James slowly walked into the border village with 3 other individuals at his back. He took large steps for his size, which wasn’t saying much due to his 4 foot height. It made his ability to look imposing slip away, just like his goal to reach 5 feet in height. He didn’t try to compensate. No, he merely had his 3 companions at his back for protection.

The village they entered was small. Only a dozen buildings differentiated the village from the desert region surrounding them on all sides. The heated sand and the beating sun constantly reminded James that he was far away from his homeland filled with forests and water.

As the group came closer to the center, they found no-one in sight.

“Maybe the city is abandoned,” James thought.

Eventually they came to an inn. As they entered, they were surprised to find what appeared to be the entire village sitting and having a discussion.

“We are sure they are coming this direction?”

“Yes, there can be no doubt.”

“What are we going to do?”

James kept listening, and as he began to understand what they were discussing, he brightened.

“Excuse me,” he forced himself to say.

Everyone looked up and began staring

“It, uh…” he coughed.

“Seems to me that what you folks need is… a hero…”

“Dammit, I meant a mercenary. A Mercenary! I’m a mercenary, yes I am, and I can help!” he rapidly exhaled.

There was a moment of silence. Then everybody started talking at once.

After a few seconds, a middle aged man took charge and calmed everyone down.

“Thank you for the offer, but aren’t you a little young to be a mercenary?” The man said.

He had a point. In addition to his small size, James' features were that of a child. A 12 year old child.

“Dammit, I’m old enough to be a mercenary!” he exclaimed.

There was no way he was using expletives to demonstrate he wasn’t a child.

“Well,” the man said, “Here’s the problem.”

The villagers began to explain they were on the cusp of an invasion by slimes. Normally slimes wouldn’t pose much of a problem to even non-combatants. Unfortunately that was when the two sides were within a magnitude of the same size. This time, however, it appeared the villagers were outnumbered 1000 to 1.

“That’s a problem.” James stated the obvious.

“How much can you pay?” James stated the next obvious problem.

The middle aged man who introduced himself as Mace said, “I don’t want to be offensive, but what can 4 people do against so many slimes?”

“Well, you know that combatants can handle nearly 25 to 1 odds against slimes,” James began.

“So we can handle an extra 100 slimes,” Mace deadpanned, not looking convinced.

“And if we are sufficiently supported that can rise to 100 to 1,” James continued.

Unauthorized use: this story is on Amazon without permission from the author. Report any sightings.

The villagers perked up at this comment.

“And if we can slow the flow of slimes so that we approach them in groups of 400, we can safely dispose of the groups 1 at a time until we finish them all,” James finished.

The villagers let the moment stand as they considered what he was saying.

“How can we prevent them from completely charging and overwhelming us?” Mace said after a while.

“Unless I’m mistaken, you have many Sand Dunes around the city that could be fortified to restrict how many slimes could enter at any point.” James responded.

“How long till they will be here?” James needed to know how long he had to prepare.

“A week” Mace responded. They took a second to consider James’ idea, while James considered if a week was enough time.

“A bottleneck would only work until they decided to go around, and we don’t have enough time to fortify the entire village.”

“We don’t have to,” James grinned.

“We only have to ensure that they won’t look anywhere else. Have you ever heard of a Potemkin Village? Dammit I meant George’s village, I don’t know where that came from.”

Mace nodded his head slowly.

“Instead of us creating fake buildings, we will create a fake wall. We then just have to fortify the chokepoint, then capture the slimes attention and make sure they don’t see that the rest of the walls are fake.”

“That George was a wiley one,” Mace whispered, remembering the feats of the man. “But how can we make sure the slimes only enter where we want them to?” Mace asked.

James looked at one of his men. “What’s your taunt skill at?” James asked the man

“25, I raised it after the catastrophe of our last mission,” The man said with a heavily accented voice.

The group was stunned with the number.

James looked at the group.

“Now that we have the beginning of a plan, how much can you pay us?” James asked.

“Welllll,” Mace drew the word out way past its expiration.

With such a strong answer James began to think. Although money didn’t seem to be on the table, his band of mercenaries were looking for work. Although they were ready for a fight, they needed supplies and support.

“What can you offer?” James asked.

“I can cook!” A Woman shouted.

“I can mend!” A man shouted.

“I’m a carpenter!”

Quickly it became apparent that there was a wide breadth of skills available here, but that the city was down on its luck so much that instead of a thriving economy, they all subsisted on bartering.

James begged his leave and began talking to his team once they left.

“Well, it’s not much, but it could get us prepared for the next contract,” James stated.

“Mark, what do you think?”

A tall and reedy man, Mark had the look of a bookworm more than a Mercenary.

“I heard one of them say they were a blacksmith. We could get our weapons repaired. We might also restock on arrows. The main problem is how do we handle the slimes? There must be over 20,000 if their estimates are right.”

This gave everyone a pause.

James looked at the lone female of the group. She was hardened in every way, but had a confident air around herself that turned the hardness into competence.

“Dara, do any of the villagers show potential?”

Dara took on a pensive look.

“I would say a few could help out, but their helplessness would leave them vulnerable”

James finally directed his attention to the last man. His unkempt hair and beard was disheveled as the others were tidy and neat. It was in stark contrast to his bulging muscles that spoke of extreme care and order. He looked as much the mercenary as James didn’t

“Jusuf, you think you can handle long odds and protect the villagers?”

“A few trifling slimes mean nothing to my strong body,” The man slurred with a heavily accented manner of speaking. The man began flexing. As everyone rolled their eyes, James began to lay out a plan.

“I know this might be hard, but I think we could use even bartered resources. I also think we might have a chance If we use our heads. We can design the entrance to the village so the slimes can only enter in small groups. While we finish them off, the villagers can weaken the next group so we can maintain the pace. We can train some of the villagers to take over when we need a break.”

They all looked dubious.

“20,000 slimes is a lot,” Mark said.

“That's only 50 groups of 400,” James responded.

That changed absolutely no-one's expression.

Eventually James had to pull rank.

“This is what we’re doing.”

He could tell his explanation had worked because they only mumbled a little as he took the group back into the inn.

He looked at the group of villagers and stated strongly,

“We’ll take the job.”