"Cough, kuh-hurk……!"
Another dark-red clot of blood spilled onto the highest-grade duck-down pillow.
A full half day had passed since I smashed the aether mana stone in the training grounds. I lay on the bed in my wrecked dorm room, literally hovering between life and death.
[Warning! In the aftermath of the rampage of the “Curse of Karma,” your life force is extremely unstable!]
[Current Life Force: 7%]
[If you do not take absolute rest, your heart may stop within 24 hours.]
‘You goddamn insane system! I can only rest if you let me rest!!’
I screamed inwardly, glaring resentfully at the two murderous auras pouring out from either side of me.
To the left of my bed, atop the rubble of the collapsed wall, Elara stood hugging her longsword, bloodshot eyes fixed on the corridor.
Beyond the ice wall on the right, Sylvia was grinding all manner of rare medicinal ingredients flown in from the North while drawing some incomprehensible magic circle.
Because of the majesty of that “black mist” (system curse) I had shown in the training grounds, the two women’s guard duty had now reached an almost pathological level.
(Elara & Sylvia’s synchronized inner thoughts)
‘Our lord (Kailan) forcibly unleashed the power of that terrible curse for our sake! The backlash was powerful enough to shatter even a mana stone,
so how much must his august body be in agony right now? No matter what happens, we must protect him!’
I was grateful for their loyalty, but because of the pressure of the mana and aura they were radiating, I was on the verge of suffocating from lack of oxygen.
“……Hey. Both of you.”
The moment I barely squeezed out my cracked voice, the two women reacted like wild beasts and sprang to my bedside.
“Command me, my lord! Whose head shall I take!”
“Do you want water? Or the ten-thousand-year snow elixir I’m boiling right now……”
“No, please just…… get out.”
“What?”
I twisted my bloodstained lips and waved my hand in irritation.
“Do I look like I’m about to die just because I broke one measly mana stone? I can’t breathe because of that disgusting killing intent and mana you bitches are spewing beside me. Get out of my room. Now.”
It was verbal abuse as rude as I could make it.
But at this point, my insults had reached the stage where they were translated by them as a kind of “white noise” and “a loving whip(?)”
“Ah……”
Sylvia stroked my cheek with pitiful eyes.
“Our mana was clashing and burdening your body. I didn’t even realize that and stubbornly insisted on staying by your side. I’m sorry, Kailan.”
“It was my negligence, my lord! I will immediately withdraw beyond a hundred-meter radius of the dormitory and stand guard on the perimeter!”
Elara, too, raised a knightly salute with tears in her eyes.
“……Yeah. If possible, don’t come back until morning.”
Thankfully, my desperate struggle worked. Sylvia gathered up her elixirs and headed toward the preparation room at the end of the corridor, while Elara lightly leapt out the window and vanished into the dormitory garden.
Perfect silence descended.
“Haa…… Now I can live.”
Only then did I pull the blanket up to my chin and let out a sigh of relief. It felt as though every bone in my body was melting. If I didn’t fall asleep for even one minute right now, I felt like I really would die from overwork.
I closed my eyes.
It was just as sweet drowsiness was about to arrive and numb my brain.
Srrrk—.
From beyond the window came a presence lighter than a rolling fallen leaf.
My instincts blared an alarm like mad. It wasn’t Elara. This strange, sticky wave of mana was extremely similar in quality to what I had emitted earlier in the training grounds…… “black demonic energy (黑魔氣).”
Flash!
Sleep vanished at once, and I pushed my upper body up from the bed.
In the middle of the moonlit room.
A mysterious intruder, wrapped head to toe in a black robe, stood silently, as if he had entered at some unknown time. Through the hood of the robe, snake-like eyes gleamed at me.
‘An assassin?!’
My heart dropped. The moment I sent Elara outside, an assassin had infiltrated with absurdly perfect timing! Was he sent by my father in the ducal house, or was he one of the Demon King’s army remnants from the original story?!
I barely suppressed the scream rising to my throat and tried to pull out the dagger hidden beneath my pillow.
That was when it happened.
Thud—!
The robed intruder suddenly dropped to both knees, pressed both hands to his forehead, and prostrated himself flat on the floor.
“……?”
As I sat there blankly, unable to grasp the situation, an awestruck, hoarse voice flowed from the intruder’s mouth.
“O great master of the ‘Abyss.’ This lowly clan of darkness finally beholds the true king who has descended.”
……What?
Master of the Abyss? True king?
Just as I was about to ask what the hell he was talking about, a quest window flashed before my eyes.
[Sudden Quest Occurred!]
[The leader of the black magic circle “Black Dawn,” which operates in secret beneath the Academy, saw the curse you emitted during the day and mistook you for the incarnation of a Demon God.]
[Condition: Demonstrate the “Dignity of a Villain” and control the forces of darkness. If you show weakness, you may be assassinated immediately.]
[Success Reward: Acquisition of a faction / Failure Penalty: Instant Death]
‘Fuuuuuck!!’
Outwardly, I maintained a calm, expressionless face, but inwardly, I was hurling every curse I knew at the system.
What burst out when I broke the mana stone during the day wasn’t my power, it was the system’s shitty penalty! But after seeing that, the Academy’s real villains had crawled in here to serve me as their boss.
The moment I said, “I’m not a black mage? You’ve got the wrong person,” that bastard would clearly say, “How dare you deceive us?” and cut off my head.
On top of that, the failure penalty was “instant death.” I had no choice.
I hid my trembling hands under the blanket, arrogantly lifted my chin, and snorted.
“……For a rat who crawled recklessly into a room without its master’s permission, you have quite the long tongue.”
At my chilling voice, the shoulders of the robed leader flinched violently.
He lifted his head slightly. Beneath the hood, a pale, gaunt face and scars were visible.
When I treated him like a rat instead of trembling in fear, an even deeper fanatic gleam entered his eyes.
“Forgive me, O great one! The overwhelming darkness you displayed in the training grounds during the day……
We of ‘Black Dawn’ have never seen such pure and terrible mana of the abyss! For a long time, we have held our breath beneath the Academy, waiting for a true mastermind such as yourself!”
He took a document made of black parchment from his breast and carefully slid it beneath my bed.
“It is a list of the professors and noble scions belonging to our circle. Please take us in as your hounds and use us to bring down this rotten world of light!”
A list? Even professors were involved?
This was, quite literally, evidence of treason that could collapse the Academy. The moment I accepted this, I would become the undeniable leader of an anti-state terrorist organization.
But if I refused, I would die.
As if annoyed, I furrowed my brow and spoke coldly without even looking down at the parchment.
“Hounds, you say.”
I sneered.
“At my side, I already have a silver hound starved for blood (Elara) and an ice witch (Sylvia).
What use would I have for rats who lived beneath the Academy, gnawing on dirt?”
“T-that is……!”
The leader panicked, cold sweat pouring down his face.
“However.”
I drew it out, lowering my voice as much as possible, as though placing an invisible blade beneath his chin.
“My pieces are perhaps too dazzling at the moment. I may need a few menial laborers to clean out the cesspits in the darkness.”
“Ahh! Thank you! Please, give us any order!”
Overwhelmed with emotion, the leader struck his head against the floor.
“Order?”
I waved my hand as if it were a bother.
“Hide like dead rats until I call for you. Do not attempt to contact me first, and do not make any rash moves within the Academy.
If you bastards act on your own and put a scratch on my grand plan, I will burn your souls myself—not the mages of light.”
In reality, it was an earnest request(?) meaning, “Stay out of my sight and keep your heads down.”
However, the automatic translator unique to this world applied without exception even to black mages.
(Black magic leader’s inner translation)
‘Ahh……! For now, he intends to conceal himself and wait for the perfect moment in order to deceive the forces of light (Elara, Sylvia)!
He is warning us not to move carelessly and ruin the grand design of the great mastermind! Truly, he is as deep and terrifying as the abyss!’
“As you command!! By the king’s will, we shall crouch thoroughly in the darkness until the time comes and await your orders!”
[Status: You have perfectly succeeded in acting as the “Lord of Darkness”! Penalty waived!]
[You have incorporated the Academy’s underground forces as your subordinates.]
Phew, I lived.
Now I just had to chase out this insane cultist and sleep.
“If you understand, then get out of my room right……”
Kwaaaaang—!!!
Before I could even finish speaking.
The enormous ice wall on the right, which Sylvia had sealed off earlier, shattered with a thunderous roar, scattering into fragments.
And beyond those fragments, Sylvia charged into the room, radiating the chill of the 7th Circle like a storm,
while Elara, somehow having leapt up from outside the window, rushed in at the same time with her blue longsword aimed forward.
“What vermin crawled into my lord’s bedchamber reeking of black demonic energy?!”
“A rat dares sneak into my fiancé’s room? I’ll freeze you on the spot!”
The mad killing intent of the two heroines filled the room.
The leader of the black magic circle sprang to his feet in horror. No matter how much of a black mage he was,
fighting two of the greatest talent monsters in the entire setting inside a cramped room was suicide.
“Kuh……! Hounds of light!”
The leader slammed a black smoke bomb from his breast onto the floor and threw himself toward the window.
“Where do you think you’re running!!”
Just as Elara raised her sword and was about to leap in—
“Stop.”
Clutching my throbbing head, I called the two women to a halt.
At my suppressed command, Elara and Sylvia’s attacks stopped by a hair’s breadth,
and taking advantage of that opening, the black mage leader left behind the maddening line, “O great one, I shall await our next meeting!” and slipped away into the darkness of the night.
“My lord! Why did you order us to let such a vicious black mage go!”
Elara shouted, sounding wronged.
Sylvia, too, spotted the black parchment (the list) that had fallen beneath my bed, and her face went pale.
“Kailan, don’t tell me…… That man called you ‘great one’ just now. Are you working with those filthy organizations of darkness?! What on earth are you planning to do at the Academy!”
At Sylvia’s interrogation, I was at a loss for words.
This is driving me insane. If I said, “He begged me to spare him, so I was forced to accept him,” I’d die from the villain penalty.
In the end, swallowing tears of blood, I lightly kicked the fallen list of black mages with the tip of my foot and gave the vilest smile in the world.
“Working with them? What an unpleasant thing to say, Sylvia.”
I tilted my chin crookedly and glared at them.
“I have merely leashed the insects crawling beneath my feet.
If one intends to rummage through trash cans untouched by light, it is most efficient to make use of the maggots writhing there.”
“Kailan…… You really have gone mad.”
Sylvia stepped back as if she couldn’t believe it.
“I cannot understand, my lord! To keep such wicked beings by your side!”
Elara, a noble knight, was also trembling with rage.
However.
This vile “declaration of villainy” of mine passed through the strongest misconception translator installed in their minds and was reconstructed into a completely different, noble epic.
(Sylvia’s inner automatic translation)
‘Ahh……! Even though a black magic curse has lodged in his heart and made him terminally ill,
he walked into the den of darkness himself in order to find clues to undo that curse and strike down his father!
He is pretending to be revered as their king so he can control and monitor those dangerous black mages from within!’
(Elara’s inner automatic translation)
‘My lord, in order to prevent us knights of light from soiling our hands while fighting darkness,
has willingly chosen to stand alone in the mud and call himself the king of maggots. Such a lonely yet noble overlord’s path (覇道)……!’
In an instant, their hostility transformed into awe and sorrow.
Sylvia bit her lip hard, then whispered in a trembling voice.
“……You idiot. If you insist on walking through that mire alone, then do as you please.
But before that darkness devours you completely, I will absolutely undo the curse on your heart.”
Elara, too, sheathed her sword and knelt on one knee.
“If that is my lord’s will, then I shall guard even the shadow beneath my lord’s feet.”
‘……Huh?’
With a dumbfounded face, I looked back and forth between the two women.
No, I just declared that I had become the boss of an anti-state black magic terrorist organization, so why the hell are you two shedding tears of emotion?
A terminally ill extra with 0 magic power had, overnight, taken over the Academy’s forces of darkness, and even the two strongest heroines of light in the setting were packaging his evil deeds as noble sacrifice.
Day 2 at the Academy.
My easy healing life was now completely down the drain, and before I knew it, I had perfectly evolved into the true final mastermind of this world (unintentional).