Becoming the Dark Lord [LitRPG]

Luke crouched outside the cave, scraping blood and sinew from the pelt he'd skinned off one of the wolves.

The cold made everything harder, slower, but he kept at it, rubbing the hide clean in the snow. One pelt was already drying near the fire—imperfect, but usable. With a little luck, it wouldn't freeze solid by morning.

Thank god for survival class.

It had become mandatory in schools across the world after the System appeared. He'd barely passed the practical exams back then. Now? That half-forgotten curriculum was the only reason he wasn't dead yet.

Nearby, a thick wolf haunch roasted over the flames, sizzling.

Luke finished cleaning the second pelt, gave the frozen trees one last glance, and stepped back into the cave. He placed the second hide near the fire, next to the first. The other, he folded and tucked between Princess Charlie's ribs—something to keep in reserve, or maybe use later for extra warmth.

If he could cut a few crude slits into the remaining one, maybe he could wear it as a makeshift cloak.

Not much... but enough to keep his blood from freezing.

He sat down and opened her system window.

Name: Princess Charlie
Level: 2
Rank: F
Class: [Warrior – Lvl 5]
Race: Skeleton
Title: [Servant of the Dark Lord]
Health Points (HP): 166/170

Mana Points (MP): 30/30

Stamina: 103/120

Stats:
Strength: 20
Agility: 11
Endurance:12
Vitality: 17
Perception: 5
Intelligence: 3
Free Points: 1

Class Skills: [Basic Weapon Handling (Common)], [Heavy Strike (Common)], [Charge (Common)], [Iron Fist (Uncommon)]

Race Skills: [Demonic Servant Perception (Uncommon)]

Luke studied her frame from across the fire. Her bones glowed faintly in the firelight, the reinforced skeletal structure making her look even more imposing in stillness.

Her stats hadn't changed, he thought, but her body definitely had.

When he first summoned her, she'd barely been five feet tall—now she towered over him. That evolution after he mutated his class… it didn't just make her look stronger.

It made her stronger.

He'd read once that racial structure defined a creature's power baseline. A level 1 dragon wasn't the same as a level 1 human.

Maybe it was the same principle here.

With that in mind, he'd dumped her final point into Vitality. It would help her recover and endure—especially now that she had Iron Fist as an option for close-range combat.

Stats Updated (Princess Charlie)
Vitality: 17 -> 18
Free Points: 1 -> 0
Health Points (HP): 166/170 -> 176/180

Luke exhaled.

Then, finally, he picked up the cooked meat.

He bit in.

Stopped chewing.

"Is this chicken?"

It tasted like chicken. Like, perfectly. Juicy. Crisped on the outside. Tender inside.

He looked at the wolves. Then the meat again.

"I don't care what it is. That's incredible."

Charlie clacked her teeth in amusement as she watched from the entrance, vigilant as ever.

The fire crackled beside him. The wolf pelts steamed slightly, drying. Luke's gaze drifted to the treeline. His face hardened. He hadn't forgotten what he saw.

Earlier, just past the edge of the Whitewood Forest, lit faintly by the moonlight—

He had seen something hanging from the trees.

Large. Pale. Wrongly shaped. By the time he'd focused, it had disappeared.

A gorilla. That was the closest approximation his brain could make. But he knew better. That thing wasn't natural.

"I need to find the damn wall," he muttered.

The Tutorial's briefing had been clear—one kingdom, protected by a great wall, surrounded by a frozen wasteland. That meant he'd been dropped outside the objective zone, on the wrong side. A survival test. Just like everything else.

"Maybe that's the real first challenge," he said aloud. "Reach the kingdom."

But right now, all he had were two options: mountains to the north or the Whitewood Forest to the east. Neither sounded safe.

He pressed two fingers to his temple and sighed.

"Great," he mumbled. "Strong monsters, no map, and the environment wants me dead just as much as everything else."

This story originates from Royal Road. Ensure the author gets the support they deserve by reading it there.

***

Luke tightened the last knot on the wolf pelt bundle strapped to Princess Charlie's chest. Inside, tucked among the firewood and fur, were strips of wolf meat and a rolled pelt—an emergency backup.

His own cloak was fashioned from a second wolf pelt, slung over his shoulders with two crudely cut armholes. Not elegant. But warm.

It was the best he could do with what he had.

If a blizzard hit again, Luke had a plan: dig a shallow pit, line it with one pelt, cover himself with the other, and use Charlie as a living barricade to block the wind—her skeletal frame holding the fur taut like a living tent pole. Then he'd huddle inside, using the Fire Ring to survive the night.

Not a perfect shelter.

But it might keep him alive.

With preparations done, the two of them moved out—heading toward the Whitewood Forest.

***

The moment they crossed into the tree line, Luke felt the shift.

The forest was... immense. The trees were towering spires of pale bark, so tall the tops vanished into the sky. Their leaves were a shimmering, icy blue, and though the trees were widely spaced, the sheer height of them made the world feel smaller. Colder.

More oppressive.

Luke kept walking in a straight line, marking the trunks with faint cuts from his kukri every ten trees.

He couldn't afford to get lost. If he did, he'd never find his way back to the cave.

Then—

A sound shattered the stillness.

A deep, guttural scream, almost like a war horn filtered through a beast's throat. It echoed between the trees, primal and wild.

Luke dropped low, diving behind a root-twisted trunk. Princess Charlie mirrored his movement with mechanical precision, crouching beside him.

Dozens of thick branches curled around the nearby trees, and for a moment, each twist of bark looked like a silhouette—something watching.

Something moving.

And then he saw it.

High above, perched on a branch, something massive crouched.

Luke froze.

There it is.

The creature from earlier.

It resembled a gorilla—if gorillas had snow-white fur, exposed muscle around the shoulders, and massive boar-like tusks jutting from their lower jaws.

A system ping flickered across his vision.

[Cliff Yeti – Lvl 10]

Luke narrowed his eyes.

Level 10.

That meant nothing definitive.

After what happened in that nightmare of a dungeon, Luke had stopped trusting the Identify skill completely. It wasn't as precise as he'd once believed. Sure, it showed a creature's race level—but that was only part of the story.

There was also class level, and maybe even more. The skill didn't reveal that.

Which meant some monsters might have a high race level but a low class, or the other way around. And Luke still wasn't sure if monsters leveled up like humans did. From what he'd seen, they often came in groups with identical stats—no variation, no surprises.

That could be luck.

Or it could mean he'd just been naive.

Even so...

It was all he had.

He clenched his kukris, exhaling quietly.

"I need to be the predator," he whispered to himself. "Not the prey."

He crept forward through the snow, slow and deliberate. The yeti crouched on a massive branch ahead, surveying the forest. It hadn't seen them yet.

There was no clear way around it. The path ahead narrowed—snowdrifts, ice-choked ravines, and ancient tree roots twisting through the terrain.

If Luke moved past the beast, it would notice. Sooner or later.

And he didn't want it behind him.

No.

He'd face it now.

Luke sprinted out from cover.

The yeti shifted its weight, sniffing the air, sensing movement.

Luke raised his hand to his lips and let out a short, sharp whistle.

The sound cut clean through the frozen air.

The beast turned its head—just as a black kukri whipped through the branches and slammed into its face, burying deep in its jaw.

The monster lost its footing and crashed down from the treetop.

"AARGH!"

Before it even hit the ground, a shadow streaked past, carving a deep gash across its flank.

Luke rebounded upward, landing lightly on a high branch. His balance held, but just barely—the frost made everything slick.

The yeti roared, slamming into the forest floor in a violent heap of white fur and rage.

But it wasn't down for long.

Like a gorilla, the creature launched upward with terrifying speed, swinging from branch to branch using its massive arms, tearing through the forest canopy like it was nothing.

It was fast.

Faster than Luke.

He glanced back—too close.

Luke vaulted higher, reaching for a branch above, but the yeti came from above this time, bearing down like a falling boulder.

"AARGH!"

It lunged to grab him midair—

And then something erupted from Luke's core.

A skeletal figure shot forward from behind, its fist glowing with raw power.

BAM!

The Iron Fist connected directly with the monster's jaw. A sickening crack echoed through the trees.

The yeti was blasted out of the air, its body pinwheeling through the canopy, smashing branches on the way down before slamming into the earth with a ground-shaking thud.

Luke didn't stop.

While the beast reeled, he bounded through the branches above like a phantom, kukris flashing in his hands, eyes locked on his target.

The yeti groaned, dazed and disoriented, clutching at its skull.

"ROOOAAARR!!"

It staggered to its feet only to see a black blur flicker just beyond its reach. Too slow.

Luke circled fast, low to the ground, throwing knives as he moved, carving bloody lines across its fur.

One kukri returned to his hand mid-motion. The other was still buried in the creature's flesh.

The yeti swiped. Luke slid beneath the blow, close enough to smell the beast's breath, and jammed his kukri deep into its calf.

It shrieked in pain, staggering. He leapt back—then recalled the kukri embedded in its leg, ripping it free as it spun back into his grip.

The beast turned again—too slow.

Luke hurled both blades. One buried itself in the yeti's eye.

The scream that followed was deafening. The creature clawed at its face in fury, wrenching the kukri free—only for a shadow to lunge from the treeline.

Another slash tore across its exposed chest.

Luke landed, crouched, and both kukris flew back to his hands with a magnetic whisper of steel. Then he struck again—fast, precise, relentless.

Blood sprayed the snow. The monster raised both arms to slam him flat.

But that was when it happened.

Crack.

Two massive, glowing fists crashed down from above, slamming into the creature's skull like twin meteors.

Princess Charlie had been waiting. Patient. Silent. Hidden in the trees.

She'd timed her descent perfectly.

The impact made the yeti's knees buckle. For a moment, its vision went black.

It tried to move. To breathe.

And that's when it saw him.

Luke. Dashing straight toward it, eyes cold and focused.

He jumped.

Twin blades gleamed.

One pierced its remaining eye. The other drove deep into the cracked skull.

The beast didn't even scream. It just went still. Collapsed.

[You have slain a Cliff Yeti – Lvl 10]

The body hit the ground with a final, muffled thud. Blood soaked the snow beneath it.

Princess Charlie stepped closer, silent as always.

Luke stood over the fallen yeti, studying its massive corpse.

"In a head-on fight, that thing would've crushed me."

He turned, walking forward without looking back.

"But strategy and precision... beat brute strength."

Each word came out calm, focused. It wasn't arrogance—it was analysis.

"That's how an assassin fights."

He doubled back, retrieving the bundle of supplies wrapped in the wolf pelt—extra firewood, scraps of meat. When Charlie returned to his soul, anything she carried was left behind. Too risky to lose.

Luke tucked the bundle back into the gap between her ribs and spine, making sure it was secure.

Then a sound shattered the stillness.

A roar.

Another followed. Louder. Closer.

Luke froze, eyes narrowing. That wasn't a lone predator—it sounded like a fight.

Then a scream.

He immediately ducked into the shadows of the trees, motioning for Charlie to follow. The two of them advanced swiftly but silently, weaving between white trunks and snow-covered roots.

The noises grew louder. Heavy impacts. Crashing branches. Guttural howls—and a voice, shouting in panic.

Luke reached the edge of a small clearing. He froze.

His eyes widened.

"A human?"