A/N: Marcus tried so hard. He got so far. But in the end, did it even matter?
-x-X-x-
He'd just gotten done telling Erised that he refused to be party to rape or 'corruption' of any kind. He'd drawn a fairly clear line in the sand about that, or so he felt. After all, Marcus had spent his entire life fighting his orcish instincts. Not that he commonly thought about raping human women or anything like that. Actually, that was one of those things he'd never truly understood until now.
Everyone always told him he was a monster who would eventually be unable to resist giving in to his base impulses, but it wasn't rape that he'd struggled with all these years, it was pure, non-sexual violence. He wanted nothing more than to fight back and put his bullies in their place. He was bigger and stronger than all of them, but they had the guards on their side. Fuck, some of them WERE guards.
Marcus knew if he'd lifted a finger in self-defense it would have been taken as flagrant aggression and been all the excuse any of them needed to have him put to death.
In comparison, Marcus hadn't actually ever had the urge to rape anyone. There were plenty of beautiful women and pretty girls in his life, but though he'd been told constantly that he was a monster who would one day be unable to help himself, Marcus hadn't really had to fight such a desire.
… Which was why it was a little irritating to find himself fucking a Holy Priestess from behind. The same one who had performed his Awakening, in fact. And so soon after losing his virginity to a Demon too. Marcus' throbbing green cock splits Angelina's cunt open without hesitation, and though she's sopping wet just like Erised was, she's also clearly a virgin. Though not anymore.
With a lustful growl, Marcus slams his dick into Angelina again and again, thoroughly enjoying her lewd cries and loud moans. She's loving it too, of course. Audibly at that. Honestly, today has been a day of surprises. Back to back to back. He's spent most of the day just trying to catch up with what's happening.
But this? This feels right. Even though he was always told it would be wrong. Fucking Angelina, fucking Erised… even what he'd done with her Holiness… ALL of it felt so damn right.
Marcus lets out a guttural groan as he fills Angelina time and time again. In response, the voluptuous blonde priestess cries out in lewd satisfaction.
"Y-Yes! Harder! Please Sir Hero! Please use me!"
She's too loud, truth be told. Not even Erised had been so vocal. Does she forget where they are? And then there's the fact that even now she calls him Sir Hero.
… She's so damn sure too. Marcus doesn't know what to make of it. He doesn't know how to respond. In his head, in all of the potential outcomes he'd considered when wondering how the Church or members of its clergy would react to the true nature of his Job, this had not been one of them.
Angelina was not supposed to willingly accept Erised's true nature as a Demon. She certainly wasn't supposed to just… choose not to believe Erised when she called him the Dark Lord. It was a ridiculous amount of willful ignorance on the Holy Priestess' part, wasn't it? She seemed so certain that her Identification Sign couldn't be wrong.
But then, could it? Marcus felt like he was the Dark Lord, but what if… what if the Dark Lord and Destined Hero Jobs were one in the same?
… No, that didn't make sense. His mother was the Dark Lord, after all. But then, who had killed her? The Church? Or the last Destined Hero? Marcus honestly didn't know. But he knew one thing for sure.
He was done. Done being yanked around. Done being pulled in every direction. Dark Lord. Destined Hero. Buried in the Holy Priestess' Angelina's incredibly sloppy twat, fucking her from behind like there's no tomorrow, Marcus realizes it just doesn't matter. He was Marcus first and foremost before either of those Jobs and figuring out who THAT was… it was what was most important to him.
Apparently, part of who he was, was a ladies' man. Because he couldn't stop himself from taking Angelina up on her offer. He's not sure any man, human or half-orc, possibly could have. She'd taken off her priestly robes, stripped completely naked, and then prostrated herself before him in offering. How was he supposed to say no? As his large green cock pistons in and out of her cunt however, the cleric only gets louder. Too loud.
"YES! YES! YES-MMPH!"
Finally deciding to quiet her down before someone comes to investigate all the noise, Marcus reaches forward. One large hand fists in Angelina's hair, while the other wraps around her face. He shoves two thick digits into her mouth, causing her to gurgle and gag for a moment before she adjusts. The Holy Priestess proceeds to moan into his fingers, even as Marcus gives a particularly vicious thrust into her plush backside, sending her jolting forward.
"Crawl."
She does so once the order penetrates through the pleasurable haze that seems to have fallen over her mind, and Marcus slowly but surely gets her over to the bed, where he then proceeds to lift her up onto it. He's soon fucking her on her hands and knees on the bed itself, now standing up as he pounds into her incredibly pillowy bottom, his cock slipping between her soft thighs and drilling into her wet, wet core with gusto.
Suddenly, Erised is there, eyes twinkling as the disguised demon licks her lips and grins. Or rather, she'd always been on the bed, hadn't she? It was where he'd left her. Marcus had inadvertently brought the fun to her. Erised's current cat like features make the grin seem more mischievous than evil, her furry tail whipping back and forth as her ears twitch. She giggles and runs a hand over his, a silent offer to take over keeping the Priestess quiet for him.
Nodding sharply, Marcus removes his digits from Angelina's moaning, squealing mouth, allowing Erised to replace them with her own. As she gags the Holy Priestess on her fingers, the Assassin lets out a shuddering breath.
"You were right, my Lord. I don't know how you knew, but you were right. We didn't have to do anything to bring the Priestess on side. Your brilliance knows no equal~"
Marcus considers just taking the win and letting the Demon believe what she wants to believe. Ultimately however, he shakes his head, grunting a clipped response at Erised between thrusts.
"Didn't know shit. Still wasn't going to kill or rape her. This? This is different."
Erised's eyes drop for a moment as she dips her head in easy acceptance, before looking to where his massive orcish cock is continuing to impale Angelina again and again.
"Of course, your Lordship."
He doesn't like her condescending tone. So he does something about it. Bolstered by his newly found agency, backed by the epiphany that Priestess Angelina's confession has left him with… Marcus reaches out and grabs Erised by the hair, dragging her up for a moment and planting a deep, tongue-filled kiss on her lips. His tusked mouth collides with hers for a moment as she gasps at his sudden forcefulness, but in the end, she accepts it, all but melting into him in submission.
When he finally lets go of her, Erised collapses back down onto Angelina, draped over her shoulders as she pants and mewls, her eyes fluttering and her face flustered. She gives him a grin that says she got the message, even as Marcus, his hands free to hold onto Angelina's plush sides, grips down tightly, continuing to fuck the squealing, cumming blonde for all she's worth.
"Harder, my Lord. She wants more. She truly does."
Erised's soft voice eggs him on until Marcus can't contain himself anymore. She's not wrong, after all. Angelina very clearly DOES want more, her body shaking and spasming and jiggling all over the place. Her inner walls clench down around his cock time and time again and she's orgasming almost nonstop. Marcus might be new to sex, but his instincts are telling him that Angelina is perfectly breedable and ready to carry his children.
… That's where he draws the line for now. Just as he's about to blow, Marcus pulls back, his entire massive orcish cock coming free of Angelina's cunt at the very last second. He's not about to impregnate anyone right now, not when he's still just barely figured out who the fuck he's even going to be.
Still, he DOES explode all over Angelina's back and Erised's face. The little demon had been 'accidentally' too close, leaning forward to whisper sweet nothings into the Holy Priestess' ear, and was thus caught in the blast. Not that she seems to mind one bit as her eyes flutter and she moans happily.
As Marcus comes down from the peak of his sexual high, he sits back on the bed with a heavy grunt, blinking slowly and processing all that just happened. Erised and Angelina, meanwhile, are making positively indecent sounds as they lewdly lick his cum off of each other. Hmph, he should have expected as much.
That said, one thing that stands out to him is his orcish instincts telling him Angelina was fit for breeding. It was an unintentional warning that Marcus had heeded, but then… he hadn't received the same instinctual feeling when he'd seeded Erised, now had he? He'd filled the demon up to the point of bursting, but then all of his cum had just seemed to disappear, absorbed into her. And at no moment had these damn instincts of his kicked in to warn him he might knock her up.
… So had he not done so? Had she somehow fed on his cum instead? Marcus was beginning to realize he really didn't know enough about demons to have one as a companion. But he also wasn't going to send Erised away. She was loyal and that alone was very, VERY valuable to him at this point. If he was going to forge his own path, he needed loyalty. He needed to know his party wouldn't betray him to anyone.
Maybe that was what Serafina had meant when she'd keyed the collar to him alone and said that no one in the Church would be able to command 'Eris'. Maybe that was the Holy Pope's way of throwing him a bone. Hell, maybe Angelina was the same. The blonde had an orc fetish. In the post-nut clarity of the moment, Marcus finally understood that. Watching Angelina and Erised go crazy for his cum was… eye-opening to say the least.
He could probably trust Angelina as well. Even if her insistence that he was the Destined Hero came from a place of perverse lust, he liked some of the things she said. About how he was beyond reproach. But also about how the Empire needed him. He wanted… he wanted to be needed.
Looking down at his green hands, Marcus slowly closes them into fists. He didn't just want to be needed. He also wanted to be powerful. Was that the Dark Lord Job talking? Or himself? No… he wasn't going to second guess himself anymore.
"I want to get stronger."
There. He'd said it out loud. Slowly, Erised and Angelina pull apart at his words. Covered in each other's spit and saliva, they look suddenly embarrassed as they realize that they fell upon each other like a pair of ravenous hyenas. Indeed, they seem to finally remember that they're supposed to be on opposite sides, pulling away on the bed as if scalded by one another's touch.
Looking at him, his party members are quiet for a moment before Erised grins.
"You will, my Lord. We can leave right now, in fact. Get out there. Start hunting down enemies in the wild. You'll be stronger in no time."
Angelina's response, almost unsurprisingly, is the opposite.
"… I would counsel patience, Sir Hero."
Marcus and Erised's eyes both swivel over to Angelina as the Holy Priestess kneels there on the bed, clasping her hands before her in her lap. As if she wasn't just fucked silly by a great big orcish cock. The blonde smiles softly, ignoring the fact that they're all naked and had just engaged in some incredibly lewd behavior.
"The Church is set to provide you with weapons and armor, after all. Wait for the Chief Blacksmith to finish his work and you will be much better equipped once you do make your way out into the world."
That was… some good advice. Marcus slowly nods, ultimately inclining his head in thanks towards Angelina, a movement that the naked Priestess returns. Seeing this, Erised can't seem to help herself.
"Tch. Make his way out into the world, huh? Don't you mean 'slay the Dark Lord'? I wonder, Priestess… how is he supposed to kill the Dark Lord when he IS the Dark Lord?"
Marcus bristles and opens his mouth to tell Erised off for picking a fight, but before he can do so, Angelina lets out a soft laugh, causing him to blink in confusion.
"That is a narrow-minded view of the Destined Hero's duties. The Dark Lord is but one task of many… the root of the problem, or so some would have us believe."
Erised frowns at that, but Angelina isn't done.
"You claim that Marcus is the Dark Lord. I believe he is the Destined Hero. If I am right, the real Dark Lord will eventually reveal themselves. But for now, it is as I said previously. The Empire is in decline. There are more than enough problems for Marcus to solve, Dark Lord or no Dark Lord."
Narrowing his eyes slightly, Marcus tries to decide if he wants to be the Empire's problem solver or not. But… he finds himself trusting Angelina all the same. Call it orcish intuition, based around having had her impaled on his cock and greatly enjoying fucking her silly.
"What sort of problems?"
Perking up at his interest, Angelia beams happily.
"Banditry for one, Sir Hero. The roads of the Empire have been plagued with bandits in increasing amounts for years now. It's gotten so bad that even the forests outside of the Capital itself are said to be infested with the scum. Men and women who have let Bad Jobs lead them astray, or even abandoned Good Jobs in order to selfishly enrich themselves above the Empire as a whole. Rapists. Murderers. Vagabonds and Brigands one and all, Sir Hero. You could put a stop to it. We could… together."
Marcus slowly nods as he processes her words. Bandits. On the one hand, those lines about Good and Bad Jobs make him want to frown. On the other hand, Marcus had never heard a single good story about bandits. They didn't discriminate. Nor did they often show mercy, for that only allowed the Paladins to get information on them from their victims. Most of the time, bandits killed and they didn't do it cleanly either.
Angelina was right that banditry was a very real problem in the Empire. Even at the orphanage, Marcus had heard about it getting closer and closer to the Capital. What the older folk said was just a problem for the border territories a decade ago was suddenly so much more prevalent that you couldn't go a single week without hearing of another caravan attack.
… Yeah, hunting bandits would make for good work. Not only could he get stronger that way, he could also do some actual good as well. He still wasn't sure he wanted to be everyone's savior… but maybe it wouldn't be so bad, being lauded as the Destined Hero.
That said, he looks to Erised all the same, wanting the disguised demon's opinion on the idea. Maybe she would even have a good reason for why they needed to be doing something else.
But Erised just shrugs, looking like she could care less.
"Seems fine to me, your Lordship. Humans are all trash at the end of the day, really. So whether you're killing Paladins or Bandits doesn't matter all that much. And you definitely do need to get stronger."
A wide grin spreads across her face.
"If you need to sharpen your teeth on some bandits before we go after the Dark Generals and unite them all under your banner, then all the better, I say!"
Marcus blinks at that. Part of him is offended on behalf of the handful of humans he's met today who don't seem all that bad. He's especially offended for Angelina, but the blonde Priestess seems completely unfazed by Erised's words. If she's not upset, he supposes there's no point in him getting upset for her. The second bit though…
"The Dark Generals? Who are they?"
This time, its Erised's turn to blink at him… and funnily enough, Angelina as well. The two women couldn't be more diametrically opposed, only bound together by their shared loyalty to Marcus himself. And yet, in that moment they share something else. A look of surprise and ultimately commiseration with one another that has Marcus pouting a bit as he hunches his shoulders in and the tips of his ears go hot.
Ugh. Another thing he was apparently supposed to know but didn't. Great. He supposed he still had a lot to learn…
-x-X-x-
A/N: Post Nut Clarity is a helluva drug. Marcus out here deciding who he is off the back of blowing out his party's backs lmfao.
Monday's Chapter will be the final chapter of this story's first arc, but this is the final chapter with Marcus in it, so wondering what people think so far~
As always, feedback is greatly appreciated. Been super happy with the response to this project so far. Sure there's the usual drop-off of interaction after the first few chapters, but it seems to still be something you guys are enjoying. Let me know if that changes lol.
Chapter 13 will be out on Monday as usual, or you can read six chapters ahead right now over on the P atreon!