Unfortunately, I’m Not A Hero: 142

Unfortunately, I’m Not A Hero: 142

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Commissioned by Shaderic

Wordcount: 2800

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War is best conducted as unfairly as possible.

But the definition of “unfair” is up for debate.

A moron would say that the quality of the soldier doesn’t matter.

Another type of moron would say that quantity doesn’t matter at all.

I learned my lessons in Ylstu while fighting the Kindred.

Numbers.

Sheer power.

Orthodox and unorthodox tactics.

Being unfair meant having everything and using everything to kill your opponent. To fight against anyone is to commit everything you can to killing them, while having the resolve to do everything to survive.

All my victories as a commander of slaves were based off the sacrifice of thousands and thousands of people. Every victory that I had back then was bought with the lives of dozens of people for every enemy causality we inflicted. My improvements in conducting war, the assets that I received, only allowed me halve that number over the course of years.

Maybe, if the Empire provided me with better equipment, if they supported me and gave me conventional means to win, I wouldn’t be who I am today.

Maybe, I wouldn’t be as learned or as capable at strategy as I was.

And, maybe, I wouldn’t look at the destruction I caused upon them, no matter how terrible, and feel only satisfaction.

The Empire, no matter what they said about me for my tactics and strategies against them, only had themselves to blame.

They were the ones who made me who I am today.

Knowing that the Eldritch monstrosity I inflicted upon them, and all the horrors it wrought upon the Empire’s people and military, gave me only a single regret:

That it didn’t manage to kill the Empire’s Popess like I’d intended it to.

Men and women turning into gibbering lunatics bereft of sanity?

People breaking as Eldritch monsters tried to play with them like regular Kindred?

Towns and whole regions becoming warped in the mere passing of the Kindred I unleashed and all within turning into mad Kindred?

An ordinary person would consider all that horrible to inflict upon the Empire. In fact, in the back of my mind, some part of me told me that I should feel disgusted. Even though I felt nothing about using chemical weapons, even though I felt nothing about burning down a whole city in a single night, a part of me told me that I should regret unleashing the creature that I did.

In the end, though, it was just a small part of me that felt any regret.

In truth, I thought it was a decent showing for a weapon that missed, so I planned to have a few more made and launched.

That was the plan, anyway, until I heard that the Popess was coming my way at breakneck speed.

…

A’Bel’s golden eyes were teary as she clung onto me and mashed my face against her breasts.

“Please, please, please… please let me fight her alone, my dear summoner!”

“I refuse.”

I walked into the Necropolis with some difficulty. A’Bel was being a nuisance, but she was floating and not actually tying me down to keep me from my job. I’m sorry, A’Bel, but if a girl’s tears swayed my heart, I wouldn’t be much of an underling for a Demon Lord. Wait, you’re still doing it, so you know it’s working.

Dammit.

Anyway, I did my best to ignore A’Bel’s sobbing and begging to fight one of the strongest beings of the Empire on her own in favor of reaching the spot in the Necropolis that Henri told me to meet her at.

Henri greeted me with a nod in the Necropolis’s town square where the bodies of the retrieved Amazons were laid out.

“My Lord.” Henri gave me a bow and didn’t blink at the bikini-clad Demon mashing her boobs against my face. My Lich glanced towards her chest for a second, probably wondering if she should somehow reveal more of her chest. No, don’t do it. Those are barely straps as-is. Only twenty-five percent of the boobs are covered. Both sides are on display as is most of the underboob! Reveal any more and it’ll just be trying too hard! “The materials and the bodies have been gathered.”

“Good.”

I grunted out the word, but grimaced at the sight of the materials.

“How many summoning missiles can we make with this much, again?”

“Most of our reserves for the time being. It will be quite a long time until we can produce another strategic weapon, my Lord.”

“Dammit.”

I had plenty of money, but Mana was the chief problem. Happy, well-fed Kindred produced a lot of Mana and I had the means to store it for future use. At the start of Ylstu, I had Kindred condense their mana and fill bottles with the stuff, which I turned into bombs with some explosives. I didn’t ask questions about the substance, if I could have it in large quantities for money and food, and use it against my enemies.

Now, Mana was gathered from the ambient environment like a form of tax from my citizens via some magical ritual or whatever developed by Henri, which was helped by some cultural exchange items from the Pharaohs. The excess energy that would turn Ylstu into a Kindred Realm, a place for monsters by monsters, was instead taken in, processed, and refined into a liquid that’s collected in massive tanks, which I could use for whatever I wanted.

Typically, it was just larger explosives, but it was also fuelled for both types of my missiles, the base ingredient for the modified Manticore Venom, and finally I needed a lot of it to invite Eldritch creatures to wreak havoc on the Empire. Given the high demand for explosives amongst my troops, and the fact that most of the citizenry was evacuated, the upkeep of Mana was high and its input levels were low, so I had only a trickle in terms of surplus.

Leaving my reserves for the creation of any powerful weapons effectively gone… but I was exchanging equitably in my opinion.

“Chieftain.” Ur’s voice drew me out of my thoughts.  Unlike usual, she was wearing only a loin cloth and a sash around her chest, while clad in the red-ink ritual symbols across her body. Huh, the armor covered up more than I thought it did. A light blush dusted her face, but she cleared her throat and nudged me with an elbow. I managed to stop staring. “I am ready to force this tribe to accept my leadership. You may begin.”

I felt several stares on me from A’Bel, Henri, and a Kunoichi that popped out of a nearby vase.

A cold chill went up my spine, even as I had to shift around in my pants a bit.

Damn, libido, why are you returning while I’m at war with the Empire!?

Is it the catharsis of savagely destroying all their forces that’s freed you from the shackles of depression!?

Hachiman Jr. naturally gave no answer and simply struggled to make himself known and put us both in grave danger, until I refocused.

“Then, let’s get this done and make sure that the Empire’s Church is decapitated.” I turned my gaze towards the square of the Necropolis. More than a few of its inhabitants were gathered on the rooftops to look upon the mass-summoning that was about to occur. Dead Amazon lay cleaned and presentable for burial on white cloths. Side-by-side, they lay with only the slimmest of spaces between their burial blankets, upon the engraved necromancy circle at the heart of the Necropolis to be fueled with enough power to summon seven Eldritch Horrors into the world. It was what was needed to overcome their innate magic resistance, which would only improve in their unlife, before they faced the avatar of the Goddess. “Henri, do it.”

“As you wish, my Lord.”

Henri began the ritual as I watched, her family’s staff hovering before her for a second, before taking flight. The ebony staff grasping an orb of power at its end began to glow as it halted above the center of the grand circle. Its glow was as bright as the full moon in a perfectly dark night and even with my mediocre power, I could tell that its light was being cast and seen in another realm altogether.

Henri began to speak, but it wasn’t in this world’s tongue, but in the Amazonian tongue. I picked up a few words here and there, but she spoke passionately and imbued it with magic. The latter infused it with power and left the magic translation spell I had worthless, but I picked up a few words.

‘Vengeance.’

‘Retribution.’

‘Justice.’

All things that Amazons loved to talk about when the Empire was concerned.

A’Bel noticed my lack of talent and whispered what was happening to my ears.

“The torch has been set, the entreaties made, and now the souls of the killed are returning.” A’Bel, apparently feeling that a bikini was unsuitable for the situation, reformed her clothes into a black dress and stood behind me with a smile on her lips. She took her hands from me too, probably because I felt it was wrong to make this ritual lewd. “As you expected, my dear master, the Amazons are willing to return for their righteous retribution. All of them.”

I raised an eyebrow at that statement, but Ur answered my unspoken question while accepting her personal blade from one of her lieutenants.

“Hachiman offers them a chance to avenge themselves. He does this without enslaving them to his will. He does this while challenging them for the right to lead them through trial by combat.” Ur spoke and her lieutenants nodded, while they watched the silver light cast by Henri’s ancestral staff. After a heartbeat, the orb grasped by blackened wood was suddenly filled with swirling, ephemeral spirits… which all began to surge towards their bodies in the square like lances of light. They struggled against their own bodies for a time, but found ritual ate the mana we provided, and they found purchase in their old forms. The bodies began to twitch and change before our very eyes. “They will come, if they are true Amazons.”

A’Bel nodded at her words and cast her gaze towards the square as I did.

A thought occurred to me as I saw more and more bodies changing and I directed my voice towards Henri, who was tired, but standing after finishing her ritual and leaving the rest of her students.

“Oi, you told me that most of them were probably going to be Zombies. Better Zombies, but still Zombies. I’m not seeing that.” I pointed at the changes that were occurring. Many were becoming Onimusha like Sayuri. Flesh of one limb or two faded away and left behind bone. The bone then grew and became like armor that wrapped around the flesh. Sayuri, Kurama’s bodyguard, could call upon the bone to become powerful full-plate in battle and she could summon ghostly fire to coat her weapons. Both were amazing boons for any warrior. “What’s happening here?”

“It took far less to call them forth than expected. They were filled with resentment from the start and never travelled far. The Empire was foolish and merely took over their bodies instead of killing their minds completely. These warriors, if not for their natural bodies, would’ve returned to life the moment they were killed otherwise, my Lord.” Henri spoke with slight strain, but smiled at what she was seeing. Her excitement was clear as powerful Undead after powerful Undead arose after another in her Necropolis. “The excess power we prepared is improving them instead. They are growing strong… and the finest amongst them are becoming far more than I expected!”

Henri pointed towards the center, where Ur placed the one she thought was most likely the leaders of the kidnapped Amazons, and I watched as their hair turned white, as their tanned flesh lightened, but didn’t turn completely blue, and as they went from laying still to standing upright the moment their blood-red eyes opened. Before their wounds closed in their new immortality, blood came forth from their bodies and they instinctively used it to clothe themselves in their tribal wear.

“Spell-casting, tribal Vampire Amazons. Now I’ve seen everything.” I muttered to myself and instantly got the attention of the five at the center. In an instant, with the unnatural grace of Vampiric unlife amplifying their already-powerful bodies, they went in my direction. I felt a little bit of fear, until A’Bel made her presence known through our link and Ur shook her head, so I stayed still as they suddenly came to a stop before me. I raised an eyebrow and looked up past a lot of legs, abs, and slightly paled tans. “Huh. Ur, why didn’t tell me that Amazons reach eight-feet.”

“Most do not. These women are from the Mountain Tribes in the North where only the strongest survive.” Ur nudged me lightly and the five turned their attention to her, especially as her lieutenants came forward and offered them blunted weapon. “But, fret not, my tribe and my people are the strongest and I will prove it now by challenging these women and defeating them.”

More Onimusha were rising, but all eyes were on Ur as she confronted the five larger Amazons reborn as First Vampires. I vaguely recalled Henri telling me the first of every Vampiric lineage was the strongest, because their blood was unthinned, but Ur went before them all with only her training, her weapon, and no armor at her disposal without an ounce of fear. Since A’Bel didn’t move, even though I told her to protect Ur if she needed help, I took that as the Archdemon confirming my suspicions that Ur was going to kick ass.

Ur waited between me and the silent Amazons until the last of their kin arose in their new lives, then she spoke with a roar.

“My name is Ur, the champion of Hikigaya Hachiman, chieftain of my tribe, lord of this land, Hand of the Demon Lord, and foe of the hated Empire!” Ur levelled her blade against the Amazonian Vampires before her and they readied their weapons as well. “I challenge each of you to battle for the right to absorb your tribe into that of my chieftains! Your foes will be ours and our foes will become yours! All of our sorrows and blessings will be shared and you will all be welcomed as equals in our clan upon your defeat… now let us fight!”

For a second, I felt a tinge of worry for Ur and nearly ordered A’Bel to get her.

Even if she was strong, her fighting against five powerful Vampires with Amazonian templates was too much, especially without her armor.

But it was just a passing thought that died in a second, because as soon as the declaration was made all five cast down their weapons and knelt before Ur… as did all their subjects behind her.

I raised an eyebrow until Ur offered me a cheeky smile and answered me over her shoulder.

“I killed all five of them once already, it would be dishonorable of them to challenge me again so soon.” The new Vampires all nodded at the words, as did all the Onimusha in hearing distance. “If they wish to resist my will, they will do so after at least four seasons. I wore this little to ensure that they would recognize my markings perfectly.”

To those words, I responded maturely.

I threw up my arms with a groan.

In a perfectly mature way.

“Alright, I guess! I was worried for nothing!” I grumbled and let myself unwind, even as I felt embarrassed by the giggling around me. My ears heated up, but that was hidden by my hair. I decided a tactical retreat was in order, unless my moment of weakness was capitalized upon. The new Amazons looked pretty ‘hungry.’ “Get these women fed, and get them ready for a fight. I brought you all back to life, so you can all at least fight for me once! If you don’t want to, then just run away like a coward!”

With that said, I turned to walk away knowing that was enough to get the Amazons riled up for a fight.

It worked with Ur and the others years ago, and it got me a battalion of Amazons then, so I’m sure that’ll work the same way now.

Wait, all of Ur’s tribe wants me to impregnate them.

Maybe, I should’ve said something different.

Well, they’re from another tribe, so it should be fine, right?

Right?