Unfortunately, I’m Not A Hero: Roseanne Alternative Part 9

Unfortunately, I’m Not A Hero: Roseanne Alternative Part 9

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Commissioned by Lastmanstanding

Wordcount: 2500

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War.

I thought I knew the word, as I was born and raised to fight against the Empire, and fought pitched battle after battle against them.

In truth, I knew only how to wage a campaign, like all my predecessors.

The Empire knew war. They had chains of supply that ran the length and breadth of their territory. They planned years ahead of time, building up strength and manpower, so that they could make gains and keep them. They needed to know war, because they were weaker than the Kindred, and they could not stand against us without that knowledge. My people were inherently strong, as was I and those who came before me, and so when the time came we assembled and became a mass that the Empire could not defeat and we laid waste to them until we were stopped by their fortifications.

Our plans were short-term, limited, and ended because we lacked in supply and bodies. After we expended our strength a series of battles, that was all that we had, and there was no more fighting to be roused from my people.

But with Hachiman’s help things were different, as I looked through report after report, while overlooking the land of Ylstu.

The valley where Empire and Kindred forces clashed for centuries was gone and was replaced utterly by a military base that seemed the cover the entire valley. The mountain passes from the Kindred side were now paved roads that funneled caravan after caravan of supplies, while the mountains on the Empire’s side were secured by our sorcerers, and the mountain tops were used as bases to project terrible magics from by cabals of witches and sorceresses.  The lands of the Empire within sight of the mountain ranges were destroyed and the divisions of slaves and professional troops they were protecting it were scattered or captured, thus allowing for the valley to fill and fill like a great cauldron of destruction ready to spill over.

Lisette arrived at my tent with little fanfare. The captain of my Royal Guard gave me a bow. She was clad in a magical suit made to interface with her great and terrible machine of war. It clung well to her body and accentuated her physical form to an incredible degree, making me wonder how Hachiman would react to her, before I put those thoughts aside after recalling Hachiman’s pain because I had seduced him to accept others.

Perhaps, one day, he will want others.

But, as long as he does not, I will not do anything press others into his arms, because I wished for him to be happy.

“My lady, my forces are ready for the offensive.” My loyal captain took to one knee as she spoke and bowed her head. Her power was carefully controlled, as to not waste a single ounce of magic, but I could tell that it was roiling beneath her skin. Anticipation and fear coursed within her, because she held the honor of being the vanguard of what was perhaps the final war against the Empire. “Give us the command and we shall take flight and bring ruination to the Empire.”

Ruination was an apt term.

Assembled within Ylstu was a vast professional army meant solely to take ground and hold it in the wake of the Arcane Suits to be put to use against the Empire.

The largest and most well-equipped army of the Kindred ever created, with each one armored, supplied with potions of healing, and armed with magical weapons, as well as their own bedding, rations, and tents assured for a year of training… was nothing more than a supplementary force. Had my ancestors looked upon the army occupying the valley, they would’ve marveled at the united displayed by the Kindred and they would’ve been entranced by the knowledge that more divisions were set to arrive with more supplies as months passed and more were trained and outfitted.

The Arcane Suits constructed with Hachiman’s help were going to lay waste to all things that opposed the Kindred today. The flying, nearly-twenty-meter-tall giants of enchanted steel and weaponry could fly over any of the Empire’s walls and scorch the earth below with flames that could melt rock, before descending to the ground and wiping all in their path away with incredible force. Not only were they tougher and stronger than any single Kindred, but their speed and ability to fly could have them be anywhere in the continent within hours, well before any reinforcements arrived to anywhere they attacked, and in accordance with Hachiman’s doctrines they would not be alone.

They would only go forth in squadrons of five, enough force to level any city of the Kindred on thrice over in the span of an hour, and they were going to fight against mere humans.

Ruination was the correct word for what was to come.

I turned to Lisette whilst behind me loomed but a fraction of the army that the Kindred amassed.

“Then, by my right as Demon Lord, I order you to begin the attack. Tear down the Empire’s frontier, destroy any form or resistance, and scatter our foes into prey for our army.” My entire Royal Guard was each armed with an Arcane Suit and with the newer recruits added they numbered no more than a hundred. Hachiman told me that in the stories in which they were writ, the powerful weapons could overcome a country in but a few dozen, and those countries had powerful weapons of their own. He told me that half the number we had would be enough for the first phase, before the next batch of Arcane suits and their pilots were sent in to reinforce, and we had twice that number. I believed him. “By my order, let it be known that the final Kindred offensive against the Empire begins this day.”

“The Demon Lord’s will shall be done!” Lisette knelt and proclaimed my name for all the others in the command tent. The generals and officers recently trained, taught, and evaluated until it was known that they could do their duty all witnessed my declaration and my captain’s words. They were heirs to noble houses, who were forced to witness the strength of my new weapons and learn their new place in my lands, as they could no longer compare to me in terms of strength. This was the end of an age and the beginning of another. “I move and obey!”

This day the Empire falls and the continent secured for all Kindred.

Peace was but a dream to me as a child, and I could scarcely believe that it loomed so close, but as my thoughts returned to the present… Hachiman’s existence made me wish to turn that peace into reality. Violence on a scale unseen before was about to be inflicted upon the world, but I would have it done to end the countless centuries of war between my people and the Empire.

It was all for him.

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Hellbringers.

That was the name given to the Arcane Suits by the Empire and shortly after the Kindred under my command.

I followed my army as they followed in the wake of the Arcane Suits. The vast armies at my disposal dispersed into three with three spearheads of the Arcane Suits supported by the vastest assembled of Kindred in history. Each army group was connected to one another by Harpy messengers and outposts were erected every few kilometers to secure our supply lines, whilst the Hellbringers did their duty.

They did their duty well and deserved the name.

Wherever they waged battle, they left behind fields of burned and destroyed bodies, as they used their weapons in conjunction with another. Their magical weapons allowed them to set vast armies ablaze and those with the ability to withstand their flame were set upon by sheer strength and weight of nearly-twenty-meter magical frames covered in armor. A simple sweeping kick of the vast machine could pulp anything in their path, but they also carried massive weapons in accordance to their pilots desires, which could sweep through formations and mere mortals with utmost ease.

With my soldiers and officers, I walked through battlefields where footsteps that size of houses a story deep was filled with crushed corpses. Around those footsteps were suits of armor filled with ash and bone, or half-burnt individuals whose faces were warped in rictus terror from the horrendous pain inflicted upon them from the heavens. Beyond any footsteps of the Hellbringers were vast expanses of land swept aside by immense lengths of material swung by a titan composed of magic and technology, like a hurricane condensed into a weapon, and everything in its wake was pulped or rent by sheer force.

The times when we encountered such strikes was rare, because few troops of the Empire could hope to withstand the flames sent by five Hellbringers from above. However, whenever a battle took place where my Royal Guards had to descend from the heavens, it was known because they came down as one and with swings of their blades, they tore through the enemy with precision and power carved great furrows into the soil or left immense gouges upon the walls and buildings of cities.

As for those who fled in their wake, who were scatted and were meant to be found by the supporting pillar of the vanguard, most were bereft of any will to fight. We were slowed, as Hachiman predicted, by the sheer number of captured prisoners that we encountered. In the path of the Hellbringers, spoken furtively by those we captured as they refused to leave their holding areas when the skies above were clear, and some submitted themselves with ease to those who would take them believing that becoming husbands would save them from the inferno.

My soldiers and warriors were disturbed by what they found, and I felt the terror and fear in me and those I commanded rise immensely, especially as we encountered stragglers and resistance as we neared the core of the Empire’s lands.

Fortresses composed of sheer magic and will begin to impede our advance and they were manned by professional soldiers of the Empire armed with the best that they had. Heroes were called upon to lead these fortifications and my troops welcomed the change, as they fought against men and women of the Empire in pitched battle with equipment and weapons that augmented their strength and durability.

However, as my Royal Guards returned after shattering all the cities in their wake, they retreated behind fortified lines, rested, and waited for sorties called by myself and my generals.

Those sorties made my troops and officers witness firsthand the true power of the Hellbringers.

Wings of five Hellbringers descended from blue skies thought peaceful like true manifestations of destruction. They swept through battlefields with their flames that immolated all in their path and sent forth infernos that ravages any and all fortifications. The magics thrown their way were evaded as they simply flew higher and faster than the magics could reach, and if one flight expended their magic against defenses left unbroken, another sortie could be called in to sweep through the enemy without a single qualm.

My soldiers and I watched heroes, warriors, and soldiers burn in infernos that they had no hope of escaping, while all attempts to get them to surrender failed because of their blasted dogma, even as I gave the standing order to capture only and for offers of surrender to be given at any opportunity.

The Empire’s finest was washed away by flame and fury before my eyes and that of my soldiers. Ruin was wrought upon the Empire on a scale unimaginable, over the course of mere weeks, and the frontier was taken and the Empire true lay just beyond our reach. Though my soldiers should’ve been electrified by the notion of venturing into the Empire’s lands for the first time in history, all I heard from the common soldiery were words of fear for the future of humans, as they watched over camp after camp filled and crammed with citizens of the Empire.

Even as we found our kin rendered into nothing more than living machines and reagents in city after city and giving them peace, my soldiers feared for the future of the Empire, and my generals slowly began to ask questions about the future of those who were not Kindred.

Were we going to burn them all until naught but ash remained in their place?

Were we going to destroy all of humanity on the continent… and what was going to replace the need for men across the nation?

What was to be done with the lands conquered?

All the questions were asked with fear in their eyes and trembling in their forms, despite their prestige and power in Kindred lands, because after weeks of witnessing what I could call upon… their fear of me was beyond reason itself. In my wake the soldiery stiffened and knelt, some previously of the tribes cried out my name and bowed their heads to the ground, as though I were not their ruler but their god. The captured prisoners looked upon my crest, upon the circlet of gold on my brow, and they all begged to be spared death and destruction as my mark was upon every single Hellbringer that ravaged the land.

A great and terrible feeling welled within me day after day as I drove the Empire back to their great, ever-filling reservoirs and dams and neared their cities of crystal spires and ancient magics.

But even as my legacy became that of a true Demon Lord who stood about mountains of ash and carrion, I coordinated my armies, rotated my wings of Hellbringers to ensure they were rested and ready, and kept my gaze towards the Empire.

My path was set.

I will destroy the Empire and end a conflict thousands of years old as the Demon Lord of the Kindred.

I may never find peace after I do, for my own works frightened me, but I hoped that Hachiman would stay by my side even after everything that I did.