Unfortunately, I’m Not A Hero: 127

Unfortunately, I’m Not A Hero: 127

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Commissioned by Shaderic

Wordcount: 2500

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Roseanne was more or less right to be freaked out by the situation.

Domestically, we’ve just managed to avoid a clusterfuck that would’ve caused a serious of revolts in numerous territories that would’ve lost us quite a few strategic assets. The nobles of the Kindred happened to also be military assets that could be put to use in times of crisis or during invasions, which was why they had so much power in the first place. While the minor revolts wouldn’t have turned into a full-scale civil war, a general revolt would’ve provoked the nobility to uniting for the sake of survival, and Roseanne would be forced to put them down with the masses serving as a meatshield.

Why wouldn’t that be called a civil war?

Because it would’ve been more akin to ethnic cleansing with Roseanne’s backing, the Royal Guard, and the masses of the Kindred.

Anyway, because of that scare, I was running an office that intended to convey Roseanne’s true plans for the situation in the future. She wasn’t going to tolerate the smuggling citizens to be used as fuel or parts, which was why she sent me out and how the situation occurred in the first place. Not only that, but she didn’t intend to wipe out the nobility and make them ineffectual, even though their worth was rapidly disappearing with so many Kindred becoming more powerful and capable. They were going to be transformed into the upper class, help govern the state, and retain most of their power and wealth. Even if their political influence was going to be curtailed in favor of the people, they were still going to have a voice in politics, which will reach Roseanne.

Naturally, while some of the nobility was mollified, others still didn’t trust her, and were probably hiding the fact that they planned to save their own skin against threats to their way of living.  In short, domestically, Roseanne wanted to institute reforms that would give her people more power over their lives, better those lives in the process, and generally improve her lands from top to bottom. This was causing rising tensions, warlords were getting uppity, and people were looking for reasons to fight and those reasons were getting easier to find.

Then, there was the Empire, who just revealed that they had three points of invasion instead of just one.

Now, the Kindred were prepared for an attack. Ylstu wouldn’t be a strategic point of interest, if the flanks weren’t well defended. The Empire would just take the path of least resistance. That wasn’t the case by a long shot. The territories flanking Ylstu were large, expansive, and relatively unstructured save for key defensive locations. They were traps means to bog down armies in burnt fields, so supply trains could be disrupted, guerilla warfare could be exploited, and Kindred would have the advantage of terrain, which would allow the natives to exploit their superior physical abilities to shine even more in combat.

If the Empire launched an attack on Ylstu’s neighbors, they’d find themselves bogged down, with threatened supply lines, and heavily entrenched strategic holdouts, which would stop them in their tracks while reinforcements poured in from the rest of Roseanne’s territories. The Kindred were ready to give up territory, because they had magic at their disposal, and the crusaders coming their way were walking sacks of wealth, power, and magic coming their way. If the Empire had Ylstu, they’d be able to reinforce it, make it into a near-unassailable supply center, and use its mountain’s tops as places to set mage towards capable of providing support fire until the horizon.

Thus, without Ylstu other invasions would just falter, but that wasn’t the case now.

The Empire was sending out people to bait in the Kindred at the flanks with wealth and power, while their true force was heading towards Ylstu. Roseanne was facing an unthinkable situation where her enemies were moving the entire front, instead of moving across logical invasion corridors, and worst of all it was happening at this very moment before she could prepare a counter. Those two armies heading her way were going to get destroyed and plundered, but while her forces were busy with those, she could lose a true, strategic location because reinforcements will be slowed by battles and looting.

Thus, Roseanne had a foreign threat heading towards her people at full speed, while she was desperately trying to bring her people together after a domestic blow-up that nearly turned into a situation of ethnic cleansing.

Now, I’ll admit that I’m a pretty big jerk… but with those two facts in mind, I decided to be nice to her.

I won’t hold her freak-out and unprofessionalism against her as a person.

But, given the fact Ylstu was in danger, I wasn’t going to hesitate to hold it against her as a noble who has done everything right and whose land was now in danger.

Sorry, Roseanne, but for the sake of my people I must pressure you as much as a possibly could.

The lives of my citizenry are on the line.

…

Roseanne glared at the war table before her. The table itself was familiar to me, since it was taken out of storage and was for her use in campaigns. However, the magical map on the table wasn’t of Ylstu, but rather the nation above me.

I couldn’t recall the name of my northern neighbor now, or the primary composition of her people. My focus whenever I was at Ylstu was Ylstu, as I managed the interior and planned for its future. I left diplomacy and trade to Kurama. Given the fact that she managed to score trade deals, higher credit lines, and corporate sites amongst our neighbors, while they decided that I wasn’t getting anything out of them until I started pumping something else into them, I viewed that as a wise choice.

Anyway, Roseanne’s strategists took in the information we’d gathered, worked with the Court Mage, and determined that the army going after my northern neighbor was going to hit them within five days minimum. Now, that would be plenty of time for Ylstu, and it would even be plenty of time for my northern neighbor with messengers flying their way right now, but not enough time for the rest of the surrounding region.

The surrounding regions will still need to mobilize and march, which will involve supply trains, conscription, and maybe even a swift training course for the masses they’ll be pushing into war. That would be a problem itself, since the longer it took to clean up the invaders, the more time Ylstu would be threatened by the true invasion force. However, there was also the additional problem of loyal nobles and their forces hastily going to war, while less loyal ones dragged their feet, let us bleed, and looked for concessions and more powers after coming in to save the day… while Ylstu was ruined and my assets lay in shambles, which would result in them getting breathing room and loot from the battles.

The nobility against Roseanne’s current plans for her people had everything to gain from by just dragging their feet, while we had to come up with a solution to the three invasion points coming our way while solving that problem too. In terms of steps, we weren’t at step zero, we were probably at negative five or six and had to claw our way up to baseline before even trying to go for a ten.

I would say that it’s impossible, if not for an option that Roseanne didn’t want to put into play.

“We ask for foreign troops to assist us in this battle. We contacted them so they could witness our rise, if we ask for help now, the other nations will see weaknesses to be exploited.” Roseanne spoke through gritted teeth, after I offered my suggestion towards the situation. I sent A’Bel back to quickly inform Henri to prepare a defensive perimeter and have people ready to head into the prepared shelters. If there was any silver lining to this situation, it was the fact that the money I spent preparing for shelters was paying off. “I will consider asking for material aid, but only if we will repay that material aid in the future.”

“Then, you’ll get shafted by merchants looking to get rich, Roseanne. Nothing brings demand up more than war, and they can hide their supply in the sands or in the waves for as long as they want.” I pointed out the clear issues with her plans. Anyone with two brain cells to rub together will go out of their way to overcharge for everything they sell to a nation that needs anything. “The Pharaohs can be trusted to keep their word, but I’m sure that any increase in trade with them will take months to take effect.”

Roseanne’s teeth grit at that statement, making her current aides take a step back, while I looked over the map.

The Royal Guards were deployed and assisting the two regions that were going to be attacked. I could count on Cellphone-chan and her subordinates to make sure that the invading forces don’t go straight through the territories. According to reports, it was likely that this was going to be the first large-scale deployment of the Empire’s citizenry as unfeeling, incredible shock troops on the continent, which will take some of the Kindred’s physical advantages off of the table. Still, there were a lot of Kindred, they were more willing to die, and they were monsters at the core.

The problem wasn’t in winning, it was in winning fast enough without losing too many troops from loyal houses, and the only clear solution to that was looking to our faraway allies.

Namely, the undersea Kindred, because the Pharaohs were too far away.

“Roseanne, if we’re going to ask for help, it needs to be total or not ask for help in the first place. You either take it, or you don’t.” If I was talking to a human leader, they’d be all for asking for assistance. Countless countries have risen and fallen due to outside interference, even in the peaceful, modern times I was born into. Taking on debt, allowing concessions, and giving favorable trade deals to other human beings in exchange for ensuring your rule was a small price to pay, but it wasn’t the same for Kindred. They were monsters and it was the same as telling them to cede territory to a rival, or show weakness to another predator. “If you don’t take it, we’ll lose a lot of people, we might lose the border lands, and we’ll win a pyrrhic victory that has a lot of our lands and people fucked over. If you do take it, we can smash the Empire’s invasion with greater numbers, guard our flanks, and deal with whatever debt that comes with an economy fat off the spoils of war we’ve gained and the people and infrastructure that we get to keep.”

“…” Roseanne’s frustration eased a little at that, as I hit the right buttons to manipulate the Kindred. They were a very greedy and selfish people. While it had drawbacks, it had benefits as well. When you frame an argument correctly, by framing things as what they could lose and not lose, then conclusions become easier for them to make. Their instincts just needed to be guided properly towards their brains. Thankfully, I came from a place that’s specialized in making the most out of people who are purely guided out of instinct into using their brains. Highschool. Well, I suppose society at large is just a construct to force people to not just live out of instinct, but most of my experience was with highschool in particular. “What are the demands of our undersea traders?”

I turned to our representative from the Lua’Kona.

I didn’t recall her name, but I knew that she was one of the Chieftain’s daughters.

The turtle-based Kindred came forward gingerly in the war room. She’d originally come wearing her tribal clothes, which had accessories befitting her status, but I sent her to a tailor after explaining that the Kindred in the capital were less culturally open than me. I mean, she wore as little as the rest of them did, bouncy bits and bobs out and everything, but they preferred certain fabrics. So, she still looked like a tribal representative, but the materials and the composition of her clothes were of high enough quality to tell the regular, snobby nobility to shut the fuck up.

What was I talking about again?

Right, the ongoing deliberations on a war that will decide the fate of hundreds of thousands.

“Trade with the land-dwellers have proven very lucrative and we wish to see no disruptions, thus we have been gathering contacts under the assumption that war will soon arise between your lands and the lands of the Empire.” The Lua’Kona representative spoke very well, although she turned to me every now and again for support, until I gave her a nod or two to get her to talk. Was she being cute, was she trying to get points, or was she nervous in front of the Demon Lord? I didn’t know and didn’t care. I wanted foreign help, so less of my people were at risk. “Our representatives have made contact with our local governess, and we are ready to negotiate favorable terms of trade in favor of our foreign legion fighting on ground… but we have another asset at our disposal.”

That got my attention and Roseanne’s… and the Lua’Kona representative grew a bit more confident as she spoke.

“The seas are large and much territory is unclaimed. Long has it been a custom for warbands to offer services to settlements beneath the waves.” My eyes widened and so did Roseanne’s. It wasn’t a solution, but it was a good stopgap. “In our conflicts against one another, we use them to prey on the outskirts and force our foes to divert forces elsewhere for defense. If you purchase their strength through us, you can beset the coasts of the Empire and force some of their army back.”

It wasn’t the allied army that I wanted, and Roseanne didn’t want on her territory, but it was the stopgap that we needed.

Roseanne thought for a moment and settled on the same conclusion.

“Make it so. Send word to your people and we will speak to these warbands in opening another front to divert the Empire’s soldiery.” Roseanne spoke and it was done. Her retainers and advisors moved forward to speak to the Lua’Kona representative, while her eyes settled on the map once again. They were less stressed, but I could tell that she was still not happy. Neither was I. “There’s still much to do.”

Those words were whispered by the Demon Lord, and weren’t meant for me to hear, so I didn’t indicate that I heard them.

Still, I agreed.

This was just the beginning.