Chương 6: I Screwed Up Again

POV: The Dark Lord, Milo Miles I put the dead, clean, big rats carefully down on the forest floor. Yeah, clean, because I don't want anyone who might be reading my thoughts think I am a nasty guy. And if someone is reading my thoughts, I want you to know that once you tasted Nyx's kicks and slams and slaps, you would be terrified to go back empty-handed after she had told you to bring food. I looked at my status window. NAME Milo Miles CLASS Dark Lord LEVEL 9999 TERROR LEVEL 5 Then I switched over to the Skill HUD.

SKILLS PASSIVE New Skills Available! OFFENSIVE None DEFENSIVE None SUMMONS None Oh, sweet. Finally I could do something aside from being smacked around. I tapped the word passive, and the window changed into a skill explanation. Mental Link Establish a distant link with a person of your choosing that also knows the skill. Imagine the person and think of the message you want to send. Intimidating Aura [Lv. 1] Radiate an invisible aura that could intimidate other creatures. Flight You can fly.

Does not come with Demon Wings. Mental Link seemed like a phone call with thought. I remembered Nyx said Greg had forced a mental link on her before. So I should be able to do the same thing, right? I closed my eyes and imagined Nyx's face, her hair, the little horns. After 3 seconds, I felt like something clicked inside my head, but there's no voice. Should I speak first? Maybe this is unlike a phone call where you can hear the background noise when your call is picked up.

"Hello?" I thought.

"Took you long enough, pig-brain". I could hear Nyx's voice.

"Where are you? I'm lost in the forest."

"Yeah, figured. I'm in a nearby village. Luke's about to net us some more points for the Terror Level."

"Luke? Who's that?" I didn't seem to remember her calling anyone with that name before. I didn't think it was the Hero's name either.

"The Cerberus. Well, it's just a name I made up on the spot."

"The Cerberus? I thought it ran away."

"It did, but I found it rushing over to the closest village. So I made a deal with it to destroy some houses."

"What? Don't tell me you're killing the innocents! I thought you said you would just scare off–""That's what I'm doing, idiot. Before Luke's arrival, I had shapeshifted into the village elder and told everyone to evacuate to the village hall."

"That's a neat skill. Where's the real village elder then?"

"I tied him up in his house, and don't worry, his house is still intact. I think one or two people did not make it in time, though, but I guess the Hero took care of them."

"Huh? The Hero's there?"

"Yeah, coincidentally. Which is great, since she can display her glory of defeating the Cerberus so people can feel hope. Or, I can also try beating her up so people will fear you more. Though, I'm not sure I can win."

"Okay, things are getting confusing. Can you just tell me where you are? I'll go there? Maybe I'll be able to see how the Hero reacts after falling for me."

"I could hear that last part, dumbass, stop thinking about stupid things during mental link."

"Oh shit."

"Whatever. I'll share you my location. The Hero's getting close, so I gotta go. You better come here fast. If you can make a grand evil speech, it may get you more points." Then I felt the connection break. The other skill, Intimidating Aura, seemed useless at this point. Not sure what it could do at level 1; probably scare off some insects and small critters. Then I could hear a ping sound in my head, similar to the one I hear when there is a notification on my phone. A transparent window appeared.

It showed a map and two dots; one blue, and one red. The red one was probably Nyx since it kept moving slightly. How should I get there? I thought I saw the Flight skill earlier, but how am I supposed to use it? I tried the classic way, I jumped and imagined some air forming below me, allowing me to float. And I did float, although I wobbled a lot. I hovered about a meter off the ground, my arms windmilling like I was trying to swat invisible flies.

Every time I leaned forward to move, my legs swung backward like a pendulum.

"Okay, just stay calm," I muttered.

"It's like swimming. Or floating. Or whatever." I had never actually been good at swimming. I tried to push myself forward by leaning into it. The air responded a little too well. I shot ahead about three meters at a speed I absolutely did not consent to. WHUMP. I peeled myself off the bark and dropped into the leaf litter. If you stumble upon this narrative on Amazon, be aware that it has been stolen from Royal Road. Please report it.

"... Right," I wheezed at the sky.

"Less lean." I got back up and tried again. Slower this time. I drifted forward at a walking pace, weaving between trees. I got cocky and tilted just a little more. The air apparently interpreted "a little more" as "maximum thrust." I was launched sideways like a stone from a slingshot. A branch caught me square in the chest, flipped me, and I cartwheeled through a curtain of leaves before slamming shoulder-first into another tree. I slid down the trunk and landed in a sad little heap among the roots.

"Damn, is this because of my level?" I dragged myself up and tried again. Made it about ten meters before I dipped too low and dragged my feet through a thornbush. Yelped, jerked upward in panic, and clipped the underside of a branch with the top of my head. Fourth attempt actually went well. I floated steadily forward at a brisk jog's pace, dodging trunks, feeling the wind in my hair. I've cracked it. I'm a natural. I'm— A low-hanging branch. It caught me right under the chin like a clothesline.

My legs swung forward, the rest of me swung backward, and I crashed down through three layers of foliage— —right into the middle of a small huddle of huge rats. Apparently, there were more of them. Or maybe these were the ones who ran away from my frantic assault earlier. They squealed. I squealed. Familiar bucktoothed faces, familiar fur. One of them tried to scurry up my robe and I scrambled to my feet, took off into the air again purely out of panic. The thing was, panic turned out to be a great teacher.

With a chorus of outraged rat squeaks fading behind me, I wasn't thinking about how to fly. I was just doing it. I dipped under a branch, leaned around a trunk, the air finally responding to me like it had given up on testing me. I leveled out above the canopy. The forest stretched below me, green and gold in the late afternoon light. I could see the clearing where my sad little hut sat. Beyond that, in the distance, a column of smoke was rising over what looked like a village.

I called out the HUD and the map appeared. The direction matched, so it had to be where Nyx was. I tilted forward, this time with the kind of confidence I had earned the hard way, and accelerated. The wind tore at my robe and pulled tears from the corners of my eyes, but I held steady, cutting low over the treetops toward the smoke. It only took me a few minutes to get there. I was close to the village. I was fast.

A regular person would probably be in agony from the wind pressure, but my Level 9999 durability handled it just fine. I felt like that superhero with the red-and-gold armor. Though, that guy was loaded, while I had seriously considered having huge rats for dinner. As I closed in, the village came into full view, and the lightness in my chest curdled. Smoke hung over the village like a gray shroud. Where there had been rooftops, there were now blackened gaps.

A few fires still gnawed at the wreckage, sending up thin columns that smeared into the sky. Carts lay overturned in the dirt. Whole sections of the village had been flattened into splinters and ash, as if some massive thing had simply walked through them. I had asked for this. Or close enough. I had told Nyx to spread terror, and this was what terror looked like up close; homes turned to kindling and a column of smoke you could see from the air. A knot of guilt tightened in my stomach. But then I remembered.

No casualties. Nyx had shapeshifted into the elder and herded everyone to the village hall before Luke blasted off the properties. The houses were gone, sure. The terror was real. But the people were alive. That had to count for something. It had to. I spotted the big building Nyx had called the village hall. There was a huge hole through one of the concrete walls, and I could make out a cluster of people huddled near the entrance. More were probably still inside.

In the clearing between the entrance and the broken wall stood the Hero and the Cerberus, or rather, Luke. The Hero was trying to keep Luke away from the hall, but from this distance, I couldn't tell if she was injured. I just hoped Nyx had briefed Luke properly. If that dog decided to level the village hall, there would be a lot of casualties. Come to think of it, where was I supposed to land? Should I interrupt now? Maybe I should stop mid-air and watch how things played out first. Yeah. Mid-air. Good plan. …

Except I was flying way too fast. I had no idea how to stop in time, and because I had been staring at the Hero this whole time, I was now barreling straight toward her. Oh no. Oh no. I twisted my body to the right. Hitting anything else would be better than colliding with the Hero or plowing through the village hall. I tried to brake. There wasn't enough time. A second later, I felt the impact. My vision went dark, or maybe dim brown. I could feel the lower half of my body sticking up at a very weird angle.

I was pretty sure I had embedded myself into the ground like a missile, legs flailing in the air. My head was buried in the dirt. I must have looked like a cartoon villain after a botched landing. My arms were only partially stuck, so I worked them free and used my Level 9999 strength to drag myself out of the soil. Sunlight. A shocked Hero. Her eyes were wide enough to fall out of her head. Her mouth was open, but whatever she had been about to say had clearly evacuated the premises entirely.

She looked like someone had just explained a very complicated math problem directly into her face. Behind her, a sea of terrified faces. I turned right. An unconscious Luke, slumped in the dirt. Might have been because of me slamming onto it. I glanced up. A very, very angry Nyx. I could feel her sharp gaze as she looked down on me as if I were a pest. I was so done for. I was basically kneeling in the dirt in my full cult-leader robe. It was a weird contrast. I stood up.

Whatever I was going to do next, standing up was step one regardless. I knew what Nyx was thinking. A Dark Lord on his knees in the dirt looked pathetic. If the villagers walked away thinking that, we weren't getting points for the Terror Level out of this mess. What did she say again? Oh right, the speech. But before I could open my mouth, Nyx landed in front of me, between the Hero and myself, and dropped to one knee. Her right hand clenched into a fist and pressed against the ground. What?

"My Lord, I apologize for not being able to settle this sooner," she said, eyes closed, head bowed. Oh. So that was the angle she was going for to clean up the mess I made. I was reluctant to play along, but if I didn't roll with it after she had knelt in front of me, I would probably lose a limb later. I cleared my throat and tilted my chin up to accent my superiority.

"Indeed. You have been too slow, Nyx. I expected much more from my subordinate." For some reason, I was enjoying this far more than I probably should.

"I sent you here alongside the Cerbe—ehm, Luke, to wipe out this puny village. You should have been done in less than five minutes. And yet, what do I find? You, struggling against the Hero? Pathetic." Okay, maybe I was going too far. But this was my only shot at payback for all the slaps and kicks I had endured.

"A punishment is in order once you return. Because of your incompetence, I have now had to personally come here to—" I saw Nyx's fist trembling against the ground. Tiny cracks were starting to spider out across the soil beneath her knuckles. Yeah. That was my cue to wrap it up.

"—to bring you back," I finished, turning my gaze to the Hero. She was simply…looking at me. I could not read her expression. The sigil on her elbow was flaring purple. What was her name again? I thought that mage girl had called her Eve.

"Hero. We shall meet again. Let today's attack be a demonstration of my power. I could kill you here and now, but where would the fun be in that? I want to see you cower in despair. I want to see these villagers live in fear, never certain whether each day might be their last." The Hero dashed forward, legendary sword raised, ready to strike. If I remembered correctly, Nyx had said that if the sword touched me, I would burn to a crisp. She was fast. Way too fast. She closed the distance in an instant. Shit.

I didn't have time to move. But she did not swing the sword. There was a half second — maybe more — where she just stood there, sword raised, the blade close enough that I could see my own reflection in it. She could have brought it down. There was time. There was plenty of time. But her arm stayed where it was, and her eyes stayed on mine, and the sword did not move. Then she tensed up, and froze. Nyx had stood behind her. She must have casted some kind of immobilizing spell.

"We'll meet again, Hero," Nyx said coolly. She walked over to Luke, tapped one of his heads a few times — which jolted him awake — and then sauntered back to me, leaning in close like one half of a cringy vampire couple from a bad movie. What was I supposed to do? She pinched my waist. Hard. I suppressed a wince.

"Fly me away, idiot," she whispered. I cleared my throat once more.

"This shall not be the last time we meet, Hero." I lifted us into the air. As I glanced down, I saw Luke take off, dashing forward at a terrifying speed. The Hero, still frozen mid-strike, could only watch. As I flew up, I thought that in the end, it seemed like the Hero did not fall for me hard enough, or maybe justice was more important than love. Not that I blame her. I guess true love had to be earned, after all.