Unfortunately, I’m Not A Hero 81

Unfortunately, I’m Not A Hero 81

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Commissioned by Shaderic

Wordcount: 2500

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A long time ago, I decided that hindsight was a one-way ticket to depression and did my best to ignore it as best as I possibly could. There were a lot of things that I wished I’d done differently while I was desperately leading a gaggle of kidnapped people against Kindred while we all had explosives strapped to our necks. For the sake of my mental health, I did my best to not review my multiple battles where casualties left the camp half empty, because I was plenty angry enough as I was and anything more would just make me depressed.

And, no matter what anyone tells you, depression is a debuff on all actions.

If I wanted my revenge, I needed to be in tip-top shape mentally and physically, so I only allowed myself to brood on my situation and my future, while ignoring my past as much as possible.

Still, though, I did my best to review how recent missions and operations met so that I could better implement my plans in the future. No one else in the world was my peer, since I was technically pioneering the field of a Kindred strike force, so no one else could tell me what I did wrong in any of my operations.

In short, I had to look back on what I did, evaluate what I did, and do my best to figure out what I did wrong. That was sort of difficult without falling into a pit of depression, so I decided to do the next best thing, and get all the brainpower I could to help me out. Henri provided insights into what was considered normal tactics, Ur had a keen mind when it came to the battlefield, and Ashe had fresh eyes and intuition. The three of them were more than capable of evaluating what we did in the province and giving me feedback on being better, while not hurting my feelings.

So that was my plan on how to end the mission before returning to Ylstu.

A quick regroup, a meeting to talk about what happened, another with the locals, and then off to Ylstu.

Instead of that happening, a party that erupted across the province that had me doing my best to avoid any responsibilities, because it scared the shit out of me.

Suddenly, the liquor was flowing across every town and village, everyone was wearing their best clothes, and there were mini-festivals and parades going on. Caches of supplies hidden away from the three tyrants trying to take the land were broken open, people started dressing up and chose to look good instead of poor, and men popped out of the shadows to provide entertainment for the locals.

It was like the finale of an Eroge came to life before my very eyes and I didn’t like it one bit.

So, I did what I needed to do, and ran away while having everyone else cover for me.

While my officers spread out to represent me in various villages, I stayed at camp and feigned being injured when I decided to be a “heroic” diversion.

Most of my soldiers went to get some R&R, but I kept several Amazons and Harpies around just in case, while I figured out what to do next as the entire province celebrated in a debauched manner.

Honestly, the situation kinda made me miss Ylstu, because it was pretty much what I did back there.

…

The various chiefs of the Lua’Kona met during the celebrations and I attended the gathering, since they promised that there wasn’t anything fucking around during the meeting. While I was tempted to ask them if they only considered penetrative sex to be fucking and foreplay to not be, I shut my mouth and attended to hopefully speed up our departure time.

I mean, we could’ve left any time we wanted, but skipping out on the celebrations in one’s honor was generally seen as a slap to the face of the ones holding the celebration. The current goings on weren’t just parties with nobles wanting to show off their wealth and power, but Lua’Kona’s people holding parties to celebrate what I did, as they began a new chapter of their country’s history.

As rude as I was, I wasn’t the kind of person to spit on other people celebrating me.

It’d be the same as walking out of my house after I walked into a surprise party held in my honor.

In short, it was just past my personal tolerance of being an asshole, so I stuck around and found stuff to do until I could leave without being rude.

The usual.

Anyway, the various chieftains of the tribes elected to create a council which would represent every tribe, which would choose a representative for their people to the Kindred by the end of the year. Their capital was going to be the shipyard/dock that they were going to make with help from me and most of the nomadic tribes of the region were going to settle down there. Those who weren’t were going to start cultivating the land for trading goods, such as shells, spices, and some of their more… Eroge-oriented foodstuffs.

When that was settled, the various chieftains offered me a whole lot of things for my services, which included a lot of magical artifacts.

I graciously took a few interesting things that Henri pointed out, but deferred on the rest. Not only did I get what I came for in the first place, Henri’s staff, I also got a nice ship to call my own. The loan I was giving them to build a dock and take care of my ship also came from the various treasure spots that my forces had raided it. Overall, the little expedition I had was coming out with a profit in terms of cash and materials, so I decided that I should invest in making an ally out of Lua’Kona.

Deferring on magical items and artifacts that I didn’t need worked well in that regard, and I had to leave that meeting while firmly refusing to take all the chieftains’ untouched daughters as my own.

Allow me to repeat myself in regards to that ludicrous statement.

Every. Single. Chieftain. Of. Twelve. Villages. Offered. Every. Single. One. Of. Their. Unmarried. Daughters.

If not for Ur responding quickly to my call for evacuation, I would’ve had a to build a village in the back of my mansion, because I’d have found myself the fiancée to almost fifty young Kindred.

It was ridiculous, but I saw it a coming a mile away, and prepared an escape route ahead of time that paid off beautifully.

At the very least, with that meeting over, there was no longer any official business between me and the leadership of Lua’Kona.

My only issue was the handling of the Gryphon in relation to the people of Lua’Kona.

…

The Dragon had primarily acted as a pirate at Lua’Kona’s waters, which made her unpopular as she stifled trade in the region. However, the Dragon didn’t go out of her way to terrorize the villages. She actively recruited from the local population, looked for talent, and occasionally raided the Empire and brought back men in exchange for goods and services for her and her crew.

Of the three tyrants looking to take control of Lua’Kona, she was the least hated of the three.

The Chimera was the most hated, because she massacred anyone who resisted the way of life that she wanted everyone to have, and inflicted heavy taxes upon the populace. Her rule didn’t allow for any leeway, anyone resisted was killed, and she glutted herself off the sweat of the people of Lua’Kona’s backs.

Err… the sweat off their turtle shells… whatever.

To make a long story short, the Lua’Kona’s celebrations almost involved the Chimera’s bones getting paraded around and desecrated.

For moral reasons, I stopped them from doing so.

Anyway, between those two spectrums was the Gryphon.

I would say that getting beat up and having all your shit stolen by overwhelming force was a pretty good punishment for crimes, especially when that was followed up by several years in jail, or service to the community.

But I wasn’t supposed to be the one deciding such things.

The Lua’Kona’s chieftains were and they were heavily divided on the subject, because their constituents each had different feelings on the Gryphon. While those far from the Gryphon’s territory were fine with her being imprisoned by anyone, though they certainly liked the thought of me putting her to work, the other half of the region was for killing the Gryphon. After all, even if she wasn’t as heinous as the Chimera, she still made trade and raids far more dangerous, raided the villages, and killed a few of the natives.

Normally, I’d be happy to let things lie and leave them to handle it, but being the one to capture her and the one imprisoning her led to the critical issue of my voice mattering quite a bit on the situation. That is to say that I was supposed to be the tie breaker, so all the responsibility was on me, and if anything goes wrong it’ll be my fault. And, if anything goes right, the people praise their new leaders for trusting someone else with their problem.

Politics, basically.

If I hadn’t managed to capture the Dragon, I would’ve been all for throwing my weight around in order impress the Gryphon into service, but I did capture the Dragon. As decent as it would be to have another powerful Kindred on hand, after seeing how battered the force that came back to fight her was, I didn’t want to take the risk of having two powerhouses that needed watching over by my local forces.

Admittedly, I’d entertained the plan of impressing all three of them to get some powerful assets against the Empire, but reality reared its ugly head and I now knew better. The fights against all three resulted in a lot of damage to the surroundings, required powerful assets on site to counter each one, and of the three the Dragon was the only one with any charisma and understanding of society, since she was the only one who had a crew and a relatively neutral reputation.

Both the Chimera and the Gryphon weren’t going anywhere near Ylstu, if I could help it.

In short, I just had to choose the option that would just benefit me the most, while making either the chieftains or the people of the Lua’Kona very happy.

If I chose to keep her, I would have to send her off to Roseanne to be tried as a criminal. I’d disappoint a few people in the short term, but it would result in the region gaining the Demon Lord’s attention. She’d go out of her to fix a few things up, send in some experts to help, and support the budding region. Anyone who was anybody would know whatever prosperity came from the situation would be because of my actions, which means that I’ll get the chieftains on my side.

However, if I let her be executed, I’d be getting more personal impact amongst the populace, since I’d contributed to killing the Chimera too. I was going to be part of local history as some sort of hero that came in, killed two tyrants, and mercifully extended his hand towards the least terrible of the lot. It was the sort of story that travelled well currently, since it could be simplified. I’d get a massive popularity boost in the Lua’Kona, which can influence the region in the future, but my influence in their politics wouldn’t be as massive as being the one who had Roseanne give them several economic programs. The execution path’s primary reward would be immense growth in my overall reputation all over Kindred territory.

So… a massive gain for Ylstu, or another reason for Roseanne to look at me funny and prepare more contingencies against me.

What a hard choice.

Not.

….

Cellphone-chan flew off with her new captive, while our mostly-pack camp was getting ready to leave. With the celebrations done, Lua’Kona was getting ready to put all the plans they couldn’t into action and catch up with the rest of the Kindred territories. Given Roseanne’s eagerness to support a province that was happy to accept, and the fact that the Kindred were lewd superhumans, I expected the process to go rather quickly.

What I didn’t expect was the guest all the chieftains of Lua’Kona knelt to as she was carried to me in a gilded glass box filled with water.

All sorts of things happened at once, with a lot of the work in the camp coming to a stop, and Cellphone-chan turning around and going slack-jawed.

Inside the gilded fishbowl on the palanquin was a Mermaid… and for some reason she had the most clothes on out of all the Kindred I’d ever seen. Her white, thick robes covered her body and it didn’t show any cleavage or have hip slits that went up to her armpits. Atop that dress, she also had a sort of cloak over the dress, which covered up her shoulders and most of her arms were gloved. The only “skin” that she showed was her face and her long, viridian, and scaled tail with large fins at the end.

I was vaguely aware of Henri saying something important, but I ignored her, because I was doing my best to ingrain the sight to memory.

Clothes.

Non-lewd clothes.

On Kindred.

Public decency was possible to enforce and imprint upon the Kindred.

Regardless of the reasons why I arrived at Lua’Kona, I considered the expedition a success the moment that piece of information was revealed to me.

Huh, what’s that, Henri?

I’m eyeing up some princess from some faraway kingdom?

That’s a bad thing for them!?

These guys are the best!

A/N: Will be rewritting the Henri Interlude a while back and refitting it to follow this chapter.