Everything fades to black and time quickly passes as we wait for him to wake up on the bed that he was dragged into.
-This has to stop happening to me! What's with this massive headache, fuck.-
"Kid you're finally awake I was getting worried that you might have destroyed your mind. You just use today as a rest day the unknown is too far away to attack again."
"No, we better get moving again. That last army was huge there is no way that I will have to take out anything larger."
Ghost seems to currently still not understand what he did and might be subconsciously avoiding the thoughts that this might actually be all real.
He seems to have some inclinations that this isn't fake or a game, but in the end, he wouldn't be able to take it if that was true.
He shakes his head shocking both Ghost and me that there's such a stupid amount of enemies. "What your saying makes sense, but that army was the leading invading force.
"The main force is much larger than what you just faced and there is another army of maybe a fifth of the size as the main army trailing them from behind."
"The last army is unknown in strength, but from what the king scouts say it's a high probability that they are an elite army led by their leader."
-Fuck fuck fuck! Just how much does the stupid creator like ridiculous army's? I get that this is a strategic point where they will have to pass through, but still. Hmm at most this area can have maybe double the number of men as before, but even that should be pushing it.-
"The army you took out had a job of scouting ahead and destroying anything on the main path. It being smaller was also the faster of the three armies."
"The middle army destroys anything that's skipped by the lead army and the last army seems to be their last resort. They are probably the middle army's backup and the last resort in case of any strong opposition."
He visibly forces himself off the comfy looking bed and makes a decision that will make everything a bit easier, but it will cause a lot more direct blood to be spilled onto his hands.
"Than that's all the more reason for me to get up now. We need to prepare for their attack. I need to set up traps. My plan to just attack them head-on is suicide there's no way that my mind can keep up using my ability at that level."
He stops and tries to remember all the books he stole and the games that nice old shop lady let him play in his childhood trying to look for some plan to make this easier on him.
"We need to lure them into a location that they can't outnumber us. The thinner the area the better. If we can cut the total amount by a tenth then I'm confident that I can take them out, while the army prepares for the next tenth. The only problem is they will definitely try to find a way around our trap."
He gets out of his amazingly well 'simulated' blood-soaked clothing and into a new black shirt and pants.
"So, I need to set up some death traps along their path and make the thin path look the most favorable. We can also do some hit and run attacks on them. An army of that size won't be able to move as fast as an individual."
The useless party member shakes his head while telling Ghost. "While that sounds like a great plan it has one major problem! There's nowhere in the armies path that will suit our needs"
- Of course, the AI needs to be told what to do and when to do it. I keep forgetting this is obviously some sort of stimulation. It's so immersive besides the idiotic war tactics.-
"Think about it a little bit. We have mages that can form the blockade all we have to do is stall for time."
"That might work, but I don't think the mages will make it in time."
"They have the regular soldiers build it with the assistance of the mages. I will try to stall for long enough. Didn't an unknown make a dam twelve feet tall why can't we do that?"
"That's probably because the spell was sealed in a scroll and was supposed to be used as a last resort for protection. If I remember right the main army is usually behind the lead army by twelve days." He stops to think about how to pull off such a feat.
"I don't think that we can pull it off in that long. It isn't as simple as making a wall with a small entrance. You're asking for two mountains that's the only way I can see them being forced into going to our trap."
"Where did you learn all these strategies from?"
"Books, I got bored of just reading about magic, so I asked for one's about strategies just in case my magic wasn't good enough. With traps I might be able to stall for another day maybe three will that be enough?"
"No that won't be enough. All of our mages will have to pour their mana into a scroll similar to the one that the unknown used on us for a good nine days per mountain so eighteen total. You need to stall them for seven days, not three."
-Seven extra days without making the second group rush. What's with this game it already feels late game! Maybe it's just a beta trying out new technology by experimenting on homeless kids. No one would care if I went missing. Shit does this mean that I might get stuck in here without a way out or die by side effects?-
While ignoring his completely impossible mental crisis he tries to keeps a straight face and continues on with his mission.
The only thing that he wants to worry about is making sure his sister is actually alive. If he dies and his sister lives I think he'd be willing accept such a death.
"Ok. How about three days from traps and four days from guerilla tactics, then the mages will have to use their mana on the first wave."
"I'm going to be tired from the stalling, so you guys will have to stall for a little bit. I will try to take down as many as possible without risking my life in the process."
"You sure you can handle this?" He asks Ghost while seeming to be holding back something important.
Maybe he wants to try to convince him not to go or something mushy and filled with death flags. In their eyes, he isn't some child monster but instead their savior after all.
"No, but if I don't then who will?" He keeps trying to convince himself by telling himself it's just a game and everything will go back to normal after he waves this country.
"I don't want you to do this it seems too risky, but it seems like our only option so go before I change my mind."
"Thank you for seeing eye to eye with me." He leaves the room while wondering how he's going to pull all of this off.
______________________________________________________________________________
As our young candidates mind has deteriorated to the point that his thoughts are mostly gibberish.
I made an executive decision and decided to follow the general of the middle army instead of him. Hopefully, his mind eventually clears up and I don't have to abandon another potential show to watch.
"General Gergal we have news from the leading army." A young soldier speaks to the general in an arrogant tone. So the general hit him on the head with a nearby stick since the forest path is filled with them.
"About time! Did they already take down the next fort?"
The young soldier looks too terrified to answer his leader's question. "No, sir. The lead army has been wiped out. There are a couple of survivors in the camp. Only twenty survived the assault."
"No way. There's no way that the lead army failed to take out this key major fort, much less get wiped out."
"We already perfectly understood the arrangements and planned against any problems. We even let them have a rare scroll just in case the mages managed to use army scaled spells! "
"I don't know the details. You should ask the survivors when they recover, sir." The young soldier is shaking violently as he tries to direct the violent general to somewhere else.
"When did they arrive?"
"Just a little bit ago. They are still exhausted I think you should wait a day before asking them anything." The arrogant young soldier is then crushed by his mace nonchalantly.
They're probably way too many soldiers in this make ship army that he is using violence to control them.
"Someone get rid of this body and then take me to the refugees." Another soldier comes up and gets rid of the body as if this is something normal.
Then proceeds to show his violent general the way to the survivors. The general, on the other hand, seems to not be satisfied with only killing the arrogant young man as he obviously has some killing intent in his eyes "Are these the remnants of the lead army?"
"Yes, sir." In front of him are twenty or so beat up rags of men you can't call soldiers anymore. It looks like the soldiers had to go to hell and then escape from hell! Most are missing a limb or even two.
"None of them were properly treated before they got here, sir. I'm afraid we might lose most of them."
"Make sure one survives I don't need the rest. All I need to know is how the area of the fort is like and how they all got wiped out. The leader won't be pleased if I don't take this fort down like it's just another village."
They do as he says and heartlessly focuses on healing the member that has the most survival rate with a precious healing scroll.
"I am the general of the main army Gergal. If you haven't guessed you are in the main army's camp. Good job on making it here. Soldier, I don't care about your name nor rank just tell me what the hell happened out there."
"A monster, that's what happened." He is still pale even with the healing scroll healing him.
"What do you mean a monster? Did they tame a magical beast and send it at you or did one just interrupt your war because it looked fun? Or are you just insane." He starts to wonder about this soldiers sanity.
"Neither, a kid killed over half of the army. He killed our leader at the start and then our leading commanders putting us into turmoil.''
"Then he proceeded to kill thousands after thousands of us. Once he entered, the war only lasted for ten minutes of pure hell." His hands are around his knees and he seems to have soiled himself at the thought of the battle.
"And how did one kid destroy the lead army?"
"He used some type of blood magic. I don't know how but everything he did revolved around blood even our blood wasn't spared. He even made three dragons out of blood that completely destroyed most of our army. Such a small weak looking kid is actually a monster who could've possibly guessed that."
"So, what do you think the age of this kid is?"
"I didn't get to see him that well since I was in the middle of the army, but from what everyone else was saying before we got here, he can't be older than thirteen."
"So a little kid younger than fourteen wiped out an army. He must be the monster that the elder warned us might come, but wait that can't be!"
"He told us that if she attacked he'd intervene and even out the situation. We will continue on the same path men. This kid will not stop us from doing our job." He turns around and yells towards everyone in the camp.
"We will still destroy the two villages up ahead, then we shall attack the monster child and kill him for our leader!" Roars of cheering resound throughout the camp.
"The village is a day away and the one after that is six days from the previous. The fort should be five days away at our pace, so twelve days till we have to fight with the little monster!"
The army continues on their path undisturbed and with increased momentum.
"The village is in sight let's go men! Charge!" The small village starts to be ransacked and burned down anyone who didn't flee before the army got here died a fruitless death, no exception. Most of their deaths, on the other hand, were instructed to be as quick and clean as the men could make them.
"That was a bad raid. There are less and less supplies in each village. I think there are also fewer villagers then last time too. I hope the next village is better."
"Sir it's to be expected that there is less and less. The villagers will know of our assault by now and flee the only people that are left are idiots like these. Also, as the villagers leave they will take a lot of the supplies."
"I know that. Do you think I'm stupid? I'm not a general or this army for no reason."
The soldier has an expression of pure terror and seems to have realized his errors and how the last advisor of this general died.
"No, sir! I understand that even the scraps of food we find are useful for our army that is facing a famine!" He tries to flatter the general and not mention how destroying these villages take more energy than the food they find will fuel them.
At this point, it might have been a better idea to go out and hunt the more dangerous monsters in the forests.
"Good, you have a good head on your shoulders if you try to be a smartass again then you won't have one."
The army continues on forward to the next village. "Gahhh!"
"What was that?" He asks them about the sudden sound no seeming be very alarmed and instead seems to be a bit annoyed.
"Sir, we lost three scouts to a random trap. Blood spikes just appeared from the ground and killed them."
"So the little monster is finally taking action. Men we need to be careful from today onward. We already lost three of our two hundred scouts."
"You all know that without them we might fall prey to ambushes or stray beasts. From today on no more than twenty scouts will go ahead. Beware of blood and the like."
The annoying soldier's facial expression changes from worry to the brink of crying and then tries to tell him otherwise.
"Sir don't you think twenty is too many. What if he takes them all a lot then we won't be able to complete the mission. Without those scouts we will be slowed down way too much They are a rare profession for our kind you know that."
The soldier with a good head on his shoulders proceeds to lose that said head.
"Anyone else wants to question me?"
"No, sir!"
The army continues on their path noticeably slower than before. If they continue at this pace they'll arrive a whole day slower.
"Sir, a mass of dead beasts are in the middle of the road. It looks like a predator killed them all, but just left their bodies there." A new soldier tells him while shaking from fear of this psychotic general.
"... Maybe it just killed them for fun I know of a couple of beasts that do that. I didn't think any of them live in this area."
"Double the number of scouts and make sure they keep an eye on the forest. I don't care if we have to spend another day just in case."
"If it's one of the monsters that I am thinking of than wasting a day out of carefulness will be worth it. Also, don't touch the monster meat either it's been poisoned or is the property of something we can't offend."
The army's pace slows down to a crawl of what it used to be. Nothing seems to be happening again and everything seems to be a false alarm. "Do we still have the one hundred ninety-seven scouts?"
"Yes, sir!" The soldier says while saluting him.
"Did you count?"
"No, sir." The soldier says while looking more and more afraid. "Then count." The soldier then runs over to the scouting barracks then comes back.
"Finale count is … one hundred forty."
"So you said we didn't lose any of them, but in reality, we lost fifty-seven. You know I don't find the need of soldiers that can't follow my orders."
"So, can anyone tell me how we lost so many of them without anyone noticing?" His voice becomes angrier and angrier showing them that he's annoyed and will probably kill anyone who answers stupidly.
"No answer? So nobody has any idea how we lost so many of them. Three groups and they're all gone without any traces."
The army continues on even slower than before being extra careful of the forest beside them.
"We can't continue at this pace. So we may be risking our lives here, but we are going to have to double our speed."
"I don't care about how much noise we make in the process. If we see any beast kill it and move on!" There speed increases, but it can never be fast enough to make up for the lost time.
They finally arrive at the next village which is made of straw instead of wood for reasons unknown to I the visitor.
"This is the last village we will have to raid till the fort. Let's go! For the leader!" They charge into the village with the stupid tactic of crushing it with their numbers.
"What's going on? Everyone get out of the village it smells like a trap." The village could fit a good two thousand soldiers and since the general was in a rush he didn't notice that the village he was raiding is empty.
Luckily the general barely managed to escape, so I don't have to find another random soldier to watch over. The insanity that is Ghost's mind right now isn't very pretty, so I decided to hide it by being the ambushed instead of the ambusher.
The whole village is surrounded by a red sphere. The red sphere starts becoming smaller and smaller until it was just a ball surrounded by nothing. The whole village is gone.
"Men, today we lost some of the best of us. Pay him back twofold and arrive at the fort to kill that little demon. We are already three days behind schedule that's a day more than I thought."
"Sir, I don't want to go against something that can destroy a whole village."
"Anyone else terrified of him?"
"Yes, sir!" A large group of men raises their hand, too many to kill apparently by the look on the generals face.
Ok. So what? He is just one man we are an army of with our entire race fighting for us. How can one person fight against an entire race?"
Everyone puts their hands down and their faces show a look of newfound vigor.
"Let's go kill that vile creature for our race. The longer we sit here and complain about him the stronger he will get. If you don't want to fight him now, then what about in a week or a month. Now is the best time to kill him."
"Yes, sir!" The army starts to move at their original pace again.
Blood spikes start flying out from the forest. There isn't that many so the army doesn't gain that many more injured men. "What was that compared to the last attack this is nothing."
He yells into the forest and as if replying back the blood sphere suddenly bursts sending a river of blood at the back of the army. Being confused about the sudden attacks most don't move.
"We gotta get out of the open before he attacks again we took too many casualties already. Hurry to the forests where we can't get carried away by that thing."
He starts to run into the forest hoping that the rest of the army is behind him. Some of the trees have specks of blood on them, but he doesn't seem to notice this small yet deadly change to the forest. "Did everyone follow?"
"Yeah, I think everyone followed." His new second in command replies. When he looks behind himself instead of a perfectly fine group of young men he sees injuries on all of them.
"What happened?"
"The trees suddenly shot out tiny spikes at first it wasn't much but they just kept on coming. Some of us went the other direction but most of us followed you."
"We should find the rest of our men and hope the other group will make it. You are my new second in command."
He tells the survivor that followed him the best. "How many scouts went with me?" He immediately goes to count the scouts then returns.
"One hundred."
"With the decrease in men having one hundred should be enough. That just makes me worry more about the other side. How many men do you think got separated in the forest?"
"By my estimation anywhere from one hundred to a thousand."
"Good that's not a lot we should only be stalled for a day thanks to this fiasco. Send the scouts to find the rest I don't think we will be running into any more attacks."
The sun starts to fall down as an injured scout comes up to me and says, "Sir, we are done if we search anymore we are risking the scouts too much."
"And why is that you guys have only been searching for a couple of hours?"
"Traps, the forest is littered with traps. I recommend resting for the rest of the day and then getting out of here. We lost half of our total scouts while only finding corpses."
"Damn I never thought he would set up traps in a wide forest such as this. Looks like we are going to be stalled longer than I thought."
A long time later after the army managed to escape from the deadly trap forest everything seemed to have calmed down, but just as they start to relax once again a childish voice rings out in the distance
"Help the monster is trying to eat me! " Ghost starts to run out of the first while screaming for help obviously to us it seems like a trap, but luckily for him, all of the survivors including the healed one died.
"Don't worry kid, I will destroy these beasts with this." A robed scholarly looking Unknown takes out a fire red scroll and gets ready to activate it.
A giant red fireball pops out of the scroll and gets sent flying past Ghosts head while causing a massive explosion behind him.
"Wait don't waste a scroll, you idiot!" The general quickly stops his subordinate who seems to be in charge of keeping and using the scrolls.
"I know you have a soft spot for children, but how could you save a random kid in this type of situation. Don't you understand what our mission entails!"
The scholarly older man ignores the generals wise warning and instead pays more attention to the blood-soaked clothing. "Are you ok kid there is blood on you."
"Oh this isn't my blood, but a beast I killed in the forest. I think it might have caused a chain reaction and even more, beasts started to attack me."
Ghost starts to shake the scroll keeper hand while thanking him for being a strong deterrence to the beasts and 'accidentally' gets blood all over the elderly man's robes.
"If you guys didn't scare off the beasts thanks to your intimidating aura I'd be dead. I can't express my gratitude enough. I'm sorry, but I have a sister to take care of so I got to run without giving you anything in return."
Ghost turns around and runs into the trap infested forest while the scholarly scroll keeper yells at him not to. "Wait there traps in that forest!"
"You're too late he is already long gone. Come let's continue moving we have no time to spare."
As they continue on forward no more weird signs of anything appear in till they reach a more open area near a creek.
"Let's camp here you all deserve a break for all that you've been through. Also, I recommend you get rid of the blood that's on you. Our main enemy seems to be able to control blood."
"Ok, I was kinda thinking of not washing it because the kid seemed so sad that he didn't have anything to give me." He has a creepy expression on his face while thinking of Ghost.
"Weird and out of the question." He enters his tent first without washing any of the blood off of him.
Suddenly he's sent flying out of his tent and then the tent gets surrounded by the same sphere as yesterday. A message formed out of blood appears in front of the scroll keeper.
"Your reward for your kindness in your life, I recommend deserting. I will not spare you a second time."
"Don't tell me that the kid from before was actually." He stops his train of thought after realizing that how idiotic they were. That they haven't encountered any beasts, so how did a random kid find a bunch of them.
"We fell for another one of his traps. He was aiming for our magic scrolls and we just let him destroy them all. If anyone of you wants to leave do it. This war is looking more and more like a game to this child."
"I shall ask everyone once again who here is afraid and wants to give up?" The general asks his men after seeing how demoralized they became thanks to the loss of their precious resources.
A large number of hands fly up into the air! The general is visibly angry at the fact that he can't kill all of the deserters.
The scroll keeper proceeds to lead the group deserters onto the opposite direction where they will probably starve to death in their journey back to their forest.
"Men who have remained! I thank you and so does our grand leader, we shall kill the monster that was disguised as a human from before."
"Even if he can take out hundreds or thousands maybe even tens of thousands can he take out our army with too many people to even count!"
He stops to let his remaining soldiers view around them the mass of people still left in the army and let them realize that they are the ones with the advantage.
"No! Why is he attacking us with traps and trying to stall us instead of just straight up killing us all? It's because he can't handle our sheer numbers!"
"He is trying to thin us out before we arrive, so he can have an easier fight. We can still do this if. All we have to do is be more careful than before and keep our numbers. Even an army of ants can kill an elephant much less an army of creatures the same size as the elephant"
Eventually, they reach the end of the forest and reach their destination which has been successfully fortified by the mages.
"My comrades, who stuck with me till the end, tomorrow we shall hunt down the incarnation of evil."
"We cannot waiver no matter what happens in the next battle. We shall end it here and now. After the devil is dead that 'king' can do nothing against us."
He stops for dramatic effect and to boost their moral which actually seems to work as they get more and more worked up.
"The fort should be just past these couple of trees. We shall rest here and be at our full battle power before we charge it with all our might and then proceed to destroy them."
"There's no way that one child can handle our fierce number. Our goal is to have some of our remaining elites surround him and proceed to kill him. Does anyone have a unique fire ability?"
He asks out hoping that there would be a rare Unknown with an innate ability over an element to be in his group instead of the elites.
"I can use it for a little bit. I can't guarantee that I can keep it up for the whole war." A girl wearing a full red cloak reply. The cloak prevents anyone from seeing her actual appearance.
"No, I need you to do the opposite. Stick with the elites when they surround the devil you rain fire on him, so he can't use his magic."
"After that then all of your charge at him and pierce him till he's dead. Don't stop until you're one hundred percent sure that he is dead."
"General Gergal is that you?"
"Who are you give me your name and rank, this instant!"
"Gergal doesn't try fighting them you will just cough a sacrifice cough your men." Thud! He goes over to the cold dead body. He exits the forest to look for any survivors but has a grim expression on his face as he looks at corpses.