Unfortunately, I’m Not A Hero: 10

Unfortunately, I’m Not A Hero: 10

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Wordcount: 2500

Commissioned by Shaderic.

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Ylstu was surrounded by death.

The Empire’s actual boarders were reinforced with castles and towers that turned any invasion into mush. Trying to march or fly an army into the Empire was the same as marching thousands to their deaths, because every castle full of armored knights and professional soldiers were supported by magicians with clear fields of view over the horizon. The Empire were smart about how they used their magicians. Those who were expendable/not loyal to their demented cause were at the front lines, ready to be chopped up or turned to mush after they provide some semblance of advantage. The patriots, true believers, and talented were given reinforced spires that could withstand attack and amplified the strength of magic. 

Laying siege to a true, Empire castle was an effort in futility of the fiery variety. Even if a castle can be captured before a sorcerer could provide support, the Empire would sooner glass the castle and everything surrounding it than let it fall into Roseanne’s hands. They had the advantage of resources and manpower. They could readily replace a castle or two and all they’d have to replace in the end would be the men and women within it. Sure, they’d lose out on army’s worth of resources and bodies for their sick industries, but it was better to lose that than actual land.

So, on one side of my boarder, I had entrenched, military positions with predetermined killzones maintained by whole armies of knights and sorcerers. 

Roseanne’s land was arguably worse. She and her constituents controlled the majority of the world, meaning that her lands were an immense sprawl that could exchange land and lives at rates that most humans would consider insane. It was also filled with inhuman monsters. Even the lowliest monster was stronger than the average, well-trained human soldier. Even accounting for magical means to enhance strength, or other bullshit magics and abilities inherent to whoever comes to this world, the average human couldn’t compete, because the average monster would benefit more from the same training. 

Roseanne knew that.

So, her lands were a sprawl of fields and concentrated city states. Food came into the city states, monsters came out, and then she invested in the infrastructure to turn the average monster into a weapon. The basic educational system across the whole of her domain taught monsters how to control their strength thorough rigorous physical training, as well as basic combat techniques and skills, which did the job… while making the average citizen of her people that more dangerous in a fight. Trying to seize a single city will require utterly massive supply lines, which will need to be guarded against hostile natives who can tear apart horses with their bear hands all along its length breadth. 

Both locales ate up any hostile force, so that’s why lands between the Empire and the monsters rarely traded hands. 

And, the lands that did trade hands traded were traded often. 

I had no doubts about my current situation, despite my new alliances, supplies, and companions, I was still on the frontline. 

However, unlike my previous employer, the Demon Lord supported me, allowed me to climb up the corporate ladder, and recruit my own staff. Previously, I was merely a manager whose ideas were stolen by others, who had to make do with the shit he was given, and was given utterly no respect. While I still remain a wage slave between two massive, rival mega-corporations, I definitely enjoyed my current standing, position, and authority in my new occupation. 

I was going to use all three to fuck over both to do what I want, though. 

No question. 

…

Amazons made for pretty good hunters and survivalists outside of combat. This isn’t because they’re a tribal people, though. That’s racist and stereotypical. They learned how to do things besides kill and be killed thanks to me. That’s a fact. While the culture of the people Ur’s world revolves around might makes right, I managed to carve into the heads of my force’s only hope of survival in pitched battle that education is directly linked to victory.

It wasn’t a lie, either. 

Warriors that knew how to keep themselves warm at night, who shit into dug-out latrines, and followed rules of basic hygiene didn’t get sick and die. Those who knew that wounds needed to be treated, instead of hidden away in hopes of healing, lived to keep killing another day. Being able to rapidly pack and unpack into small camp grounds, with proper systems to keep watch, allowed you go into battle decently-rested and without waking up with a knife in your neck. 

They’d kept those lessons and practices after arriving in Roseanne’s capital, going as far as to learn everything they could to supplement whatever they already had, in order to gain every tactical and strategic advantage they could get their hands on. 

Sure, some nights I kept myself awake due to the knowledge that I was inflating a society and culture that venerated death and destruction amongst young women, but that was a small price to pay in exchange for troops that can bounce javelins off their abs, turn horses in chunky salsa with their bare hands, and rip through most magics without breaking a sweat. A few sleepless nights wondering how fucked I am is a small price to pay in exchange for a core of powerful shock troops utterly loyal. 

Most nights, I slept happily knowing I was surrounded by vicious killers who lived only for battle.

But that’s beside the point.

Currently, I was hunting down another potential, new recruit into my forces.

Someone who could outwit and run away from my core of killing machines, while keeping Werewolves alive while facing them.

In my mind, whoever was capable of managing that was either stupidly lucky or some sort of tactical genius.

While I’d prefer the former, I wouldn’t turn down the second. 

Now… if only my Necromancer wasn’t defective…

“Make undead help us search.”

“I told you I cannot do it as simply as that!” Was there some sort of event that I missed, while I was recruiting this individual into my ranks? Some sort of treasure chest that I should’ve I fetched, before she unleashed her Mindflayer on an unsuspecting Empire military base? Maybe, I needed to feed her more, before I unlocked that skill? If so, in what level did I acquire an undead army of massive proportions to do my bidding. Also, it’d be real bullshit if her true power is only unlocked when her affection meter is at its absolute highest. No one has time for that. “Reanimation requires at least a stable source of power and a properly prepared ritual. I cannot simply take a body and turn it into Undead!”

“Then, what can you do besides sit around and be useless, huh?” The Lich, Ur, and I were currently on horseback trotting through a dense forest, surrounded by half-a-dozen Amazons. They weren’t the same ones who we took to recruit the Necromancer, but the ones I’d assigned to keep this portion of territory free of pests. We followed the trail of the last batch of fleeing werewolves beneath the moon’s bright, silver light. “C’mon. Do something. Preferably, something cool and doesn’t make me feel like I wasted my time kidnapping you.”

“You’re not even going to pretend you didn’t kidnap me…” I ignored the astonishment in favor of glaring at my nonfunctional, new unit. Having been led to believe that she was some sort of SSR that’s extra-effective vs the Empire, I was sorely being disappointed by her current performance in this completely non-Empire related task. I mean, she’s a Lich who does magic. Her stats should at least be somewhat applicable to the current situation, right? I didn’t exactly have enough time to grind up enough specialists. I needed generalists with key roles under certain situations. Why bother with the absolute, best setup when I can win with something just good enough!? “Fine, then. Fetch me a small creature. It should be easy enough to reanimate something and create a temporary Familiar.”

I looked to Ur, she barked an order, and soon enough I had a dead bird and put it into the Lich’s hands. 

“…” The Lich looked at me quietly and apprehensively, after I had a fresh, twitching carcass delivered to me by my personal army in under a minute.

“Yeah. You’re alive because I don’t want you dead. Congratulations on having basic logic. Now use all the power you were planning to betray me with for my benefit.” The Lich ducked her head, while the Amazons all looked upon me approvingly. Honestly, I couldn’t care less about what my personal army thought about me, but isolating the Lich was my secondary objective for this current mission. Getting it through her thick skull that she only had the power that I allowed her was absolutely imperative. The only person that did any betraying in my presence was me. I am the man who burns bridges. Not anyone else. “Why? Because it’s only reason you’re alive. So, do it. Now.”

The Empire took people from other worlds en masse, but that didn’t mean they didn’t also try to get those with talent and ability. Ur and the Amazons are their most fantastic mistake. In order to reach the Amazon’s world, they invested enough resources to get hundreds of cannon fodder who they can reliably impress into servitude and trust with weaponry. They took the hearts of Dragons, hides of Chimera, and probably even what little they had from Demons in order to fail and give me a little more than a hundred troops.

They tried for the Amazons after I proved the concept, after proving myself worth the investment, even if they couldn’t control me as much as they liked. 

I met Ur and saved her life a year after she and her people were cast into the frontline.

What did I have that made me equal to an Amazon?

Only an idiot would not the know the answer after all these years. 

I am not a genius with innate magics that could level cities. The Empire would never try to summon a power that they couldn’t control. They’d also never try and get an almighty warrior, equal to a hundred Amazons in one body, because if that warrior disagreed with them, they’d undoubtably die. Whoever came up with the idea, who justified the idea, had to provide an answer as to how they’d all survive if his/her antics brought a creature too strong for them to control through any means. So, as proof of concept, they fetched someone who they were sure they could defeat. Someone who could hate them so much that he’d make every mistake, commit every sin, and be hated by the entire world just for the chance to shit down their throats. 

If they’d gotten some other idiot who can hold a grudge and feel hate every waking hour without harming themselves, the Empire would be utterly fine. Instead they received a young man who hated them for existing, but one who came from a world filled with things that they did not understand and never fought. Maybe, if they plucked out someone from that world who couldn’t fucking want to murder them as much as did, they wouldn’t have as many problems. An ordinary, regular Japanese young man would give up or submit somewhere along the way.

Me?

I stared down Lich and begged her to try to kill me and escape.

Yeah. 

Without a doubt, I’m not normal in the least.

“I understand.”

It was good that my newest bullet understood that. 

…

Henri’s birds scoured the lands easily in a manner a certain someone would 10 billion percent would equate to drones. Of course, if she sent out only one, had them return to her, and then find out what that single bird knew, as she’d initially planned, it’d be only a modicum of an achievement in a world filled with monsters that could take to the skies. I was sure that the Empire had people who could fly too, but they kept certain things close to their shitty, loveless chests. 

Applying a little modern knowledge regarding scouting from toxic cesspools known as strategy games let me make better use of my newest employee’s ability.

Her maximum number of Familiars were conducting short-range air patrols. Well, short-range for me, a young man who once held his civilization’s whole world in his hand. Yeah, for me, the whole experience was like trying to load up a map, only to find it could extend past a single prefecture, and took five minutes to refresh. Despite the fact that I spent years away from modern society, having such important information be just out of my reach was aggravating beyond belief. I wanted nothing more than to have a smartphone in this shitty world, even while Ur and Henri all but fell over each other at the simple strategy.

“So… so many things in warfare is changed by this! I could survey the whole battlefield without using expensive magical items or observation towers!” Naturally, once Henri accepted her place as an asset against the Empire, I gave her everything she needed and more. Thus, she opened up about her past. Most of it can be explained in a lame, tragic flashback, but the gist of the matter is that her survival is due to her being raised as an heiress who would wage war and progress her inherited magics at the same time. Given that those magics were necromancy, the Empire took offense to the family’s existence, and slaughtered them. Boo hoo. She is now Slow Radar-chan. Emphasis on Slow. “If only I could draw upon more birds… or have their gazes be connected to my own.”

“There are nature magics which allow master and familiar to sense through one another. I studied it in order to counter it, but you may wish to look into the matter to provide us with important information.” I left dealing with the Lich with Ur, as I simply filled out the map. I made do with sharpened charcoal held by twine at the end of a stick. It felt more like brush, so it was irritating to use, but I was the only one who knew how to draw a decent map, so it was my job to do it… while riding a damn horse. “Not only shall we be able to determine the flow of battle, but we shall surely be able to influence it immensely.”

They were talking about things I already knew, but I didn’t waste my time talking to them unless they were thinking the wrong way. If I heard anything about flocks of undead birds tormenting the Empire, I was going to put a stop to it. I wanted to keep my advantage for as long as possible, so literal flying murders were going to have to wait for a far-off future, until I was conducting a very malicious victory lap against the Empire instead of a brutal campaign where I required every advantage. 

Thankfully, though, that was going to be sooner than I expected.

Why?

Because the Alpha of the pack we were searching for wasn’t just a mere monster.

It was a Hellhound. 

Forget bullets.

I was going to get myself a bomb.