The kingdom had been conquered by the Dark Lord almost a decade before, ‘oh, but it's a futuristic society and you are talking about kingdoms and Dark Lords’, yes I am, shut up. Now, one might ask, ‘why don’t you just shoot the dark lord down?’, to that I say, nobody really knows what the Dark Lord looks like. The few who had been in their presence are the inner council and those bastards are loyal to a fault, not a single peep has ever been heard about the Dark Lord’s true identity so people are left to assume. Also, fire weapons have been destroyed after the third world war, nuclear missiles blew up after an anonymous army hacked the warheads inside their hangars and the countries that had them lost pretty much everything.

Nobody will ever know what the motivations were, but the deep web bonded against the US and China declaring war on each other and decided to end it before anything could happen, the country that hadn’t joined any side were left untouched, the others were bombarded and once everything was said and done, most governments had been destroyed, world leaders assassinated and everything as was known changed. Now, people still had steel and forges, so swords, spears and arrows were still being made, but all the knowledge about firearms, bombs and whatnot had been wiped from the face of earth for good measure.

This kingdom specifically faced some hard times a few years after the old monarchy was installed, , domestic violence, overpopulation, feminicide, hunger, crops decay, but the men were happy and that seemed to be the most important thing. A group of women started plotting to bring down the government and put in power people who would make things better. They were trained assassins, brought down the entire army in three nights and left the king and his council defenseless. The whole Dark Lord thing started when the men who still wanted the old government began spreading rumors in the taverns about the new regent.

All in all, it was a better life for everyone, but those men who now couldn’t kill their wifes because they didn’t wash their socks right, and couldn’t ‘marry’ girls thirteen years younger because ‘they waited for them to become of age, so they are adults’, as people started seeing things for what they were and those kinds of behaviours could only be discussed behind closed doors in the dead of the night. These groups began trying to bring down the Dark Lord, and after a few failed attempts, said Dark Lord asked their most trusted advisor to spread a rumor about a prophecy of a chosen one, the one hero who could defeat the Dark Lord.

It worked for a few years, but when the first ‘hero’ emerged, Jeongyeon started adding more to the prophecy to keep people at bay. She didn’t know how the list went, she had already made up so much bull and didn’t care to keep track, all because a handful of idiots still thought they could dethrone the Dark Lord and bring back their disgusting ways. Today she was doing her weekly rounds to ensure another hero hadn’t been found yet. She was sitting in a tavern at the outskirts of the kingdom, the further from the capital, the more opposing groups there were. Each week she would take a day and head to a few villages to walk around and hear the gossip.

“We’ve found one!” A burly man enters the tavern and exclaims.

“Found what?” The owner asks from behind the bar.

“A hero to fit the prophecy.” The man continues happily. “They are exactly 161cm, born by a river, mother died during birth, was abandoned by the father to be raised by their grandparents, has long hair and chocolate brown eyes.”

“Is this hero also of fair skin, with red lips and a soft smile? And they also must dance well, know how to read and write and have a good sense of humor. Not to mention the hero should know how to make a perfect gâteau millasson from scratch by heart.” The owner adds.

Jeongyeon always has a lot of fun when she hears how much the ‘prophecy’ has gotten out of hand, she never uttered a word about eye color or culinary abilities. But it’s good to know people keep adding to the already impossible list of demands she came up with. But now she had to rush back to the palace and make sure they were prepared to keep out this new hero, whomever they may be. It’s a small kingdom, and Jeongyeon manages to get back by sunset, leaving her vehicle for one of the maids to park for her and rushing into the throne room, where she is met with a tiny woman sitting on the throne and the Dark Lord in a cage beside it.

“Oh, hello.” The girl on the throne greets.

“Who are you?” Jeongyeon asks, as the Dark Lord whines in the cage.

“I’m Kim Dahyun, the people from my village told me to come and defeat the Dark Lord. Saying that I fit some prophecy and whatnot, and that I was meant to save the kingdom.”

Jeongyeon is just amused to see her friend in such a predicament and decides to entertain this girl a bit. “Well, ms Kim, why are you still there? Shouldn’t you have gone back to tell those people that you succeeded?”

“Well, I didn’t want to come in the first place!” Dahyun starts to rant. “I like how things are, and I don’t want the people who sent me here taking the power. And It wasn’t like she was that hard to ‘defeat’ either, I just came in here, flicked her forehead two times and she whined as she sat in the cage on her own.”

“Yeah, who would’ve known the great Dark Lord was just a whiny old lady.”

Both chuckle a bit and the Dark Lord whines as if to prove the point.

“Can’t you, like, make something up about this hero thing so I don’t fit the prophecy anymore and then I get to go back home and just say I wasn’t it and get back to my daily life?”

“Well, ms Kim, let that old lady out and we’ll talk. I promise you aren’t in any danger at all.” Jeongyeon chuckles and moves towards the cage.

“Took you long enough.” The Dark Lord complains and Jeongyeon flicks her forehead.

“Shut up and be thankful that ms Kim actually likes you!”

“I mean, she’s really pretty and has these adorable teeth and we talked a lot these two days I’ve been sitting here and we share my meals and-” Dahyun rambles but stops once she hears laughter.

“Hear that, Yeonnie? The kid likes you a lot.” Jeongyeon keeps laughing.

“I like her too!” Nayeon, the Dark Lord, says happily. “And with how much you and Jihyo put me through, I might as well get a girlfriend to dote on and leave you two behind!”

Nayeon moves to drape herself around Dahyun, who is absolutely amused but incredibly flustered about the turn of events. Jeongyeon keeps throwing teasing jokes but the glint in her eyes tells the ‘hero’ that there’s only love behind it. They head out of the throne room, Nayeon greeting everyone they come across enthusiastically and Dahyun is very surprised about how much the castle staff seems to like the Dark Lord, who turned out to not be that dark afterall. The smells of food and the clatter of cookware tell that they are headed to the dining room, only they aren’t, they get to the kitchen and Nayeon sits the ‘hero’ down by the counter.

A short woman who looks to be the head chef looks at them and raises an eyebrow, but doesn’t stop cutting whatever meat was on her board. Jeongyeon saunters towards the woman and gives her a quick peck, Dahyun guesses this is Jihyo, while Nayeon grabs goblets and wine for them, encouraging the young hero to drink while they wait. The couple talks a bit, and the tension seems to leave Jihyo’s shoulders after whatever she hears. Not long after, Jeongyeon comes back with a bowl of some steamy stew, Jihyo following behind with another two bowls that she places in front of the waiting duo.

“Jeong tells me you let your dumb be locked for two days?”

“Hey, Ji!” Nayeon greets. “This is Dahyunnie, she was very violent when locking me up.”

Jihyo says nothing and looks at Dahyun, not hearing anything, she raises a brow that gets the hero talking.

“I flicked her forehead two times and she entered saying that I didn’t need to hit her.”

“Thought so.” Jihyo nods, satisfied. “Well, Dahyun, now you’ve met the most guarded secret of this kingdom. We hide Nayeon because this idiot has zero physical capabilities despite being a genius like no other.”

“A what?” Dahyun chokes a little in her stew.

“This has photographic memory, she grew up reading all the books available in economy, diplomacy, history, science, you name it.” Jeongyeon offers. “She knows everything an entire council should know to rule the kingdom.”

“Oh.” Is all the younger woman has to say.

“I’m Park Jihyo, by the way. I’m the general of our army, but I love cooking as nobody has been trying to invade and kill ThE dArK lOrD lately.” The woman mocks the title and laughs.

“I mean, the whole prophecy thing got way out of hand.” Jeongyeon shrugs. “Sure, I don’t remember everything I first listed, but I really didn’t say anything about being able to cook or chocolate eyes.”

“What!” Dahyun is surprised.

“Oh, yeah.” Nayeon has finished eating. “The whole prophecy thing is a sham, Jeong made it up so people would stop coming to kill me. We lost a lot of the workforce with the attempts, those men should be cultivating their crops and not trying to get back the right to abuse women. I mean, the heroes who still came either dies at the gates if they came violently, or were offered a position in the castle if they entered peacefully like you.”

“So I can choose to stay here?” The monolided girl looks very happy.

“I’d like to offer the position of my girlfriend, though.” Nayeon tries to wink, fails and wiggles her eyebrows.

“Ew.” Jeongyeon and Jihyo stay together at the display.

“I think I’ll take the position.”

“Alright, so how do we justify her disappearance now?” Jihyo asks, ignoring her friend.

“I could say the hero was monolidded as the prophecy requested, but she needed to have a mole on the right side of the left lid. And because she didn’t, she burst into flames as soon as she sat on the throne.”

“Sounds absurd enough.” Nayeon says pensively. “I love it! Let’s spread the word around.”

“By let’s, it means Jeong will do that because she knows how to spread rumors and this idiot would reveal herself as soon as she puts a foot outside those walls.” Jihyo tells Dahyun, earning an indignant slap by the Dark Lord.

“I’ll start the rumors next week. Tomorrow is saturday and I’m really looking forward to spending my weekend with my girlfriend.”

“Great, so Dahyun, how about we explore the castle and you tell me more about yourself and what you would like to do here.”

Nayeon offers, and what is Dahyun gonna say? No? Pshhhhh.