Nero Walker, Book 3 Ch.75 (190) (Patreon)

Reaching out over his command connection, Captain Angleton contacted all the sergeants currently under his command, “It looks like they’re massing another assault further down the line. Expect to see some shamans and Assault Leaders along with the standard grouping of greater and lesser kobalds. I’m told there isn’t any sign of siege wyrms, so it shouldn’t be too bad.”

The moment he finished his transmission, he heard Sergeant Blackwood on his right groan in annoyance at him baiting fate with his words. Ignoring him, he mounted his horse and looked over his troops.

Along with his elites, he’d also been put in charge of two one-hundred-strong units of mounted cavalry. So far, he’d found them both capable enough. Although he had to admit it was annoying working with their captains. Captains who didn’t like that he preferred to personally coordinate the sergeants under his command… all his sergeants, theirs included.

Both Captain Inkler of the 410th and Captain Onslow of the 208th had nearly choked on their pride when he told them to pass their command connections over so he could manage them. Even now, he could tell that they were still maintaining separate connections to keep in nominal charge of their teams. While he understood the emotional connection they must have to their leadership positions, he still found it annoying. They’d wasted 30 minutes trying to convince him that he should just pass all his orders through them so that they could handle their own units. How they were unable to see the inefficiency in that was nothing short of mind-boggling to him.

Subtly sighing, he watched as the men and women under his command mounted up. He could see them sticking to their units, obviously maintaining their distance from anyone who wasn’t part of their command structure. They’d been like this for hours, and his repeated commands which could help coordinate them into a greater force had fallen on deaf ears. Apparently, they preferred to have two connections drawing on their reserves rather than simply submit themselves to his temporary authority.

Just like the last 3 times they’d been deployed, he pushed down his frustration and forced himself to focus on his duty. He had soldiers of Dorchester to save, and whether or not these prideful idiots wanted to work together or not, it didn’t change what he was going to have them do. They’d face the enemy together, and they would pull out whoever fell before their soul was lost to the planes.

Using both his command connection and his voice, he called out, “Relief force 3! On me!”

With his field urging his mount forward, he took off at a gallop. Behind him, he could feel the entirety of his temporary force collapsing into a rough formation and following him into battle.

After casting a quick ‘far-eye’ spell, he located the area command had told him to reinforce. He could see the kobald assault already starting as a dense horde of kobalds struck out across the buffer zone they’d been maintaining. From what he could tell, the intelligence seemed accurate enough, and there didn’t look to be any surprises incoming. However, he’d still remain cautious.

Over the past few hours, he’d felt a growing sense of danger. The sense of doom was slowly building up around him in the ether. And, while he wasn’t a fateweaver or even a man of faith, he had been a soldier long enough to respect the power of predestination and instinct. Yet, fate was not absolute. So, no matter what grim future awaited him and his troops, he’d face it with the unbreakable sense of determination that he’d honed over his many years of service. With his duty firmly rooted in his heart and his identity as a knight in his soul, he had no doubt that he’d persevere.

Suppressing a grimace at the thought of how many good men and women might die for his pride if he weren’t careful, he forced every unnecessary thought into the back of his mind and concentrated solely on his mission. He had a duty to the soldiers currently under threat, and he wouldn’t let his concerns weaken his resolve. He was a knight of Dorchester, and his body, mind, and soul were one.

—--

Nero watched the new spell form he just completed fire off a mud ball into the kobald assault. The soccer ball-sized sphere of water-infused earth flew through the air and smacked a kobald directly in its sneering snout. As expected, it exploded beautifully, showering the little bastard in wet dirt. However, aside from some stumbling, and what was obviously some kobald version of a curse-laden rant, the kobald didn’t seem to be hampered all that much.

Groaning in annoyance, Nero muttered, “What the fuck am I doing wrong? Some part of this damn spell form must designate the ‘sticky’ modifier.”

Idly switching back to what was, unfortunately, becoming his new standby, he fired off a few acid balls across the section he was covering. His one job was to make sure whoever made it to their lines was more than a little injured, and he hadn’t found a spell that worked nearly as well as his ‘acid-barrage’.

Once again, he watched as the sticky globs of acid tore into the kobalds, burning into their flesh and making them howl in pain. It was so gross that he still couldn’t stop himself from wincing.

As he’d been at this for hours, he had plenty of time to think about his reluctance to use the spell despite its effectiveness. As a result of his mental jujitsu, he’d come to the conclusion that he didn’t care all that much about the kobalds’ pain or even the sadistic nature of the spell itself. What he really cared about was the fact that it was just so damn gross. Seeing the little lizards’ flesh melting was just… not cool.

So, he’d been trying to develop an alternative. He’d used his field to watch every spell he could. Every caster that was within range had had their spells dissected and added to his repertoire. From the simple little spells like the one he’d decided to call a ‘flame lance’ to the more complicated ‘spike line’, he’d tried them all. Yet, nothing seemed to work nearly as well as the simple ‘acid barrage’ he’d come up with.

The spell was perfect in the way it didn’t hamper the kobalds’ charge while also making them easy prey for the melee fighters in front of him.

‘But it's just so damn gross!’ he mentally complained as he cast another grouping of liquified nastiness.

Taking a breath, he once again ran his mental fingers over the dense ‘soul essence’ floating throughout the ether. It would be so easy for him to start throwing out the ‘essence cannon’ spell he’d developed. It would more than makeup for the fact that he wouldn’t be slowing any kobalds down by simply removing them from consideration. He could wipe out this entire section of the line, shattering their assault like colonial cannons did to the British at the battle of… wherever.

But, he couldn’t. From the looks he’d gotten after his last display, he very much doubted it would be a good idea to show off his ‘soul sorcery’, or whatever these idiots called it. Instead, he was stuck casting this simple crap because he just didn’t know any better.

‘I really need to start reading more. I feel like a character who's forgotten to go to the skill trainer for a few zones and is still using his starter spells,’ he mentally complained.

Putting the entire matter aside for the moment, he looked over the most recent batch of kobalds that were making their way toward the melee line. Based on their stumbling and staggered approach, he figured he had a moment or two to look away and see how the rest of the battle was going.

Breaking eye contact with his assigned area, he scanned the battlefield from left to right, shaking his head at the oddness he was seeing. To him, the entire battle was just dumb… no, that wasn’t the right word. It was… false advertising.

It was obvious that the kobalds were aware that humans could raise their dead and heal their wounded rather easily. Just like it was obvious to the humans that the only threat the kobalds posed was when they overran one of their positions. Therefore, aside from a few random pockets of ‘real’ battle, the rest of the fight was merely a holding action. It was window dressing. A pale imitation of what he had expected ‘war’ to be.

While he hadn’t served in the military or anything, he had watched enough movies to know about the dichotomy between the horror of war and the glory of fighting the good fight. But here, there just weren’t the same stakes.

Even the kobalds didn’t seem to care about their losses. They were bloodthirsty little bastards who couldn’t care less about throwing their lives away for the chance of ripping apart a few humans. They looked like they were perfectly aware that the only chance they had to kill any humans was by sending out overwhelming hordes of kobalds at random sections of the line. By killing and then denying the humans the chance to resuscitate their dead, they could whittle down the human’s numbers.

And the humans were perfectly happy to fight the war in drips and drabs, not pushing too hard to close the distance and force an all-out fight. Dorchester’s leadership had obviously done the math and knew that their small amount of losses would get them to the hole the kobalds were using to tunnel to the surface if they just kept at it. Slow and steady. ‘BORE-ING!’ he mentally griped.

It was such a letdown. He was expecting a glorious fight filled with the pathos of the reality of war contrasting with the triumph of man against the inhuman hordes.

Instead, he got ‘whack-a-kobald’.

Frowning in thought, he wondered if this was why he was so annoyed with the ‘acid barrage’ spell he’d been using. The pain was just so… unnecessary. He didn’t mind killing the kobalds, but he didn’t like that it was so pointlessly gruesome. He almost expected a referee to pop up out of nowhere and flag him for unnecessary roughness and unsportsmanlike conduct.

Suddenly, he had a thought which caused him to snort in self-recrimination. His unhappiness with the situation probably boiled down to him being denied the adrenaline rush of real stakes along with the fact that the magic everyone was using… sucked.

‘I shouldn’t be reading into things. There’s no point in getting all philosophical about it,’ he told himself, while idly throwing out another ‘acid barrage’ to the next line of kobalds making their way to the melee fighters.

Glancing over across the open range between the two forces, he saw that the kobalds were getting a little denser in front of the area to his left. It was subtle, but it wasn’t exactly hidden. He could see some of the bigger kobalds herding the little ones into groups, while some kobald casters and other ‘bigguns’ grouped up behind them.

‘Looks like there might actually be something for me to do here in a minute,’ he thought to himself happily.

He felt Cathleen’s presence blossom in his head before her voice came through the command connection he shared with her. “Lord Walker, command reports that kobald forces will assault this position in the next twenty to thirty minutes. We’ve been ordered to pull back for reassignment,” she said, her tone absent of any emotion.

Nero raised his eyebrows in surprise. There was a lot to unpack in that little statement. It seemed neither Cathleen nor Command was even bothering to pretend that they were currently in any danger. They didn’t say the kobalds would be ‘increasing their offensive’, or anything of the sort. Instead, they said ‘They’ll be assaulting this position’.

Looking at the poor kobalds currently dying under the blades of the melee fighters, Nero felt like sarcastically replying ‘So you don’t even consider us under assault at the moment?’ But, he figured there wasn’t any point in taking away what little glory his wackos might be feeling about their ‘contribution’ to the war.

Instead, he replied, “So, Command is worried about Dorchester’s new unique actually being in danger? That’s a load of shit Cathleen. We didn’t come out here for a picnic!”

Surprisingly, Cathleen’s mental presence clearly broadcast her amusement at Nero’s snide reply to their orders. That was until she seemed to dull her presence and become… shifty. He could feel her becoming hard to pin down and slightly deceptive.

“You know, my lord, you don’t have to follow their orders if you don’t want to. Technically, you aren’t under their command. The general’s permit to join the battle simply states that you are allowed onto the field and that any help you give the forces here would be appreciated by Dorchester’s Council of Leadership. It may have been ‘expected’ that you would follow orders, ‘requested’ even, but they don’t truly have the right to ‘make’ you follow them,” she said slyly.

Nero almost burst into laughter at Cathleen’s lawyering. He’d never expected a warrior-woman like her to be so adept at word games.

“OK, so here’s what we’re going to do. We’ll pull back and request a break. Tell command that I want to give my troops a rest or something. They’ll probably expect me to be all lordly and assholish anyway, so nobody will make a fuss. Then, we back up a bit and wait for the shit to hit the fan. When things start going bad, and the relief forces join in and this actually turns into a battle, THEN we rejoin the lines as if we hadn’t had any other option BUT to fight,” he said happily.

Feeling Cathleen’s excitement tinged with worry, Nero somehow knew exactly what she was worried about. “Of course, we’re going to give everyone a heads up. I don’t plan to keep secrets from my wackos… well, not secrets like this.” Realizing what he just said, he continued, “Forget that last part. My point is, I’m not going to be an dickhead and send them into danger without giving them prior warning.”

Cathleen’s excitement lost that tinge of worry and instead took on a hue of pride, or maybe respect. All in all, Nero was feeling decidedly worried about his increasing ability to parse people’s emotional states over the mental connections he was using.

On the other hand, he was getting pretty good at ignoring what wasn’t important at the moment, so he wouldn’t worry about it.

Instead, he threw another ‘acid barrage’ and looked over at Cathleen’s position, wondering if her silence meant she agreed with his plan. After all, he didn’t come out here to massacre a bunch of suicide troops. He came out here for some excitement!

Nero’s mental processes slammed to a halt at that sudden sense of self-awareness.

While he’d been mentally circling that realization for a while, he hadn’t quite looked at it that way. Thinking back to his conversation with Nick and Jennings, he recalled them talking about the effect his desire for ‘adventure’ would have on his personality as his soul, body, and mind the more he leveled and became rooted in this world. Now that he was able to look back on his actions with a little more perspective, he could see that he was slowly embracing the adrenaline junkie attitude that he’d always envied in other people back home. ‘OK. maybe not so slowly,’ he thought wryly.

He’d always secretly wanted to be the type of person who got off their ass and went rock climbing, or sky diving. However, his rationality had always acted as a buffer for that kind of thing. After all, what kind of moron chooses to do something that has an increased likelihood of death or severe injury. He’d firmly believed that stories of adventure and awesome sauce were great, but they were just that… stories.

He didn’t actually want to go join the army and fight a guerilla war in the jungle against insane odds for the sake of justice or something. After all, that kind of stuff didn’t happen in real life. Political wars and shady background deals wielded just as much power as popular opinion; the internet had made that very clear. He’d seen countless behind-the-story shows and articles explaining in great detail how nothing was as it seemed.

But, that secret wish to be part of a great saga was always right under the surface, just waiting for a chance to rise up and enjoy a little time in the sun. So, with that in mind, he could totally see himself embracing the adventurer mindset in a world with magic and actual enemies. ‘Yet another reason to be pissed about slaughtering weak-ass kobalds,’ he thought with a grimace.

He was snapped out of his self-reflection by a group of troops rushing in to replace him and his wackos.

Looking down from the pedestal he had been slowly building as they had pushed forward, he chuckled at how smoothly they took over the melee line. But, before he let the spell he was holding for the mud beneath his feat disperse, he looked over his shoulder to see how far they’d pushed over the past few hours. Unfortunately, his pedestal's progress had made it very clear that at most they’d gone about ten or fifteen feet… at most. ‘Well that’s just depressing,’ he complained to nobody.

While the rest of the team he had been working with rushed past him, he let the spell fade and watched as the trickle of center he’d had attached to the dirt pillar cut off, and the essence inside started to degrade. He couldn’t help but smile at how his senses allowed him to watch the entire process in exquisite detail. It was as if he could actually see the world pushing the essence back to where it was supposed to be, and remaking the local reality into what it believed it should be.

Hopping down lightly as the dirt vanished into a cloud of ether, he chuckled at just how cool magic was. But, he knew it wasn’t the time for another self-realization. He had underlings to brief, and a battle plan to try and pay attention to.

‘Wait… Should I be pissed that I’m not in charge of my own forces? Nah, delegation is a sign of intelligence. It’s not like any of the billionaires back home really designed any of the things that made them rich. I’m just applying the best method to ensure the Walker Adventurer Company succeeds in its goal to corner the market on local adventuring. Cathleen can handle the details just fine… I’ll stick to managing the broad strokes. Like a boss,’ he told himself firmly.