Unfortunately, I’m Not A Hero 74 (Patreon)

Unfortunately, I’m Not A Hero 74

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Commissioned by Shaderic

Wordcount: 2500

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The ground crunched beneath my boots, while Henri hovered just behind me.

The dirt roads of the small, dirty port were unrecognizable masses of mud filled with broken shards of wood, ripped canvas, and nails. The scent of the sea and its roar were drowned by the scent of smoke and the noise of crackling flames. The night was cloudy, without a star in sight, and in the distance even the sea burned.

I remembered a saying as I stopped in the middle of the town.

Perfection was something to strive for, but it didn’t exist.

In other words, you should at least try aim high, so when you fail it won’t be the absolute worst.

“I’m of many apologies, chieftain. Responsibility is mine.”

The surprise attack was conducted during the night with new troops. The Harpies, Wyverns, and Amazons were verterans, but the Werewolves and Ashe were used to doing patrols. The difference between blooded combat troops, and a force dedicated towards tracking and hunting was obvious.

While the Harpies, Wyverns, and Amazons accomplished their missions according to order, Ashe and her Werewolves did not.

Over a dozen pirates were no longer amongst the living, and they were now laid upon the center of the town.

The first half of the dozen were understandable deaths. They routed, ran, and fell into unfortunate circumstances. A collapsing support beam, a speeding piece of rubble hitting them wrong, and other forms of bad luck.  In other words, it was out of the hands of the greener troops, since I couldn’t expect them to pursue a fleeing enemy in an island. Wyverns and harpies were both overhead and they left fleeing enemies to them, while focusing on their mission.

I could accept the first six deaths, but not the latter six.

The last six bodies were mailed, carved apart, and outright destroyed, because the werewolves didn’t know to restrain themselves.

Even though Ashe was playing her part and taking responsibility as an officer, I knew which of the werewolves went against my orders. Having an eye in the sky, and an unfaltering Lich with very good memory, let me identify them… even if they hadn’t chosen to stand at the front of their pack, right behind their leader.

Ur and the Amazons stood next to me, even the ones who were injured in capturing the Dragon and who I told to rest since they were healing. Ashe looked at them all warily, while the Werewolves practically cowered behind her… and that wasn’t even taking into account the Wyverns and Harpies watching them all from the tops of rooftops.

There were a lot of eyes on them, despite the fact they brought the bodies forward themselves and presented the situation, instead of doing anything stupid like try to hide it.

A part of me wanted to let it go.

A small part of me that I pushed down without hesitation, because I absolutely needed to ensure that my orders were followed to the letter in the military that I funded and led.

I couldn’t let it go.

Not because I cared about the pirates, but because this organization was mine.

Still, I couldn’t ignore the fact that I put them on the field and expected more of them than I should’ve.

“Ashe, what should the punishment be for your soldiers?” I wasn’t quite sure how the military did things. As a high schooler, my knowledge of how the military treated crime was extremely limited, so I worked off of my knowledge of off shitty corporations instead. Shit came down from the very top onto the middle management, who in turn shit down on the employees of the department, and things changed depending on the middle-management and the CEO. “I’ll be deciding your punishment, but I want to know what your punishment for your troops is.”

I expected Ashe to struggle with an answer, but instead she stood straighter, and made sure to meet my gaze.

“I will be of training my warriors better! They will not be of stopping training, until they will not lose control! Not because of pain, fear, or anything!” While my Amazons and Ur kept their expressions calm and collected, the Wyverns and Harpies were less controlled. More than a few of them nodded and exchanged looks with one another, before relaxing just a little. Ur and the others stood straighter upon noticing that. They weren’t going to let their guard down until I told them at this point. “They will be only of eating and sleeping, besides training to becoming the very strongest and best!”

In other words, I was hearing the absolute best possible response from my middle-manager. If I was the CEO and I saw a department meet their objective, but fuck up along the way, then what I wanted to know how those fuck ups will stop. Firing the department, or gutting it, was out of the question if they succeeded in what they were to succeed… unless there was a chance the fuck ups would happen again and continue to mess with my goals.

A committed, passionate individual willing to put in the extra hours and effort in the eyes of all her peers and subordinates… was the best response that I could’ve asked for.

Though my corporate-slave progenitors suffered from their occupations, I thanked them for their efforts, since my research into the subject in order to avoid it has allowed me to properly handle this current issue.

Thank you, Outo-san and Kaa-san, your wok has allowed your son to service in a ridiculously dark world with a coat of perversity.

Now, it was my job to make sure the Ashe kept her promise.

“I see. Then… you get to keep your job, instead of being replaced by an Amazon for now.” I laid out the exact ramifications of her actions, if she failed a second time.  The Harpies and Wyverns got to work with their own, because they haven’t’ failed me. If Ashe didn’t do the same, then it was clear she wouldn’t. That “rewarded” my good departments, while giving them nothing, and made my authority clear. “I’m not happy with these results, or the entirety of your punishment, so I’ll be making a few adjustments.”

One of the buildings in the two collapsed, a wreck that none of the Harpies or Wyverns stood on because it was more charcoal in the shape of a house than anything else.

Ashe looked down with ears flattened as it did, because who else could manage that beside her?

The Dragon had been mercilessly beat up underwater.

“You and your tribe are removed from any combat for four weeks. Your pay will be cut for that time.” More than a few Werewolves fidgeted and whined at my declaration, until they go control of themselves. The ones who caused the issue hung their heads at my declaration. It was nice to know that they were used enough to modern luxuries that taking it away was a punishment. Still, I had more to say. “During those weeks, you and your tribe will be working closely with the Amazons. You’ll be earning your proposal to train your troops better… and if you all succeed I’ll throw in all your pay-cuts back as a bonus.”

Though I was setting this all up as “punishment,” I also needed to put money and effort to rectify the issue. I’d put Ashe and the Werewolves on the assignment, so it was on me to see their improvement through. I was going to be doing that by “pairing” up the two “departments.” It was a cost-saving venture, since I wasn’t going out finding them a new teacher, but it still an expense. Four weeks being unable to deploy my Amazons was the very definition of opportunity cost, even if finding their equivalent would’ve cost me more than I could afford in the mercenary market.

Well, in the end, the issue was going to be rectified via action on all three portions of my little “corporation.”

I allocated resources to fix the problem, and gave repercussions if my demands weren’t met.

My middle-manager was informed of her deadline, and was going to get some retraining, before I looked for results.

The end of the totem pole received communal punishment, but the chance to have that punishment be very temporary as long as they improved.

I was absolutely sure that no corporation on Earth did things this way, but as fucked as I was in the head, and as blackened my heart was, I still had a soul.

With that declaration, I turned away and raised my voice to address the entire expedition.

“Alright, dismissed. I want you all finding anything worth anything here. I want us back by the end of the day. Harpies, I want you all on cooking detail. Amazons are on security, and everyone else scrounge up anything you find.”

For a second, my eyes locked onto my new ship, but only for a second.

As much as I liked having it, the six mauled bodies in the burnt town square made the sight a bit bitter.

Yeah, I should’ve trained my troops better.

Hopefully, this doesn’t jeopardize Roseanne’s powerbase in any way as I’d feared.

If the whole pirate port died, I was sure that would be the case, but with all the captured prisoners going to be charged by the locals… I hoped that everyone was simply going to accept my new troops were inexperienced and lost control.

I said it before and I’ll say it again.

I didn’t want this mission to bring me any problems that I didn’t expect.

....

The Dragon’s bindings were courtesy of Reiser’s hard work.

There were very few things that she could do without raising suspicion, even with her disguise as an Elf. One of those was guarding me, while I was watched by dozens of people who could kill her the moment, she considered betrayal, and the other was putting the Empire’s magic at my disposal.

Since the Empire wanted live Kindred, most of their “heroes” knew how to capture Kindred, and had standing orders to maim and capture instead of kill.

Reiser had a lot of practice at following orders, so she was very good at capturing Kindred.

Good enough to be able to make restraints for Dragons, if given the time and resources to do so.

Given the fact that she was no longer busy maiming people and selling them to slavery, I politely voluntold her to start making a few, when I no longer needed a guard as often as I used to with Ylstu’s defenses reinforced.

As a result, I now looked at a Dragon “whelp.”

“I thought you’d be more intimidating, honestly.” The Dragon was definitely somebody’s fetish, but definitely not mine. Nor would I ever associate with that person. In fact, given the fact that I have little sister, I’d report them given the chance. Well, I guess Komachi wouldn’t be so little anymore, but… wait… no… as an older brother the thought of any little girls being looked at that way was something that I found wrong! “I thought, with your reputation, you’d be taller and older.”

The Dragon was probably a young teenager at the very best with very little “maturity” to speak of. The Amazons decided to cover her up, and a few Harpies snickered at her before getting shooed away. Yeah, in this hentai-land, the exhibitionist, short-haired tomboys and the loli-bait Harpies pitied/laughed this girl.

What a rough life.

Nothing compared to mine, but still pretty rough relatively speaking.

“My lord, even young Dragons such as her are powerful beasts with fearsome physical and magical might. May I suggest not angering it?” Henri sighed as she looked about the broken dock washing ashore the sandy beach upon which the Dragon was bound. The sea was still burning and more than one patch of sand had been turned to glass. “This one is extremely talented as well. Very few full-grown Dragons are capable of using their fearsome breath beneath the waves… let alone whilst being attacked by so many warriors at once.”

Henri’s words reached the horned Dragon and the woman in the Kindred actually preened at the words. Ma’am, you might be winged woman with scaled, clawed legs and ludicrous powers, but that doesn’t give you the right to be proud of yourself after losing to a fight, especially when that fight has resulted in you getting captured. Be more considerate about when you decided to feel proud of yourself.

Better yet, lose all that pride, because you’ll be a better employee.

The sooner you lose your hopes, dreams, and self-admiration the sooner you make me money!

“Nah, I beat her. That means I get to treat her however I want, especially since she’s a criminal who’s been fucking with the Kindred’s coalition.” I squatted to meet her gaze and the Dragon attempted to lunge at me only to fall flat onto the sand. A sigh left my lips, as I took hold of her horn and made sure the venerable, might, and gagged creature didn’t drown on dry land due to sand. “Oi, kid, listen to me. You’ve got two paths now, and you’re going to choose what’s going to happen to you now.”

I’d spoken to Ur about the fight against the Dragon, and I changed my plans accordingly.

If the fight had been faster, easier, and with less risk to my Amazons, I wouldn’t have entertained the thought of losing out on the chance to get a Dragon for Ylstu. While I wasn’t going to try and solo the Empire anymore, I was still preparing to fight against the Empire’s inevitable reprisal attack. Roseanne promised help when it came, but I felt it would be better if I didn’t need her help, and handled it on my own.

But if my Amazons couldn’t deal with her without leaving the town a burning ruin, then she wasn’t worth it.

And, I wasn’t going to use slave collars like the Empire.
Ever.

The Dragon glared at me and I took that as a sign that she was paying attention.

“I’m fighting against the Empire. I need talent and power. You’ve got both, so I’m willing to hire you, until you can beat my Amazons. You work for me, I take care of you, and we kill a lot of assholes together, until we part ways and you fuck off in a decade or two.”

The Dragon’s glare intensified.

Probably because she thought that was the “bad” deal.

“Or, the other path, is that I hand you over to Roseanne, so you get judged for all the crimes you’ve committed by the highest authority of the Kindred.” Panic. Sheer panic suddenly filled the Dragon’s face and she began to wriggle. Due to her bindings, I was able to keep hold on her own and keep her still, but her feelings on the matter were obvious. “So, kid, what do you say? Community service with me, serve your sentence, or get absolutely, hyper-murdered by the Demon Lord?”

Hm?

What’s that?

How is this different from using a slave collar, since I’m practically putting a gun to her head anyway?

Well, the fact that she committed crimes, needed to be punished, and I was a government official part of the lands she fucked around with.

Morally, this was dubious.

Ethically, this was toeing the line.

Legally, though, I had every right to do this.

Thus, personally, I liked it.