Chương 41: I Was So Confused

POV: The Dark Lord, Milo Miles When I opened my eyes, the blur resolved into a large bald head hanging over me, and a pair of startlingly pretty blue eyes. Greg. Nyx and Luke were looking down at me too, though I barely caught Nyx's face before she turned and walked off. Luke was grinning, wide and unbothered, and for some reason that lifted something in my chest. The pain was mostly gone. Someone had healed me. I didn't know who; the only person who'd ever done that for me before was Evelisse. Right. Evelisse.

Where was she? I had thrown myself at Ywain in a blind panic to get his hands off her throat, and after that I had no idea how bad the damage had been. I bolted upright, wincing at the sting.

"We have important matters to discuss, Milo Miles," Greg said, with the air of a man who had not noticed I might be emotionally occupied. I ignored him and scanned around. Grass under me, Greg and Luke in front, Nyx a few steps away with her back turned, for reasons of her own. Ywain slumped unconscious against a tree in the distance. When I twisted around, Evelisse was behind me, propped against a trunk. No visible injuries. Either she'd healed herself or someone had done it for her. Our eyes met.

She didn't look away this time. Her mouth opened slightly, like she had decided to say something, and then she didn't.

"Milo Miles. We need to set matters straight," Greg said. I turned back, impatient.

"What? What are you even talking about? Why are you here?"

"That will be made clear." Greg snapped his fingers, and the world went white. When it resolved, we were standing in something like a conference room. Blue walls, no windows, a long oval table at the center. Nyx and Luke were here, but I could not find Evelisse and Ywain. Please don't tell me you left him unconscious in a forest with nobody watching him. Although probably Greg had thought it through. Probably. Greg strode to the head of the table and sat.

"Everyone, sit." His voice echoed strangely in the small space. I took a chair somewhere in the middle of the left side. Nyx started to pull out the chair on my other side, paused, and then, for some reason, moved down one and took the next seat over. Luke dropped into the one she had abandoned.

"Matters have gotten out of hand of late," Greg said, folding his hands on the table and letting his gaze move between Nyx and me.

"Today most of all. I owe you both an apology for what you've endured." He straightened.

"I won't take more of your time than necessary. I'll tell you what I'm permitted to tell you. Shortly afterward, the perpetrator will join us." Perpetrator? Did he mean the woman he'd spilled coffee on? The one who resented his promotion?

"Milo." I tensed.

"Nyx may have mentioned this. There is a woman who has been sabotaging my work. She's interfered in two of my previous worlds and put both in jeopardy." Greg's jaw set.

"This time she didn't bother concealing it. She simply cheated."

"She granted her piece in this world blessings that were never sanctioned. She placed nominal limits on their use, but the fact remains. You were spawned inexcusably close to the Hero's kingdom, a stray Mantis Beast wandered into your forest, you were ambushed by monsters carrying holy power, and her piece, Ywain, was handed buffs and spells that no Hero has ever been permitted." I could follow most of that. The troll. Ywain's absurd kit, but the Mantis Beast?

That thing had killed Shauna and torn through half of Mistros. What could she possibly have gained from—"Ywain overused those blessings and tripped the detector. That's why I intervened. Had I not, the pair of you would be dead." Greg exhaled slowly.

"By the standard rules, a violator is punished. In the worst cases, terminated from the position entirely. However," He paused.

"In her case, it's different."

"Different how?" Another beat.

"She is the boss' niece." Oh, crap.

"The matter will not be made public. She has been issued a warning."

"That's it?" I sat forward.

"So she just, keeps running the Luminaryn account? What's stopping her from doing this all over again?"

"There is a stipulation this time."

"A what?"

"She will explain that part herself." Greg turned his head.

"The relevant point is that we compete again in Lycora. And Nyx." His eyes settled on her.

"You are permitted to withdraw, if you wish." This story has been unlawfully obtained without the author's consent. Report any appearances on Amazon. What? Nyx went still. Not hesitant, she didn't have the look of someone weighing options. More like someone confirming an answer she'd already arrived at, some time ago, and had simply never said aloud.

"... I'll stay," she said. I couldn't believe what I was hearing. This was her out. Her chance to leave this world behind, go back to her family, or a boyfriend, or whoever she had waiting, though I doubted the boyfriend part, given she'd once informed me I had stolen her first kiss. Whatever. The point stood. Why would anyone choose to stay here? With me? We had known each other roughly a week. Not even a full one, since I had spent a few days off in Eremiah.

She had made it abundantly clear she found me insufferable. There was no reason for her to stay.

"You're certain?" Greg asked. I looked over at her. She glanced at me, just a flick, half a second, then fixed her eyes on Greg and nodded. I didn't understand. She'd withheld information from me, complained about me constantly, called me pig-brain more times than I could count, and now, given a door out, she wouldn't take it.

"Understood. As for you, Milo, I'm afraid withdrawal isn't available." Greg's tone didn't change.

"You will remain my piece in this world." Piece. There was that word again.

"You're confused, I realize. Shortly—" The door creaked open. Bright hallway light spilled in behind her, but I wasn't looking at the hallway. Silver hair down to her waist. Gold eyes. Skin like something carved and polished. She could have stepped off a pedestal in some ancient temple.

"Am I late, Greg?" she said, smiling like she'd wandered in from a garden party rather than a disciplinary hearing.

"Lulu." Greg didn't rise.

"Right on time, I suppose. The floor is yours." Lulu walked the length of the room without acknowledging a single one of us. Only when she'd taken her place beside Greg did she finally turn her gaze on me, and hold it, several seconds too long.

"So you're Milo." Her head tilted.

"The one who's been trying to take things away from my Jaden." Who the hell is Jaden?

"I'll grant you're more durable than I expected. Given how thoroughly pathetic you are, I'd assumed by now you'd be facedown, begging for mercy while—" A crash beside me. I actually jumped; it went off inches from my elbow. Nyx had brought her fist down on the table. It held. Made of some otherworldly material, presumably, or it would have been destroyed, or at least, cracked.

"Stop running your mouth," Nyx said, "and get to the point."

"Oh, my." Lulu's smile widened, delighted.

"The demon princess. Forgive me, I hardly noticed you there. In fact, you hardly deserve my attention since your fall from grace." Nyx was on her feet before the sentence finished, dark lightning already crackling and spitting along her arms.

"Enough," Greg said.

"Stop wasting time, Lulu." Nyx held the woman's eyes a moment longer. Then she sat, and let out a breath that shook with what she wasn't saying. Demon princess? Nyx? Fall from grace? I was beginning to feel I did not belong in this room.

"Listen closely, Milo. I shan't repeat myself, so do try to get it through that thick skull." Ugh, I hate this woman already.

"Greg's no doubt informed you that I cheated the system. I won't deny it." She spread her hands.

"But tell me, doesn't it strike you as absurd, judging an entire world by this idiotic balance? Why must there be an extreme evil built into it at all? Wicked corporations, Dark Lords, none of it is necessary." Weirdly, that was something I had wondered myself. Nyx had said hope needs evil to define itself, but the Dark Lord surely isn't the only one who can do it. I could think of plenty of ordinary evil back home. Parents. Bosses. People. That ought to keep the scales balanced, shouldn't it?

"So I proposed abolishing the balance system entirely. My uncle is a figure of some prominence in the Afterport, but even he couldn't simply throw it out." She sighed.

"Pity. I do enjoy owning worlds." Then she smiled.

"But Lycora has been released. No longer under the Afterport's oversight. It's independent now, mine to do with as I please. Provided Greg's pieces are removed from the board." So she still wanted me dead, right. I raised my hand.

"Oh, so you do have the nerve to ask a question! Go on."

"Can you just, uh, move me? Transfer me somewhere else? Another world?" Lulu laughed, genuinely amused.

"Oh, I'd love to. Sadly, neither Greg nor I can extract a soul that's already embedded in a world. You're stuck. Ideally Greg would stop caring whether you die, and let it happen, but with this demon girl at your side, they can't quite bring themselves to abandon you." I still didn't understand why.

"So, simply put, so even you can understand, I want Lycora as my playground. I have approval, but I can't clear the board with another round of cheat buffs; that draws attention. Imbalance, I can get away with. Endlessly stacking blessings onto Jaden, I cannot." Jaden. So that was Ywain. Was this his name from before? Or just what his sugar mommy calls him?

"So I'll allow you to live in the world, and I'll go on trying to kill you, fairly, this time." She examined a fingernail.

"Do look on the bright side. You needn't fret about maintaining the world's precious balance any longer." Her eyes lifted back to me.

"I do hope you fail, though. Lycora was meant to be the world where Jaden finally has everything. The rules were holding that vision back. Now that the balance rule is gone, all that's left in the way is you." Then she looked at Nyx again.

"You'd best move on soon, princess. Before you suffer another heartbreak." And everything went white. When I opened my eyes, I was standing in the clearing again. Ywain was gone. Nyx and Luke stood beside me, and across the way, Evelisse waited beneath the tree; s he didn't look startled to see us reappear out of nothing. Greg must have warned her we'd be stepping out for a while. Though that raised its own question; Was it okay for Greg to even talk to Evelisse?

Wasn't it dangerous for someone born in Lycora to know the Afterport existed? Then again, Lulu had said Lycora was off the watchlist now. Maybe they'd stopped caring. Plus, it wasn't as though anyone here could do anything about it.

"Don't take too long," Nyx said it quietly, almost under her breath. I nearly missed it. By the time I turned, she was already walking away, Luke skipping along at her side, the pair of them headed back toward the kingdom. Evelisse crossed the grass and stopped in front of me. Everything in me wanted to look somewhere else, at the ground, at the trees, anywhere. I didn't. That wasn't the thing to do here. I couldn't keep lying to her…not anymore.