Chương 4: I Hunt for Dinner

POV: The Dark Lord, Milo Miles The forest clearing was thick with an awkward silence, and t he Hero was still sitting in the dirt, her face flushed.

"H-hey," I ventured, taking a tentative step forward.

"Y-yes...?" she whispered. Her voice was so tiny and airy it was actually kind of cute. But as I took another step, she tensed up and scooted backward, her heels digging into the soil. I stopped. I tried again. She dragged herself back again. Nyx leaned over from her floating position, a smug grin plastered on her face.

"Wow. You look like a total creep trying to corner an innocent girl in the woods. Great look for a Dark Lord, honestly."

"Shut it!" I hissed, turning to glare at her.

"I'm just—" I looked back at the Hero. She looked radiant, even covered in forest dust.

"I'm just glad you're all right." Her eyes widened, shimmering with a sudden, intense light. But before she could respond, a shrill female voice shrieked from my left.

"IGNIS!" I barely had time to turn my head before a sphere of roaring orange flame the size of a basketball slammed directly into my face; a cloud of soot and smoke enveloped my head. I stood there, blinking. It didn't hurt. It didn't even singe my eyebrows. It felt like someone had tossed a lukewarm bucket of water at me. The mage girl was back on her feet, clutching her staff with trembling hands.

"Eve! The sigil!" The Hero blinked, as if snapping out of a deep trance. She glanced down at her right elbow. The Hero's Sigil was pulsing with a violent, jagged purple light. I heard Nyx mutter a very distinct "Uh-oh." Before I could ask what was wrong, I felt a sharp tug at the back of my collar. Suddenly, the world became a high-speed blur of green and brown. Nyx had grabbed me and taken flight, dragging me behind her like a sack of laundry.

"NYX! STOP! WHAT ARE YOU DOING!?" I screamed. She didn't stop. She accelerated. Because she was flying and I was... not, my rear end was currently acting as a high-speed plow for the forest floor. Nyx skillfully wove between the massive oaks, but she didn't seem to care about my trajectory. My waist slammed into a boulder; my shin clipped a sapling; my shoulder bounced off a trunk.

"Ouch! Ow! My leg! My dignity!" I hollered as my limbs flailed wildly in the wind. If it weren't for my Level 9999 durability, I would have been reduced to a red smear on the grass five minutes ago. Finally, the trees thinned out, and we arrived back at my pathetic kingdom. Nyx let go of my collar with the grace of a trash collector dumping a bin. I tumbled across the grass, coming to a halt just inches away from my pathetic, splintered wooden hut.

"What was that for!?" I gasped, spitting out a mouthful of dirt.

"You think that mage was going to kill me with a lukewarm fireball?"

"Not her, you idiot. The Hero," Nyx snapped, landing gracefully.

"She saw the sigil."

"What are you talking about?"

"That glowing symbol on her elbow. When it's purple, that means the Dark Lord is very close." Oh so that's what it does.

"So she knows I'm the Dark Lord? It's fine isn't it? She's in love with me! She wouldn't kill the guy she loves!"

"Wouldn't she?" Nyx crossed her arms, her golden eyes narrowing.

"Humans are fickle. You see couples fight and scream all the time. Some of them even kill each other in a fit of rage." Well, that's true.

"But.. this is supposed to be true love! It's from the Eye of Love, so it should be way more powerful than your usual love right?"

"I've never seen that artifact used on a Hero before," Nyx countered.

"Are you really so sure that a girl raised by the Church, with a holy sword and a sacred duty, would choose a Dark Lord over the lives of everyone in the kingdom? I've seen Heroes in other worlds sacrifice their own parents for the greater good. What makes you think you're more important than the world?" I went quiet. Nyx had a point. Why would the Hero fawn over me if the world had been at stake? Would love truly make a person become that dumb?

"Then the Eye of Love is useless," I sighed, falling back onto the grass and staring at the sky.

"If the Hero always chooses the world over her lover, what was the point of any of this?" Nyx stepped into my field of vision, blocking the sun. She looked more than just annoyed; she looked disgusted.

"So you are giving up because the artifact didn't solve all your problems instantly?"

"I'm just saying—""You are pathetic," she said curtly, turning her back on me.

"Excuse me?" I sat up, watching her walk away toward the edge of the clearing.

"Hey! I thought it was a decent idea! If the Hero loves me, we're safe! We can talk to her, keep the balance up without any killing! It was a strategy!" Nyx spun around, her wings flared out in frustration.

"The strategy is fine, you moron! It's just that you—" I couldn't really hear her clearly over the distance. I could only see her gesturing wildly with her hands, her expression a mask of pure exasperation.

"What? Speak up! I can't hear you from all the way over there!" That was the wrong thing to say. Nyx took a low stance, her wings gave one massive, explosive flap, and she blurred across the distance. She didn't use her hands this time. She leaned back mid-air and delivered a brutal, textbook-perfect dropkick directly to my chest. I went sailing backward, smashing through the front wall of my wooden hut. I was now lying in a pile of splinters and dust.

I groaned, shaking the debris from my hair and looking up at her through yet another new hole in the wall. She was glaring daggers at me.

"What is wrong with you!?" I yelled.

"Is violence your only setting? Be helpful for once!" Nyx marched into the hut, her face inches from mine, her finger jabbing at my nose.

"This! This right here is the problem! You keep blaming everyone else! You blame me, you blame the artifact, you blame the Hero! That's not a Dark Lord. That's just a loser in a fancy robe!" I opened my mouth to argue, but the words died. I looked at the holes in the wall. She was right. I was still acting like the guy who got hit by a truck.

"So, what?" I muttered.

"A Dark Lord is supposed to be kind? Magnanimous? Responsible? That sounds more like a Pope than a villain." Stolen content alert: this content belongs on Royal Road. Report any occurrences. I saw the air pressure shift, her leg was tensing up for a follow-up kick.

"Which—which is clearly a misunderstanding on my part!" I added quickly, raising my hands in surrender.

"I shouldn't have assumed I could just bark orders at you. I'm sorry." The tension in her leg vanished. She looked surprised.

"Look, I mean it," I said, standing up and brushing the sawdust off my shirt.

"I wasn't a good person in my old life. I complained most of the time, wasting it. But I don't want to waste this second chance by being the same pathetic guy." Especially when I had a decent chance of finding a girlfriend here. Not that I was going to tell her that. I stepped forward and placed my hands on her shoulders, looking her straight in the eye.

"I'm not going to complain anymore. I'll find another way to make this work. But I need you to actually trust me. I need your help, Nyx." She stared at me for a long beat, her golden eyes unreadable. Finally, she spoke.

"Yeah. That's a real nice speech," she said flatly.

"Now take your hands off me before I kick you in the nuts." I let go instantly. She then turned around and walked away.

"Hey, where are you going?" She turned around again, "Didn't you want me to scare off some civilians and tell them the Dark Lord sent me?" I looked at her, stunned.

"W-well, yeah, but are you really okay with that? I thought-" She rolled her eyes, "Ugh, you keep on refusing to kill and we're running out of time. Just to be clear, I'm doing this to save myself. I couldn't care less about you." That hurt a bit. But I'm thankful, nonetheless.

"Right, of course," I said. She then prepared to fly away "Then I'll be off before Greg decides to fire me."

"Hey, just one thing." She turned around again, "What? You are wasting my time!" Her shouting made me wince and close my eyes, "I just want to say thank you!" She then looked at me with her mouth slightly open, then a smug grin showed up, "Right, be sure to have some food ready when I get back." Then she flew away. So, I have to get food now? Where do I even get it? I had zero idea what to do. I didn't think they had food delivery services via phone call here. Heck, I didn't even think they had phones.

I had never seen a fantasy-world setting like this with phones before. To be honest, this was a bit disappointing. The Dark Lord's assistant was out there spreading terror while the Dark Lord himself had to forage for food. I opened my status window again. NAME Milo Miles CLASS Dark Lord LEVEL 9999 TERROR LEVEL 1 Usually, in stories like this, the protagonist would fight slimes or other lowly monsters to gain experience and level up.

In my case, fighting monsters wouldn't do me any good since I was already at level 9999. I hoped Nyx would do something grand so my Terror Level would shoot up and I would unlock OP skills, like summoning a meteor I could hop on, just like in that popular JRPG I used to play. In that game, I was a level 9999 Dark Lord too, with a pretty, impish vassal and a fallen angel standing by my side. Well, sitting here fantasizing wouldn't raise my Terror Level. I looked around.

Aside from the pathetic hut, there were only trees. Maybe I should venture deeper into the forest and find some fruit. Before heading in, I grabbed my cult-leader robe and put it on. As hot as it was, I didn't want to get stung by mosquitoes. I was afraid of getting lost since I had zero forest-navigation experience, but as long as I didn't stray too far, I should be fine. Besides, Nyx would probably find me somehow. As I stomped my way into the forest, I didn't see any monsters.

I kept glancing back as I walked, afraid of losing my way. I looked around, glanced up at the trees, hoping for something edible—apples, bananas, whatever—but I couldn't see anything. I didn't even know what an apple tree looked like. Maybe some mushrooms would do, but I couldn't find any of those either. I never expected I I would need botanical or survival knowledge. I should have paid more attention in science class. Wait, did they even teach how to identify edible mushrooms or fruit trees in science class?

I kept walking, useless thoughts spinning in my head. The forest seemed to grow darker with every step. The trees got denser, and the terrain rougher—branches snagged at my robe, gnarled tree roots tried to trip me, and boulders forced me to weave like a drunk on a Friday night. I glanced back again, but for some reason, the path looked… different. Oh, shit. I thought I had been walking in a straight line, but the uneven terrain must have made me veer off in tiny micro turns.

Now every direction looked the same: trees, more trees, and… surprise! Even more trees. I was probably lost. Great. The Dark Lord, defeated not by the Hero, but by his own sense of direction. Then I heard something, like a mouse squeak, but louder. Much louder. The squeak kept getting louder, and it sounded like more than one creature was making it. It came from the right side, somewhere past the underbrush. I could already guess what those creatures were, and I really wasn't sure I wanted to see them up close.

But what choice did I have? If there were living creatures here, there might be food nearby. Maybe whatever they were eating. So I swallowed my unease, turned right, and pressed on. I soon arrived at a slope. Below was a small ditch with barely any running water trickling through it. As I peered down, I saw… rats. Huge rats. Each must have been at least 30 centimeters long (that's almost a foot). A few were double that size, practically the length of a small dog.

They had blood-red eyes and razor-sharp bucktoothed grins that no rodent had any business having. There were around 30 of them; some huddling in a corner, others gnawing on what looked like fruit remains. Which meant there should be fruit nearby, Jackpot! I almost smiled. As I turned around to scan for the source, my foot landed on a patch of loose soil— And then I slipped. I tumbled down the slope, sliding and rolling like a bowling ball about to strike the huge rats. Worst part?

I thought I screamed on the way down. Definitely not in a manly way. I thought I had squished one or two on impact, but, of course, they didn't die. The rats became disoriented for half a second before turning on me. Some scattered with high-pitched shrieks, but others swarmed, and I could feel tiny prickles digging into my skin through the robe. They didn't hurt, not really, but they were disgusting. Greasy fur, twitching whiskers, dozens of little claws scrambling all over me.

Again, if I weren't at level 9999, this would have been a gruesome death, like the kind you see in horror movies right before the camera cuts away. I flailed around in panic, hitting some in the process. I grabbed the stubborn ones by their tails and hurled them into the ground like I was spiking volleyballs. Before long, I was surrounded by at least 10 huge rat corpses, and the survivors had finally taken the hint and bolted into the underbrush.

I stood there, breathing hard, covered in dirt and rat-something I didn't want to think about. If only there were actual animals around, like a deer, or a rabbit, or something. I could probably catch and strangle one. Sure, it sounded brutal, but at least there would be meat. Wait. Animals. Meat. I slowly looked down at the dead rats at my feet. … Huh. Well, judging from their fur, they looked clean, somewhat. I should at least bring something back, right?

If I went back empty handed, Nyx would probably dropkick me again. Then a sound rang out. Like a ping. My status bar appeared. NAME Milo Miles CLASS Dark Lord LEVEL 9999 TERROR LEVEL 2 Oh, looks like Nyx did something great, or nasty, I said to myself, grabbing the nearest rat by the tail and lifting it up. Then another ping. Terror Level: 3 Uh… isn't that a bit too fast? Another. Terror Level: 4 Wait, what? Ping again. Terror Level: 5 I stared at the floating window, three dead rats piled awkwardly in my arms. …

Should I be happy about this?