Unfortunately, I’m Not A Hero: 146: Interlude: A’Bel

Unfortunately, I’m Not A Hero: 146: Interlude: A’Bel

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Commissioned by Shaderic

Wordcount: 2500

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Ash and flame from horizon to horizon. A mountain range’s surface slagged by mere proximity to attacks. A river slowed as it seeped into a chasm carved into the land between itself and a mountain range.

I was to destroy the enemy, a shard of a goddess brought into the world, and corrupted by mortal belief and ambition into something horrific. It should’ve excited me. The chance to battle a divine creature guided by the malice of mortals should’ve been the sweetest of wines to cherish. It should have meant that I would fight with my life on the line against nearly impossible odds, driving myself against a host of empowered zealots capable of ripping through me with holy weapon, before even reaching their corrupted master.

But I felt no joy.

Because… because my idiot of a master was too cautious!

“A’Bel is something wrong?” Ur spoke to me. She led a hundred of elite warriors from a merciless world that forged the human body into a weapon over countless generations. In this world, that weapon was honed by magic into something unseemly. Near invulnerability to all forms of damage, the weakening of magic in their presence, and finally arms and armor that would allow them to wage war against the strongest of beings in the world. More than half their number were empowered additionally by Undeath, too, and some of them were True Vampires who will undoubtably spawn new terrors in the far future. “Should you not be excited?”

If I was only fighting with them, then I would consider this situation satisfactory. A downgrade from an exquisite vintage that’s been perfectly preserved, but a fine bottle to enjoy with a grand meal nonetheless. I would fight against a shard of the goddess of an entire world with an army that could match her own, therefore I would have a duel against a peer foe.

But… but they weren’t alone!

“It could be of a matter that is personal.” Ashe, a bound Hellhound, spoke and loomed near me with a quizzical gaze in her eyes. Her true spirit loomed over her like a giant, rabid monster whose gaze and snout searched me for any sins I committed against her superior. Hachiman brought her low, met her every challenge without blinking, made her stronger, educated her, gave her arms and armor, and still met every challenge she sent his way without flinching. He didn’t know that he created a creature that all my untrained sisters would flee from without a second thought. “A’Bel are you of hesitating to fight?”

The Hellhound blinked up at me, with the most meagre of differences in our heights, and gazed at me with eyes lacking in any malice whatsoever.

I couldn’t help but pat her head and answer her question with a shake of my head.

The titan of hellfire that was her spirit knew the truth of my intentions, so it turned its gaze away from me satisfied.

But… but that just made things worse!

My wine has become nothing more than a simple bottle picked up for a decent dinner on the weekend! Something purchased for a little celebration at the end of a working week at Ylstu, which can be afforded by any worker! It was something that would simply be brought without thought into a celebration to be drank by everyone, instead of being a gift to the host, and if there was any left it would be discarded or used to cook without a hint of hesitation!

My grand battle against a shard of the goddess with the Amazons and the Hellhound was now relegated to being a good time that I would perhaps faintly remember in a year!

My fantastic wine was now a bygone dream, but that wasn’t enough for Hachiman.

Was this some sort of cruel vengeance for all the teasing that I did to him?

I knew that he knew that I knew that he would never lay his hands on me, so I went out of my way to tempt him. He enjoyed looking at me, and his gratitude at seeing familiar fetishes from his world was refreshing, and it was fun to have the Driders create them for the masses. However, without a doubt, a part of him disliked when I pressed his face into my chest, even if he did enjoy it, since he couldn’t allow himself to do anything.

Could it be that all the times I pressed my boobs against him made him angry enough to do this to me?

It wouldn’t stop me from doing it every time that the opportunity arose, but I had to keep the question in mind… because if this continued, I would never fight as great of a battle as I did against the Pharaoh a few months ago.

In fact, I was sure that this battle wasn’t even going to be as good as that one, because Ur, the Amazons, and Ashe weren’t the sole fighters.

I looked up and let loose a sigh.

Hachiman’s ship loomed from on high, ready to bombard and attack the enemy, so that I wouldn’t even have a chance to parry a divine strike from a shard of a goddess. I’ve trained for so many years, envisioning such an attack to train against and goading my sisters to firing an attack of similar scale against me to practice, but now an unfeeling, ungrateful ship was going to take the glory from me.

Further support was going to be provided by Kurama and Sayuri, as they would coordinate the regular forces of Ylstu against the invader. Their attacks were going to focus on bogging down the transformed zealots, so that the Amazons could kill them with greater ease, and then provide me with more aid against the divine creature treading upon mortal soil.

Then, finally, there was Reiser.

A mortal hero trained against battling powerful Kindred from birth, honed to perfection by Hachiman against Kindred, and then reforged after her shattering into a creature of single-minded devotion. If Hachiman told her to kill the Popess on her own, then she would’ve strove to do so without a mote of hesitation in her heart, even without any other support. If she gave her life, if she used her soul for power, then she could’ve seized a magnificent, far-fetched victory in the coming battle. She would’ve died and been torn to shreds, but that was hardly a consequence for the little thing.

With those final three additions taken into account, my wine became a simple drink to be sipped when it was on hand for a regular meal… but Hachiman’s plans ruined even that simple pleasure.

“It is time.” Henri arrived and I barely withstood the urge to sigh. Did I even need my arms and armor now? The Lich stank of magic, she stood upon territory from which an entire Necropolis was erected in her name. Countless numbers of her subjects waited from below, ready to route the enemy on their own from destroying their home, if we all somehow, impossibly failed against the enemy. Hachiman did not drown his foes in Undead out of fear of losing them, thus the army of Phantoms, Vampires, and other creatures of Unlife did not move as an unstoppable tide that would swallow a goddess’s shard without thought. “Are you all ready?”

Nay, instead of an unstoppable cataclysm, Hachiman sent forth only its most potent and capable conductor.

He sent a Lich, a Necromancer of immense power, against a goddess in a land that was seeped in death from countless centuries of war and where she’d erected a Necropolis to use.

A half-decent sorcerer, with decades of preparation, could hold back a god.

Henri was backed by an entire nation, was upon a territory where hundreds of thousands of died for centuries, and held the finest magical catalyst for her magics that I’d ever seen.

Thus, my wine was turned into nothing more than sour grapes.

“Hachiman, you dummy. This is no fun at all.”

I complained to him through our link and received only a simple response.

“Good. If you were happy about this fight, I’d be worried. Also, you’re not allowed to fight bare naked and with only your bare hands just to get a thrill.”

At those final words, he shut off our direct connection, and I couldn’t help but groan.

At this point, this was just busy-work!

Still, I suppose that I can forgive him for not wanting me to get hurt.

Unlike Kurama, I don’t happen to be a masochist.

…

The attack was launched ten minutes before the shields fell, and it began with a blistering barrage from Hachiman’s ship. He intended for it to be a “tank” and the only way it could do so was by making itself as threatening as possible.

The barrage of its magical ballistae was peerless in this world, even a trained battalion of mages would’ve been incapable of such sustained firepower. True, each of the weapons in turn was not that strong, but it was strong enough to require defending against. Thus, the weapons did their duty by suppressing the enemy and ensuring that they did not have the initiative.

And, in battle, speed is everything.

As the ship fired and turned to showcase its other side, it was attacked.

Spears of light from the massed congregation of transformed zealots flew towards it, and some of the Goddess’s champions capable of flight took to the skies to board the ship. Its magical defenses withstood the rapid blows, and the champions would find no crew to kill, because in this short of a distance it could easily be operated by Familiars. The spears that it took, the champions it took from the fight, and the attention it garnered as Hachiman’s flagship earned it the ire that Hachiman wished for it to have.

And, of course, it was powered by one of the Goddess’s Angels, so it had plenty of firepower and protection to spare.

That allowed Henri to make an attack of her own, while the rest of the force charged forward.

In my mind’s eye, I saw their spirits as they surged forward, and their intentions and plans were bright in their minds. Like arrows on a map, the formations of Amazons, both Undead and not, went through the ruined forest. Ashe and Reiser followed the two forces to the side, while I ran with the main force at the front.

Meanwhile, the regular troops of Ylstu, fought against the champions surging towards the ship as feigned guards and interceptors. Wyverns and Harpies, the most veteran of Hachiman’s forces, lashed out against the champions taking flight. Some mages were present, recovered from a long night of defense, and they fired spells to intercept the barrage of spears that surged towards the black ship manned solely by Familiars and powered by a crippled Angel.

More of the Goddess’s army surged towards the ship as the feint continued to work… and the moment we were all waiting for came.

The Goddess fired upon the ship, and as Hachiman predicted, she fired through her own troops and so the Harpies and Wyverns keeping their distance were able to evade with only severe wounds instead of death.

Good girls and honestly worthy of every piece of gold Hachiman spent to raise them, arm them, and protect them.

Anyway, the city-shattering strike of pure divine power engulfed the Champions in flight and they perished into nothingness because of the immense power that engulfed them. They did not resist, merely dying to the divine power without a single thought, as it streaked toward Hachiman’s supposed location.

The massive ship fired into the surging beam with all its cannons, but it did not even slow the attack let alone disrupt it.

So, it struck the ship’s magical defenses… and overcame it in an instant.

The ship’s center was destroyed upon contact, with only the frontmost of its prow and back most of its stern surviving to fall onto the ground.

I wondered if the Goddess’s shard realized it killed one more of its own worshippers with its attack.

But that mattered little, as the ship’s destruction meant that the Goddess could level such attacks against us.

And, as I’d feared, I didn’t have the chance to try and parry such a wonderful attack.

Henri completed her assault. I felt the malignant dead, whose bones were broken long ago and never buried in Ylstu’s soil, have their lingering resentment and pain summoned by the Necromancer. From the ground came tendrils of ebony, of death itself manifested, and it flowed from the ground into Henri’s control over Ysltu into a sphere of pitch-black entropy. When Henri launched it, it was the size of the Goddess’s own attack, thanks to her centuries of mastery, the Necropolis beneath her feet, and the heirloom crafted over generations by her family.

The Goddess was forced to defend against the terrible blow, a sphere of swirling, malignant hatred against all life, with a shield of pure holy power.

The sphere building-sized sphere bore into the Holy shield and bore into it. Rather than dissipate and harm our own troops, Henri pushed it forward while holding its shape, ensuring that it drilled into the shield and expended itself against the Goddess completely. Hachiman’s Lich was not one for imperfect spells, let alone imprecision that would harm her own soldiers, and so the Goddess was suppressed by the attack.

Suppressed to the point that the three-pronged attack sent forth by Hachiman reached her meagre host while more than half of the deathly attack remained. The meagre assembly of zealots had no souls, as their souls were used as the catalyst for their ascension, and they were naught but powerful automata gilded by divine raiment. They felt no pain, not pity, and no fear in the face of the overwhelming odds that they faced, but neither did they have the brilliance, courage, and determination of mortals who fought for everything that they knew.

Thus, I left them to the Amazons at my back and surged towards the Goddess’s shard who was still struggling with Henri’s attack.

My heart surged with excitement as our eyes met, and as the Popess resorted to trickery with divine power to divert Henri’s attack upward instead of confronting it head on like a divine being.

Magnificent.

The mortal feared Hachiman so much that she couldn’t give her entire soul to her goddess!

Magnificent!

The Popess of the Empire, who spent her entire life extolling the virtues of their Goddess, couldn’t let go of her fear to the point that she didn’t have enough faith to entrust everything to her own deity!

MAGNIFICENT!

Hikigaya Hachiman, you made the Popess of the Empire, kill her own followers, abandon her entire nation, and STEAL from her own GODDESS!

A zealot turned heretic.

A pious popess turned thief.

A trusted citizen turned into a traitor.

This foe is PERFECT, master!