Unfortunately, I’m Not A Hero 29

Unfortunately, I’m Not A Hero 29

…

Wordcount: 2500

Commissioned by Shaderic

…

If you’re not used to “making the most of what you have,” I’m sorry to inform you that you’ve lived a far more pleasant life that you probably thought you’ve had. 

And, to all of you people patting yourselves on the back thinking you’re better than them: thank you very much, for admitting that I’m better than you.

Because I’m sure that none of you have to fight an Isekai protagonist, with a few dozen bombs, and a flock of Harpies. Oh? What’s that? My situation’s not that bad? I’ve actually got a chance, since I have explosives and allies? 

Well, you’re right, but you’re also a jerk for making me admit that I could have it worse. Can’t you be considerate about a young man’s feelings, huh? What’s with this insistence that my situation could be worse? Couldn’t you have been empathetic and admitted that I could’ve woken up to cushier circumstances than I did now?

The battle ahead is going to be difficult, and it’s completely possible that more than a few of my assets won’t make it back alive, but it’s not impossible.

Having airpower, as well as there being zero chance that the Empire would have pulled someone from a world that would recognize my tactics, meant that I have a good advantage. Being able to drop bombs on the enemy, along with the fact that enemy was focused on fighting against my best troops, meant that I didn’t need to resort to drastic measures. While the option to send in troops en-masse, using as many explosives as possible, was available… I had enough assets on hand in order to not have to do that.

Fifty-or-so harpies, one lightly wounded Wyvern, and one Wyvern wasn’t much, even with creates of satchel charges. 

But all of that and a large, easily-assembled, and robust delivery vehicle?

Well, it’s more overt than I wanted, a little earlier than I intended, and it would mean losing tons of equipment and weapons so that everyone could fit on the remaining transport, but it was the only practical, quick solution to the current problem at hand. I’d wanted the Empire’s first taste of my current plan to be en-masse, so I could hit them with the element of surprise in their various cities, but Ur and the others took priority.

Even Reiser, if Ur turns out to be right. 

So, after a few minutes of thinking after getting the report, I turned to my current assets and instructed them on how to build the world’s first, guided munition.

Propulsion: Harpies.

Guidance system: Wyvern 1 and Wyvern 2 (Injured).

Target Designator: me.

Target, naturally: a shitty Isekai protagonist.

…

While I’d liked to have been flown to the nearest, safest area and command the entire affair from afar, I unfortunately had to be on the glider filled to the brim with explosives. Through sheer effort and will, the Wyvern Ur entrusted to guard me could pull the entire affair forward, while coordinated with her wounded fellow. Naturally, the harpies practically wore themselves south bringing it up to cruising altitude, but it was a miracle all fifty of them managed to do it in the first place.

So, given my lack of long-range communication ability and the required speed of our operation, I was being held against the roof of glider filled with explosives, beneath a wounded Wyvern, while she relayed commands and directions to the woman keeping us and a cargo-hold full of explosives flying through the air. 

They both deserved medals, commendations, and money for everything they were doing, but at the moment, I really, really fucking hated them both. 

And, of course, myself for coming up with the idea.

Wyverns can fly high, because they’ve always flown high. Disregarding the fact that they’re cold-blooded, reptilian monsters, barring the very warm and softer portions due to this world’s origins, they can easily handle flying high and fast, as well as communicate with one another with ease through the rushing, biting winds involved in flight. On the other hand, I’m just a regular human being. 

Even though I’m wrapped up in layers of fur and leather, because I didn’t enjoy the warrior’s constitution that let Amazons travel high in the air clad in jewelry, tattoos, and swimsuits, my attempt at thermal wear isn’t nearly enough protection against the elements. I was using up what little talent and magic I had just providing myself with air, so I couldn’t spare a single thimble’s worth to keep me warm.

Meanwhile, the two Kindred at my command were having the time of their lives.

“Go, Sophitelle! You can do this! Don’t stop! Push!

“I…I HAVE THIS. RAAAAAA!”

Meatheads. All the Wyverns are meatheads. It’s due to the competitive ranking system I introduced, so that they could train with one another as teams, and compete so that they could air out their more aggressive nature. It had worked well, when it was far away, and they could compete, train, and work together for competitions far away from the main village, preferably high in the air.

With one pinning me to the surface of my shitty, canopy-lacking glider, and another being gung-ho and an idiot several feet away, I was rapidly losing my patience. Hello? I’m your boss and I’m freezing my ass off flying on a transport that I’d stupidly designed without heating and pressurization, because I didn’t know how to make it possible. The regrets I have about my lack of foresight are many, my troops have been corned, and I’m barely staying alive by using something I’m utterly untalented at. 

If the two of you can calm down and let me THINK, I’d really appreciate it!

“Go, go, go! You’ve got this, girl! Find your limit and push past it!”

“I’VE. GOT. THIS!”

I’d like to voice my thoughts, but between conserving air and not being able to roar loud enough to overcome surging winds, all I could do was stay pinned against the surface of a glider by a Wyvern, while waiting for the moment I could tell them to drop it on the target.

Thankfully, by my estimates, that was going to happen in just a few minutes, since our little outpost was less than an hour away. 

…

“Can he see it!?”

“Yes, he’s looking at it right now!”

After nearly freezing to death, and running out of air to breathe, the time for me to put my brain to use arrived. Given the fact that I didn’t train my Wyverns on how to spot enemies, or how to drop bombs without risking themselves in the process, I had to go up with them to make sure they didn’t waste our singular shot.

“Uhh, Sophitelle? Did the Harpies make a mistake!? That doesn’t look like a dam!”

“Yeah… we’re… we’re in the middle of nowhere!? Where is this place?”

“How am I supposed to know?”

We weren’t in the middle of nowhere. It only looked like the middle of nowhere, because of the three dams that Ur managed to destroy, before being cornered by the Empire’s response to Reiser’s little rebellion. The land below us was covered in water. Muddy, streaming water left in the wake of the gargantuan reserves that had surged forward. To the unobservant, it would look like nowhere, because I’ve made into nowhere via a series of man-made ecological disasters.

I’d wanted to see it happen in person, instead of just the aftermath, but I had better things to do, so I nudged my living co-pilot.

“Oh, the boss’s ready to talk! Start descending!”

“G-good!”

The glider lurched downward as planned, but I waited until it levelled off and there were less biting winds glancing across the shitty leather-and-wool mask I’d patched together to protect my face from the winds. 

“The target’s over the distance! We’re going to sling this entire thing, before the enemy can attack us!” I could barely hear my own voice over the din of the wind, but at the very least I managed to breathe without straining my incredibly low amount of magic. “You have one chance to get this right, so listen to the Harpies and let them help you! I told them to scout ahead and help you guide it!”

“Harpies?”

The question lingered for a second, before the rest of my remaining Kindred landed on the glider, with their leader landing right beside the one pinning me down. Unlike Wyverns, they didn’t have wings on their backs, but had feathered arms instead. They were good for agile, quick movements through the air, and even shot bows and slung slings, but they didn’t make for good haulers.

Not without a little adjustment to their equipment, at least.

“Woah! This got easier!”

“It’s not going to last long. The harpies aren’t built for endurance.”

The solution to my lack of Wyverns was honestly shitty. 

In essence, it was rope and telling the Harpies to do essentially tie themselves to the wings of the glider, while they and the glider continue to fly.

In practice, they had to scavenge heaps for rope wherever they could find them, while we were in transit. Then, while their leader informed me and my co-pilot about how far away we were from the target, they had to do a series of ludicrous stunts with the aforementioned ropes. Being weaker, smaller, and nimble  meant they couldn’t drag giant payloads around even when there’s fifty of them.

So, an aerial circus of looping ropes, agile intertwines, and the formation of knots on the wings via flight and coordination between all the harpies were necessary. Each one had to work together with their compatriot, perfectly using their smaller bodies and forms, so that they could do the same task as someone else more suited for it. 

I hated everything about it, since it was overcomplicated and probably not replicable with anyone other people, but I couldn’t deny that it was a decent solution. 

Even if it the transport began to creak and grown, because it wasn’t meant to be dragged forward by the wings by Harpies. The whole thing creaked and groaned as it picked up speed towards the horizon. 

So, the moment after I was told just how close we were to the enemy, I gave the most important order.

“This thing will break apart soon! I want you all to cut yourselves off of it when I give the word!”

I received a strong, loud affirmative from just about everyone involved. Which is fantastic, because if someone fucks up, it’s entirely possible that the entire glider won’t go in the right direction, leaving us all to die at the hand of Empire magic, bolts, and arrows. So, if anyone’s going to take responsibility for the lives of everyone involved, it’s going to have to be me. 

It’s my plan from start to finish, so if it fails, it has to be on me. 

I counted down the seconds, as the Harpies diverted the Glider’s course towards the target, according to their surveys and reconnaissance. 

Fifty seconds. 

The whole transport creaked and groaned as it was angled downward. As we spend up, the landscape blurred into a mass of brown and broken homes, but I ignored that in favor of what lay ahead. Soon enough, just as the Wyvern pinning me down crossed her arms over my chest, I found myself looking at the dam Ur and the others were holed up in. 

Twenty seconds. 

I only caught sight of the camp arrayed against Ur for a second. It was a small group inside a small, miniature fort made of earthworks situated before the dam. The dam itself was being shored up with more earth by mages, making any possibility of it being broken like the others impossible, while ramps were being erected for a force to be able to march straight to the top of the constructs. 

Ten seconds.

And, just like the Harpies reported, their mages and long-range oriented fighters were being kept down in the fort by Ur and Reiser. Logs were strewn about everywhere, as well as chunks of the dam itself, courtesy of my Amazons. There were pockmarks and craters of magic too, courtesy of the easily-misled idiot herself. 

In the end, even when pressed and cornered, Ur essentially outmaneuvered the Empire by trusting me to come up with a plan that could deal with the enemy, and putting them in a position in which they could be flanked. The fortress contained the entire task-force dispatched to quell Resier’s rebellion, since they didn’t want to lose soldiers against the magic and projectiles coming their way. 

Their fort was protecting them perfectly, but only against the enemy they knew existed. 

Zero.

“Cut off! Let it fly towards the fort! Go!”

There was a pull on me. The Wyvern atop me simply spreading her wings, since only her clawed feet kept her atop the glider. I imagined it was like a parachute, with her wings catching the stream of air flowing atop the glider, and rapidly pulling us back. The Harpies did the same, as well as Sophitelle. Flared wings slowed them enough that they hovered all around me… and we all watched as the glider surged toward the fort.

Someone noticed it’s approach, despite all my efforts it wasn’t fast enough, because it wasn’t pulled by those meant to pull it.

But as fire began to be levelled at it, I realized it didn’t matter.

Because instead of blowing up once it hit the ground, it was going to explode over the fortress, inside the high, earthen walls surrounding an expansive courtyard where armored soldiers awaited orders. 

Eighty satchels of the mana-based explosives erupted within a frame made of laminated timber, not as a direct-fire bomb, but as an air-burst into a semi-enclosed space. There was a flash, then the vaporization of the outer shell into a flaming comet. One explosion followed another, then another, and then another. 

Flash after flash.

More flame.

Smoke.

But inside the fortress itself.

Even high up in the air, the screaming reached me. The walls that once protected the Empire’s soldiers imprisoned them in a sealed-off hell with a carcass that spewed forth flame and pressure, as more satchels cooked off one after the other. Their superhuman bodies became a weakness, as they weren’t crushed to death by pressure, but instead shattered, set alight, and thrown like pinballs in heavy armor. Blood flowed and mixed with ash and sand, while armored warriors screamed for arcane help that wouldn’t come, since their mages all died beneath the initial burst of burning shrapnel and wave of pressure. 

Amidst the hell, there was the young man I’d feared the most.

I’d heard of the Empire’s heroes. They turned the tide of battle, were feared by Kindred, and known to return after being thought dead. Recruited by the Empire from worlds that they knew agreed with their ideals, they formed the backbone of the Empire’s true might. Peerless, near-indestructible, and the Empire’s answer to Demon Lords… I brought everything I could against the young man became I feared he’d hurt those I cared for.

So, now he stood amidst all his troops, burning and healing, bereft of both his arms and a blasted apart chest cavity. His gaze was centered on me, and my flock. One sapphire eye in a jawless skull covered in more burns that skin met my own gaze.

He took one step forward.

Then another.

And then another.

He walked toward me, until he walked straight into the flames erupting within the fortress. The fortress he’d made to protect his men, his soldiers, and his friends, so he could keep them alive, instead of throwing them against Ur and the others.

I’d taken his kindness and killed him with it.