A/N: We're back with Marcus and Camilla now, and the exposition does not stop coming.
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"So now you see. Through the use of that device, and with the help of the Destined Hero, the Royal Family in conjunction with the High Elves have held power in the Holy Empire for a thousand long years."
Marcus just sits there, quite glad that Camilla had him sit down before laying all of this on him. The Dark General has just got done explaining all about the expedition a thousand years ago, and how man and elf used it to secure power for themselves in these lands. To think, the Dark Lord Job wasn't some sign of impending doom or complete ruin, at least not in the way Marcus had been raised to believe. Instead… it was little more than a sacrificial lamb.
But then…
"How did… where did the Church come into all of this? How has the Church managed to become so powerful if they weren't there at the start."
Camilla hums, inclining her head in acknowledgment of the validity of Marcus' question.
"A wise inquiry, young Marcus. The Church was not always the behemoth it stands as today. It was not always the rival of the Nobility and Royal Family as it is now. But then to be fair, there was a time when the Nobility could not rival the Royal Bloodline either. Everything changes, if you give it long enough."
For a moment, the Baroness pauses, clearly reminiscing. Marcus stays quiet, letting her put her thoughts in order. At this point, he's confident enough that she won't leave him hanging. More than that, he has plenty to think through himself, doesn't he? All of this is… a lot to take in, that's for sure.
"The Church started out as little more than the Destined Hero's band of brothers. They began as nothing more than an information network. The Dark Lord had to be slain each generation, to secure the Providence promised by the device. In order to keep the prosperity flowing, there was no other course of action. But the Destined Hero was only one man. That was where his followers first came into play, gathering to him and beginning to set up methods to discover the Dark Lord all the more quickly."
Smirking somewhat dryly, Camilla's purple eyes flash with clear anger.
"But of course, as time went on, things grew out of hand, as they like to do. There were no orcs among the expedition that unearthed that device, Marcus. No demons. No Beastkin. None of the other races either. There were only elves and humans. The humans leveraged their part in order to build this empire, and the elves leveraged their part to ascend to the Higher Plane. Ultimately though, in order to maintain their superiority… they needed a cause."
Waving a hand airily, the Dark General sighs.
"Everyone wants a just cause, Marcus. Everyone wants to know their life has meaning and purpose. That even if they were little more than a farmer, they at least helped to build something. That was where the Church of the Most Holy Light and the Holy Empire truly came into play. It was easy enough to catch the Dark Lord when they awakened as a human or elf. But it was not so easy to do so when they awakened among the other races."
Oh. Marcus could see where this was going. He hated that he could understand exactly what Camilla was getting at.
"Not all of the other races were deemed 'evil' necessarily. The Beastkin live among the humans to this day without issue, after all. But orcs and demons, who couldn't possibly understand what the elves and humans had done when they initiated the Dark Lord vs. Destined Hero Doctrine, could not be persuaded to just hand over their newly awakened young. To throw a freshly recognized Dark Lord into the hands of the Empire… it was anathema to them. And so for some, there was an exodus from these lands. For other… there was war."
Of course. All his life, Marcus had been raised to believe the Holy Empire to be a place of justice and righteousness. That the Most Holy Light was the only force for GOOD in this world, and that those who fought against it were unequivocally evil and bad. But now he was learning the opposite.
The Holy Empire… was built on a pack of lies. Its foundations were drenched in the blood of those who'd had no choice in the matter. The role of Dark Lord was foisted upon them, and then they were hunted for the greed of those in power who wanted their power to grow, who wanted the prosperity to continue to flow.
A long, shuddering breath leaves Marcus' lips as he clenches and unclenches his hands again and again, trembling in emotion.
"This… this is why my parents were killed? Because the Church outgrew it's original mandate, and instead of following the Destined Hero's Will, they followed their own Will?"
Camilla tilts her head to the side in agreement, before offering a half-shrug.
"Yes. Though the original Destined Heroes would have been just as displeased with your father's choices as the Church was. He was never supposed to fall in love with your mother. He was only ever supposed to be her executioner."
Marcus stares down at his hands for a moment. He tries to imagine it. His mother, Awakening as the Dark Lord and knowing what it meant for her and her people. Either the Church would hunt her down to deliver her into the Destined Hero's arms, or her people would rise up and she would be expected to lead them into war. Except… she couldn't have been any older than him. How was that fair? How was it right for a young she-orc to be expected to make those kinds of decisions?
And then there was his father. Marcus couldn't say what his father had known about the Destined Hero or its history. Caleb… had made his decisions. He'd met Gral-Ra and instead of killing her as was expected of him, he'd loved her. And for that… the Church had killed them both. Because they were afraid. Because they were more terrified of a Dark Lord and Destined Hero working together then they were of the ephemeral loss of prosperity and providence that would come from fucking up the cycle.
But then…
"They fucked up, didn't they?"
Looking up, Marcus meets Camilla's eyes. In response, the Vampire just raises one of her perfectly sculpted eyebrows, as if asking him to elaborate.
"The Church. When they killed my father and mother and left me alive… they fucked up."
Here, Camilla offers Marcus an honest smile, her fangs once again visible as she nods her head.
"Well done, Marcus. You're as quick on your feet as both of your parents ever were."
Marcus flushes at the praise, his heart soaring at the compliment. To hear that he was anything like his parents filled him with a certain sense of warmth. Funny how that worked, given he'd spent so much of his life hating his fake orc dad for forcing himself upon his fake human mom. Only now did he understand his true origins.
"They were always planning to die then, was that it? They were always planning on… on sacrificing themselves."
It was almost as hard for him to wrap his head around this revelation as it was everything else. And yet, Marcus knew even as he spoke the words that they were the truth. The Dark Lord and Destined Hero Jobs were only passed down when the previous holders died. Only one of either Job could exist at the same time, that was how it worked.
Camilla's smile fades and she grows solemn once more, even as she nods yet again.
"You are correct. You were their gamble, Marcus. Their attempt at finally ending this foolish cycle once and for all. The Dark Lord Job might not pass via bloodline as the Destined Hero Job does, but by bringing their two bloodlines together, they had hope. And yes, they knew what that meant for the two of them individually in the long term. They knew that they would need to die before their child… before you came of age, if their gambit was to work. It was a sacrifice they were both willing to make."
Another shuddering breath passes through Marcus' lips. He's not sure how he feels about that. He was always doomed to lose his mom and dad. Did he prefer having never known them at all, to have grown up an orphan without any true knowledge of them? Or would he have preferred they survived long enough to raise him, only to remove themselves from his life in a permanent fashion when he neared adulthood?
Neither. Obviously, he would have preferred neither course of action. And yet, Marcus knows in his heart of hearts that his mother and father… they were resolved to act. They were going to bring it all crashing down. In order to… break providence, they were willing to make that ultimate sacrifice.
"Of course, there is one minor hiccup."
Blinking, Marcus looks up at Camilla to see the Baroness looking at him rather curiously from across the table.
"Hiccup?"
Nodding, Camilla sits back in her chair, still studying him.
"My inspection revealed quite the interesting conundrum. You are in fact both the Dark Lord and the Destined Hero just as your parents planned. However… this is only accurate on the surface level. While the so-called 'Holy' Identification Sign will show your Job as the Destined Hero… in truth, the Destined Hero Job is currently offline, so to speak."
Marcus' eyes widen.
"You mean…"
"Yes. From the moment you were awakened, only the Dark Lord Job has been active, despite the Church's certainty that you are the Destined Hero. In truth, you are only the Dark Lord, for while you hold the Destined Hero Job inside of you, it is inactive."
That… that explained an awful lot, didn't it? All this time, Marcus hadn't been sure who to believe. And to make matters worse, the entire way through, he had been certain that his Job was Dark Lord. From that very first moment after his Awakening in the Chapel, he had known in his heart of hearts that he was the Dark Lord. It was only the words of everyone around him that had him questioning his sanity. Was he the Dark Lord? Was he the Destined Hero? More than that, who did he WANT to be?
Well, now he knew the answer to the first half of that question at least. He WAS the Dark Lord all along. He had never been the Destined Hero, despite what Camilla said about the 'surface level'. Just having the Destined Hero Job inside of him didn't suddenly make him the Destined Hero. Not when it was inactive all this time.
Honestly, he felt a little guilty for tricking so many people. The Holy Pope. Angelina. Everyone who'd fought alongside him against Roka-Ra's Warband. It turned out, he'd been pretending all along…
"Of course, as a result you've been operating at half of your potential power all this time."
… Wait, what? Marcus gives Camilla a wide-eyed owlish look, even as the Vampire glances at her fingernails for a moment before shrugging.
"You've tasted the power of the Dark Lord, haven't you? You've used it to great effect, fighting battles that should never have been won by a single man. And yet… you're not all that you could be. Not by a long shot."
Marcus isn't an idiot. He recognizes that Camilla is manipulating him. And yet, he gets the feeling that the fact he can recognize her manipulation… is in and of itself another manipulation. Specifically, he thinks she's making her intentions clear by being a strange mixture of blunt and subtle. And honestly? What she's pushing him towards sounds immensely tempting, he won't lie.
"… Is there a way to fix it? Is there a way to activate the Destined Hero Job as well?"
Smiling slightly, the Vampire makes a show of thinking about it for a long moment. As the seconds drag by in silence, Marcus watches her. He can tell she's not JUST pretending… she's actually doing some form of calculation in her head. The smile dims and is replaced by a frown, before finally Camilla lets out a disgruntled sigh.
"Yes. However, there's every chance it would kill you."
It's Marcus' turn to raise an eyebrow at the Vampire, even as Camilla notices this and pouts, glancing off to the side before explaining.
"The Dark Lord and Destined Hero were never meant to be the same person, Marcus. Despite this being my ultimate goal… tch. There's clearly a reason that the Destined Hero Job stayed inactive, while the Dark Lord Job was what you properly Awakened as. I always imagined that if the two Jobs could be embodied in one being, they would combine. That was how I wanted to end the cycle, by making it so there was no longer a Dark Lord and a Destined Hero, but one… Dark Hero, perhaps. Clearly, that did not happen with you."
She pauses for a moment before sighing again.
"Forcing them both to activate at the same time might be more than inadvisable. It might be the height of foolishness. I cannot… I cannot guarantee your safety, or that you will survive. While it is my fondest dream to see the power of both the Dark Lord and the Destined Hero combined into one being… it might not be worth the risk."
Funny how she'd gone from prodding him in this direction to talking him out of it in what felt like mere minutes. But then, it seemed she hadn't thought through the ramifications of what it would mean to activate his Destined Hero Job while his Dark Lord Job was also active. To be fair, she clearly hadn't anticipated the state she would find him in, when she saw her goals finally realized.
It actually made him feel a little better, seeing this ancient immortal woman faltering at the finish line. There was still humanity within her, even after all this time. Then again, was he really surprised by that at this point? Everywhere he turned, the people he thought were good and kind-hearted insisted on proving otherwise, while the people he'd been raised to fear and hate turned out to just be normal individuals. Sure, they could make mistakes, but that didn't make them all universally monsters. Nor was everyone he'd met on the side of the Church and the Holy Empire a monster either, to be fair.
Letting out a grunt, Marcus asks Camilla another question.
"What do you think my parents would want me to do?"
Blinking at that, Camilla barely has to think about it for longer than a moment.
"They would… want you to leave it alone and live your life, Marcus. They were more than willing to sacrifice themselves, but I can't imagine they would be so ready to risk their only child."
"… I see."
Looking pained, Camilla abruptly stands up.
"Allow me to escort you back to little Ro and your other party members. Do not make this decision right this moment, Marcus. Take some time to talk it over with those closest to you. Think before you leap."
Marcus perks up and stands as well. Seeing Angelina, Erised, and Roka-Ra again sounded like exactly what he needed at this point.
"Lead the way."
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A/N: And thus one of the bigger mysteries of this story is solved. Was Marcus the Dark Lord? Was he the Destined Hero? It's actually not quite that simple. He was technically both, but in actuality, he was only ever the Dark Lord because the Destined Hero Job never properly activated. This is why he believed himself to be the Dark Lord, but half of the people who Identified him saw Destined Hero.
As always, hope everyone enjoys and be sure to let me know what you think!
Chapter 58 will come out on Monday like usual, or you can read six chapters ahead right now over on the P atreon!