Chương 3: Love at First Sight?

POV: The Hero, Evelisse Ardentia - Before Entering the Dark Lord's Forest I knelt before the high altar of the Great Cathedral in the kingdom of Astrea. The air was thick with the scent of incense and the weight of centuries of tradition.

"Hero Evelisse," the High Priest began, his voice echoing off the vaulted ceiling.

"The Church has detected a surge of dark energy within Aniaros Forest." Another one. I had only just put down the last one three months ago. It felt like the world barely had time to breathe before the darkness started reaching out again.

"It is rare to pinpoint a manifestation so quickly," the Priest continued, his eyes gleaming with religious fervor.

"This is surely the will of the Gods. You must quell this threat immediately, before the new Dark Lord can gather strength." I bowed my head.

"In the name of Lord Luminaryn, I, Evelisse Ardentia, shall vanquish the source."

"The Holy Sword, Mooncleaver, is yours to wield once more." A group of priestesses approached, carrying the legendary blade. I took the sword.

"May the light of justice bring hope to Lycora and send the darkness to oblivion," I recited, the words feeling like a script I had memorized long ago. As I walked toward the exit, my best friend Mel rushed to catch up with me.

"How did it go? Same old mission?"

"Same as usual," I said, strapping Mooncleaver to my side.

"It's time to slay another Dark Lord."

"I'm sure you'll be fine, Eve! You took down the last one, and he was a monster!" The memories of that battle flashed in my mind—the screams, the blood, the faces of friends who didn't make it home. We won, but the cost had made it a hollow victory.

"But this time, it's just me," I whispered. Mel grinned and pulled a crumpled piece of paper from her bag.

"Hehe, not quite! Look!"

"A Hero Party Certificate?" I gasped.

"Mel, you actually qualified?"

"Yup! I'm officially your support mage now." My heart sank.

"Mel, it's too dangerous. I can't risk your life." Mel's expression softened, and she pulled me into a sudden, tight hug.

"And I can't let you carry the world on your shoulders alone. Not when everyone else is too tired to help." She was right. The kingdoms were exhausted. Most of the veteran soldiers were dead or wounded from the last Great War. The world was looking to me to solve all its problems again.

"It's okay, Mel. This time, the dark energy was minimal. The new Dark Lord probably just spawned. I should be able to defeat him alone since he's still weak."

"Then all the more reason for me to go! That means it won't be too dangerous, right?" I sighed, Mel's too clever.

"I would like to insist on going alone, but you would probably sneak out and tag along anyway." She grinned, "You bet!" We set out early morning on horseback. My white mare, Astra, had carried me into every major battle, and she knew the routine well enough by now—ears forward, steady pace, no nerves even when the crowds pressed close. Mel rode just behind me on a smaller chestnut gelding, her staff strapped across her back, doing her best to look composed in the saddle. She'd never been much of a rider.

"Try not to grip the reins so tight," I called over my shoulder.

"He can feel it."

"Easy for you to say! You were practically born on one of these!" I smiled despite myself. It was the last bit of lightness I felt all morning. Soon, the kingdom of Astrea was in the distance. The journey to Aniaros Forest was a parade of cheers and banners. People lined the streets, shouting my name, their faces full of a desperate, terrifying hope.

"Long live Hero Evelisse, Lycora's hope!"

"Please, save us from the darkness once more, Hero Evelisse!"

"We await your triumph once again!"

"Evelisse, marry me!" Okay, that last one sounded wrong. There were always those kinds of people. I smiled and waved, but inside, I felt a crushing pressure. I let out a small sigh, careful to not let anyone hear it. If I fail, these people will die. If I fail, their smiles will disappear, and many will probably blame me. For the past three years since becoming the Hero, I had been battling monsters, defeating armies sent by the Dark Lord, and eventually confronting the Dark Lord himself.

I had been training for this since I was five years old. Lord Luminaryn chooses his champion from a pool of candidates prepared by the Church. He sees into the future—knowing when the current Hero will fall—so that the next can be ready in time. The candidates are almost always orphans, and, in rarer cases, disowned children: those with no family to miss them, no life to be pulled away from. The Church gathers them young and raises them within its complex.

In my case, however, I have an older sister who lives in a different town. Sometimes, I wondered if Lord Luminaryn already knew the date of my death. Whether I was simply a replaceable part in some divine machine. When I fell, would anyone remember my name a year later? Or would they all simply move on to the next chosen one? Maybe the last battle took too much of a toll on me, maybe the deaths of my comrades scarred me, but I felt like I was beginning to lose the will to fight.

For fifteen years, training and fighting were everything. I trained and fought to protect. As we rode, I felt a bone-deep weariness. I'm so tired of protecting everyone, I thought. Secretly, I hoped for someone to save me from this cycle. Then a whisper escaped my lips, "I want to be protected too…" We reached the forest by noon.

"Here we are." I pulled Astra to a stop at the treeline and dismounted, looping her reins around a low branch. Mel slid off her horse with noticeably less grace, landing with a small "oof."

"We're going on foot from here?" she asked, tying her own reins beside mine.

"The trees are too dense. And the horses won't stay calm if we run into anything serious." I gave Astra a quick pat on the neck.

"Stay safe, girl. I'll be back." I took a look at the sigil on my right elbow; a proof of Lord Luminaryn's blessing. It's pulsing faintly, which means that the Dark Lord's energy is nearby. When it changed color from blue to purple, that meant the Dark Lord's in very close proximity.

"Stay close, Mel," I warned.

"We don't know what we're walking into." The forest was eerily quiet. We encountered a few low-level slimes and kobolds, which I dispatched without even drawing my sword. It seemed like the Church was right; the new Dark Lord was weak, a mere fledgling. But then, the air changed. A primal, bone-chilling roar ripped through the trees. I spun around, my blood turning to ice.

"Mel! Behind me!" Three pairs of glowing eyes emerged from the shadows. A Cerberus.

"This isn't right," I hissed, drawing Mooncleaver. The blade began to glow with a pale moonlight.

"A new Dark Lord shouldn't have been able to summon a Mythical-Class beast." Reading on this site? This novel is published elsewhere. Support the author by seeking out the original. The center head spat a massive fireball. I grabbed Mel and dove to the side just as the trees behind us exploded into cinders. The Cerberus was a nightmare. The last time I faced a beast of this rank, it was a Hydra, and it took a party of six elite warriors. Now, it was just me and Mel.

I took my stance, channeling my will into the sword.

"Lunar Slash!" I swung, sending a crescent of light toward the beast. It hit the Cerberus square in the chest—but it barely damaged it. The faint scar patched itself up almost instantaneously.

"What? That should have cut deep!" Was I cursed? Was there a debuff in the air? Then, the High Priest's warning from long ago, from my first week of being the Hero, echoed in my mind:"The Mooncleaver draws power from your resolve. The stronger your will to protect, the sharper the blade." My resolve. My will. It was flickering. The fatigue, the grief, the hidden wish to be saved—it was making me weak. The Cerberus roared again, the shockwave slamming Mel into a tree.

"MEL!" I screamed. I turned to run to her, but the beast was already charging. A beam of green energy erupted from its right head. I raised Mooncleaver to block, but the sword's glow was fading. It felt heavy, like lead in my hands. I tried to tell myself I was the Hero, that I was strong, but the voice in my head kept whispering: I don't want to do this anymore. I'm tired. The blast overpowered me.

I was thrown backward, the blast engulfing me, dealing significant damage before sending me skidding through the dirt until the world spun to a stop. I lay on my stomach, gasping for air, watching the three-headed monster loom over me. So this is it, I thought bitterly. No one is coming to save the savior. Then, I heard it. A man's scream. A guy in a simple white shirt and dark pants burst from the brush. He looked ordinary—no armor, no weapon. He looked weak, honestly.

But he charged the Cerberus and threw a punch that actually made the massive beast recoil. He stepped between me and the monster, his legs shaking, his stance clumsy and untrained. But he didn't run. I tried to tell him to get away, but my voice wouldn't work. I just watched his back with a blurry vision.

"I won't let you hurt her," he said. His voice was steady, even though he was clearly terrified. In that moment, watching his silhouette against the dark forest, a single tear escaped my eye. Ah... so this is how it feels. To be the one protected. To be the one given hope. To be saved. I didn't even know his name, and I didn't see his face clearly. But he looked like the truest hero I had ever seen. My vision blurred, and the world finally went dark.

POV: The Dark Lord, Milo Miles I stood there in total bewilderment. The three-headed nightmare was gone. It had turned tail and bolted as if I were some high-tier entity more powerful than it was. I turned around. The warrior girl was still lying there, unconscious. Her sword, which had been glowing with a brilliant light only moments ago, was now dull and grey, resting in the dirt. Even without the glow, the weapon looked extraordinary.

The hilt was wrapped in deep blue leather, and intricate runes were etched along the center of the blade. They pulsed with a faint, rhythmic blue light, like a heartbeat. It was clearly a high-level item. A Dark Lord would need a strong weapon, I thought. I leaned down, reaching for the hilt—"DON'T TOUCH THAT!" That voice sounded familiar. Then, a force like a speeding freight train slammed into my side. I felt like I had been hit by another truck.

I went tumbling across the grass, skidding through the dirt until I stopped with a soft, warm weight pressing me down. It was Nyx. She had tackled me into the turf and was currently pinned against my chest.

"What was that for? It's just a sword!" I barked, trying to lift my head. But as I tried to get up, Nyx shifted at the exact same time. Our faces were inches apart, and before I could react, our lips met. The world went silent. The wind stopped. The birds stopped chirping. The contact lasted for barely a second before the world turned black and painful. I felt her hand claw into my hair, and then— She slammed my head into the ground with enough force to create a small crater.

"WHAT DID YOU JUST DO?" she screamed, scrambling to her feet. She was shaking, her face a frantic shade of crimson as she frantically wiped her mouth with the back of her hand.

"It was an accidental kiss! Don't make it sound like I just committed a mortal sin!" I sat up, rubbing the back of my skull. My level 9999 durability was the only thing keeping my brains from leaking out.

"It is a sin! That was my first kiss, you idiot!" Nyx exploded, looking like she wanted to spit on the ground.

"Well, it was mine, too! And you're a demon! You look like a naughty devil, but you've never been kissed?"

"Oh? So now we're critiquing my appearance? You ugly, talentless—" She lunged at me, hands raised for a double-slap.

"Wait! Stop! Not the slap! Anything but the slap!" I curled into a ball, shielding my face. To my surprise, the blow never came. Nyx stopped mid-air, growling low in her throat. She stomped her foot on the ground, taking a few deep, shaky breaths to stabilize herself. She sighed, her anger replaced by a sudden, sharp anxiety.

"Anyway, you just did something incredibly dangerous."

"The kiss?"

"No! That!" She pointed at the warrior girl.

"That's the Hero, you moron!" Uhh, what? Nyx explained the mess while I sat in the grass, staring at the girl.

"So, you are saying this pretty blue-haired girl with a nice, slender body is the Hero and that three-headed dog was the Cerberus, sneakily sent by Greg moments ago to help me gain Terror Levels?" I summarized.

"Not sure why you referred to her like that, but yes. While I was napping, Greg forced a mental link. He said he leaked the Cerberus into this area to buy you time because the Church found your spawn point way faster than expected."

"I appreciate the help, but if I die, can't Greg just pick someone else? There were thousands of people in that line."

"It's not that simple. This is Greg's last chance. He's screwed up several other worlds lately, and if he fails Lycora, he's fired."

"Right. Corporate pressure. I get it." I looked at the trees.

"No wonder the dog didn't bite my head off. Although, I have no idea where it went."

"And that sword is the Mooncleaver," Nyx added, pointing at the blade.

"It's a Holy Relic. If a Dark Lord touches it, it burns your soul to a crisp." I looked at Nyx and let a smug grin spread across my face.

"What? Stop looking at me like that. It's gross."

"I thought you didn't care about me," I teased.

"But you moved pretty fast to save me. Be honest, you're worried about me, aren't you?" A faint pink streak dusted her cheeks.

"Wha-Don't flatter yourself! Greg told me that if he gets fired, I'll have to pay an insubordination penalty to the Company! I'm protecting my paycheck!" What a nightmare of a corporation.

"Ugh..." A soft, feminine groan came from the dirt nearby.

"Shit, she's waking up!" I scrambled to my feet.

"What do we do? Do we run?"

"You could try killing her now," Nyx suggested.

"Without her sword, you might actually stand a chance."

"I said no killing! But... wait." I had an idea.

"Nyx, is the Hero a native of this world?" Nyx blinked, catching my drift.

"She is. Don't tell me you're going to—" I pulled the Eye of Love from my pocket. The cracks were worse now, but it was all I had.

"I'm going to make her fall for me. If she's in love with me, she won't kill me. We can actually talk like civilized people and figure out how to raise my Terror Level without anyone getting hurt." And, well, she's pretty. Nyx let out a small, mocking smile.

"My, my. A halfway decent plan from a pig's brain."

"I told you, pigs are one of the more intelligent—" The warrior girl began to push herself up, her hand clutching her side. I panicked. I struck a pose—what I thought was a heroic pose—and shoved the cracked Eye of Love toward her. There was a long, awkward silence.

"H-hello," I stammered.

"I'm... a carpenter. Just passing by." A carpenter? Really? Well, I was panicking, and for some reason, that was the first thing that came to mind. Suddenly, the Eye of Love began to glow. The light grew intense, pulsing a frantic, neon pink. But as the glow reached its peak, the cracks spider-webbed across the surface. With a sharp ping, the charm shattered into a hundred tiny pieces before scattering to the ground. Did it work? The warrior girl looked at me. Her face had a deep, radiant red.

She scrambled backward, stumbling over her own feet before falling back onto the grass. She clutched her chest, her eyes wide and shimmering. If that's not a reaction of love at first sight, I don't know what is. POV: The Hero, Evelisse Ardentia The sound of bickering—a man and a woman—pulled me back from the darkness. I remembered the Cerberus. The overwhelming power. My failure as a Hero. Am I dead? I tried to move. The blessing of Lord Luminaryn granted me a faster self-heal.

Though my muscles felt like they were filled with lead. I forced myself to stand. Then I saw him. I recognized that white shirt and dark pants. It's the man from before. The one who had charged a Mythical-Class beast without armor or a weapon just to stand between it and me. My Hero. The Cerberus was nowhere to be seen. I didn't know how he managed to defeat it or chase it away. He seemed like he was holding a strange object, but my eyes were locked to his face instead. He looked... average. Ordinary.

Like someone you'd pass on the street without a second thought. But as our eyes met, my heart began to hammer against my ribs. A wave of heat washed over me, starting in my chest and radiating to my very fingertips. I had never felt anything like this. It was terrifying and wonderful all at once. Then he spoke. His voice was a bit shaky. He told me he was a carpenter. I didn't care if he was a carpenter or something else. All I could hear was the echo of his voice moments ago:"I won't let you hurt her."

He just saved me because I needed saving. Is this… love? As I stared at him, the pink charm in his hand glowed before shattering into dust.