Apocalypse Reborn: Academy Start: 2

Apocalypse Reborn: Academy Start: 2

…

Commissioned by J.A.

Wordcount: 2500

…

I’m sure everyone wishes that they can re-do their life.

Go back in time, get loads of money, eat right, talk to your crush, and don’t miss out on things. Live a long, fulfilling and fruitful life with the wisdom and knowledge you gained from the years you already spent.

Technically, I got that chance.

I mean, sure there’s some great stuff missing and this isn’t my life again, my a second life provides opportunities, especially when you’ve still got your previous life’s knowledge and skills. If I ignored the coming apocalypses, I could live a life of luxury and enjoy myself before I pass on. Hell, I could study magic and become immortal through a myriad of ways, and wait until all the things I wanted came back while sitting on a shitload of money.

Yeah, technically, I could be a rich bastard with perfect health and no regrets surrounded by all the things I wanted.

If not for the coming apocalypses in the horizon, that is.

In the face of the various bad ends that could happen to me if the bad guys of this world win, what I had at my disposal was almost insignificant. I could, with my past knowledge, live a long and happy life with little issues and concerns… then, I’ll end up as a living wardrobe that feels its guts and innards being torn out every time my owner needs clothes.

What I had was great and fantastic for a slow, slice-of-life adventure with no stakes.

For saving the world against abominations and beasts and devils that were coming?

Yeah, I had to work my ass off and leverage everything that I had in order to survive. No, I don’t mean training, becoming super-op with magic, and stuff like that. In this world, the only people that really mattered were the leaders of factions and the nations that they had. Armies and sheer industrial might and shittons of money are going to carry the day. Even if some chosen one pops up, lops the heads off the generals and the leaders of the enemy, the armies of the enemy aren’t going to magically disappear off the face of the planet.

In other words, from the moment I was born, my job was to unfuck the Academy and get it working with only my knowledge from my past life.

No noble lineage with reputation, gold, and power.

No super-op broken ability to get things done and people to listen to me.

No completely-loyal, overpowered teacher that’ll do everything to make me the strongest on the planet.

Just what I knew about the future, the thousands of games I played, and what I learned in my past life.

Everything that I needed, I needed to get myself, with all I had at my disposal was knowing that they existed and how to get them.

Yeah.

Not looking good for the planet, but I was going to give it my best.

…

The Academy’s on the waning end of empire, if only at the start. The lower and middle class were both still doing okay, but the upper classes were the ones getting the most money. Their industry was focused on service and artisanal goods, with their industrial district making weapons getting smaller and smaller. Raw materials, along the lines of metal, wood, and cotton were all taken from villages roughing it outside of Academy lands, while they focused on making lots of food to sell for profit outside.

Those problems could be fixed, especially with their research output, Citadels, and all the Ancient Ruins they were sitting on and not using. Once the Citadels unlocked, loads of things could be fabricated or grown. The fields of the Academy could be blossoming with hyper-advanced crops from the Ancients within a year. All the research unlocked could be done by the Academy at breakneck speeds, and finally industry head straight for the moon once the industrial breakthroughs gained from extracted ancient secrets are made public for the sake of fighting off the end of the world.

The military industrial complex is going to boom, and I’m going to ride that boom.

I can’t help it.

War-profiteering is a part of my cross-dimensional cultural heritage.

EagleScreech.mp3.

Anyway, the biggest problem that couldn’t just be solved was that the Academy had a lot of mercenaries. Their professional, standing army were only three quarters their mercenaries in number. Sure, they were good, upgraded T1 units and they were led by Champions, but numbers had a quality of their own… especially when those numbers disappear and don’t fight with you when Demons pop up from below ground.

So, while gathering power and setting up a means to get a Citadel in Academy hands, I was trying to build up my own PMC.

As a 13 year-old.

Yeah, Ayah was my stand-in.

“We’ve gained fifty more potential recruits. I suspect that this batch will do poorly and we’ll gain twenty at most.” I had to rely on quality, so I was pushing anyone who wanted into my troops into modern standards of soldiering. You’d think that it would be easy for people who haven’t touched televisions or fast food in their life, but the general health of the recruit wasn’t good and people were just flat-out weaker. Harsh lives lead to strong mentalities and work ethic, but they fuck up the body real good. “The training course you’ve created has shown good results.”

“Thank you. I’m glad that they do.” People were going through what I could remember from PE, and learning how to follow orders, set up camp, and go in formation. Any military geek back home would laugh at my attempt, but it was pretty good in this world. “How’s the new shipment of pikes, swords, and crossbows?”

“The new blacksmith was eager to showcase them. They are of acceptable quality and in the quantity we requested.” I was more of a history nerd, or rather I played a lot of fantasy and history RPGs long enough to get an idea for medieval tactics. The Spanish tercio fucked me up enough times in multiplayer in a certain game that I adopted it. I also planned on getting guns, and it’ll be a while before I found the unlock for automatic weapons, so the spears and swords were going to be necessary for a while. “They are advancing through Ruins at great speeds, especially with the mages we have hired, and we are extracting immensely valuable artifacts and technology.”

“Good, good. That’ll all help.” Initially, Alistair held the purse strings and nominal command, but that changed after I found Ayah. With the Ancient Administrator, we saw a flood of investors and people willing to get us to keep plundering the Ancient Ruins below for a cut from the profits. Technically, I was making money hand over fist, but anything that I got was going straight back into the PMC. No CEO salary for me. I want to live. “How many expeditions are completing this week?”

“Five. They will require rest, so next week there will only be three.”

“I don’t want people dying because of exhaustion, and they need time to learn how to read, write, and understand new tactics.” Uneducated. People aren’t stupid. Well, some people are, but the truth of the matter is that a decent class can educate a person with less mental talent than everyone else. The unfortunate truth is that takes a lot of time and money, so I had to make a cutoff point. Can’t learn basic algebra or write a five-hundred word essay and read it aloud? Yeah, sending you into battle would be inhumane. “How’s the first batch going on their first field assignment?”

The Academy had a system where mercenaries could quell monsters in the surrounding area for coin and reputation. Bands of mercenaries could start in the classic group of four, then work their way up into massive guilds/raids. When you have a ton of money, I guess everything looks like a money problem, but I was taking advantage of it by fielding my troops, blooding them against monsters, and getting money.

“I checked on them after their latest encounter. They have suffered only a few injuries and no deaths. The Goblin nest was destroyed. Their officers rightly smoked them out and led them to a battle on the open field.”

“Great. We need them to keep thinking that way.”

That was another thing I was cribbing off from history and some of my business classes.

Officers and managers needed a measure of independence and creative thinking. The people beneath them just needed to meet physical and mental standards and carry out tasks, while ‘middle’ management looked at problems and found solutions that would benefit everyone the most, at the least cost, and in the time assigned.

Was it dehumanizing to the common soldiery?

Yeah, but I’m sure the people on the field risking their lives want to know that they’ve got officers that use their brains, and that doing their jobs means that they win.

There was a knock on my door, as I continued to converse with Ayah regarding the PMC.

In a few moments, the papers we had were set aside and I was reviewing the continent’s history.

Ayah went over to answer the door.

And, a moment later, she stood beside the Guardian of the Moon’s generic, regular leader. I forgot what her title was at the moment, but I had notes tucked away for remembering that sort of thing. Don’t worry, lady, I’ll know the general gist of your infrastructural plans and end goals for your faction by this evening.

“I had wondered where you were, Heir of the Academy! I thought that I’d see you in one of my courses today, but you were nowhere to be found. I had hoped to introduce myself!” Celia was definitely going for the prince route, or maybe she was in a tomboy phase. She wore the suit-like male uniform for the Academy very well and had her hair up in a high ponytail with a river. She replaced the string ribbon everyone wore with a cravat. Maybe it wasn’t a tomboyish phase. Maybe she was just saying that the regular uniform isn’t aristocratic enough for her. “Well met!”

She extended a gloved hand out to me to shake… and I stood up to return it.

The Guardians of the Moon will make for good allies/meatshields in the future.

“My apologies, I rarely attend class. Ayah, please serve us some tea and biscuits.”

“Right away, my lord.” Ayah curtsied, and Celia looked at her with approval. You approve of the short-haired, tanned French maid? I think we’ll get along just fine. “Excuse me, Lady Celia.”

“You are excused. You are doing exquisite work, Ayah. Commendable, even.” With that praise shared, Celia eradicated the ‘help’ from her notice and looked at the seat in front of my desk. “May I?”

“Please do. My hospitality is yours.” I fell back on the hospitality lessons ingrained into my brain. The Vampire princess preened under my attention and rigorous adherence to protocol. This faction loved getting compliments and would go to war over an insult. Yeah, I’m sure that I can make use of them. “How was your first day?”

“Plenty to learn, but far too many introductions.” Celia answered with a smile. She took the bait and began talking about herself, so I could do less work. Ayah caught my vision as she prepared tea, and I nodded at her and looked at the clock. The Ancient Administrator got the message, I hoped, to clear time so that I can get to know my new ally. “There was this one professor who was insufferable.”

“Oh? Do tell. I thought I pruned all of those already.”

“And, you have done wonderfully. However, this one seems simply utterly unforgivable.”

“I see. This is quite worrisome.”

I haven’t heard a thing, but if one scholar’s got to go for me to get access to endless undead armies, then I was going to make it happen.

I needed Celia, so I wasn’t going to hesitate to butter her up.

…

Back to the matter of having a PMC.

Beyond certain games where you can just abduct people by attaching fultons to their backs, then zipping them away to an oil derrick in the middle of the ocean, I don’t have much experience in handling one. Sure, I could talk all about middle-management ideas, having historical knowledge, and modern knowledge, but at the end of the day it’s a band of sweaty, violent people who I intend to use to kill other sweaty, violent people.

I hate to say it, but I’m also using Ayah as my top enforcer and she cracks skulls when necessary.

And, it’s depressingly necessary.

“This the one?”

“Yes, my lord.” Ayah had many faces. Maid, steward, accountant, scribe commander, and finally executioner. It’s one of the benefits of being a pile of magic and tech that the Ancients used as a time capsule to help save their descendants. While the Ancient Administrator didn’t know how to make guns and giant robots to beat back the apocalypse, it could infiltrate and do other useful things that helped taking control over organizations easier. Ah, the Ancients probably wanted Ayah to assassinate the local ruler when it awoke and take their place. Honestly, that doesn’t sound like a bad idea. “This one has siphoned funds and used it to drink and gamble.”

I took a look at the face of the man and sighed.

“Dammit, Khorl. You had potential.”

The young man, barely thirty, paled when I addressed him. A select few of the PMC knew that I was in charge and through me Alistair. A lot of the lower officer class interacted solely with the lieutenants who knew only Ayah’s disguise as a commander, while the captains knew Ayah and Me and Alistair. Most of the Captains were bigshots. Veteran tough guys who’ve been through enough fights as mercenaries that the lower ranks respected them outright.

The problem was that they were bigshots who’ve been through enough fights that the lower ranks respected them outright.

Give them an inch, they’ll take a mile, especially when they think they can get one over the ‘child’ overseeing their operation.

I didn’t have much rep outside of the Academy.

“W-wait, please. My lord, it was a mistake. You can’t kill me over a bit of coin and liquor!”

“You’re not dying, Khorl, but you’re not staying here. It’s exile. Killing outside of orders or forcing yourself on others. That’s what gets you killed.” We were in a small and dark cabin in one of the Academy’s forests. No one would know what happens here, besides the captains present to witness, Ayah, and myself. The only one I could completely trust in the group was Ayah, but that was enough. “But, if that’s too much for you…”

I gestured towards Ayah, or rather its executioner persona.

A black-robe clad individual carrying a sword as it was tall against its shoulder and leaning right next to me.

“Exile or death. Pick one.”

I really wished he’d pick exile, but being sent out into the wastes to never return to Academy lands stripped of gear and equipment?

Yeah.

I knew what choice the man was going to make.

“P-please, sir! No! Neither! Flog me. Drag me across stones! Anything!”

He was going to beg and I was going to make him choose to make an example of him.

As great as this start at the Academy is, not having a reputation was really weighing on me.