Insistent Assitant 6 (Patreon)

Insistent Assistant

Chapter 6

-VB-

It was about a month into our stay in Ilsia Kingdom (or rather, the forest outside the kingdom’s capital) when the first trouble came to visit the island kingdom.

I woke up one morning smelling smoke. At first, I thought that I was just smelling Thorkell cook for once (or fail to cook).

I expected to open my eyes and see the usual sight of the blue sky above me, pine trees all around, and maybe even Thorkell himself.

When I opened my eyes, yes, I did see Thorkell.

The man looked happy and held his axes.

“Alan. Wake up. War’s calling.”

I froze where I laid.

“What?”

“War’s here. We gotta go fight.”

I let out a sigh of relief. “Thank God. I thought I heard you say you were cumming.”

“... What?”

“You kno-”

He gave me a disappointed look. “Of course, I’m not gonna blow to a little boy.”

I got up with a frown. “Oi, I’m not little. I’ll have you know that I weigh almost 85 kilos.”

“Bah. You’re barely a warrior,” he replied dismissively. “But hurry up. You can eat while you run.”

“That is not a healthy eating habit,” I snipped back at him even I spotted the food he made for me (a nearly burnt boar leg), grabbed it, and ran after him as he took off.

-VB-

The City of Ilsia was on fire, and I saw it from far away.

Thorkell just looked happy, and he looked happier when he saw a band of pirates leaving the city and heading toward us with kidnapped hostages and bags of loot.

Sorry.

Thorkell didn’t just look happy. He looked bloody happy. He looked like someone got him a … a …

You know, I don’t even know anymore. I had a very strong and happy giant who wanted to go chop-chop with the pirates. Or who I assumed were pirates.

When he looked at me with that shining pair of eyes that spoke of a childish enthusiasm for a bloodletting that would leave most incapacitated with fear, I just sighed and nodded even as I readied myself to join the fray.

Thorkell hollered with laughter as he rushed the pirates, who looked startled by Thorkell’s charge.

In the back, I sighed as I pulled out a dagger and charged in after Thorkell.

The pirates, a collection of colorful individuals dressed in their eccentric articles of clothes and armed with flintlock pistols and the like, drew their own arms and fired.

Thorkell… if he had been the real Thorkell, then there was a chance that he would have been struck by a bullet and died on the spot, especially if it hit any of his arteries or head. . But the Thorkell in front of me was an imitation of Thorkell. He was but the representation of my power.

It’s bullshit. Utter bullshit.

Thorkell ignored the few bullets that hit him. Then he threw one of his axes.

The pirate at the front of his group panicked and tried to dodge but all that got him was getting nicked in the neck and another pirate getting his face bifurcated. The axe buried itself halfway through the second pirate’s head while the first pirate gagged and dropped to his knees.

And that’s when Thorkell fell upon the rest of them.

“I-!” he shouted with a big, fat grin.

My own dagger flashed as I stabbed a distracted pirate, gutted them wide open, and made sure to toss the hostage some distance away. The pirates screamed and hollered as they fought back once they realized we didn’t care about the hostages.

“LOVE!”

Thorkell bore the brunt of the pirates but he was also stronger than all of them. He grabbed the axe he’d thrown, tore it free from the skull of the now dead pirate, and chopped away at the pirates. They soon realized he was too much for them and began to back up.

But then I was there to stab them.

“WAR!”

Pistols fired. People screamed as they died.

I hated to admit it, but I reveled in the bloodlust as I took down scum after scum and trash after trash. That first-kill nausea was now wholly missing. I was just happy to be fighting with Thorkell and taking out the trash.

My heart drummed and pounded in my ear as I grabbed one unlucky pirate and used him as a blackjack against someone else. I easily dodged a pistol fire by pre-emptively tilting out of the way, which struck another pirate in the jugular, and laughed when the pirate killed one of their own like that.

The burning city in front of us roared within the cage made by the city wall and cast a deep, long yet readily flickering shadow that covered all of us. Fighting tooth and nail in that shadow, why did I see myself in their eyes as a red-eyed demon?

-VB-

By the time the beleaguered city guards found us outside of the city walls, Thorkell stood atop a small field of massacred pirates, reveling in his victory, while hostages were released from their binds one by one.

“Halt!”

I did.

Thorkell didn’t, still just slowly spinning in place with his arms up and face up like he was dancing in the rain.

For Thorkell, a rain of blood was better than a regular rain.

“Yes?” I asked the head guard, who looked like a Pontifical Swiss Guard except he had a blunderbuss and a saber instead of a halberd.

He looked around and saw the pirates. He grunted in satisfaction before looking back at me.

“Are you the ones who took down this bunch of the Norcoke Pirates?”

Norcoke? Like “I don’t want heroin ‘nor coke’”? Nor coke? What a weird name.

“Yes, but if you want a confirmation, ask the hostages I just freed who are closer to you and thus feel safer to answer honestly,” I replied while gesturing to said people, including a very tall and mean looking man.

“T-They did, Samuel,” one of the hosatages we freed spoke up. It took said head security a moment before his eyes widened.

“Y-Your Majesty!”

Throkell and I both froze.

Say what?