Chapter 12

…

Fight enough battles and they become busy work.

The whole point of the game is to make meme Deathstacks and show off how much of the map you could paint in your color. Maybe, sometimes, you rename enemy capitals something funny. Not too funny, though, or you'll get banned.

Once you reach endgame, if you're not using auto-resolve to win without any casualties, I'm sorry to say… but you're a casual.

I know, it's a horrible, terminal illness, but you need to understand that you're better off not affiliated with gamers.

I'm a gamer by association, because I like games.

Not a capital-G gamer that thinks lobbies are places to practice hate speech, or who spend their whole lives in basements. For me, games are a hobby, not a lifestyle, and so I'm fairly sure that I'm a casual in a lot of circles too.

Unless you have jars filled with piss and shit and other fluids around your "battlestation" purchased with NEET-bucks from welfare checks, and haven't taken a shower in weeks, you're honestly a casual.

But, in the end, even casuals can reach certain levels of degeneracy through commitment. If you work hard, burn away enough relationships, and ignore plenty of social activities, I'm sure that you can watch your pixels beat up other pixels without you lifting a finger too.

What was I talking about again?

Oh, right.

Fight enough battles and they become busy work.

That was my mindset around my last couple of games. I was ready to use every exploit and cheese, so that the last half of the game was just me clicking and winning the rest of the way. Early game was the best for actual tactics and fights, so I didn't have many problems with them. Late game and midgame were both about who had a better bullshit strategy to use against another bullshit strategy.

So, I was ready to help with the siege of the Elvish Citadel, lose as little as possible, and get as many people levelled up and experienced as I could.

The more strength I gathered with every battle, the easier battles were going to get, and then I could just focus on politics while staying out of the military during the endgame. Khanrow would be less likely to kill me off if I didn't turn into Alexander the Great of this world, with political and military power both at my disposal, after all.

However, as usual, things didn't go to plan.

At the very least, this time, it didn't go to plan because of an opportunity instead of fate fucking me over.

…

Refugees are apparently a thing.

Well, logically speaking, I knew they were a thing in the game. It's just the grand strategy game didn't care about the lives of people who couldn't fight or throw magic at one another. Everyone was measured as "population" and that population could be focused on producing units, gold, and all the other resources. The more you had, the more you got of anything you wanted, and you stacked on modifiers until your towns and cities produced as much as your Citadel.

But I'm getting ahead of myself.

Population technically didn't matter on the overworld. It was a statistic. If your attacks, sieges, and choices on events lost population, it's just a modifier to the production of the city. You replace that population by increasing happiness through buildings, lowering taxes, and building residences. While it was treated as an atrocity to kill a lot of pops, losing pops during a war is just considered a matter of fact, and balances the game.

You don't conquer a place and expect it to be in pristine condition after all.

It makes sure that people don't snowball in the early game. It's only in the lategame with heavy investment into the Diplomacy tree that you can conquer cities and leave most of its population alive.

In the early game, well… usually conquered cities go down to 0.5 population after you conquer it.

1 population is 100,000 people, by the way.

So, since the civilizations that start later get bonuses in population to prop them up in exchange for lost turns, and the Elves started with 2.5 pop…

200,000 dead Elvish civilians.

Personally, I just thought that was a pretty good start, but Riegert actually looked to me to deal with them once the outskirts were cleared out and the siege began.

The musclebound mountain's exact words were:

"Try to keep some of them around, so we can keep this place working."

So, I found myself with Ilych at my back while a few hundred Elves looked at me, clothed in rags, and forced to stay in the makeshift internment camp, until we took their Citadel.

The surrounding area was being transformed into a siege camp.

Honestly, I had half a mind to point at the crowd and tell Ilych to charge in and give me a show while strengthening her new sword… but Riegert spoke for Khanrow and I couldn't go against Khanrow.

After plastering a big, wide smile at the racist, genocidal bastards, I addressed them with all the cheer I could muster.

"Hello, everyone! My name is Jack and I'm the King of this expedition!" I puffed out my chest and cheeks, spoke in the highest tone I could muster, and generally tested their patience with every word. C'mon, you prideful bastards, give me an excuse! "Don't worry! We're doing our best to take over this Citadel and get you all back to working in your homes as soon as possible!"

I saw more than a few fists clench in anger, as well as narrowed eyes.

Yes.

Implying that they were going to become slaves worked! Despite being slavers themselves, enslaving Elves pissed them off! I'm sure that there's social commentary to be had there, but I majored in business like everyone else who wanted to breeze through college, so I didn't know jack shit. I'll leave that sort of thing to people who use social media to figure out.

Anyway…

"As you can see to your left, we're setting up dugouts and shelters for you all."

With the trees that you guys were all tending to and intended to raise for hundreds of years.

"We also have plenty of food for you to eat."

Barely any fruits and berries, mostly preserved meat, and it's the offcuts that the rest of the army doesn't want.

"And, we're soon going to get you all real clothes."

We are looting your houses as we speak for anything worth anything, and grabbing your clothes to give you as an afterthought.

I waited for a while for the inevitable screaming, yelling, crying, and shitting my way… but the Elves just stayed stone cold and stared me down.

I knew exactly what they were thinking though.

They were all planning to kill me when I'm old and weak, while they remained young and strong.

That's how they always thought.

But… I did have Ilych on hand, so I looked her way with a big smile.

"Hey, Ilych, would you mind making sure that we only have the people that would work with us? It'll be terrible if we work so hard, only for everyone here to rebel, right?"

You might be reading a pirated copy. Look for the official release to support the author.

There was no hesitation on Ilych's part, as she rose up and cast a shadow upon me, and nearly the entire stage.

"The winds hear your commands and they agree. It shall be as you will." Eighty percent of the time, Ilych scared me shitless, but I had to admit… sometimes it's useful to have a psychopath that follows the voices in their head on your side. Anyway, she came forward and took her sword from her back. I half-expected her to leap off the stage and just start killing, but instead she took a stand before the thousands of Elves. How else was she going to break the will and spirit of a conniving, crazed race of genocidal maniacs that were more than willing to wait hundreds of years to get what they want— "Swear fealty to me now, with all your heart and soul, or die and have your corpses be remade into more willing beings."

Oh.

Telling them to swear upon themselves to be loyal, or be killed and have their cherished bodies turned into subservient Undead worked.

It worked quite well, actually, since Rita had been on the frontline helping us all this time.

Never had that option in the game though, which was just another warning sign of how seriously out of my depth that I was.

I needed to look into ideas like that and implement them, before all my options ran out.

…

Interlude: Khanrow

…

"Well, the gambit paid off."

"Indeed."

I looked over the construct made from our Citadel. It stood in my presence and I could feel it inquiring for orders within my mind. It was here, ready for battle, despite having been plucked from where it should be.

"Keeping it frozen in magic is essential. It's as you said, the Guardians collapse and fall apart when not in the presence of Citadels." I gave Riegert his dues for his thorough research. Some may say that his proclivities bordered on mania, but with results such as these, I did not care. "I will be returning with all that I can muster, so that we do not waste our soldiery against the Children of the Elm's own Guardians."

"Got it. Anything else you need?" In case someone was listening, or breaking through our protections, Riegert did not address me as Khanrow, or his Lord. In every respect, that was Jack's duty. A duty that he did well. "Do you think Jack missed anything?"

"Hmph. No, he didn't. That child is more dangerous than he lets on. All the better for it, I believe." Riegert informed me of Jack as I followed in the supply train. He didn't have to. I witnessed most of Jack's accomplishments myself. When armies marched, they typically laid waste to whatever they encountered, and were laid to waste in turn. Not this time. We marched and left at our backs lands that were secure, and few of our number were injured or harmed. The force that arrived was stronger and almost double the expected amount. "He will make a fine leader in the upcoming age."

"He'll know how shit this one is, and do everything to get rid of it. Sounds about right. Well, let's both hope that he'll let us go if we surrender and let ourselves be exiled."

"He would never."

"Hah, that's true, we'll both get our heads lopped off if we let him have his way."

I shared a chuckle with my friend, allowing myself to let go of my responsibilities for the moment, and simply bask at our success.

The siege had just begun, the Children of the Elm were entrenched behind the Citadel's walls and needed no food, but I already felt victory in the air.

It was because of Jack, his achievements, and his sheer ability.

Riegert declared him a prodigy and genius in matters of campaigning, and with what I saw and what I knew of his ability to govern and go through scholar after scholar, I had to agree.

We stumbled onto a miracle, and we had to bear its weight until it flew faster and higher than anything else could hope to catch.

"I think, we'd best leave after he graduates from the Academy. I'll leave the ring right on his desk." I mused and Riegert nodded with a smirk. I instructed the Guardian to return to the insulated box that I'd fashioned in secret for it. It trundled inside, the water within filling up to cover it completely, and then Riegert cast the magic necessary to freeze it solid. The mages keeping fresh food from rotting away would keep it cold along with the supplies and they will be none the wiser. "Do you think he'll still run, if he has no one to force him upon the throne?"

Riegert gave a low chuckle at the question.

"The kid acts like a bubbly idiot, and inside he's a mix of spite and wit, but in truth… he's got more mercy in his heart than either of us combined. He'll take the ring because he has to, or because he can't trust anyone else to do the job."

"So, the best of both of us." I summarized simply. "With weaknesses all his own."

"Can't expect him to hold his own in a fight, or stick a dagger in someone's back without being noticed, but he can get other people for that. Hell, I'd say he already has two people who can." Riegert mentioned Ilych and the reborn Elf, who was now Rita. I had to agree with the assessment. Both of those two were reaching to meet me and Riegert in terms of skill. In half-a-decade, they'll outstrip us completely. "But he makes hard decisions look easy, and he knows what he needs to do, or ask questions when he doesn't. He acts on gut instinct, knowledge, and somehow… experience all at the same time."

I felt myself nodding again in agreement.

Riegert and I hardly agreed on anything this much.

"The many dead Children of the Elm we'd captured is enough evidence of that." I had Riegert place Jack in a position that would've made any other man salivate. Thousands of beautiful creatures, skilled artisans, and slaves at his disposal. Some would never think of spoiling a single one just for the sake of selling them, while others would've fallen into depravity. Instead, Jack followed the path he set for himself, knowing that nearly none of them would follow him willingly. Then, there was how he interacted with the Conquerors. "To all who raise a sword against him: destruction. To all who show him courtesy: courtesy in turn."

"Hah, you're still shit at poetry."

"Haven't had the chance to practice."

"Fair. Maybe in a few years."

"Maybe."

I agreed and met my ally, my friend, and my partner through so many hellish campaigns and battles.

Riegert returned the nod I gave him and extended his hand to me, and I gripped his forearm as he did mine.

Despite his strength and power, I recalled a day when he was stronger.

He probably felt the same for me.

"You better not die before we see these kids leading the charge. We both need to grow old into fat, rich grandparents, Ghor."

"The same to you, Riegert."

With those words, we parted ways for the time being once more.

Sometimes, it felt foolish to hope.

But this time, after all that I've seen Jack accomplish and knowing who he had at his side, I seized onto the ember burning in my chest and let myself feed it ever-so-slightly.

Truly, finally, it felt like this age of darkness and terror was going to end.