Putting various undead wolves, foxes and such type of creatures to work alongside my undead human minions made it pretty easy to carry the unconscious Valerie and Hena as we set off to the nearest town.
When I say nearest town though, I don't mean a human town.
Going to a place filled with humans would have been asking for rumors to be spread about. And while rumors can be beneficial under certain cirumcustances, back then, it would have been a straight-up disaster.
There was also the possibility that my mother and the two older siblings would end up at the same city and reunite with me. It would have been hard to get away from them if that happened, and I didn't want it to come to killing them, not that soon anyway.
Hence, I had decided to go to the nearest inhuman town.
Inhumans were the hybrid between humans and monsters. Elves, Dyrads, Dwarfs, and all kinds of Beastmen were all inhumans.
The relationship between humans, inhumans and monsters was very complicated.
Some hated each other. Some liked each other.
There was truly no better way to explain it than that the relationship was complicated.
However, it didn't matter to me what they thought of each other. I had an army big enough to overtake control of a town. If the need had presented itself, I could have easily done that.
So, I rode to a town with no name, populated mostly with dwarves, and about half an hour away from that city on a wolf's back.
The town was only a quarter the size of what the city I had lived in was but it was obviously enough for us.
As soon as the town entered my line of sight, I made all my undead army disappear and ran to the inhumans, asking for help.
I made-up a story about being attacked by a dark wolf and told them that my guardian and my little sister were in bad shape. They immediately came to help, taking Valerie and Hena to the doctors.
When that stupid farce had worked so easily on them, I had caught just a glimpse of the pleasure Valerie would have been experiencing all those years that she had spent deceiving all around her, making them think that she was an oh-so-pure High Priestess with no dark intentions whatsoever.
***************
A week passed.
We spent that whole week in the town.
I carefully expanded on my made-up story (adding a mission to find our mother and a long lost father into it) to make it more tragic and the dwarves all easily bought it.
Regardless of how they felt about humans in general, since they were sentient species driven by emotions, just like humans, they couldn't turn us away after hearing that kind of story.
And so, for a whole week, Hena was taken care of by the chief of the town and his wife, and Valerie was healed by those who knew Healing Arts. I had lived with the town chief as well.
It was then, a week later, that I had made a request to be allowed to see Valerie.
She was yet to regain consciousness by that point so the healers were reluctant but couldn't refuse when I used a 'puppy-dog' face and eyes.
Ah! The benefits of being little! How I miss them now!
"Hey bitch! Wake up already, will you?" I said, after making sure that I was left alone with Valerie.
"If you don't wake up, don't blame me for what may happen next." I threatened her, just for the sake of the little possibility that she was actually awake and was just acting. I couldn't underestimate her acting skills after all.
By that point, all her visible wounds had been healed. If there were still any wounds that were left to be healed, they would have been internal. Hence, lying unconscious on a bed there, that rotten woman was radiating with beauty and allure.
In my past life, I would have probably ended up having a crush on her because of that allure.
But, in this life, the first thoughts that came to mind when witnessing that allure firsthand was how I could user her to seduce powerful men and use that to my advantage.
"That's it!"
I decided, right then and there, that I would turn her into my first follower.
"Now wake up, bitch!" I said and summoned a dark fox, telling it to bite her on the shoulders, and the neck.
No effect!
I told it to bite her again, and again, and again, and then bite at her other shoulder, and the other side of the neck, and again there, and finally,
"aahh-"
She got up, crying out, not understanding what was going on.
Thankfully, I was quick in ordering the dark fox to shut her up, which it did pretty easily by pressing the one part of her throat that would drown out all sound from her voice.
"Don't shout, you bitch! If you do, your 'doctors' would come here and we will lose the opportunity to discuss things." I casually explained.
She looked at me for a moment, as if she didn't even remember who I was. And then, within a single second, as if all her memories came rushing back, she jumped back in the bed.
"W-w-wha-what-"
"Calm down!" I used as loud a voice as I could muster without letting anyone outside the room we were in hear us.
"If you wanna hear comforting things like 'you're safe now', well, you are."
She looked back-and-forth from me and her body, realizing that all her visible wounds had been healed, and also that I was probably responsible for it.
What followed was a moment of silence that she used to get herself together, after which she asked, "So, how did we get here?"
I told her the parts of the story she didn't know, from who that monster was to everything that happened after she fell unconscious, and she just calmly breathed a sigh of relief.
"I see. So, in the end, I am completely indebted to you, eh?" She frowned as she said that.
I knew well what that frown meant.
"To think, a High Priestess of Emoliv's church could be so much indebted to his archnemesis!?"
"I don't know about being his archnemesis but he does piss me off!" I said. "In any case, I have an offer for you."
She turned her head and looked at me, for the first time not showing disgust or hate, but only curiousness.
"Become my first follower!"
Her eyes widened for just a second before returning to normal.
"I offered you this before but since you didn't know I am the God of Darkness, I can excuse you for thinking that the offer didn't mean anything. Now, however, you do!"
She looked down in silence, contemplating. I decided to give her a little while to do so but then she suddenly said,
"So basically, you are asking me to do whatever you tell me to in exchange for, when your body is that of an adult, giving me your child?"
"Yeah, kinda."
She chuckled, not like her usual condescending scoff though, she just chuckled, "You do realize why I want the child of Emoliv, don't you?"
"Because having his child will give you wealth and power? I know. And your reason for asking me that question would probably be that having my child wouldn't give you those things. I also know that."
"Then, why should I accept your offer?"
"Because, those things are just how it is right now."
"Hm?"
I smirked as I told her, "I plan to take over this nation, then this world, then this universe. I plan to strike down all gods, and take my revenge against all the those who wronged me in my past life."
Her eyes widening with surprise, she kept her attention on my words.
"Hence, it is only a matter of time before Emoliv's children stopped being treated as divine champions and my rule begins. And well, when that happens, even without having my child, my first follower would obviously become a very important figure."
In fact, it was obvious that the position of power and authority, and wealth, that I was offering her far surpassed what she would get from having Emoliv's child. Hence, she chuckled.
Those chuckles, surprisingly, gave the aura of a young woman who didn't have dark intentions behind her words.
I think, at that point, whether it was because she had realized that I was the God of Darkness or it was because I had saved her life, she had forgotten all the negative emotions she had towards me.
"You are a fool!" She said.
My eyebrows twitched and I clicked my tongue as I exclaimed, "What!?"
"Don't get angry!" She said, still chuckling a bit. "I am just saying that you asking me to be your follower is foolish."
She turned her whole body to me, and proceeded to bow.
"I should be the one begging you to allow me to be your follower!"
"Huh?"
"All my life, everything I had dreamt - I had to keep it hidden inside, because there was no god who would condone those things. But ... but that darkness is what you thrive on. That darkness that plagues my being is what you are the god of. Meeting you is like a dream come true. So, I should be the one begging you to make me your follower!"
I realized - I really was a fool.
"Well then, start begging!" I said, laughing mockingly.
"Ex-cuse me?"
"You should be begging, right? So beg! After all, I might still be considering changing my mind about this whole deal."
Hearing that, she immediately jumped off the bed, got to her knees and bowed down, touching the ground from her forehead as she said, "Please allow me to be your first follower, God Vilome! I will do any-and-everything that you tell me to!"
I couldn't help but smirk as I put my feet on her head and said, "Fine!"
And then, the system window appeared.
[The God Path - Quest 3: "Obtain your first follower" has been completed]