Somehow, I’m the Otome Game Villain 27:

Somehow, I’m the Otome Game Villain 27:

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Wordcount: 2500

Commissioned by LordMarksman

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The Principality of Fanoss made their move, while the Saintess led her forces against the sky pirates plaguing the outskirts of Holfort. The Saintess was following the in-game progression towards finding the necklace portion of the artifact set. After getting that one, since I already gave her the one within the Holfort dungeon, she was going to be provided the last one by the Church. After that, she’ll have four major house’s heirs under her control, the Church, and pretty op gear.

But, as I’d feared, time operated differently in reality than it the game.

The Principality of Fanoss attacked the students on their summer trip, which wasn’t supposed to happen until the third year in-game, if both Marie and I recalled correctly. Luxion and Ideal stated that it was probably accelerated due to the weakness Holfort’s crown was displaying. Their crown prince is comatose, they had to be saved from an uprising led by a child in their own capital, and two heiresses of prominent houses have galivanted off to the Republic of Alzer.

The optics were horrible, and so the Principality attacked and abducted the school trip of the current year and were now holding them for ransom.

Presumably for Hertrude to be exchanged back to them.

“We are fortunate that the Principality realized that killing the future heirs and heiresses of many houses would’ve galvanized Holfort.” We were looking at the situation now, while flying towards the task force sent by the Principality. I was on the ship built by Ideal, but both Ideal and Luxion were flying higher up and with optical camouflage. “If someone of sufficient standing was present aboard, though, they would’ve destroyed the ship and fostered resentment by returning only the highest standing individual.”

“It’s clever in the short term, but ultimately foolish. The Principality of Fanoss must be swayed from their current path.” Ideal followed up with Luxion’s statement. It was adamant on keeping casualties low to non-existent amongst the Principality and the Kingdom. Ever since the recent revelation that most of the people outside the Empire were actually regular humanity, the AI changed its tune. It was still pretty normal when it came towards the descendants of new humanity, though. “Luxion, what is the status of your boarding teams? I am eighty percent complete.”

“Fifty percent. I will need more fabricators made for my main hull when we return.”

“Why not a chassis transfer?”

“I like to have the capabilities that I currently have at my disposal.”

“…Understandable, should we falter and fail, humanity must be carried out into the stars.” Ideal stated, and I vaguely got the idea that Luxion nodded along with the statement. I was focused on piloting my own ship, and getting my nerves ready for what was going to happen ahead. They were going to focus on dealing with the fleet, since they could spare lives, but it was augmented by a lot of monsters summoned by the Magic Flute. Those had to be dealt with, and I didn’t want them wasting computational power that they could use to save lives. They were still helping, and probably going to do the brunt of the work, but I was going to help as much as I could. “Leon, are you ready?”

“As ready as I’ll ever be, Ideal.”

“He comports himself well in combat. It’s one of his few, fine qualities. Don’t coddle him, Ideal.”

“True Humanity shouldn’t have to deal with issues such as this. He’s barely two decades old. Fighting wars and risking his life is inhumane.”

I could feel Luxion looking my way somehow, after Ideal said what he said.

Yeah, buddy, I think it’s weird too.

“Regardless, I’m working with you to help save people and stop deaths from happening.” I just woke up, sleeping for most of the voyage, since the Principality launched in the dead of night to reach the area. From what I could tell, they somehow had agents on the trip that sent off signals that allowed them to track the cruise ship filled with nobility down. The more I looked into things, into Holfort, the bigger the impending mess seemed. “I’ll focus helping free up some computational power while the two of you do the heroics.”

 This event popped as we followed the fleet movements with our new observers. Fanoss’s fleet had very fast, strong airships with modern armor on them. While Holfort had to pay to maintain their fleets, Fanoss was able to rebuild with the newest technologies from the start, and could even augment their forces with monsters controlled by the Magic Flute. So, when the fleet started moving with one of the Princesses, we knew that we had to move too. The dozen ships they sent to make their flotilla was about a third of their entire fighting force, more than anything Holfort could handle with their border forces, especially since those guys couldn’t even catch up or put up a fight. Hell, I bet patrols saw the large flocks of monsters and just avoided the whole fleet.  

Maybe, they were even paid off.

Holfort, again, is just a massive mess.

“Leon, you are nearing effective weapons range. Please begin.”

“Aye, aye.”

“One aye will suffice.”

I snorted and sighted the targets.

The flotilla used the monsters like a screening force around the ships, which themselves were in a sphere with the most important ship at the center. The most important ship was strapped to the top of a massive whale-like monster, which I vaguely remembered as a pain-in-the-ass boss. The kind where you had to keep using Guard when it charged attacks, but still need to heal afterward. That ship had massive chains that was towing the cruise ship full for Holfort’s future nobility in it. As typical as the formation was, it made sense.

The sphere of ships could support each other with overlapping layers of fire, move into a more compact or looser formation, and no matter the angle someone could deploy knight armors to support the rest. When you factor in the monsters controlled by the flute acting as a sphere around the sphere, it was a strong formation. The first, primary strength I could see in it was that it could have the outside shell wrap around the enemy fleet and force it into the defensive, while the ships at the center could fire freely into the mess.

Holfort’s slower ships, even if their cannons and individual knights were good, would have to fend off monsters while getting shot.

As good as you are, you’re not getting out of that without some serious firepower, fantastic armor, and numbers.

Preferably all three.

Unfortunately for them, they were a few centuries out of date to aerial warfare when it came to the ship that I captained for Ideal and Luxion.

“Activating missiles.” I ran my hand across a control surface that mimicked switch covers. As my fingers slid across, the switch covers opened and holograms of each missile came up along with whole salvo plans. The first plan targeted the engine rooms of each ship, while the second the engines, and the third the weapons. Flying past the speed of sound, and able to navigate and evade, the missiles were basically weapons that couldn’t be dodged by the flying ships of the day. Or, at least, those made by humans and not New Humans and their Demonic Suit technology. “Going for their engines and weapons.”

Each ship had two engine pods and multiple turrets, so there were about ten targets to each ship. Since there were a dozen ships, that meant 120 targets to hit… so I went ahead and activated another sixty missile hatches and double-checked the warheads. They were all kinetic penetrators and non-explosive, so they were basically going to punch through the Principality’s targets instead of blowing them up.

“Analysis shows that the turrets are manned, to make casualties unnecessary, strike and destroy the barrels of the weapons.” Ideal piped up.

“You got it. Doing that now.” I took one of the target ships and highlighted sections and places on the hologram made by the sensors. I changed the missile targets on the weapons from the turret’s body to the barrels as Ideal requested. After doing it for one ship, I applied the targeting pattern to the rest of the fleet.  “Should we go for a simultaneous attack?”

“That would prevent panic and sudden changes in their trajectory.” Luxion offered, and Ideal gave a hum of approval.

“Let’s do that then. Good idea, Leon!” I was praised by Ideal, and I wasn’t sure if I liked it. I had to remind myself that the AI still wanted to perform genocide on the New Humans. It was just a lot happier after finding out True Humanity won, even if they had to change a lot, and that New Humanity was the main villain of the setting and had to be put down. The AI basically got its cake and could eat it too. “I’ve input the staggered launch sequence. The barrage should arrive on each target simultaneously!”

The various trajectories of the missiles flying towards the Principality changed in color. Blue for the first wave that would launch first and arc high into the air and descend on the farther side of the Principality sphere formation. Yellow was for the second salvo, meant to launch a quarter of the way of blue’s flight pattern, and it’ll hit the middle with an ascending arc half as high as the blue waves’. Finally, there was the red wave of missiles, which were going to sprint straight from the onset with no additional altitude towards the targets of the closest side of the sphere.

I gave it a once over, nodded, and confirmed the target plan.

“That’s ready to go. What’s the launch window?”

“Luxion?”

“Eighty percent in terms of mass, but I used repair bays to augment the first half already made with additional non-lethal weapons mounted on the shoulders. It will take more of my processing power to manage them, but they should function within expectations.” Luxion forwarded diagrams of its retrofitting of its boarding teams. The large drone had a triangular body and two arms and a sensor head embedded between the shoulders. Usually, the drone projected electricity from its arms to stun targets. The facts that it can go invisible, can fly, and had strong armor made it ideal heavy infantry for boarding action. Luxion and Ideal were going to float above the fleet, kill the monsters, and drop the troops onto the fleet. “I am forging the remaining twenty percent now, but I believe that the operation can commence as planned.”

“I concur. Well done, Luxion!”

“Thank you, I try.” Luxion humbly accepted Ideal’s praise. “Leon, commence bombardment in 3. 2. 1.”

I already had my finger ready on the button.

“Mark”

With a single press, the entire prow of the ship opened up to reveal a hundred and twenty vertical launch systems and a stream of missiles launched from one another in a staggered sequence towards the Principality Fleet. Without some radar systems, let alone point defenses, they weren’t going to see the missiles or be able to defend against them until was too late. And, seconds after their weapons were gutted and engines were destroyed, they were going to be swamped with robot boarders armed with souped-up tasers.

Poor bastards.

Even if we were going this hard to make sure casualties were low, it’s still going to be horrific on their end.

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Interlude: Hertrauda

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We should have heeded my sister’s missives, despite the opportunity that arose with Holfort’s civil strife.

“Stay close to me, Hertrauda.” Vandel  instructed me, while we ran through the darkened hallways of the ship. “Don’t look outside.”

I didn’t, but I could hear everything that was happening.

Sirens blared from the ships, as the demonic golems my sister described ripped through hulls and discharged lightning at our troops. Armors fired at them, killing them with their larger weapons, but they were swarmed and the pilots were extracted from their hulls. They fell from the skies, before suddenly gaining the ability to fly, and swarmed our ships.

The monsters I summoned with my flute died to rays of light that came from the heavens above us.

Vandel suddenly stopped and so did everyone else.

“Hold. I hear nothing ahead.” We usually heard gunfire or other people trying to fight back. I had watched my guards go limp and be taken away by the creatures as we ran towards the hangar bay. We Vandel and his finest were going to take me away back to Fanoss. That was all we could do now. “Ready yourselves for combat. This is the only path to the hangar. Princess, if you can, ready some magic. Anything.”

I nodded, unable to speak, and Vandel smiled his small smile… before drawing his blade and rushing onto the hall. A moment later there was flashes of lightning and he screamed… but did not fall.

“I have it! Take it… down!” He strengthened himself to endure the blow, and we followed after him. The knights surged forward and cut the creature down, while I called upon what little skill I had and called a small barrier up to block some of the attack on Vandel. In a few heartbeats, the monster was gone, but Vandel… struggled to stay standing. “I’m… fine. Let’s go.”

He accepted the shoulder of one of his students, while we made our way to the hangar.

It opened, and for a second I feared that there would be more of the demons swarming the hangar.

We found something much worse.

A knight's armor amidst the wreckage of all the suits, a pure white knight armor composed of the same materials as the smaller ones that swarmed the ships, and in one hand it was holding Vandel’s prized magical blade like a toy.

“Surrender.” The demand was simple and concise. “You have lost.”

I shivered in place, but my body moved to use the Magic Flute and sacrifice my life, but instead Vandel’s hand stopped me.

Not yet, his eyes said, not now.

And, of course, I listened and nodded at his words.

I had to save Hertrude and I would do whatever it takes to do just that.