Unfortunately, I’m Not A Hero: 117

Unfortunately, I’m Not A Hero: 117

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Commissioned by Shaderic

Wordcount: 2700

…

In terms of firepower, I had more than most people could get their hands on.

However, much like money, it was never bad to have more firepower than I needed. Sure, nowadays, I was working with soft power. Influencing the economy, the culture, and the ethics of the Kindred through all my projects, but the fact remained that all of that was impossible without the military assets that I got my hands on. Hell, I would’ve died as a slave without Ur and the Amazons, so I wouldn’t have even become Ylstu’s owner if I hadn’t had enough power in the first place.

While I certainly wasn’t going out of my way to get as much of it as possible, like a certain blue-jacketed half-devil, but if I could get it without much additional effort I would. Though I sometimes got lazy when playing and ignored a quest or two, if I knew that I was getting someone cool and it happened to be on the way to my name objective, then I was more than happy finish off a side-objective.

Case in point, the Dragon that I had under my employ was a powerful creature with extreme combat prowess, the ability to breath magical flames on targets, and provide energy for extremely powerful things. Since I had to search three areas for Henri’s heirloom staff, and she was one of the prime suspects, I went after her and her ship so that I could gain power while I was getting my main objective done.

If wasn’t one of the suspects, I’d probably have just evaded her and made sure that she didn’t interfere with my plans… or maybe I’d have gone after her just for her ship… but that’s beside the point.

I liked power, and I wasn’t going to say no to power, but it wasn’t my main goal.

Power, much like money, is just a tool to get what I wanted.

…Hm?

What’s that?

Did I want to use it for freedom, justice, or revenge?

Huh.

I’ll be honest.

It used to be entirely for revenge, but nowadays it was mostly to repel the Empire until the rest of the Kindred could just roll them over. While I certainly had plenty of reasons to want to strangle the Empire to death through my own means, the situation had changed significantly in many ways. Roseanne had ordered me to stand down, Ylstu was more than an air-base where I was training Wyverns and Harpies to drop bombs, and I was cooling down just a little after spending a lengthy period of time not being tormented, threatened with death, and being forced to fight and kill or get fucked to death while doing something productive and gratifying.

I am, without a doubt, slowly but surely becoming a better Hikigaya Hachiman.

Does that mean I’ll give the Dragon I’d captured her freedom and apologize for threatening her with death and servitude?

Hell, no.

I said that I’m becoming a better me.

Not a completely different person!

Power’s still power, money’s still money, the Empire’s still the Empire… and I’m still me.

…

My Cellphone started fuming the moment I entered her guard post and I was worried that she was going to overheat because of that. I didn’t have a warranty for her, so if she broke I was sure that it’d be difficult to get a replacement. But, when I thought about it, I had plenty of alternatives so I just went ahead and accessed her.

“Yo.” The capital’s guard towards worked a bit like small, police offices in neighborhoods. However, since they had to handle tougher crowds, they were built solidly and lacked any informational brochures. They were places for the Capital’s peacekeepers to bring in anyone stupid enough to cause trouble right under Roseanne’s nose, before they got sent off to the local lord for judgement i.e. Roseanne herself. “How’s your training going?”

“You!” The Dragon fumed and the temperature in the room increased a little. The office area of squat, stone building had a few desks, but was mostly dedicated to storing equipment for taking down Kindred. Clubs, heavy nets, and large shields were the common weapons employed by the people here, if they weren’t outright strong enough to handle their suspects with their own strength. The Dragon’s subordinates were two Trolls and an Orc. All three were quick to make themselves scarce looking after the prisoners and starting to maintain things from the moment I arrived. “You dare show your face to me in my place of power, Hikigaya Hachiman!?”

“My town’s dungeon is literally better than this and my subordinate who took you down is right here so… yeah, I dare plenty. Excessively, even.” I approached the Dragon and she backed off as Ashe and Ur both walked close behind me. My other Amazonian guards took places in the small room and the Dragon’s gaze followed them. I continued to approach her until her back hit the wall. She flinched as I reached for the inside of my jacket and blinked rapidly when I pulled out a letter bearing Roseanne’s seal. “Relax. I’m not allowed to take you. Yet. You’re just going to be under my command for a bit for a mission.”

The Dragon’s gaze narrowed at me, but she regained her bravado and smirked when she realized that I didn’t have any direct authority over her yet. That bravado died quickly when Ashe growled at her and Ur shifted a little to make her armor and weapons klink a little. The scarlet-haired, slender Dragon shut up at that and took the letter from me gingerly to read on the matter.

Surprisingly, she grew angry at the letter and the news, but not for the reasons I suspected.

“I asked for permission to pursue this organization weeks ago! I could have done something myself, but they made me wait for you!?” The Dragon’s existence as an individual went up a few notches as I listened to her speak. She used to be a treasure-hoarding pirate who blockaded an entire region for fun and profit, so my estimations of her as a person were low. I only spared her because I thought that she’d be useful in the long term. Thus, I was surprised at the fact that Roseanne’s Royal Guard Captain seemed to have made some progress in making her a better person over the course of a few months, despite decades of marauding on the seas. “Those upstart bitches truly think that they’re better than me, just because they’re a few decades older! They’re treating me like a whelp freshly spawned!”

Ah, never mind.

They were just playing off her pride to force her to be a better person.

That’s a lot less impressive, but I won’t deny the fact that the results were useful.

“Yeah, I don’t care about the office politics. I’m here to finish a job, save lives, and kill slaving bastards. Bitches. Whatever.” I had a whole routine planned up to intimidate the Dragon into obeying me, but it looked like she was already being trained up, so I decided against it. Since she was already being manipulated into doing the right thing, I wasn’t going to manipulate her myself. If I don’t have to work, then I won’t. “Tell me what you know about them. Let’s track them down, kill who we can, capture the important people, get what we need from them, and then kill them later.”

I was effectively being judge, jury, and executioner for all the people I’m going after. In a modern society, my words would have me removed from power very quickly. Here, however, I got nods of respect from everyone in the room. The three other peacekeepers present blushed and fretted a bit from arousal, but I ignored them. Dragon-san, meanwhile, seemed to preen a little after my words, probably because in her twisted mind, the more impressive I was the less terrible her defeat was.

Man, I’m getting good at figuring why Kindred are what they are. I should write this down so that my male students back in Ylstu don’t have to start from nothing when I send them out into the world.

“Hmph. Very well then, I suppose that you are proven and capable, thus they gave you the mission because of its importance.”

Dragon-chan went through the mental hoops, while I looked through her desk. Report, pending report, and notes. She was surprisingly diligent and I got a good look at all her stuff, while she tsun-tsun’d in her own little world. Blah, blah, blah, I’m accepting your help because of “xyz” not because I like you. Yeah, I’ve heard it all before and… there aren’t many tsunderes in Ylstu. I wonder why… were they adapting to me not being interested!? No. that can’t be… r-right!?

“Are you ignoring me!?”

Ah, she noticed.

Time for the perfect response.

“Yes.”

Dragon-san glared at me.

Ashe laughed a little.

Ur sighed a sigh of long suffering.

I kept reading what I had in front of me, because I had too little time to spare.

What?

I didn’t have time for that sort of thing.

…

Dragon-san surprisingly took very good notes and conducted her own private investigation on her own time to get more information on the slave ring. While the fact remained that she was doing it to prove herself to her seniors, I couldn’t deny the work and effort she put into gathering evidence, looking into suspects, and making notes on potential places to stake out. She even had contacts with Roseanne’s stretched out clandestine organization, which she used to investigate places that would see-through whatever disguises she had.

I was really, really tempted to give her the nickname Detective Dragon, because it’d be neat, but she still used to be a pirate that caused a lot of suffering to a lot of people. The best I could do would probably be “Private Investigator” because those guys don’t have background checks and shady pasts. Well, being a fearsome pirate that stole an entire Empire ship is more than a bit shady, but it still works out.

I won’t be giving her a cool title, and upgrading her existence in my eyes, until she proved that she was kind to other people though, though.

Which was unlikely, because she was treating her employees like shit.

“What do you mean you’re all leaving the office! All three of you need to stay for tonight, at least!” The Orc and Trolls under her employ were quickly gathering their things once the sun began to set. They worked from dawn till dusk. The next shift was already present for dusk until dawn, but I could tell why Dragon-san wanted her day shift aboard: they were beastfolk. Good for scouting and sneaking in the night, but certainly not for busting heads. “This is your chance to be acknowledged by one of the most powerful people in the continent and you’re going home!?”

The Orc and Trolls made excuses quickly and soon enough they vanished into the streets with the red-haired Dragon fuming at them, while the night shift twiddled their thumbs and looked nervously at the assembled firepower in the station. Nearly a dozen Amazons and a Hellhound all pouring over information and waiting for something to do was something they didn’t expect to walk into.

I’d probably run, if I was a just a patrolling meathead suddenly expected to beat up a slaving ring.

“Let them go. In fact, let the night shift do their regular job, too. Don’t need them if they’re not trained.” I posed the situation as a liability issue, so that Dragon-san would have to defend their skills if she wanted them to stick around. When she scowled at my statement, I knew that I did the right thing, even if I put the regular officers down in the process. At the very least, they weren’t going to get involved in something beyond their paycheck and skill level. “We’ll do fine with what we have.”

Dragon-san simmered with her frustration for a bit, so I turned over to Ur as she approached me with the information she’d gathered. I’d glanced over the most important reports and passed them around for the sake of more thorough reading to my guards. They gave summaries, condensed information, and Ur gave me the bullet points. We went through things thrice to make sure we weren’t missing anything, amending the plan that we had with newly discovered information, including some investigative forays outside, and generated a better plan as the afternoon passed.

Dragon-san was paying attention, so she couldn’t deny the fact that my organization was far better off than her own.

So, she stayed on silent—I mean, she stayed quiet as Ur spoke.

“We’ve finished looking through all possible locations where the slavers might be conducting their business. We’ve found numerous trails, signs of moving crates, and easily removed hinges from several sewer tunnels.” The locks on the sewers were new after they got cleared out by Roseanne Royal Guards a season ago. Officially it was to get rid of miscreants, but in truth they were searching for the slavers I was now going after. They didn’t find what they were looking for and tried to secure the area. The criminals just went after the hinges when it was obvious that the new locks were being checked. “Also, we’ve proceeded to give out the fliers and inform everyone of your projects in this area. I believe that most people here now believe that you’re truly here to revitalize the area and nothing more, my chieftain.”

Dragon-san decided to speak up after Ur spoke.

“They’ll still be wary of you and your forces. I’m sure that your appearance has driven them to ground. It’ll be weeks before an opportunity to capture them arises.” She made a good point and shook her head at our plans. I had to give Roseanne’s people credit. They were teaching the former pirate properly. “That’s how thieves operate. They always run and store their goods away—ah. I see, that’s your plan. How malicious.”

I nodded and got up as my contact realized what I was doing.

“Slavers can’t keep their captives stored for long without problems. They need to make sales or smuggle people out as fast as they can.” Keeping Kindred stored was an expensive affair for people without access to the Kingdom’s fucked up brand of life-sustaining magics. They had to drug and feed their captives with mana, which cost a pretty penny if they didn’t want problems arising from their very dangerous captives. “We’re tightening the noose, making them afraid of being caught, and driving them out by being here. All their options make trails for us to follow and we’ll catch them that way.”

The slavers will need to get more supplies if they wanted to stay still, so we’ll watch for any sales from any alchemists in the city and reagents for the potions they needed. The slavers might want to move out and if they do, we’ll be ready to catch them. If they don’t do either, then their captives will wake up and be a big problem, which we’ll catch onto. All the while they won’t be able to kidnap more people and get income. I made my appearance here obvious and gave them time to plan, because I wanted them to know all that, and take the most logical approach: get out as much as they can now and go to ground as safely as possible.

But that was how we’ll catch them.

Dragon-san nodded.

“Even if they don’t move tonight, they’ll need to move within the next week and we’ll be ready for them.”

“I will prepare patrols, my chieftain. They won’t escape us.” Ur spoke up and turned to Ashe. “You will be staying still for a long period of time. Can you manage it?”

“It will be difficult, but I will be doing my best!”

The chatter in the room as everyone prepared filled my heart with joy.

Nothing made me happier than messing up the lives of bastards and bitches who thought they could tear people away from their lives and force them to be slaves.