How to Find Yourself Through Babysitting an Evil Overlord

Being the hero of a thousand-years-old prophecy sounds cool at first. However, after nearly a year of parading that title, Mabel could say for sure that all you get is a whole heavy load of responsibility and some merchandise with your face on them. Not to mention that Evil Spirit King that you had to babysit (to make sure he doesn’t somehow reawaken his powers and cause another dawn of tragedy or whatever.)

Mabel glared at the aforementioned “Harbinger of Chaos” as he laid back on his bed, blissfully watching a K-Drama and enjoying instant ramen noodles. It’s as if he wasn’t inside a super protected barrier acting as a prison cell at all.

As if noticing the heated glower directed at him, the King finally spoke (still without taking his gaze away from Secretary Kim and the Vice Chairman on the laptop screen.)

“Feeling a little helpless, Maggot?”

“Although I appreciate your concern and your oh so touching nickname for me,” Mabel said, taking a big gulp from a mug (that had a cartoon depiction of her face on it) before continuing. “I’m not feeling helpless, in fact I am pretty confident that we’ll be sending your butt back to an eternal slumber very soon. Therefore, I do not need your sympathy at the moment. Thank you.”

A bone-chilling laughter echoed from the walls. From how sadistic his cackle sounded; one would think that he was laughing at something morbidly amusing. However, Mabel heard this very same laugh once when he was watching those “Top Ten Funniest and Cutest Dogs Tiktoks” videos, thus she concluded that this weirdo simply had that horrendous way of laughing no matter what the reason.

“Your optimism entertains me. You’re just like a dog continuously chasing its own tail, foolishly believing that it will catch it someday.”

“Yeah, yeah, whatever.” Mabel rolled her eyes, not buying the King’s attempt to discourage her in the slightest. “Shut up and pay attention! This is an important part.”

“Oh, does he finally get to brutally murder his brother for revenge?”

“What!? No! They talk about their feelings and make up!”

“Ugh, gross.”

A moment of silence passed before the King spoke again.

“As much as your naïve perseverance amuses me, I really can’t understand it. How do you humans carry on knowing that your lives are meaningless? At the very moment you face despair, it should be so easy to give up and run- but why do you still risk your lives to put up a fight?”

Mabel ponders the king’s question for a moment.

The truth is, before coming to the Evil Spirit King’s prison to begin her turn of babysitting, she- with the grace and pride only a legendary hero could possess- cried herself to sleep in her room.

The responsibility of being the “chosen one” had gotten to her in that moment. Long story short, they needed his true name to unlock an old tomb built by his worshippers, in order to find more clues on what his potential weakness could be. And it’s been a frustrating two months of searching for this ex-evil overlord’s real name.

Mabel and her team were at their limit, spending every waking hour to search for clues only to turn up empty-handed. However, Mabel made sure to always boost her team’s morale. They will see the fruits of their labor soon! They just have to keep at it! No effort made is ever wasted!

But after another exhausting day of clue searching, all Mabel wanted to do was to stay on her bed forever and avoid everything. At that time, although she still had hope that everything would work out fine, she was just so utterly tired. So insanely drained of energy. And even though she wanted to continue searching and work hard, it was difficult to find the reason to keep going.

Now that she thought about it, during her sobfest it felt like she never wanted to get back up again, but a few minutes later here she was- feeling all better and actually trying again. What changed? It wasn’t like she found a new lead for their case. She was as clueless now as she was during her crying.

Mabel supposed that although nothing really changed, it just felt good to let everything out. She was so focused on staying positive and putting on a strong image to assure the people around her. It felt like she wasn’t allowed to feel sad because it meant giving up.

So, when she finally let herself breakdown, Mabel had an epiphany.

It was okay to just let yourself feel sad once in a while. At times when you feel like you’re about to come apart at the seams, when it feels like you can’t stay strong any longer- you can just let those intense waves of emotions be. Because it doesn’t matter if you break down, as long as you get back up after. “It’s okay to not be okay”, Mabel soon found out, was both a title of a fantastic K-Drama series and a good advice overall.

There were more factors to it though.

Back in the present, the Evil Spirit King was chugging down the remaining broth of his spicy ramen when Mabel finally answered.

“It’s not like the thought of giving up never crosses our minds,” Mabel began. “There are times when it gets too tough and we feel like surrendering but we never do. I feel like it’s because... deep in our subconscious, we’re reminded of everyone and everything we love. We entertain the thought of quitting for a moment but then we toss that idea aside as soon as we’re reminded of all the reasons not to. Sometimes, we just need to remember why we tried in the first place.”

Mabel still had so many places she wanted to visit with her family. She still had so many shows she wanted to watch with her friends. She still had a long list of novels, manga, and games that she wanted to try to get into. She wanted to experience all the happiness she could before she’ll ever give up.

“And you may be right about our human lives being meaningless at first.” Mabel continued, a new burst of determination burning within her. “But that only means that we’re free to make our own meanings for our life. We get to choose what we live for, and I choose to live it for the ones I love.”

She was met with the loudest bout of snoring she had ever heard.

With almost no hesitation, she grabbed a plate and threw it at the king’s head with as much force a legendary hero could muster. If directed to a normal human being, that said person would have been a whole head shorter right now. Unfortunately, in the King’s case, he simply raised one out of his four arms and caught the dish just in time. All while doing that horrendous laugh with his eight (Nine? Ten?) eyes tearing up. Mabel groaned and planted her face on her hands. Just as she was about to curse him out and maybe throw a couple more Mabel-themed merchandise and/or summon fire balls at him, the King spoke.

“Love is not enough. Revenge is what gets me going.”

Mabel took a deep breath before continuing the conversation. “But don’t you have things you love too? Like I love spending time with my friends, reading books, playing video games--”

“Burning cities to the ground, hearing cries of fear, knocking over the other gods’ temples-”

“Right!” Mabel immediately cut him off, not wanting hear any more of the king’s unusual hobbies. “See? We both have things that we love! Since we’re having such a great bonding moment, why don’t you tell me your real name so we can grow closer!”

“Try again, Moron-bel.”

“That’s not even close to my name!”

The King’s answer to that was opening another cup of ramen. To which Mabel quickly responded by throwing her mug at him. To her dismay, he dodged it effortlessly and with a snap of his fingers, the broken shards poofed out of existence.

Mabel’s stomach dropped. When had he learned to do that?

Her heart thumped against her chest. She broke into a cold sweat.

Did he get stronger without them realizing? Will it only be a matter of time until he can be able to poofed her out of existence?

No, she won’t let that be. As soon as her babysitting shift is over, she’ll get back to researching right away. She’ll--

“Well, you humans really are an irritatingly persistent bunch. Seriously, no matter what calamity or disease is thrown at your race, you lot always manage to survive.”

A moment of silence passes. Mabel picks up her jaw from the ground.

“Was that a compliment?”

The look of utter bewilderment seemed so out of place on the “Bringer of Darkness”’s face that it was Mabel’s turn to cackle.

“You brainless buffon! I was comparing your race to the likes of cockroaches! Disgusting little creatures that are difficult to— no, that are annoying to kill!”

The clang of the door hitting the wall as it was pushed open startled them both out of their (to be honest, idiotic) conversation.

Isaac, Mabel’s trusted teammate, stood by the entrance for a moment. The boy seemed to be lost in his thoughts. Mabel gulped. Isaac would never come rushing in unless it was something important. His face was always so expressionless that Mabel could never tell if he was about to say something bad or good and at the moment, the suspension was killing her.

“Get a move on. It’s time to head out.” Isaac finally spoke.

“Head out? Where?” Mabel asked while hurriedly gathered her things.

“To unseal this bastard’s temple, of course.” Isaac replied as expressionless as ever.

Both Mabel and the King froze at his statement.

“It won’t be long until we know more about this guy.” Isaac broke into a rare smile.

With the casual grace akin to a cat showing off their kill, Isaac simply raised up a piece of paper. Written in bold black ink was a string of characters that weren’t at all familiar to Mabel. However, she had a hunch on what it might be.

That familiar skull-numbing laughter exploded behind her.

“Well isn’t that interesting?” the King said as he went up in flames (figuratively and literally) with rage.

“Haven’t seen my real name In a while.”

A wave of relief crashed into Mabel at that moment. She hurriedly grabbed her things and rushed out as soon as her replacement babysitter walked in.

Waving a quick good bye, she said her parting words.

“Bye King! We’ll be back in a few hours or so to send your butt to eternal slumber! Once you’re done with ‘Secretary Kim’ I recommend you watch ‘One the Woman’ next!”

“I’d like to see you try, kid. I have millenia worth of shows to watch. Heh, I’m not going down so easily.”