Fafnir's POV
"Ah, threatening people really is the best way to negotiate.", I happily thought to himself after seeing the three bandit chieftains in front of me fall into complete chaos.
Magnhilde tried to mask the fear in her voice while she rallied her men but failed horribly. Safrit slowly crept backward in a futile effort to hide behind his men but noticed that they all had already run away. Jorn shouted to his men to run and get to safety while he shakingly reached for his axe.
I let out a small chuckle, "Relax I'm not going to harm you..... yet."
Safrit, now hiding behind a tree nervously smiled and asked, "Is there a way for us to turn that yet into an 'I'm never going to harm you?'."
"I was hoping you would ask that. It is actually quite easy to do and would not even cost you anything. "I replied with a wicked grin.
The three in front of me looked at me with eyes filled with fear and hope, a quite peculiar combination if I say so myself. I let out a small chuckle thinking about how easy the plans I made back on earth would have been to execute if I had this power back then. Now let's test them a bit by checking how they would react if I turn into a weaker looking form. I turned back into my 'combat' form and declared, "You only need to serve me."
Magnhilde jumped towards me before the other two could reply and shouted, "Quick attack him while he looks like this. Don't let him transform back into a dragon." Most of her men and even Jorn followed her command and drew their weapons before charging at me.
As I watched this idiotic situation play out before me I chuckled "While it is a smart idea to attack your enemy when he looks at his weakest. Did you confirm that this indeed is my weakest form?"
Before they could react to my words I jump forward, creating a small crater and start to take out one bandit after the other using my superior strength and constitution.
After only a few minutes only me, Magnhilde, Jorn and Safrit remain standing surrounded by their now unconscious allies. I looked into the scared yet determined eyes of Jorn and Magnhilde and declared, "Why don't you just surrender? Does serving me really sound that bad?"
Safrit gave me a small smile and said, "No not really I would be glad to serve such a strong leader, well for the right price of course."
I smiled and responded, "Of course there will be a suitable reward for each of you if you help my plans come to fruition." I turn towards Jorn and Magnhilde and showed them my most charismatic and friendly smile and said, "What about you two won't you lend me your strength?"
Jorn lowered his weapon after seeing how outclassed he was and said, "If you promise to treat my men right then I will join you."
Magnhilde stepped forward and sneered, "Cowards." Before turning towards me and shouting, "Show me what you got you oversized lizard."
I make a mocking bow before blasting some fire towards her only for it to get blocked by a wall of earth.
"Oh, so the dwarves unsurprisingly use earth magic. Well let's see how strong my flames actually are.", I mused to myself.
I increased the output and started showering Magnhilde with fire while she kept raising earth walls. After a while, she sends the wall she was hiding behind towards me in an attempt to seize the initiative. I gather a bit of destruction energy in my mouth and fire a beam towards the wall, obliterating it. With a little jump, I propel myself towards my now revealed enemy and try to tackle her.
She creates a little hole in the ground and hops in it, making me jump over her. I slam my claws into the ground to slow my momentum down and then send destruction magic into the ground, resulting in a deafening explosion that ripped the ground to shreds.
I walk to a loudly coughing Magnhilde who was able to wall herself in right before the explosion and taunted, "Seems like your strength came short."
The dwarf just glared at me and said, "Fine I surrender. So what do you need us for?"
"Can someone explain why we waiting to ambush a return party of Diedrich's men?", asked Jorn.
"Well it is simple", I replied, "Your men kill the guards and a part of them will pretend to be Diedrich's men to infiltrate his camp and open the gate. Then the rest of your, Magnhilde's and Safrit's men will then swarm in through that gate and take control of the camp while I hunt Diedrich down.
Jorn let out a sigh and said, "No, I know the plan. What I don't understand is why we are doing this. "
"Well for my plans we need to have control of the entire mountain range and Diedrich's men are the biggest bandit band of bandits in these mountains so we need to get rid of them. It is too bad that they did not accept my invitation to come meet me like the three of you did. If he had accepted, I would have more men under my command and it would also save me some time.", I replied.
If you encounter this story on Amazon, note that it's taken without permission from the author. Report it.
Jorn massaged his temples and said, "I get that but why are we doing things in such a roundabout way. I mean could you not simply go in there and beat them all down alone or just blow that gate away with that destruction magic of yours just like you did to the fortress city?"
"I can", I replied calmly before grinning and chuckling, "but brute forcing you through every obstacle is no fun."
"You sure that you are a dragon and not just an annoying brat?", asked Jorn.
"I'm almost certain.", I laughed.
Before Jorn could retort I heard a group of people approaching
together with a few carts. I grinned wickedly and said, "Now some me your skill. Oh and be sure to kill them in a way that leaves their cloaks intact, we still need those because for some reason all of Dietrich's men wear that stupid black cloak with a white raven on it."
"Yeah you already told us.", replied Jorn before signaling his men to get into position.
A few moments later, a bloody and chaotic battle unfolds before me. Thanks to our numerical advantage and the fact that this was a surprise attack, I don't even need to do anything. I watch as Jorn's men easily overwhelm the enemy. A part Jorn's men take the acquired loot away to the cave where they met me and the others donned the clothes of the men they just killed. Since there were only a handful of guards most of our men had to hide inside the cart without a cloak.
One of my men handed me one of the newly acquired cloaks before leaving together with the group that is going to be part of the main force. For good measure, I also picked up a random sword from the ground and hang it on my belt.
I donned the cloak, that I have to admit looks a bit cool, while I was still in my battle form resulting in it somewhat hiding my tail and wings before entering one of the carts.
After traveling until a bit after dusk I can finally see the wooden walls of Diedrich's camp before me. I let out a small sigh and thought to myself, "It's a shame that he is the only of the four big leaders who decided to ignore my invitation and did not bother showing up this morning. He seems to be a much better leader than the other three. I mean that is no bandit camp but a small fortress, I really pity anyone who would try to attack that. Well, anyone who does not have a dragon with them at least."
When we arrived at a checkpoint in front of the camp the guards decided that checking the goods was not worth their time so we were able to enter their camp quite effortlessly. I made a small mental note to execute every lazy and incompetent guard who slacked off on the job in order to prevent thing like this.
Jorn who was also inside the cart gave the signal and his men jumped out of the carts and charged towards the gatehouse, killing all the enemies who tried to intercept them. While Jorn's men tried to overwhelm the defending bandits I calmly walked towards the center of the camp while shouting Diedrich's name. After a minute or two a tall, burly man walks up to me and with a deep voice asks, "Why are you calling for me? Did something happen."
With an evil smile on my face, I answered, "My lord there are enemies inside the camp and I think there is an assassin prowling around to kill you."
The man who I presume is Diedrich answered a bit shocked, "Raise the alarms and tell me how you know that there is an assassin trying to kill me?"
I drew my sword and said, "Because I'm talking about myself.", before swinging my sword at him.
Diedrich who also was a capable fighter quickly jumped back and drew his own sword and we engage in a sword fight. I decided that now would as good of a time to try and learn how to use a sword so I turned into my disguise form lowering my physical strength to the level of a normal human and did not use any magic. Of course, considering that I never actually wielded a sword, I completely sucked and missed attack after attack while Diedrich hit me time after time. The attacks that did not land on the few scales that I have in this form left me with bloody wounds. Luckily my ability to take hits stayed the same even in this form. I really should ask Chaos the next time I see her why my body is able to do that.
I let out a sigh, tossed my sword on the ground and said," Oh fuck this, a sword is a way to difficult to use."
Diedrich who thought that this was my surrender smirked and said, "Smart choice. If I had to fight myself I would also have surrendered."
I chuckled, "Who is surrendering? I just got rid of some dead weight. I"ll give you some friendly advice If I were you I would start running, well not like you would be able to escape but you will get to live a bit longer like that."
"Ha, why would I need to run away from a badly wounded incompetent sword fighter who does not even have a sword anymore.", mocked Diedrich.
Right at that moment, the loud shouts of our main force could be heard as they charged at the enemies after entering the camp through the gate that we controlled now.
The smile on Diedrich's face died while a grin was born on mine. I said, "Two reasons, one my allies are currently overwhelming your men and two, I am not planning on playing around anymore.", and turning into my combat form.
After transforming I dashed behind him and coated my fist with destruction magic before punching right through the poor guy.
I bring my mouth to his ear and whisper, "You really should not have declined meeting with me."
He coughed up some blood and answered, "What are you talking about? I never got an invitation."
I pulled my hand out of him and shrugged, "Yesterday I told one of your men to tell you that the destroyer of the fortress city wants to meet you."
He looked at me before sadly laughing, "Seems like that guy ran away instead of telling me. What a stupid reason for my death."
After saying those pitiful last words Diedrich fell down and died with an expression of disbelief and regret on his face as I made another mental note to myself, "Be sure to find a better way to contact possible allies then ambushing their men and threatening them to tell it to their boss."
I ripped his head off with my bare hands and then walked towards the place where the biggest fight was being held.
In roared once, halting the fighting and shouted, "Diedrich is dead, all of you who don't want to become a fertilizer for the fortress need to surrender NOW!"
Seeing the head of their leader in my hands three-fourth of them threw their weapons down and my men easily killed the once that kept resisting.
I looked at the scene in front of me and thought, "You know becoming the boss of this mountain was quite easy. How OP did Chaos make this body of mine.