The comparison started quietly.
That was how it always did—with one article, then another, then a question no one had meant to ask out loud.
"Is the Dark Lord doing a better job than most elected governments?"
By noon, it was trending.
By evening, no one could pretend it wasn't sticking.
---
It wasn't framed as praise at first.
It was framed as confusion.
A late-night host joked about it between segments. An economist raised an eyebrow during a panel. A nurse from the annexed country went viral simply for saying, "I didn't have insulin last week. I do now."
That clip was shared more than any speech.
---
People began making lists.
Not flattering ones.
Hospitals reopened in 72 hours
Power grid stabilized without rolling blackouts
Civil servants paid on time
No arrests
No disappearances
No mass propaganda campaigns
Someone added, helpfully:
"No tweets."
That one hurt.
---
Memes followed, because they always did.
A split image circulated everywhere.
LEFT: a politician shouting at a podium, captioned "We're working on it."
RIGHT: Malachai reviewing a clipboard, captioned "It's already done."
Another gained traction fast:
> I did not vote for the Dark Lord,
but my trash got picked up on time.
That one was shared by accident by a city council member who immediately deleted it and then resigned two weeks later.
---
Politicians panicked.
Quietly at first.
Then very loudly.
---
Emergency sessions convened in capitals that hadn't moved that fast for anything short of war. Advisors brought slides they hated. Pollsters brought numbers they didn't understand. Communications teams begged leadership to stop responding defensively to a man who had not said their names once.
"He's making us look incompetent," one minister snapped.
"No," a junior analyst said, far too honestly, "he's revealing it."
---
Pressure rolled downhill.
And it landed squarely on the Heroes' Guild.
---
Director Ilyra Chen sat at the head of a long table, hands folded, as representatives from three governments spoke over one another.
"You failed to stop him."
"This undermines global order."
"You need to reassert authority."
She let them talk.
She always did.
When the room finally quieted, she spoke calmly.
"You want us to fight competence," she said.
Silence.
"That is not what we're trained for."
---
Funding proposals appeared the next morning.
Large ones.
Urgent ones.
Bills were introduced with names like THE STABILITY AND HEROIC RESPONSE ACT and GLOBAL DEFENSE MODERNIZATION INITIATIVE, each promising resources the Guild had begged for years to receive.
Healthcare stipends.
Mental health coverage.
Guaranteed downtime rotations.
All suddenly affordable.
All suddenly necessary.
---
One Guild commander stared at the briefing packet in disbelief.
"They wouldn't give us this after the Leviathan Incident," he muttered. "Or the Rift Wars."
Ilyra didn't look up.
"They're afraid now," she said.
"Of Malachai?"
"No," she replied. "Of being compared to him."
---
On the street, the reaction was messier.
More human.
People argued in cafés and comment sections and kitchen tables.
"I don't like that he's a villain," someone said.
"I don't like that my government didn't do this first," someone else replied.
Heroes found themselves stopped for photos—and questions they couldn't answer.
"Why doesn't the Guild do it this way?"
"Why does he have better benefits?"
"Why does he listen?"
Those were harder to deflect than lasers.
---
Inside the annexed country, the response was simpler.
People slept.
They went to work.
They argued about ordinary things again.
One shopkeeper put up a sign that read:
WE ARE NOT EVIL.
WE ARE FUNCTIONAL.
No one took it down.
---
Back in the government annex, Malachai read the reports without visible reaction.
Nyxara lay upside-down on a chair nearby, scrolling.
"They're saying you're better than most world leaders," she said cheerfully.
"That is a low bar," Malachai replied.
She laughed. "You didn't even try to be popular."
"I tried to be effective."
"That's worse," she said fondly.
Her phone buzzed.
> Solin:
Why are politicians yelling at the Guild on my news feed?
Nyxara glanced at Malachai.
> Nyxara:
Because your side is being compared to mine and losing.
A pause.
> Solin:
…I don't know how to feel about that.
Nyxara smiled. Neither do they.
---
Director Ilyra Chen watched the funding confirmations roll in.
Resources she'd fought for years to secure.
All unlocked because a villain had done her job better.
She leaned back in her chair, exhausted.
"This is going to change everything," her aide said.
"Yes," Ilyra replied. "Which means we have to actually deserve the funding this time."
---
That night, an editorial ran that said what no official would.
> If Malachai can run a country without fear,
then fear was never the point.
No one could refute it cleanly.
---
And somewhere in a quiet lab beneath a fortress, Elara slept with steady vitals and uninterrupted care, unaware that the world above her was reshaping itself around the simple truth her father had always operated under:
People didn't want to be ruled.
They wanted to be taken care of.
The politicians had finally noticed.
Too late to take credit.
Too early to stop the comparison.
And the Heroes' Guild—flush with new funding and impossible expectations—now faced the most dangerous mission it had ever been given:
To prove they could be better than a villain who never once claimed to be good.