Becoming the Dark Lord

At dinner, the group opened the notification for this phase’s challenge.

Phase 4 Challenge

In this phase, the Beacons are hidden in the depths of the ocean, among the remains of an ancient city that sank long ago. What was once a civilization now serves as home to sea beasts and horrors that have adapted to the abyss. Scattered throughout this submerged region, the Beacons lie among underwater forests, forgotten ruins, collapsed structures, and the nests of creatures that rule the deep. Reaching them will not be simple. Crushing pressure and extreme cold will exact their toll, while the dangers of the ocean wait in every corner. Reach the remnants of the city that still remain above the surface... and then dive toward what rests in the depths.

(Penalty Applied: All Halos have had their teleportation points changed to the location of the challenge area.)

“That’s actually pretty interesting,” Evangeline said.

“How is that a penalty?” Layla asked. “Doesn’t that make it easier to find the Beacon area?”

“Some people used the halos to move resources around,” Eleanor said.

“The penalty hits most of the people who decided not to do the event and were relying on the halos,” Luke added.

“A lot of people must’ve gotten separated. Some of them are going to spend a month apart. Anyone who stepped into a halo out of curiosity won’t be able to go back to where they came from,” Eleanor said.

“And for those of us actually trying to clear the event phases, it creates another obstacle,” Luke said.

“What obstacle?” Charlie asked.

“Boiling... point,” Anne said.

“Boiling point?” Layla repeated.

“She means a new problem just appeared for everyone focused on clearing the Beacons. If every halo leads to the same place, then conflict between people is going to increase. Anyone who was just looting and stealing, like the pirates we fought, now has easy access to a place crowded with people carrying powerful items. Which means everyone in this region of Sunken Realms could end up in the same place,” Luke said.

A boiling point. Like a pressure cooker about to burst.

“The easiest way is to find a halo,” Eleanor said.

“And somewhere safe to leave the ship,” Evangeline finished.

***

Luke sat on the edge of the ship, staring down at the water. At the same time, inside the dimension of his soul, he was sprinting along the riverbank, throwing knives at the kraken and trying to land a clean hit. The creature lashed out with a tentacle. Luke hurled a knife, and it exploded on impact.

“Damn it, you’re persistent,” he muttered, backing away.

Going into the water to fight that monster was suicide. That was the kraken’s territory.

“This got a lot more complicated. I don’t have a Spectral Beast anymore until I beat you.” ℴ

He could not summon it, and the shark form was already gone for good.

“I just hope I can subdue you before I need to deal with the next Beacon.”

The tentacles in the water answered by slamming down hard enough to raise waves.

“Luke.”

A voice called to him in the real world.

“Luke?” he said, blinking.

“I called you Cinderella and you still didn’t answer,” Evangeline said.

“I was busy fighting the kraken.”

“In that little Matrix of yours with Morpheus and Trinity?” she shot back.

“You actually watched Matrix?”

“When I got out of the tutorial, I watched almost every movie on that list you gave me,” she said. “What, you thought I spent all day in luxury hotels doing nothing by the pool? I also did nothing inside the room.”

“You once told me you rented an entire hotel floor. You were terrible with money.”

“At least I got to enjoy my millions. Says the guy who saved and saved until the apocalypse hit and the whole monetary system collapsed.”

“Don’t remind me. I bitterly regret every day that I never bought a DeLorean DMC-12.”

“Come with me. I need to show you something,” Evangeline said.

“I really hope this isn’t one of your pranks, ninja woman. And is that kimono new? How do you even wear that in this heat?”

“Says the guy walking around like a homeless version of Batman in my tropical climate.”

“You do know climates are different, right? I figured you dropped out in fourth grade.”

“Of course I know that.”

“Then tell me how many seasons there are.”

“Summer and winter. See?” she said, with absolute confidence.

“Hot and dumb, just the way we like them,” Artemis said.

“I wanted to make fun of you, Evangeline, but now I kind of feel bad.”

“Okay, nerd. Just so you know, everything you learned in school won’t mean anything now, because the new Earth is definitely going to change so much that it’ll have, what, at least four seasons?”

“Earth always had four seasons...”

By the time they stopped in front of a door, Evangeline knocked a few times.

“What is this?” Luke asked.

“Just go in,” she said.

The door opened. Anne appeared.

“She’s... in there,” the doll maid said, pointing.

“She who?”

“Charlie.”

“H-how do I look, Master Luke?” Charlie asked, a little shy. “I’m wearing a maid outfit again.”

Charlie was beautiful as always, but now she was dressed in a maid uniform. Luke had not seen her like that in a long time.

“I haven’t worn this since before the event,” she said. “What do you think?”

“Charlie, you look... good,” Luke said.

“Good?” Evangeline said. “That’s all? Come on, this took work. I spent a lot of time working on this outfit. I had to adjust a lot of things so it would stay flexible and not tear. The fabric is durable, made from the hides of creatures we killed. I put a lot of effort into this, Cinderella. Since she’s going to wear it in battle, and on top of that, she has a large pair of breasts. Do you have any idea how hard it is to tailor something like that for someone who also needs the outfit to be elastic enough to let her swing a sword?”

Evangeline took clothes far too seriously. To her, they were art.

“And from what I’ve heard, maid uniforms are your thing.”

“Maid uniforms are not my thing. I don’t have a thing,” Luke said.

A case of theft: this story is not rightfully on Amazon; if you spot it, report the violation.

“Does she look good or not?”

“Yes, she looks very pretty. And that has nothing to do with the maid outfit.”

“So I can throw the maid outfit away?”

“Of course not.”

“See?”

“That’s because I respect your work.”

Charlie stepped closer to Luke and gave a small spin. “So I look very pretty?”

“Yes. As always.”

“Oh, come on,” Layla said from the corner. “It’s just a maid outfit. Why do you like it so much?”

“It’s not just an outfit,” Evangeline and Luke said at the same time, though for completely different reasons.

“I spent a long time making that uniform, Layla,” Evangeline said. “He has his potions. I have my clothes.”

“Sorry,” Layla said. “I wasn’t trying to insult it. I was just criticizing this guy’s fetish.”

“I do not have a fetish. If I do, let lightning strike me.”

At that exact moment, something exploded outside with a huge bang.

“Oh, come on. That was just a coincidence,” Luke said.

The group left the room and went out onto the deck. Eleanor, Jack, and Stephen were already there, staring at something.

“What was that noise?” Evangeline asked.

“I accidentally blew up my alembic,” Stephen said.

“See?” Luke said to Layla. “Not lightning.”

But the ship had stopped moving, and the sail had been lowered.

“Setting aside the fact that he almost set our ship on fire, we found an island chain,” Eleanor said.

“I was not going to set the ship on fire. I had a special barrel of water ready for accidents exactly like that,” Stephen said.

For the next few hours, the ship moved slowly past the islands. They were following Layla’s direction toward Stephen’s location, and the path led through the archipelago. They had to circle around a few islands to keep following the locator thread that only Layla could see.

Then they spotted one. A nearly flat island with only a few trees, and sitting on it, a chest.

“It’s one of those treasure chests where I found gold and other valuables before,” Luke said, pulling a few bags of coins from his storage item.

“So, are we going?” Charlie asked.

“I refuse to be poor again when we get back to Earth,” Evangeline said.

In the end, they decided two people would go collect the chest. It was a simple task. By the small drawing they did, Luke and Eleanor were chosen. They lowered a rowboat into the water, and the two of them started rowing. The ship had to stay farther out so it would not hit the coral reef. Luke and Eleanor rowed in silence for a bit.

“I miss that shark of yours for things like this,” Eleanor said.

“Yeah, me too,” Luke said. “We wouldn’t even need the boat. We’d just surf in on the shark.”

She studied the trees on the island. “That looks like good, solid wood. I think I’ll collect some.”

“To make arrows?”

“I might help Jack repair parts of the ship. That could be useful,” she said.

“So that’s why you volunteered to come. Makes sense,” Luke said.

“That too...”

She was looking at him while they rowed.

“I wanted to thank you for teaching Charlie about... feminine tricks, I guess,” he said.

“I’m just teaching her how to walk like a lady. And some basic feminine etiquette here and there,” she said.

“Still, thank you, Eleanor,” he said. “You’re always helpful. Whoever ends up with you is going to be lucky.”

For a second, Eleanor almost dropped her oar into the water, like the words had startled her.

“W-why would you say that so suddenly?” she asked.

“Because it’s true,” he said.

“Right...” she said, going back to rowing, quieter now.

Luke noticed she looked a little embarrassed.

“So there really is a guy,” Luke said.

“What? Why would you even bring that up?”

“I don’t know, maybe because we’re rowing toward a treasure chest in a place where a giant squid could be waiting under us to drag us down,” he said. “Also, this is the first time I’ve ever seen you this thrown off by a subject. Didn’t know you had that side to you.”

He slowed his rowing a little. “I knew it. I was right. There’s a guy. I’ve gotten really good at reading emotions.”

“Have you?”

“People used to say I was dense. So I’m improving.”

“Sure...” she said. “But yes, there was a guy...”

“Was he decent?”

“Yes.”

“Did he work with the government?”

“No.”

“We can track him at the next Beacon.”

“Don’t worry about it. There’s nothing between me and that guy anymore. That’s in the past.”

“I see...” he said. “Sorry for bringing it up.”

“It’s fine. I’m over it.”

“You’re over it? Wait. Someone rejected you?” he asked, sounding honestly disbelieving.

Luke had a hard time imagining anyone doing that to Eleanor.

“No. I was just too late. I liked him, but he never noticed.”

“What an idiot.”

“Yeah, I agree. What an idiot,” she said.

He had definitely wandered into dangerous territory.

“Can I ask you something?”

“No, I’m not telling you his name. Ever,” she said far too quickly.

“What? No. It’s not about that.”

“Oh. Right. What’s your question?”

“Why do you keep cutting your hair when your Rank Skill works best with it long?”

She stopped rowing. “Okay, that was a pretty... thorny question.”

“Fair enough.”

For some people, Rank Skills were a sensitive subject.

“It’s okay. I’ll answer, but afterward you have to let me ask you something personal too.”

“I don’t see why I’d refuse.”

“In that case, I can answer honestly. I cut my hair for one very simple reason. I hate my Rank Skill.”

“You hate your Rank Skill? That’s new.”

“Rank Skills are born from our strengths and our flaws. They’re double-edged, in a way. They reflect part of our personality, or our subconscious. Just like yours.”

“Blind to his own feelings, and now capable of seeing through other people’s eyes,” Luke said. “That is a weird joke.”

“That’s how they work,” Eleanor said. “Mine gave me the ability to move strands of my hair like extensions of myself. Like extra limbs. I even learned how to gather large amounts of it together and shape it into an arm made of hair. But... there’s a reason I don’t like using that power.”

She stopped rowing again. “I didn’t want to be born a woman, Luke.”

“What?” That caught him completely off guard.

“My father wanted a boy. He got me instead. A girl. I think I always knew that, or maybe I just always felt it. My father treated me well, even spoiled me too much sometimes. But I always wanted to prove my worth to him. I wanted to be the best at sports, the best at fighting, the best hunter. I wanted to prove myself.” She touched her hair. “And I never cared about girl stuff. Favorite boy band? I hated all of them. Kissing boys at twelve? Thought it was stupid. Going to dances? Pointless. Dating? Waste of time. Makeup? No.”

She started rowing lightly again. “Basically, I didn’t care about being a woman. I always saw myself as... a little soldier.”

Luke was starting to understand where she was going with this.

“And then my Rank Skill turns out to be a power that works best if I let my hair grow out and take care of it. Maintaining long, beautiful hair is basically the stereotype of every delicate schoolgirl princess type. You see the joke fate played on me with that skill?”

“I see it.”

“But...” She stopped again and touched her hair. “At the same time, I started wanting to be the delicate princess too. To have someone there for me. It’s weird. Because later I realized I also wanted to experience things I’d ignored. Rank Skills are strange... they force us to confront parts of ourselves.”

Luke had gone through something similar.

“I think I understand what you meant. Back in the tutorial, a few hours before the war, I had a dream about my adoptive mother. I think that was when I understood what the skill wanted me to reflect on.”

Then they went back to rowing.

“Did that answer your question?” Eleanor asked.

“It did.”

“Good. Because now it’s my turn to ask something personal.”

“Go ahead. As long as it’s not my bank account password. Oh, wait. Banks don’t exist anymore,” he said, half joking.

“What do you expect to happen when you finally see your mother again?”

The question caught him off guard. He had not expected her to ask that.

“I don’t know,” he said, rowing a little more slowly. “But I need to know why she disappeared.”

They reached the island and started collecting the treasure from the chest.

“Can’t we just steal the whole chest?” Eleanor asked.

“These chests are fused into the sand,” Luke said.

Luke and Eleanor emptied it. The moment they finished, something began to rise from the sand all around them. Skeletons.

[Sand Skeleton - Lvl 45]

There were a lot of them.

Eleanor drew an arrow. “And here I was, just about to cut down a few trees.”

She and Luke took the skeletons apart one by one. When they were done, Eleanor walked into the small forest, touching the trees as she passed, choosing the ones that felt like they had the best wood. She knocked against their trunks and pressed an ear to them, listening.

***

Anne and Charlie were in the ship’s kitchen, making food. It had been a few hours since Luke returned from the island where he and Eleanor had found treasure.

“You have to... let the dough rest,” Anne said.

Charlie was learning how to make pasta dough. They already had plenty of food stored away, so lately she had been focusing on learning new things.

“Master Luke likes macaroni and cheese. I still need to learn how to make cheese.”

“Mm... that’s complicated,” Anne said.

Lulie was asleep on top of Charlie’s head. She had even been given a little ribbon to wear.

“That’s okay. Even if it’s difficult, I still want to learn.”

Anne gave a faint smile. “We’d need cows... to get milk... and then make the cheese.”

“Oh. I see,” Charlie said, a little crestfallen.

“You really do... want to please Lord Luke,” Anne said while washing the dirty dishes.

“Yes.”

“How is it... having a boyfriend?” Anne asked.