I Woke Up as the Villainess's Friend. I Don’t Want to Be the Next Dark Queen

I find myself back on the street, hearing the bodyguard's scream.

It's nighttime, I'm dreaming.

I want to avoid getting attacked, and even though everything slows down like it's in slow motion, I still can't. I can't stop him from grabbing me, or the pain, or that horrible sensation of my killer's knife cutting my throat.

Except this is a nightmare and the necklace doesn't protect me here. I fall with that second mouth open and bleeding on my neck, unable to speak with my vocal cords severed. Only blood bubbles come from my lips.

Then, in that slowed time, the pup comes out of my bag, tearing it with his teeth and growing to his real size, just above my knee. He approaches and gives me a lick, healing me. And I get angry. I get so angry that I don't even turn him into the shadow wolf. I just channel earth into my body, grab the assassin by the neck while he's busy killing Mary, and squeeze.

I squeeze without mercy, enjoying each of his pain spasms. I even loosen my grip so he can beg.

I murder him. Another human being. I know full well they're not NPCs: they're as real as I am. And I feel rage doing it and great satisfaction.

Because that son of a bitch almost killed me and finished off Mary.

Then I realize I don't feel pain over my friend's death but a bloodthirst that, far from being satisfied, has just awakened. I grab the thug's knife and go after the other two, channeling fire into the blade.

Demon queen.

The pup at my feet growls with all his fur standing on end and, most curiously, seems to be growling at me.

The slow motion ends. My heart beats wildly and I wake up startled.

A dream. A nightmare.

I've killed a human being.

Tears fill my eyes with moisture and drip from the corners while a strangled sound comes from my throat. It's the horror of what I've done and what, until this moment, I'd ignored, first from shock and the urgency of the moment, and then because I don't have the tools to deal with it.

How are you supposed to keep being able to look at yourself in the mirror after ending a human life?

Though that's pretty hypocritical on my part, since I've killed trolls and other sentient beings. The fact that they're dungeon creatures doesn't make it different.

I feel like I'm embracing a dark path that I fear and don't want. I should have tried to save Mary without finishing off the attacker. But one thing I'm clear about: if something were to happen to my friend, unlike in the nightmare, I'd be devastated.

And so would Ronan.

I close my eyes trying to get back to sleep. I only see blood staining my hands.

Dawn breaks. And I refuse to think about my nightmares. They're just night terrors.

I wash my face.

Good thing Judith wasn't here tonight, or she would have noticed my crying.

It's okay to kill dungeon creatures, they're monsters, it's no big deal. And as for the assassin, well, I understand that I feel bad and can't quite figure out how to deal with it, but I have to hold onto the fact that it was him or us.

So I send it all to some remote place in my head and memory. I have better things to do today.

What's on the agenda?

More dungeon crawling!

With Ronan and Mary, in the Blue Mountains dungeon. We're leaving early in the morning and we'll clear it in a few hours.

"Ronan, I told Mary about my elements," I say once we've entered the dungeon, safely away from prying ears.

"Great, my lady. Now you can fight with all your magics." He turns to my friend. "Mary, remember it is important that no one finds out, especially now that they have already tried to assassinate her."

If you come across this story on Amazon, be aware that it has been stolen from Royal Road. Please report it.

"Oh, do you think that's why?"

The girl doesn't even notice the irony that it's Ronan—who let the light magic secret slip to her in the first place—who's now reminding her to keep quiet.

"Either that or because of her legendary sword."

Mary nods and we begin clearing the dungeon. Ronan is wearing his new manufactured helmet. If before he already looked creepy with the lich robe that gives off that black mist from underneath, now, with the yeti skull covering his face, he looks even more intimidating. To begin with, the yeti's skull is bigger than his own. With the goblins' help, they've lined it with leather and padded it too, so it can fit him. Ronan's eyes fit easily inside the oversized yeti's eye sockets. The upper jaw, with the teeth still attached, covers his neck. They've made some holes and put a leather chin strap to tie it under his chin, though the skull bones hide it.

Poor Mary jumped when she saw him.

For a moment, I wondered if I should say something mentally to Ronan, something like, if he wants Mary to be comfortable with him maybe he shouldn't put on macabre bone things that cover his face. But I better not. I think Mary likes Ronan but I'm not sure he's interested in anything more than his spells, his undead, and my goblins.

Speaking of which, Mary is both surprised and delighted by how efficiently we clear the dungeon, something we've perfected with practice.

We change some things, of course. For example, Mary also shields Ronan when he enters the bat cave. Her shield doesn't hurt the zombie golems, luckily. Since they're undead and the shield is from the light school, I wasn't sure. And the fact that she shields Ronan gives her a share in the XP distribution as an assist. She does the same with me when we fight the trolls.

Her AoE heal is forbidden, or she'd hurt Ronan's creatures, which are the only ones getting injured in combat. Ronan and I manage to come out unscathed. He stays out of melee combat, and I use my earth channeling.

By the way, I level up some spells. Like channeling with the fire element or stone bullets. When I checked my status slab yesterday, I realized this second spell had to be about ready to increase its tier to low, and that's why I've used it a couple of times, until I got it. My sword mastery too, from low to intermediate. With it, I gain a constitution point.

As for stone bullets, its new tier only increases speed, not range or the number of bullets I create. Yes, these are created with magic. As I learned in class, range increases to 50 meters at intermediate level and the possibility of petrifying appears at high level.

With the fire dart, the explosion possibility was at intermediate level, but I understand that petrifying an enemy is much more effective in combat than doing extra damage from explosion. It makes sense that they'd give it to you at a more advanced spell tier.

Stone bullets low level: from your hand comes a burst of 5 stone bullets. Range: 20 meters. Increases projectile speed by 20%. Cost: 1 MP.

Intermediate sword mastery. Passive. +2 Str, +1 Con. Wielding steel feels natural.

But of the three notifications I receive, the most impactful is the channeling one:

High fire element channeling costs two mana points and lasts 5 minutes. It increases the temperature of the flame even more, thereby increasing armor penetration. It increases the possibility that the object to which channeling is applied will explode, if its mass does not exceed 100 grams. The explosion doubles fire damage and applies an area-of-effect impact.

High fire element channeling allows applying said element to the user's body or to a piece of armor, enabling fire damage. It also allows applying channeling to a weapon that already has another element channeled into it.

First, it reminds me I'm not experimenting with grabbing a stone or something that doesn't weigh much and throwing it bomb-style. Plus, the time goes from 3 to 5 minutes and, above all, I can apply it to my body or to a weapon that already has another channeling.

Brutal.

I'd be lying if I said I wasn't expecting it, since I imagined a high level had to give me something good and I was hoping that, at some point, I'd be able to put more than one element on a sword. Which, thanks to the queen mother's bonus, increases my damage even more.

But I didn't know it would be at the high spell range or that they'd also give me the possibility of applying it to myself. And it says the whole body, not just a part like when I started with earth.

This, for example, has to be a very good way to farm XP from the specters. If Mary weren't here, I think I'd ask Ronan to go to the lake. But I don't want to put her in danger.

Of course, as soon as I tell my friends they ask me to test it, the weapon thing. I hold my sword in front of me and apply water channeling and then fire channeling. To my eyes, it glows with a mix of blue and red. I can feel its power vibrating through my hand and arm. And the damage... I do a quick calculation assuming it's not a crit:

With strength 9 and intermediate sword mastery, I do 2 base damage points. The high fire channeling damage, with my intelligence 8 and high spirit affinity, is 3. Same as intermediate. To do 4 points, I need to raise intelligence to 10. With water channeling, being low, it's 2 damage points. That adds up to 2+4+2 which is 8 damage points. Since the queen mother's sword gives me +1 per damage type, it goes up to no less than 11.

11 for a hit that's not even a crit.

Many adult peasants have less than 10 hit points. Low-level monsters too. No wonder the slime beginner dungeon stopped giving me experience.

I'm becoming a kind of very powerful battlemage.

Should I go to the dungeon alone while I have access thanks to the trials, to finish off the specters? Too bad I won't have the collar's safeguard, but I'll have the shadow wolf.

I think to increase my power, what I need is more mana or a faster way to regenerate it. That, right now, would be as simple as training meditation more to level it up.

And if I'm so strong that it seems like I'm cheating, what are those divine beasts? Because the shadow wolf, for now, has its power capped. How strong is a divine beast that unleashes all its power?