiet life. Being literally the strongest human in recorded history, it'd be impossible for her to have a quiet life anymore.
- One of the several regional students seeking to marry Yumiella makes a grand speech to her in a courtyard of the school grounds. He keeps pushing her to accept, saying how together they can take over the continent with his "brains"note and her strength. After several attempts at her trying to make him stop, she points out that his plan would mean forcing the Valschein royal family and country subservient to him. That would technically be an insurrection. Insurrectionists are punished with death. She calmly notes she hopes no one overheard his plotting but he best not come around her anymore. He runs away terrified.
- Edwin reveals to Alicia that the demon lord will return in two years time, even though that information is supposed to be classified. She ends up using it to accuse Yumiella of being the demon lord herself, isolating her from her peers further. Yumiella even tried to give Edwin an opportunity to take the statement back, but he only states out loud in the cafeteria. The government quickly puts out an official statement denying both, but the rumors persist.
- A preemptive moment happens when Ronald, the principal of the school, asks Yumiella to help work with Alicia to level grind and become stronger and more independent. Yumiella immediately considers taking Alicia to a dark-magic dungeon where her light magic would be super-effective and do major damage. Yumiella imagines Alicia destroying the monsters with a prideful smile on her face. Roland, however, imagines Alicia being scared and overwhelmed by the monsters. He reconsiders asking Yumiella for help after that.
- Alicia, William, and Oswald try to assassinate Yumiella towards the end of Volume 1, out of resentment of her higher power and fear of her being the bigger threat. Aside from the fact that she is the only one strong enough to defeat the demon lord because they are severely underlevelled, they decide to do this right before confronting him, which lets said demon lord take advantage of the chaos and pull a surprise attack on their party. This action gets all three traitors killed in the web novel, and gravely injured in the light novel.
- The day after Yumiella's level had been revealed to the members of the academy, Edwin and the then Headmaster spend their time getting Yumiella expelled from the academy. Not only did they not wait for Yumiella to furnish proof of her level (which she herself notes that they would receive that very day due to them starting practical classes) but they also dismiss another teacher when she noted that Yumiella is at least as powerful as a court mage. There was entirely no benefit to Edwin prosecuting Yumiella at that time and at that juncture. If Yumiella was lying, then everyone would be able to witness the evidence with their own eyes making her expulsion a foregone conclusion. If Yumiella was telling the truth however, he would have basically driven a One-Woman Army (which all level 99s are by default) if not an outright Person of Mass Destruction away from his country to the arms of another who would likely have very little qualms about using her powers against Valschien.
- A Dog Named "Perro": Accidentally. When talking about the dragon she just got, Yumiella uses the Japanese word for dragon, ryuu, for him. Patrick likes that name, which is why the name sticks.
- "Do It Yourself" Theme Tune: The ending theme song is performed by Fairouz Ai and Rina Hidaka, who are the voice actresses of Yumiella and Eleanora respectively.
- Dumb Jock: William. He is even described as a musclehead by Yumiella.
- Effortless Amazonian Lift: After beating the Dumb Jock William in sword practice, Yumiella effortlessly lifts him up from the ground with a single hand, much to the horror of the spectators.
- Encounter Bait: Yumiella uses a monster-summoning flute to improve the efficiency of her Level Grinding. Everyone else in the world considers this item cursed and completely insane to use at all. She soon starts using it to help her classmates level grind (whether they want it or not).
- Every Proper Lady Should Curtsy: Yumiella proves her level in front of the King by... a curtsy. Specifically, Adolf, who is the highest-level person in the Kingdom before Yumiella, immediately gives Yumiella an attack so fast that ordinary high-levellers can't even respond. Not only does Yumiella respond, but she even has the time to consider the proper way of doing it, since swordplay in front of the King's presence is definitively a no-no. So she evades Adolf's attack with a curtsy toward the King and the Queen. Adolf is so impressed by her Super-Reflexes that he declares her to be genuinely Level 99 on the spot.
- Experience Booster: Yumiella wears one when she does Level Grinding, instead of a Protective Charm. Everyone else consider that insane. Patrick turns out to have been using one as well in an attempt to get strong enough for Yumiella hinking she'll only marry someone stronger than her.
- Fake-Out Opening: The opening half of the anime's first episode follows Alicia as if she were the protagonist of the series, establishing a romantic comedy based on her adventures. It is actually the Gamer Chick who would reincarnate as Yumiella playing the opening of Light Magic and the Hero. The latter half of the episode has Yumiella as the protagonist and point of view character.
- Fantastic Racism:
- Yumiella is discriminated against by many characters because she was born with dark hair, a sign of misfortune and evil in the world she lives in. We later learn that dark-haired people, or even people whose hair borders on dark in general, experience the same prejudice she has for the same reason, and are treated with similar disdain and fear all the same. Witnessing such experiences from others leads to Yumiella choosing to take a more active role in politics to change the perceptions of black hair, with a chapter taking place a few years into the future showing that Yumiella did succeed in changing the perceptions of black hair in her territory into something more positive. It's also revealed that, while not unique to the kingdom, said discrimination isn't anywhere near as bad in many of the other countries.
- Downplayed, but the nobility is divided into "central", those who hold a government position in the capital, "provincial", those who do not and spend their time ruling their estates, and "pseudo-metropolitans", provincials who spend their time hanging around the capital, socializing, and leave the managing of their estate to an appointed governor. Pseudo-metropolitans, like Yumiella's parents, are looked down upon as being good-for-nothing twits, which Yumiella herself is not. The latter definitively leaves this social group after she becomes Countess in her own right since she's more interested in territorial affairs.
- Foreshadowing:
- Early on in the manga, Alicia describes Yumiella in odd ways, such as calling her "pitch black", and she seems terrified of Yumiella to an odd degree. At first, it seems that she's just being paranoid about Yumiella's black hair, but when asked about it by Edwin, it's later revealed that she didn't even realize Yumiella has black hair. Her apprehension is because, thanks to a combination of her light attribute and Yumiella being overwhelming powerful, Alicia is literally unable to perceive Yumiella as anything more than a terrifying mass of black fog. She's aware that Yumiella is probably human due to no one else freaking out about the talking smoke demon with glowing eyes attending class with them, but she herself just sees a Humanoid Abomination. Yumiella compares Alicia's reaction to the cat she had frightened earlier, and tries to be gentle with her from that point forward. This is also partly why Alicia comes up with the plan to kill Yumiella towards the end of the story, since she never properly gets over her fear to actually communicate with Yumiella thanks to her harem's coddling.
- During the field exercise where Yumiella first properly interacts with Patrick, a monster attempts to ambush Yumiella when her back is turned, but Patrick throws himself in front of her. When Yumiella questions why he did that despite knowing she's level 99, he responds it was because she was in danger and he knows she doesn't carry a protective amulet, so he wanted to be safe than sorry. Right before fighting the Demon Lord, Yumiella ends up being ambushed from behind by Alicia, William, and Oswald using a powerful light attribute weapon that would have likely killed her, but she survives because Patrick had earlier convinced her to carry a protection amulet to the fight.
- In the manga following the Battle Arts Festival, Patrick lectures Yumiella about using her fist to smash William's sword to keep from being disqualified for breaking her weapon, done so quickly that the majority didn't notice. What makes this notable is William was level 20 but failed to notice this action despite it being right in front of him and the only other known person who did notice was Captain Adolf, who is level 60. Patrick turns out to have been level-grinding in secret to catch up to Yumiella and was therefore at a high enough level to notice the action.
- The manga adds a scene where Yumiella and Ryuu meet Alicia. When Alicia's three love interests appear, William and Oswald immediately assume Yumiella bullied Alicia and admonish her. The only one who doesn't do this is Prince Edwin. After he confirms that Yumiella didn't do anything to Alicia, he tells everyone to leave Yumiella alone. This is a hint that Edwin's opinion of Yumiella has already changed. He was positively influenced by Patrick, who convinced Edwin that Yumiella means no harm to anyone.
- Yumiella meets with an agent from another kingdom, who tries to convince her to defect. Part of why she turns him down is because of the threat the Demon Lord poses to humanity, only for him to express confusion at this, as the Demon Lord is only a threat to the kingdom she is in, but they are forced to cut the conversation short before he can explain. Eventually, Yumiella discovers that the Demon Lord is actually a normal, though extremely powerful, human, who has zero interest in wiping out humanity and solely wants to destroy the kingdom due to the first king (a.k.a. the hero who founded the kingdom) betraying him after he helped the king conquer his rivals.
- In volume 2 of the light novels, Eleanora mentions having an older brother who she can never tell what he’s thinking even though he smiles all the time. Later, Yumiella finds out that the new headmaster, Perpetual Smiler Ronald, is Eleanora’s older brother.
- Hard Work Hardly Works: Discussed. In his discussion with Yumiella, Edwin admits a part of why he resented Yumiella was feeling his hard work and efforts were invalidated compared to her absurdly high level. Patrick gets him to realize Yumiella's level is the result of her spending years of level-grinding every day and not simply something she was born with, which gets him to be able to recognize Yumiella as a powerful and eccentric, but otherwise benign teenager.
- Harem Genre: Subverted. LMH is a Reverse Harem game, with Alicia having three male love interests. Yumiella, the actual protagonist of the story, only has a single love interest in Patrick.
- Heir Club for Men: Subverted. Yumiella's father tells Yumiella to find a husband at the Royal Academy because the person who will inherit Count Dolkness is Yumiella's husband, not Yumiella herself. Eventually Yumiella—with the King's blessing—forces her parents from their titles and becomes Count Dolkness in her own right.
- Heir-In-Law: Yumiella's parents don't care about the girl's education as much as her getting a husband, since they plan to have their son-in-law inherit their position.
- Impossible Task: Yumiella devises one such tactic in order to throw off the incessant requests for marriage she's getting; she will only marry someone stronger than her. Given she's a level 99 student when level 10 is considered impressive... yeah, that's not happening anytime soon. The person she does end up marrying is Patrick, who does eventually manage to become level 99 too, although she does devise a loophole prior to that to allow Patrick to be able to fulfill that task.
- In-Series Nickname: Yumiella always refers to Alicia as "Little Miss Heroine".
- Kid with the Leash: Some of Yumiella's power-seeking suitors want to invoke this with her being on the leash. When one proposes how their union of his "brains" and her brawn could take over the country, she points out a few issues with this idea, but he makes it clear that she should just listen to him as her husband and follow his commands.
- Kill Steal:
- Defied. Right before Yumiella's class goes on a "field lesson"—that is, a very controlled Level Grinding that's hardly close to the intensity the current Yumiella went through—Ronald, the headmaster, asks Yumiella to be on the sidelines, owing to her overwhelming level. Yumiella agrees with his logic, especially since she's level 99. Yumiella even helps her tired class steal the kills by just binding the monsters and letting the class slaughter the beasts.
- Alicia's harem plays this straight, to Ronald's chagrin. In their first field lesson, they rush ahead of everyone and slaughtered everything leaving few if any monsters for Alicia or the other students have a chance to kill. The students and Alicia, however, fail to realize this is a bad thing and celebrate the harem's skills. Later in the anime, they end up doing this to Alicia whenever she attempts to defeat monsters on her own, leading to Alicia going to a dark-type dungeon alone so she can actually gain experience without the harem getting in the way.
- Level Grinding:
- Yumiella spends ten years of her life powerleveling as hard as possible. Everyone else thinks that she's completely insane for doing this. Patrick ends up doing this himself to catch up to her in a short amount of time using a growth amulet.
- Downplayed in the Royal Academy's field lessons. While they are intended to have this purpose, its overemphasis on the students' safety makes it not very efficient to those who have some battle experience, like Yumiella or Patrick.
- In all versions of the story, Edwin & co.'s Kill Stealing during field lessons prevents Alicia from meaningfully level-grind by LMH's standards. In episode 10 of the anime, though, she was Railroaded to a dark-element dungeon, and upon being found by Yumiella, the latter decides to level-grind Alicia in that dungeon anyway. At the end of the episode, Alicia has significantly higher levels than Edwin & co.
- Lord Country: Valschein is a kingdom ruled by the House of Valschein.
- Love Epiphany: Yumiella has one as early as in Volume 1 regarding Patrick, when she realizes he's the reason she hasn't already left the country due to the discrimination she got for her black hair and dark magic, even lying to the spy to avoid him from realizing how much Patrick means to her to the point he could easily be used against her.
- Luminescent Blush: After Patrick protects Yumiella solely because of a genuine concern for her, she is practically glowing.
- Madwoman in the Attic: While Yumiella is in no way disabled, insane, or deformed, Valschein has systematic Fantastic Racism against people with dark hair and/or dark magic, and she have both. As a result, her parents leave her at the domain's mansion while they live in the capital, intending to see her as some kind of embarrassment or worse. That said, her case is more comfortable than most cases of this trope provided Yumiella is still accorded luxuries suitable to her status, including a personal maid as well as private tutors.
- Nice Job Breaking It, Hero:
- When the harem boys try to provoke Yumiella right after the level test, she defuses the situation by telling them they should go check on Alicia, as she’s the new student with light magic. This brings them much closer to Alicia than they were in the game, becoming overprotective in the process, and leads to her being unable to level up as fast as she needs to in time to face the Demon Lord.
- The harem does this themselves, when they’re on their way to defeat the Demon Lord. Alicia, Oswald, and William stab Yumiella in the back, out of resentment and fear of her becoming a bigger threat. This puts their strongest fighter out of commission for a bit, while the Demon Lord takes advantage of the infighting to kick their butts. The three either end up dying (in the web novel) or locked up for attempting to kill a noble (in the light novel).
- Nice Job Fixing It, Villain: The God of Evil attempted to change Yumiella Dolkness’s multiple defeats throughout the parallel worlds by putting a different soul into her body in one of said worlds. That soul ended up using her knowledge of the game she played that was based on the parallel worlds to level up to Level 99, making her absurdly strong and driven to gain more strength. The God of Evil then taught those level-grinding techniques to one of the other Yumiellas and helped her destroy humanity and then go and kill our Yumiella. What he didn’t count on was his Yumiella (2) betraying him and getting Yumiella 1’s help in defeating him by sacrificing herself like he intended, thus allowing Yumiella 1 to break through the level cap and having the power to defeat him for good.
- Off the Rails: The protagonist's actions are causing the story to veer far away from how it was supposed to. She realizes pretty quickly that her open display of power caused the male leads to not only gravitate to Alicia earlier than they should have, though she initially floated the idea of Alicia also being a reincarnate. Yumiella also notes that this had the unfortunate side effect of stunting Alicia's growth, as the boys are protecting her all the time instead of allowing her to face the hardships she would have undergone normally.
- Oh, Crap!: Yumiella wants to have a peaceful school life where she doesn't stand out. However, when she sees the Leveling Evaluation and notices Level 10 was considered high, she realized that if she's able to solo boss monsters, her level is easily much higher. Naturally, she learns she maxed out her level.
- Some assassins trick Yumiella into putting on special anti-magic shackles that keep her from using her dark magic and make her vulnerable. They did not count on her Level 99 strength however, and the leader of the assassins tries to backpedal when Yumiella simply breaks them off with her bare hands.
- Poor Communication Kills:
- Yumiella speculates that she, aka the original from the game, was not the "true" traditional villainess of the story. In the original game, Yumiella was something of a lackey to Eleanora who wished to court Prince Edwin. Yumiella carried out her requests to bully the heroine at the behest of her parents and Eleanora’s posse. This is pushed even further when it's ultimately revealed that Eleanora never had in mind wanting to bully the heroine either; she was instead pushed to by her followers.
- In the novel, the harem’s constant coddling causes Alicia to be significantly underprepared to face the Demon Lord and lacking the confidence to try, even though her light magic is important. Furthermore, it also leads to Alicia also being mentally unprepared, and therefore she never gets any chance to overcome her paranoia of Yumiella. While Yumiella does try to help Alicia grow her level when she won't even try training on her own, her extreme level-grinding methods only make things worse, and eventually leads to Alicia attempting to murder Yumiella when confronting the Demon Lord as she's never gotten a chance to recognize Yumiella as a person.
- Portmanteau Series Nickname: In-Universe. Hikari no Mahō to Yūsha-sama→Hikayū
- Protective Charm: Usually when dungeon exploring, adventurers wear this, as it will save their lives if they receive a fatal injury. Yumiella instead wore a growth amulet instead to increase her level rapidly and she recommends others to do this, too, which others consider insane. However, at the end of Volume 1 she and Patrick promise to wear protection amulets before they fight against the Demon Lord and his minions, and this amulet ends up saving Yumiella's life after she is backstabbed by Alicia.
- Railroading: Anime only. It's implied the game's plot influences Alicia to take certain actions, such as accepting her enrollment into the academy or taking one of the capture targets to a romance event, despite Alicia being not comfortable doing any of these on her free will. Yumiella theorizes that this may be due to her being the heroine of the LMH, so the game's story compels her to do these things to advance the plot. This causes her to backstab Yumiella after the Demon Lord is defeated, since LMH does require her defeat Yumiella regardless how much has the universe been changed..
- "Reborn as Villainess" Story: A college-aged Gamer Chick finds herself reincarnated into the world of her favorite game, LMH as the Super Boss Yumiella Dolkness. The game used a mix of elements from Otome games and regular RPGs. Yumiella's character was a villainess that harassed the heroine during the otome game sections, and became a post-game Super Boss on the RPG side. Wanting to make sure she doesn't die at the hands of a fully leveled heroine party, she level grinds herself to level 99 before she reaches her teens. This has the side effect of making her far stronger than the heroine and her capture targets, and inadvertently causing them all to meet much sooner than they would have otherwise, which in turn causes the men to become to protective of the heroine, restricting her growth.
- RPG Mechanics 'Verse: With levels, experience, magic equipment, and all. The protagonist says she liked that part of the game much more than the otome game side of it.
- Running Over the Plot: Per the isekai convention, the protagonist was reincarnated into Yumiella after being run over by a truck. Slightly unconventional is that the truck in question lost control and crashed on the sidewalk.
- Royal School: Most of the first novel happens in the Royal Academy, whose students are limited to nobles. Alicia is only there because light mages are rare, and Valschein needs light mages to fight the Demon Lord.
- Screw the Rules, I Have Connections!: During the Tournament Arc, every fighter depicted uses a standard sword. This makes perfect sense due to this being an RPG Mechanics 'Verse where equipment can have a drastic effect on performance. William Ares, the son of a noble (specifically the Knight Commander), is allowed to use his personal weapon; an end game broadsword that takes two hands to wield.
- Short Title: Long, Elaborate Subtitle: The localized title has 3 words while the subtitle has 13.
- Shout-Out: In the first episode of the anime, the room of the girl who eventually reincarnates as Yumiella has a Final Fantasy XIV poster.
- Spoiler Opening: A Spoiler Ending to be exact. The anime's Fake-Out Opening establishes Eleanora Hillrose as an Alpha Bitch. The proper ending sequence, shown after the second episode, shows Yumiella being chummy with Eleanora, showing the latter isn't a bad person after all and sure enough, Eleanora is actually a Kindhearted Simpleton being manipulated into bullying Alicia.
- Springtime for Hitler: When Eleanora starts trying to be friendly with Yumiella, Yumiella decides to try to drive her off due to having been warned about her (as her father is the leader of the anti-Royal faction). However, Eleanora appreciates Yumiella's Brutal Honesty because all the other girls around her only tell her what they think she wants to hear, leading to her to become even friendlier toward Yumiella.
- Strong and Skilled: Due to her prior knowledge of the game and being born with Dark Magic, she was able to easily raise her level to 99, something unheard of to the norm.
- Sugar-and-Ice Personality: Yumiella is capable of caring for others, it's just that she's very bad at showing it. Her emotionless behavior and lack of common sense don't help.
- Surprisingly Realistic Outcome:
- Oswald, William, and Edwin always act in a manner to protect Alicia from harm. However, it's shown this over-protectiveness toward Alicia harms her overall growth both because they unwittingly deny her opportunities to grow and cause her to become dependent on them. In the web novel, the consequences of their protectiveness ultimately leads to her death, while in the light novel, she ends up secretly imprisoned after trying to murder Yumiella out of paranoia.
- When the Kingdom realizes that Yumiella is essentially a human weapon, the king and queen take great pains to recruit her to their side and to aid in the campaign against the Demon Lord, and many noble families instruct their sons to court her in hopes of gaining a political edge. This is in sharp contrast to the game where Yumiella kept her abilities a secret, and was simply hated and feared due to her dark hair.
- Through the Eyes of Madness: Alicia and animals just see Yumiella as an amorphous black fog monster.
- Title Drop: In Chapter 2 of Volume 1, Alicia directly asks Yumiella if she's the Demon Lord.Yumiella: [thinking] Nope. I may be the hidden boss, but I'm not the Demon Lord.
- Verbal Backspace: When Patrick tells Yumiella to "do her best" during the Tournament Arc, his brain catches up with what his mouth was just saying and Patrick immediately corrects himself telling Yumiella to please hold back and do her best not to kill anyone.
- War for Fun and Profit: The anti-royalist faction (aka the radical faction) generally advocates an expansionist, if not outright imperialist position; this is commonly seen as an attempt at power-grabbing since the people who advocate that happen to be the so-called pseudo-metropolitans, provincial nobles who attempts (and failing) to obtain any political influence at the capital. Their leader, Duke Hillrose, is only a part of it as a backstabber planning on sacrificing himself in a monster rampage in order to get all the radicals under one roof and purged after his death. He partly succeeds, with about half of them captured and the other half denying their involvement but being too scared by Yumiella to continue pursuing their agenda.
- Yes-Man: Eleanora is surrounded by followers that do this. Because Eleanora also being simple-minded, Yumiella notes she ends up being manipulated by them, such as them convincing her to bullying Alicia.
- You're Insane!: Pretty much everyone's reaction whenever Yumiella tells them what she did to get her level so high. This includes hunting monsters in the forest as a child, going alone into dungeons meant for parties, wearing magic equipment that boosts experience gains rather than offering any protection, and using a monster-summoning flute over-and-over to kill the summoned monsters for experience. She, not understanding the norms of society due to being all but neglected by her caretakers, doesn't comprehend why any of this would be odd.
