So that was how my first day as the Dark Lord ended. I’d left Akihabara in the afternoon and apparently arrived on Ephemera in what was the early evening local time, but given how much of that had been spent running around in various states of stress I was more than ready to collapse by the time I felt safe to do so. I took over Rocco’s room, since it was the biggest and he had the best stuff, barricaded the door in case one of the barbarians I’d conquered got any funny ideas, and to my own surprise managed to sleep for a few hours despite my ongoing worry about…well, everything.

Worry, and anger. To hell with conquering Ephemera, and screw going to war with Yoshi. I was gunning for Virya. Obviously I had no idea where to even start with that, and would have to play along until I came up with something, but it was fantasies of vengeance against the goddess that turned into troubled dreams as I drifted off.

First thing the next morning I was on the road with a small escort. My brief discussion with Aster the night before had given me a general outline of my immediate predicament. Sitting in a broken-down fortress in the middle of the terrifying alien wilderness wasn’t going to get me anywhere, so I set out to investigate what was apparently the only city on this island.

“Gwyllthean,” I said very carefully, for the eighth time.

“Very good!” Aster replied with an approving nod. “Well…close enough. Anyone would know what you meant.”

“Thanks,” I said, even more sourly than usual. “So, Gwyllthean, on the island of Dount.”

“Dount,” she corrected.

“That’s what I said.”

“You keep saying Dounto,” Donon added in what I’m sure he thought was a helpful tone. “It’s just Dount, one syllable.”

Biribo buzzed in a complete circle around my head, making Donon shy back. “Heh, the boss has a bit of a—”

“Silence, minion.”

This had been an exercise in wishing I’d kept my English a bit more current, but in my defense I haven’t been back to California since middle school. Not that they spoke English here, but the local language was more similar to that than Japanese. They loved jamming a bunch of consonants together to make messy sounds that my own tongue, trained on a nice neat syllabary, kept stumbling over.

“So, Dount,” I continued after a loaded pause in which I was not sassed any further, “which is the northernmost island in the kingdom of…”

I turned to Aster in defeat.

“Fflyr Dlemathlys,” she reminded me.

“What the hell is that obscene pile of noises?!” I complained. “It’s like if Polish cheated on Swahili with Welsh and their bastard came out harelipped! Anyway, we’re on the outskirts of the tiny, disorganized kingdom of…whatever…which itself is on the northern border of the Empire of… Lancor?”

“Lancor, yes,” Aster said with a smile.

“You remembered one!” Donon added encouragingly, and I very generously did not set him on fire.

“Right. And Lancor is considered the bastion of civilization in this part of the world.”

“Yup,” he said, nodding. “I lived there for a couple years. Great place, very clean and orderly. I, uh, wasn’t a bandit then.”

“So, basically, this island is the ass end of nowhere.”

“Well…basically,” Aster agreed, sighing.

“Thanks, Virya,” I muttered.

“Yeah, you should thank her,” said Biribo. “Whaddaya think would happen to a brand spankin’ new Dark Lord who got his start in a big, well-organized country teeming with temple knights and Blessed clerics of Sanora, huh? You landed in a fortified base, far from any power that’d oppose you, with pretty much the biggest and most potent concentration of forces one guy can take over with a handful of basic spells.”

“Ngf,” I grunted, unwilling to give Virya (or Biribo) credit for anything.

“Also you got proximity to monster races that’re culturally Viryan,” Biribo continued. “Fflyr Dlemathlys is an explicitly Sanorite country run by elves and with a mostly human population. Elves and humans are followers of Sanora more often than not. North Watch is out on the border of Viryan country.”

“It’s true, Lord Seiji,” Donon added. “You can see the lizardfolk swamp from the battlements when the weather’s clear; they’re Viryan.”

Biribo picked up immediately; I was getting the impression he felt protective of his role as my personal source of exposition. “The local lizardfolk tribe are basically a vassal state of the naga colony in the lake past the swamp, and the naga serve the same role for the dark elf nation beyond. Each protecting the borders of the next.”

“Matryoshka dolls of monster people,” I muttered, pausing in the road and turning to look back. We had only just set out from the gates, and I could see the overgrown remains of the road extending past the fortress in the other direction, toward a mountain which rose out of the coral-like foliage beyond. “So, wait, if these people worship Virya and I’m the Dark Lord, maybe I should go visit them first.”

Biribo darted directly in front of my face, waving his arms frantically. “Bad idea, boss! Trust me, Viryans respect strength. You wanna be more established before you approach them. They’ll follow a powerful Dark Lord, yeah, but some jackass showing up claiming to be the Dark Lord with nothing to back him up but a couple spells and a handful of bandits is likely to end up dead. No offense.”

“I’m not a bandit,” Aster protested.

He flicked out his tongue at her. “Sorry, doll, but you humans all look alike to them.”

I turned and resumed course, studying the path as we went. The forest itself wasn’t much less alarming by daylight, but Donon and Aster didn’t seem particularly uneasy so I refrained from showing any outward nerves to save face. My years of practice at projecting a stage presence were really coming in handy here. The actual road beneath us looked like it had been extremely well-constructed, once, being made of large, closely-fitted stones and remarkably smooth. There wasn’t even anything growing out of the cracks between them, that was how expert the masonry had been when it was laid. At this point it had been left untended for so long I couldn’t even tell how wide the road was, thanks to underbrush creeping across it from both sides. And “creeping” was definitely the word; it consisted of webs of crimson tendrils, or swollen protruberances from the giant coral-like structures nearby. No visible plant life as I understood it.

“Here in the khora forest is beastfolk territory,” Biribo continued to lecture as we walked. “They’re kind of a buffer zone, both ‘cos they’re comfortable among the khora, and because the tribes aren’t Sanorite or Viryan. So even though the Fflyr tend to scuffle with them, there’s never been a serious push to clear them out. It’s too useful to not have a border with Viryans, who’d be openly hostile.”

“North Watch is in the catfolk tribe’s territory,” Donon added. “Rocco used to buy ‘em off with a share of our loot so they’d leave us alone.”

“A catfolk tribe,” Biribo corrected. “Beastfolk social units are usually of one race, but none of the races are so organized that they all form their own nations. Just small tribal units in wilderness areas, mostly.”

“Hm.” That sounded like it could be useful. From what I knew of Earth’s history, societies like that tended to exist because bigger, more well-organized cultures denied them access to the necessary resources to advance—and then, adding insult to injury, usually acted as if there was some inherent defect in the “lesser” race that made them more “savage.” Such treatment stoked resentment, and resentment could be leveraged… “Wait, so given all that I get why North Watch was abandoned by the kingdom, but why was it built in the first place? Just as a border fort to keep an eye on the lizardfolk?”

“Fflyr Dlemathlis doesn’t really secure the Viryan border these days, that’s what the beastfolk in the khora forest are for,” Aster chimed in. “No, they only bother fortifying the land bridges to other islands. And there used to be one up here, just a few limns beyond the fortress. But over a hundred years ago, the bridge collapsed, so…there’d be no point in keeping the fortress manned even if the kingdom had troops to spare for it, which it doesn’t.”

I narrowed my eyes. “Limns?” That word didn’t automatically translate in my head.

Aster gave me a sidelong look. “You…don’t know what limns are?”

“It’s a unit of measurement,” Biribo explained. “The Dark Lord is from a long way away, folks. We’re gonna have to explain a lot of stuff you take for granted.”

“How far?” Donon asked. “I’ve never seen a human who looked like you, Lord Seiji. Uh, you are human, right?”

Great, so the locals had no frame of reference for Asians. That could be potentially useful, or extremely hazardous, depending on how the racism happened to manifest here. I was taking it as given that there would be racism, because I know what humans are like. With luck, I could parlay my “exotic” appearance for notoriety; without luck I might have to Immolate somebody.

“How big is a limn, exactly?” I asked aloud.

“A limn is five hundred and twenty-four dhils,” Aster recited. “A dhil is ninety-six strides. A stride is defined as the average distance of an adult male elf’s step. Strides are further broken down into thirteen ridds to measure smaller things.”

Again, I came to a stop. The others turned to look at me curiously as I raised my face to stare at the sky between fronds and branches of…khora, they were called? I wouldn’t have thought it possible, but these fucking people had actually come up with a stupider way to measure things than the American system. I didn’t even want to know what the weights were.

“Thank you, Aster,” I said, very calmly.

“You’re welcome, Lord Seiji.”

“In the future, if we happen to find ourselves in the thick of battle, I may ask you to repeat that explanation.”

“Um…all right? But, why in battle?”

“Because it fills me with rage and the urgent desire to murder someone.”

I couldn’t really blame them for staring at me in confused silence. There just wasn’t anything more to be said on this subject, so I blew out a heavy sigh and resumed walking.

We made it a few more minutes in silence, which I spent taking in the sights and sounds of the khora forest. It sounded like a forest; not one of the individual hoots and rattles and trills of unseen animals in our surroundings sounded familiar to me, but in aggregate the effect was recognizable. Especially given the soft but constant rustling of wind through…well, they weren’t leaves, but the fronds and tendrils of the khora made similar noises as they waved slowly in the air. I tried not to stare at these as we passed, as it was disconcerting to note that they were moving independently of the breeze in most cases.

“I’m sorry,” Donon suddenly blurted out.

I looked over my shoulder. “Why? What’d you do?”

“Uh, sorry, my lord, I was talking to Miss Aster,” he said, ducking his head. “About…y’know. The…”

“Well, you didn’t try to have a go at me,” she said, eyes forward and face blank.

He was dry-washing his hands now, his own eyes downcast. At least until I turned back around, more concerned with watching where I was going. Some of those sinuous red vine-things snaked all the way across the road, and a few were big enough to be tricky to step over.

“Yeah, and I wouldn’t’ve. Actually it was the one thing I, uh, appreciated about being…you know. Rocco didn’t want me tainting any girls he caught, so at least I never had to…go along with his…” He trailed off, swallowing so hard I could hear it even with my back turned. Donon’s previous condition was why I’d brought him; my Heal had fixed it instantly, but apparently the disease was considered incurable and the night before he had been weeping with gratitude. It was extremely awkward. He and Aster represented the closest thing I had to loyalty from any of these medieval brutes, so here they were. “I, uh, I meant about your friends.”

The ensuing silence was excruciating. Fortunately, or perhaps not, Donon didn’t know when to quit.

“I know it probably doesn’t help or anything and ‘sorry’ is never enough, but…I am.”

Aster let him twist in the wind for another few seconds before letting out a soft sigh.

“Jarind’s father was a friend of my father’s. He was…sort of like a cousin.”

“Oh,” Donon said in a quietly miserable voice.

“Right. So as ‘almost family’ he only grabbed my ass now and again,” Aster went on, her voice growing progressively more bitter with every word, “and didn’t crawl on top of me at night like he did Dannit. Yet, anyway. She and I both put up with it because being a registered adventurer is about the only life available to women that’s not housewife, priestess, or whore, and if I stuck with it long enough I had a chance of getting a Blessing. Dannit did. But, our party was registered under his name, and he was the man, so he controlled the purse strings. We slept in whatever inn or campsite Jarind took us to, and got only whatever coin he felt like handing out. I don’t know Dannit’s story, but the King’s taxmen took everything my family had to cover some debt they said my father owed when he died, and I was probably lucky they didn’t take me. So, there was nowhere else I could go if he kicked me out.” She hesitated, and I glanced sidelong at her, observing her face twisting in an acid scowl. “No one’s going to mourn Jarind. Dannit…deserved better. You know, when that Rocco first grabbed me, I was actually grateful she’d died in the trap and wouldn’t have to… I didn’t know Lord Seiji was waiting at the other end of that ordeal. Now…”

This time, the silence lingered, and I let it. I mean, what can you say to that?

It sounded like this country was even more sexist than Japan, and whole orders of magnitude more violent. That kind of chaos would surely mean exploitable opportunities for an enterprising Dark Lord, but it wasn’t going to be fun to live in. But then, who was I to complain? It must be absolute hell for every woman in Fflyr Dlemathlys who wasn’t born rich, and probably for most of them, too.

Today, I was wearing the chain mail artifact over my polo shirt (none of Rocco’s clothes fit me, and also they were filthy). It didn’t have an immediately detectable effect like the sword; apparently it would only kick in if I was attacked. As an incidental effect, though, it changed shape to fit me precisely when I put it on, and was now snug over my clothes and amazingly comfortable. I actually didn’t hate the look; the mail itself was glossy and finely woven, and it had supple silvery embellishments at the collar, hems, and seams that stopped it looking too plain.

Aster still had the sword, for the simple reason that I hadn’t asked for it back. And that was also to avoid the risk of looking weak, because if she wasn’t inclined to hand it over, I didn’t have any way of making her, being that…well, she was the one with the sword. My only means of coercing people to obey me were Immolate and Enamor; the first I wasn’t willing to use on anybody who wasn’t actively engaged in some kind of violence that I urgently needed to stop, and the second was just an utterly disgusting spell that should never be used on anyone. I felt guilty enough for having tried it on Kasser, even as desperate as I’d been in that moment, and in hindsight it was a huge relief that it hadn’t worked. Whoever had designed that spell needed to die.

Which worked out conveniently, as that was probably Virya and I fully intended to murder her anyway. Somehow.

This raised questions, though, to which I gave voice. “So, wait. You said this Dannit was Blessed. With Might?”

Aster shook her head. “Magic.”

“Ah. So the artifacts were Jarind’s. These are some pretty potent artifacts, aren’t they, Biribo?”

“They’re better than average beginner gear, Boss. This Jarind guy must’ve been a pretty solid adventurer to have the two of ‘em.”

“Sorry if bringing this up is a painful subject, but I am completely perplexed how those greasy idiots managed to kill two Blessed without taking so much as a scratch. No offense, Donon.”

“None taken, Lord Seiji, you’re not wrong.”

“It was a trap,” Aster said, grimacing. “A pit trap, vines covering a hole with spikes at the bottom. The fact I was the only one not Blessed probably saved my life. Jarind always made me walk behind, carrying the baggage.”

Oof. That had probably not been a quick death, then. If I remembered right, traps like that were banned by the Geneva Convention, and for good reason.

“Anyway,” she went on more quietly, “I’m not… That is, I understand. We do what we have to. Here I am, following the actual Dark Lord around because he’s already a better leader than my last one.”

“I’d be flattered if you hadn’t just explained what a low bar that is to clear.”

“My point is, I’m in no position to judge. I won’t say I’m… Well, I don’t really know what to feel about all this, honestly. I’m having a weird couple of days.”

“Man, I know that feeling,” I muttered.

“Can’t have been easy for you, either,” Aster added, glancing over her shoulder at Donon, who continued to trail along awkwardly behind us. “I only caught a glimpse between those bandages before Lord Seiji healed you, but was that what it looked like?”

Donon hunched his shoulders even further. I was starting to feel legitimately sorry for the guy. “…yeah.”

“What was up with that, by the way?” I asked. “It can’t have been too contagious if Rocco and the gang let you stick around.”

“Oh, it’s not contagious in the usual ways,” Biribo said brightly. “Gobrot is a venereal disease, Boss. It’s actually not transmissible between humans, but people who start showing the skin condition are pretty seriously ostracized in most human societies, cos of where you get it.”

“Oh?”

“Goblins,” Biribo said with malicious relish.

“Ah. So, he…”

“He’s a monsterfucker,” Aster explained.

“They’re not monsters!” Both of us stopped and turned around in surprise; Donon’s timid demeanor had abruptly vanished and he looked like he was about to start preaching fire and brimstone. “Goblins are as much people as you or me!”

“That’s the opposite of an endorsement,” I said, openly skeptical. “By and large, people are shit. I haven’t actually seen a goblin, are they small green critters on this world like in the fiction where I’m from?”

“That’s a basically solid description,” Aster agreed.

“Hah. Well, Donny boy, I guess it’s better you’d go after goblins than actual children, since I assume that’s the—”

“Oh, don’t even start with that!” Donon shouted, clearly forgetting who he was talking to in his sudden and inexplicable passion. “That is a slanderous rumor made up by bigots and fools! Goblins don’t look even slightly like human children—especially the women! They’re not just shrunk down people, you know, the proportions are just different enough to be perfect, don’t you see? Smaller features look bigger on a smaller body; even the most modest set of curves makes a voluptuous goddess of a little green woman! And those adorable ears, the cute little button noses… The fact that their pretty little faces are conveniently right at waist height, why… If there was a goblin brothel in every city on Ephemera, there would be peace and happiness all across the land!”

Total silence descended; even the nearby animal noises had ceased in response to his yelling. All three of us just stared at him, completely dumbfounded.

Then Biribo burst out laughing so hard he actually fell out of the air and began rolling around on the ground.

“Wow,” said Aster.

“All right, then.” I turned back around and resumed walking. “That was…interesting. Donon, we need to get along without creating a ruckus when we reach…” I hesitated, concentrating on my pronunciation. “Gwyllthean. So, no yelling, and you are not to discuss goblins under any circumstances.”

“Yes, Lord Seiji,” he mumbled, trailing along behind again.

“Waist height,” Aster muttered, shaking her head. “Have you seen the teeth on them? If I had a dick, I would not stick it in—”

“Okay, we can talk about something else now,” I interjected. “How much trouble is my appearance going to cause in town? Is this one of those places where foreigners aren’t welcome in the shops?”

“That won’t be a problem,” Aster assured me. “Dount still has two land bridges aside from the one that leads to the Kingdom’s mainland, and the roads from both pass right through Gwyllthean. It’s a stop on several big trade routes, the last one before the capital where prices are higher. So, lots of merchant activity, and adventurers passing through. I’ve never seen anyone who looks quite like you, Lord Seiji, but the Gwyll are used to seeing foreigners. They’ll probably like you, in fact, because you’re rich.”

I frowned; Kasser had said the same, now that I thought about it. “Why is it you think I’m rich?”

She gave me a perplexed look, as if this should be obvious. “Your clothes.”

My what? I looked down at myself; though it was now partially hidden by the mail artifact, I was wearing my game store uniform, hardly upper-class attire.

But then I looked at what Aster and Donon were wearing, and it clicked. Not only were their clothes scruffy from overuse, I suddenly noted they were made of coarse fabrics in drab colors, pieces of leather that didn’t look properly cured, and held together with thick, equally rough-looking thread.

My outfit, by contrast, featured smooth synthetic fabrics, vivid artificial dyes, and precise machine stitching. The fact that it marked me as a low-wage shop clerk was a social perception, and one that didn’t exist here. Even the katakana of the store logo embroidered on my polo shirt was just a meaningless decoration to anyone who didn’t recognize Japanese. In fact, a decoration of such quality that a working-class person in Fflyr Dlemathlys would never dream of having it on their clothes. Where I was from, these were cheap garments, but in a medieval country I did look rich.

And that gave me another idea.

“Hold up,” I ordered, coming to a stop and pulling at the mail tunic. Like the ribbons on the spell scrolls, it responded to intent, obligingly loosening as soon as I was attempting to take it off. I tugged it over my head, straightened my shirt, and handed the artifact to Aster. “Here, put this on.”

She blinked, looking from my eyes to the armor before hesitantly reaching to take it. “Are…you sure, my lord?”

“Congratulations, you’re my bodyguard now,” I informed her. “If anyone asks, I’m a foreign nobleman, you don’t know from where. You are in my employ on account of being Blessed with Might and possessing these valuable artifacts.”

“Well…that has the advantage of being true,” she agreed.

“Which means, Aster, you’re going to have to be my bodyguard; this is not just a ruse. I don’t have the chain mail, so if anybody comes at me with violent intent, I’ll need you to deal with it.”

“I can do that,” she said, propping the sword against a nearby sprawl of hard khora that protruded over half the road. She shrugged out of the harness for the greatsword and then her coat and pulled the mail over her head. “If you’re that worried about it, though, you could just wear the artifact.”

“And in the future I may, if I’m expecting to be attacked. But for the time being, this is not that kind of game. I won’t be able to avoid drawing a certain amount of attention just in the course of figuring out how things stand in Gwyllthean and Dount, but I don’t want to advertise who and what I am yet. That means both of you need to be discreet, understand?”

“Of course.”

“Ah…yes, Lord Seiji, not a word,” Donon said, distracted. I followed the direction of his gaze, which led me to Aster’s chest.

Once it was on a person, the artifact molded itself to fit them snugly. And it was really snug.

“So it’s not just goblins for you then, I take it?” I asked sweetly.

Aster turned a scowl on him, and quickly shrugged back into her jacket while he stammered and averted his eyes. I thought the finished effect was pretty impressive: the edges of the chainmail showed, and that’s where the fancy trim was that revealed its quality, but the coat obscured the shape of her body enough not to look risque.

That was to my advantage, as one of the benefits of an impressive bodyguard was to discourage people from starting shit, rather than having to finish it every time. Sexist as Fflyr Dlemathlys might be, hopefully Aster being a woman would be less of a concern than her being Blessed and carrying two potent artifacts. If people thought I’d picked my bodyguard because she looked good (even though, in a sense, I literally had) they might be more willing to try taking her on. And for now, I wanted discretion and a minimum of drama, at least until I got more settled in.

“So, uh… What’s my role then, Lord Seiji?” Donon asked nervously. By this point I couldn’t tell if he was actually nervous, or that was just his personality. The guy seemed to have two settings: afraid of everything, and worked up about how much he loved goblin women.

This was the caliber of talent I was working with. Some Dark Lord.

“In the rear with the gear,” I said, grinning at him. “A nobleman needs a servant, after all.”

“Ah! Thank you, my lord.” Donon visibly brightened up, which I admit puzzled me. I’d been ribbing him, but apparently this was an esteemed position here? Little moments like this made me painfully aware I had no common sense in this country, or this world. If I could make it through a one-day trip to the city to get a sense of what was going on and how I could turn it to my advantage without embarrassing myself in public, I was going to call that a win.

Speaking of which…

“How far from here is Gwyllthean?” I asked as we resumed walking.

“Hard to judge as there’s no straight path but it’s a good few limns,” said Aster.

My left eyelid began to twitch.