I'm the Bad Guy

by Kenneth Arant

  I found myself standing in the hallway on the first floor of the apartment building. To my right on the door to the very first room, I noticed the door had been replaced by a translucent crystal door. Inside the door, the Imp bounced around and appeared to be inspecting its new 'home'.

  "Come." I commanded.

  The Imp halted in its tracks and stared at me through wide eyes.

  Did it fail?

  "Come!" I commanded once again.

  The Imp's body shook, but it remained in its crouched position.

  "I said... Come Here!"

  The Imp's body burst into motion so fast I thought it was going to attack me... But it didn't. It stopped at the door and sat quietly in front of me while awaiting my next order.

  I placed my hand on the door and said— "My name is Aren. I am your new master. Nod if you understand."

  The Imp stared blankly at me.

  ...

  I'm going to need to work on that...

  I repeated this experiment on the Ghoul, located in the first medium-sized room on the opposite side of the hallway. Unlike the Imp that was able to resist my commands up to a point, the Ghoul instantly obeyed whatever I told it to do... As long as I kept it simple.

  Commands like jump, sit, roll over, go over there, and other such simple commands were easily followed, but telling it to do a backflip resulted in it staring blankly at me.

  It was almost like I had a horrifically disfigured dog... That ate people... And could regrow limbs...

  I should probably stop comparing it to a dog before I try to teach it to shake or fetch the newspaper...

  Before I left the gate, I gave it the order to clone one of each creature. As it was my first time doing this, I was curious as to how long such a process would take and how much of my mana it would consume in the process.

  Almost immediately after leaving the gate, I nearly collapsed into unconsciousness from the large chunk of mana that suddenly disappeared from my body. I grasped the edge of my table to hold myself up while black spots danced in my vision and my head pounded in time with my heart...

  "Note to self... Only clone one at a time from now on."

  I stumbled over to my bed after ten or so minutes of lightheadedness and quickly fell asleep.

  By the time I awoke, it was already past noon and I could hear the palace had come to life with the movement of servants, nobles, and other usual guests of the emperor.

  I climbed out of bed and opened my gate with practiced ease. I stepped inside expecting to see a second Imp and Ghoul, but instead, I noticed two new doors had turned into a translucent crystal the same color as my portals. I assumed this was due to the occupants being created from my mana, though I had no way of knowing if that was correct or not.

  Inside the Blue Imp door, I saw the nearly formed body of an Imp laying motionless on the floor. From what I could see, it appeared to be missing some twenty percent of its body. Since I estimated that I'd been asleep for around six hours, then the cloning time for an Imp should be something like eight hours... Which was a depressingly long time.

  Similarly, the ghoul was still missing some sixty percent of its body. Which, if it grew at a similar rate as the Imp, meant its cloning time should be around sixteen hours...

  ...

  I'm going to get something to eat before my lack of talent makes me want to kill myself... I wonder if they have ice cream in this world?

  * * *

  Interlude: Kami

  * * *

  I climbed out of bed at the usual ten in the morning and went about my morning routine, consisting of thoroughly cleaning myself in the baths, brushing my long hair into its usual wavy shape, then carefully getting dressed for the day, so I wouldn’t mess up my hair.

  It's like my mother said, "For a lady, every interaction is a battlefield and our appearance is our best weapon."

  Except he never seems to care what I look like...

  I shook that thought from my mind and finished slipping on my shoes.

  I never had to do this before he came to live with us. Back then, I could walk around the palace in my pajamas without worrying if someone was staring at me. But after being seen by him a few weeks ago, I just didn't feel comfortable doing that anymore.

  I left my room and made the familiar journey down two floors to the dining hall. I entered to find my mother, a brown-haired, blue-eyed beauty with flawless ivory skin sitting beside my father and her sister-wives.

  My mother Ama was considered the 'first' wife, even though she was the youngest, because she was the first to become pregnant. While Tera, a dark-skinned beauty from the Tileas kingdom and Lira, a big chested blonde-haired, blue-eyed ex-mage, were considered the second and third wives respectively.

  However, he seemed to be missing. A truly unusual sight. Ever since he'd arrived, I don't believe I've seen him miss a meal.

  Weird.

  "Good morning, Kami! How's my princess doing on this fine morning?" My dad exclaimed excitedly.

  I really wish he'd stop treating me like a child...

  "I'm fine." I replied as a took a seat at the far end of the table and told the attending servant what I wanted for breakfast.

  "Have you decided what you're going to pack?"

  "Not yet."

  "You should make your decision soon. The Imperial train to the academy departs in less than two weeks."

  "I know."

  An uncomfortable silence stretched out for several minutes while I waited on my food and my father whispered into my mother's ear.

  "Is he not eating with us today?" I asked to break the silence.

  "I'm sure he'll show up eventually."

  "He probably stayed up all night in the library again."

  I knew immediately that I said the wrong thing. Because my father's eyebrows shot up and my mother giggled.

  "And... Just how would you know that, o' daughter of mine? Been keeping tabs on him?"

  "What!? No! I just see him in there a lot, that's all."

  My father's eyebrows rose even higher— "Since when did you spend enough time in the library to constitute 'a lot'? I thought you hated the place."

  "I don't hate it... I just prefer to avoid spending too much time in there. That's all."

  "And yet, you're there enough to know he sometimes spends the night?"

  "Leave her alone, dear. I'm sure she just happened to peek in on her way by, right sweetie?"

  "T-That's right."

  "There, you see?"

  "Mm hmm. I sure do." My father responded with a sly smile on his face.

  "Oh! Good morning, Aren."

  I felt my head turn towards the door before I could stop myself and immediately regretted it. My father snickered loud enough for me to hear him across the table and my mother coughed into her hand.

  They were both laughing at me!

  Luckily, Tera and Lira had apparently decided to chat amongst themselves. I don't think I could handle all four of them laughing at me.

  "Would you two stop it! It's not that funny!"

  I saw, rather than heard, my father sigh into his drink.

  "Honestly, Kami. What is it that you don't like about him?"

  My mother's head whipped around, and she gave him a 'are you stupid?' look, though I didn't know why.

  "Everything! He's fat, he's lazy, he's annoying, he... He's..."

  Not paying attention to me?

  No, I shook that thought from my mind and refocused on my father. That had nothing to do with why I don't like him.

  "I just don't like him, okay?"

  Father stood up, kissed each wife on the head as he walked past, and motioned for me to follow him while stealing a piece of bread off my plate that was just now arriving.

  "Where are we going? I haven't had breakfast yet, you know?"

  "Shh. Just follow me and be quiet."

  I plodded alongside him through the palace hallways and arrived at a room I was growing annoyingly familiar with...

 
; The Library.

  "What are we—Mmph?" I shook his finger away from my mouth and glared at him.

  I am not a child you can shush, darn it!

  "Look." He whispered while easing the door open enough for me to see inside.

  "Damn it! No, that's not fast enough!" I heard a familiar voice hiss.

  I saw Aren leaning against a bookshelf with a tired but determined expression on his face. His disheveled hair had grown slightly longer since he moved in, he'd somehow lost enough weight to smooth out some of the roundness in his cheeks, and his robes were a mess... But he was determined to do something.

  He pushed off the bookshelf with one hand and held his arm out in front of him. His hand whipped through a motion I didn't recognize and several seconds later an almost black portal formed in the air.

  He was practicing magic!

  "Does that look like a lazy person to you?" My father whispered.

  "That boy, for whatever reason, thinks he's talentless. So he spends nearly every waking hour either in here or in his room opening and closing that damn gate faster than any adult summoner I've ever seen. And he claims it's not fast enough!"

  In the time it took my father to speak. Aren had opened and closed his gate several times, looking more frustrated with each passing attempt.

  "If that is the ability of someone without talent, then what is the point of someone calling themselves an expert?"

  I stared wide-eyed at my father for a few seconds. Then I back through the cracked doorway.

  "So what if he's a little determined? It's not like that spell uses a lot of mana, right?"

  He scoffed in response— "Did you not pay attention to your tutors, girl? The reason most people, even those with a high aptitude for summoning, choose other magic schools is because of its cost. Opening the gate just once uses more magic than your average journeyman spell and he's able to do it for hours on end."

  ...

  I watched Aren open and close his gate a dozen more times before I spoke again— "Is that why you want me to marry him? Because of his ability?"

  ...

  "At first, I wanted you to marry him to fulfill a promise I made with his father years ago... But now... Now the idea of someone with that amount of raw talent and determination being seduced away by another country while we're already weakened... It terrifies me."

  "So, yes, your father wants to use you to keep him here... if only to keep another country from coming in and spiriting him away while our pants are down."

  I stared through the crack in the door long after my father had left and watched Aren continue to work himself into exhaustion by repeatedly summoning and dismissing his gate.

  ...

  "Maybe... He's not as bad as I thought he was."

  * * *

  Chapter 9: ... Shopping

  * * *

  "Oh, come on, Aren! Quit dragging your feet and hurry up before you get left behind!" The princess yelled at me as she walked beside her two friends. The girls were our age, and both were people I recognized as friends of hers from the anime.

  The first girl was Shana Talto, the second daughter of Duke Talto. A tall red-haired girl with an elf-like frame, gorgeous green eyes, and a cute freckled face. She wore a thin green robe that matched her eyes over a white tunic and black pants. The second girl was Carla Sete, the only child of Marquis Sete. A slightly chubby dark-skinned girl with long curly black hair, big brown eyes, and a bubbly demeanor. She wore a black skirt that hung to just past her knees and a white button-down shirt.

  The three girls had known each other practically since they were born because their dads were the emperor's lieutenants during the last war, and they had become friends.

  Well, for whatever reason, the princess had found me in the library early this morning and informed me that I was accompanying herself and her friends while they went shopping.

  ...

  I had to stop working on my summoning speed, the thing I'd been diligently working on for the last three weeks and was incredibly close to breaking through the six-second mark because she wanted to go... Shopping. Granted, it was for school supplies, clothes, and other such necessities. But why did I have to go with them?

  "I'm okay with being left behind..." I sighed as I plodded along behind them.

  The three either ignored my words or were too enraptured with their whispered conversation to respond. Which was fine with me. I didn't particularly feel like getting into an argument with the princess in the middle of the City Square anyway.

  The three girls spotted a clothing stall that sold all manner of finery from shoes, belts, and other accessories to shirts, pants, and I even spotted a few pairs of underwear laying among the pile of excessively expensive items.

  Three tals, or silver pieces, for a floral print shirt was much too expensive for my tastes. What with the average citizen making around ten tals a year. Never mind how tacky the thing looked.

  "What do you think?" The princess asked while holding a knee-length maroon dress up to her body.

  "Hmm... I don't know. Let's try the blue one. See if it looks better." Shana replied in her usual quiet tone.

  Seriously, that girl was so quiet she'd lose to a mouse in a shouting contest.

  I quickly tuned out their conversation after the three of them started comparing colors, sizes, and which bracelet would go with which dress. I stared blankly at the crowd passing us by as I mentally went through my "Open Gate" spell and discretely went through the hand motions.

  At least, I thought I was being discrete.

  "Can't you focus on something besides magic for ten minutes!?" The princess shouted at me.

  Startled, my body reflexively jumped, causing me to accidentally bump into a group of boys passing by.

  "Oh, sorry, I didn't mean t—"

  "You!" The short blond boy at the front of the group hissed through his teeth. He marched up to me, coming within inches of my face, and shoved me. I stumbled back a few steps before I regained my footing and furrowed my brows at the boy.

  I didn't know who this guy was, but he was really starting to annoy me.

  "You've got a lotta nerve coming back here!"

  ...

  "Who are you again?"

  He got in my face again and yelled—"Are you trying to piss me off, Ulvani!? Huh, are you!?"

  "You should probably calm down."

  "What did you just say to me!? Huh!?" He shoved my chest and caused me to once again stumble backward.

  However, this time, a slender arm stretched across my chest and helped to steady me. I looked into the startling blue eyes of the princess, that were filled with something akin to annoyance or possibly anger and said— "Thanks."

  "Don't mention it."

  She turned from me to the boys and stepped forward to face them.

  "Name yourself." She commanded.

  The boy's face scrunched up in anger and he glanced from me to the princess several times before he spat on the ground and gave me a look of absolute disgust.

  "You're going to let the princess fight your battles for you now, Pig?"

  "I said, name. yourselves."

  "Lukas Malkfey, at your service, your majesty." He snidely replied with a mocking bow.

  "You're Duke Malkfey's heir?"

  "The one and only."

  She looked back at me for a moment, whether for confirmation or affirmation, I didn't know. But since I was currently wracking my brain for anything I could remember about him from the anime, I just shrugged my shoulders helplessly in response.

  She rolled her eyes at me and turned back to Lukas, who was still glaring at me.

  Did I eat this guy's lunch in a past life or something?

  "What is your business with Aren?"

  "It's just an argument between boys. Isn't that right, Aren?"

  "Actually, I don't have the slightest idea who you are or why we're having this 'argument'."

  His face turned slightly red, from embarrassment or anger, I wasn'
t sure. But at this point, I was kinda hoping a blood vessel world burst.

  "Trying to look cool in front of the princess, pig?"

  I see we're back to the name calling. And here I thought we were making progress...

  "No. I just don't feel like going along with whatever game you're playing."

  If looks could kill, the look this ten or eleven-year-old walking cliché just gave me would have incinerated me on the spot...Wait... That's where I remember him from!

  Lukas Malkfey, son of Tomas Malkfey. According to the anime, our fathers were rivals back in the academy and that rivalry continued on long after graduation.

  Everything my father did, his father attempted to one-up: My father became a lieutenant, his father became a captain. My father became a Duke through his contributions in the war, his father bought the title of Duke from the last member of a dying noble lineage.

  My father showed interest in my mother and Tomas tried to steal her from him... He failed. Not only did he fail, but my father also crippled him for life in the ensuing duel for her honor.

  Tomas never forgave him for that humiliation.

  ...

  I guess the sins of the father really do fall onto the son since Lukas was one of the people responsible for making the original Aren's life a living hell and, eventually, became the man that would sell Aren into slavery as one final 'fuck you' to my father.

  ...

  I almost groaned out loud at how cliché this whole situation was. But I managed to restrain myself... It was a close thing though.

  ... I'm going to need to deal with him at some point, so I might as well start now.

  In the ten or so seconds it'd taken me to think through all of this, the princess's friends had stepped completely in front of me and were shielding me from the anger of the boys.

  A needless effort, but one I appreciated, nonetheless.

  The princess, Lukas, and his two goons had gotten into a shouting match in the middle of the square. People from all walks of life were stopping to stare at the empire's first princess and the heir Malkfey argue like the children they were.