Chương 18: I Tried to Become Friends

POV: The Dark Lord, Milo Miles Once Evelisse was unconscious from the Sleep Gas, taking down Ywain and the mage girl was not that hard with Nyx's support. The Mooncleaver was in Nyx's room, so even though Douche had somehow ended up with Nyx by the neck after their struggle in the air, I did not have much to fear. I rushed forward. He threw Nyx aside like a ragdoll, but she caught herself mid-air. As he turned to cast an ice-blast at me, a fireball streaked in from the side; it was from Luke.

He brushed it off his forearm, but the half-second it cost him was all we needed. Nyx and I were already on him. She zapped him, the jolt locking him stiff, and I breathed Sleep Gas into his face before he could shake it off. The support-mage was easy. I walked up to her while she was still pinned by Nyx's immobilization spell and gassed her. She looked scared. I could see the tears gathering at the corners of her eyes as I closed in, but she did not plead. She held my gaze, resolute to the end.

A courage befitting the Hero's party. It did not make me feel good. And I still looked like a creep, looming over an immobilized girl to knock her out with some gas I exhaled from my own mouth. But what else could I have done? This was the quickest and least painful way. Once the Hero's party was all unconscious, I carried Evelisse back to the hut. Leaving her lying out in the dirt did not feel right, despite all the despicable acts I had just committed. Nyx floated the idea of killing them in their sleep.

I shot it down. For one, I was not sure we could kill Ywain; he was an anomaly, and a failed attack would only wake him and start another fight. For Evelisse, I did not want her to die. And the support mage? Well, she seemed to be a nice person and I just did not want to be a murderer. Nyx then sighed and told me to take off Evelisse's boots. She did not want her bed getting dirty. So I laid Evelisse down with her legs dangling off the edge and did just that. It was my first time taking off a girl's boots.

I set the pair beside the door and walked out, trying very, very hard to keep my expression neutral. Nyx had already tied up Douche and the support-mage and propped them against the wall. Luke, still in her small human form, sat watching them, literally. Three eyes locked on the two of them, unblinking. She would not look away. Then Nyx walked toward me, past me, into the room where Evelisse lay, and came back out with the Mooncleaver.

"Uhh, what are you planning to do with that?" I asked, out of concern. For myself.

"You'd leave the Hero in the same room as the Mooncleaver?" Oh. Right. Admittedly I had not been thinking straight. Something to do with the boots and... I stopped my brain from imagining it further. I really needed to stop thinking about the boots. I was becoming more of a creep by the minute. Nyx huffed, carried the sword to the bathroom, and left it there. Not a place a Holy Sword deserved to end up. I almost felt bad for it.

"So," I said.

"What took you so long?"

"What?"

"To get out of your room and save me. I was about to become an ice sculpture and die."

"I did not plan on saving you, pig-brain."

"But—""It was because I heard him say he'd been transported from another world." I went quiet. That was right. Douche had said he had been isekai'd too.

"Okay. So?"

"So that's an anomaly." She crossed her arms.

"There's supposed to be exactly one transported human in Lycora at a time. The Dark Lord. You. Two of you means someone is gaming the system. Someone who wants to tilt the world's balance on purpose."

"For what? That would just get Lycora erased by the Order, or whoever's up there. Right?"

"Precisely. And if Lycora gets erased, Greg takes the blame." Her eyes narrowed.

"Someone might be trying to sabotage him." Greg. It felt like a long time since I had heard that name, even if it had only been a few days.

"Anyway, I'll have to report this to him later. If I had let this slide, the Order might decide I was an accomplice in breaking the rules." So she saved me to save herself. Understandable.

"Well… thanks anyway," I said.

"For saving me."

"Don't misunderstand, Milo. I'm doing this for myself."

"I know. It kind of hurts that you really did want me dead, though." If you stumble upon this narrative on Amazon, be aware that it has been stolen from Royal Road. Please report it.

"Can you blame me?" she snapped, rounding on me.

"We're in this mess precisely because your methods don't work, Mr. Pacifist. What was the grand plan, exactly? Were you relying on love? Hoping the Hero would just decide to switch sides?"

"I could feel it, Nyx," I said.

"She didn't kill me when she had every chance to. There was something there."

"And yet she kept attacking you," she shot back.

"And she let her party member finish the job."

"But she came back!" She closed the distance and grabbed me by the collar, hauling me down to her eye level.

"Are you sure she came back for you? She might've just been backing up the anomaly guy. You may be hallucinating love out of acute loneliness from your sad little past life, Milo. Not every faint blush and stutter means a girl's in love with you. Get real." I looked away from her.

"Do you really want me to beat it into you so you—" The door opened. Evelisse was standing in the doorway. It had barely been an hour since the Sleep Gas. Being the Hero must have come with a higher magic resistance. She tried to fight. Nyx overpowered her easily, took her to the floor, and—to cap off the humiliation—sat on her. This was too much. I wanted her out from under that, so I said I wanted to talk. To my surprise, Evelisse agreed. Nyx sighed and stood.

She shot me a glare that said, very clearly, if you screw this up, I'll kill you. We stepped outside, just the two of us. The clearing was a wreck. One wall of the hut sagged where I had punched us both through it, and the splintered hole in the roof let a slant of afternoon light into the yard. Trees at the treeline stood frozen white where Luke's beam had caught them, frost already softening to drip in the warmth. Scorched grass, gouged dirt, a fallen branch still smoking faintly.

We stood among it and looked at the sky, because looking at each other felt like too much. To be honest, I had no idea what to talk about. I wanted to ask whether she actually felt something for me, but there was no version of that question that did not come out wrong. And I had just put her entire party to sleep. I was not exactly climbing in her estimation. It was Evelisse who broke the silence.

"Did you do something to me?" I paused.

"…Sorry?"

"Back when you saved me. In the forest. You were holding something. I didn't see what it was, but…what was that?" The Eye of Love. That was my first thought. But something didn't fit. She said she did not see what it was. Based on Nyx's explanation, the Eye would only work if the target looked into the center of the eye. If she hadn't even gotten a clear look at it… I had to be sure.

"Do you remember what it looked like?" The moment it left my mouth I knew it sounded suspicious, but it was already out. She frowned, trying to recall.

"I… don't remember. Only that it was… pink?" I told her it had just been something to petrify her with. That I had planned to bring her back to the kingdom so we could talk properly, somewhere that wasn't a clearing full of monsters, and that I had figured she would never come willingly with the Dark Lord otherwise. Nevertheless, it did not work, so Nyx dragged me off before I could explain. Evelisse's eyes stayed narrow, her mouth set in a flat line. She did not look like she fully bought it.

I steered us off the topic before she could press.

"Why do you ask?" That landed differently. She went still, then a faint blush crept up her cheeks.

"It's… just that…" I waited, watching her. Her face went redder by the second. At this rate she would never get it out. So I risked my dignity for her.

"You've been finding it hard to kill me?" Her eyes went wide.

"Wha — so you did do something to me—" Her weight shifted onto her back foot. She looked half a breath from putting a roundhouse through my skull. I threw both hands up.

"No, no! I just... guessed! That's all! Think about it. You've had plenty of chances to finish me off. The destroyed village. Your last visit here. Today. Three times, at least. And you didn't." She froze at that. Her hands curled at her sides, and for a moment she looked less angry than cornered, like I had named something she had been trying very hard not to look at directly.

"Look, I don't actually know anything," I said, gentler.

"You would know what's going on inside you better than I would. If I had to guess… maybe you just think we're too much alike." That offended her. I saw it cross her face.

"I mean…! We were both forced into this. I had to be the Dark Lord. You had to be the Hero. Neither of us picked it. Maybe it's just… mutual understanding, a little. Especially when everyone around us seems to actually want their part. Doing what they do because they like doing it." I thought of Nyx's kicks, of Douche's grin.

"We're the only two stuck playing a role we never asked for." Evelisse thought about it, eyes down on the grass. Then, quietly: "Don't… lump me in with you." That stung. More than I expected it to.

"What did you want to talk about?" she asked.

"Huh?" I turned to her. She was already looking at me, then she caught herself and looked away.

"You're the one who told me to listen. I asked my question. So… what was it you wanted to say?" she said, not quite meeting my eyes. I did not have an answer. Her question had quietly resolved my own. I had half-convinced myself the Eye of Love had worked, that whatever she felt was something the artifact had manufactured. But from the way she described it, the charm had barely caught her at all. It did not work, or had not worked fully. Which meant whatever confusion she was feeling was… probably hers.

This was a good thing, but it meant I still had a chance on this… romance? But it would take time. And if I brought up the Eye of Love blatantly, it might not just fail; It might make things worse, pushing her further off. So I had nothing. No plan, no leverage, no clever angle. But I did not want her to just turn around and leave, either. Maybe it was because she was the first person in either life who had been willing to actually hear me out. So I just… wanted to talk. About anything. Yeah.

I really was suffering from acute loneliness. I opened my mouth.

"I think I just… want to be your friend," I said. Evelisse blinked.

"Friend?"

"I know it's weird. I'm the Dark Lord, you're the Hero. But I've never really had anyone to talk to. In either life." The words kept coming, and I could not seem to stop them.

"Maybe I'm just... lonely and not good at this." Even I was surprised by how honest that had come out. Evelisse looked at me. Her lips parted, like she was about to say something— The hut exploded.