“What happened to you?” asked Analina as Terry approached his house.

Terry stared at the Adventurer’s Guild admin and thought, Oh, dear god, why is she here? I don’t have the energy to deal with anyone that chipper today.

Heaving a world-weary sigh, Terry looked at the woman, tossed aside the notion of an internal monologue, and said, “Dear god, why are you here? I don’t have the energy to deal with anyone as chipper as you today.”

Analina looked shocked for a moment before a fleeting look of legitimate hurt passed over her features. She swiftly disciplined her expression into something neutral, but Terry had seen it. And he felt like an asshole for causing it. The woman was an annoyance, for sure, and a little devious, but she wasn’t evil. Being upbeat wasn’t a sin the last time he checked. She certainly hadn’t had that coming. It's not like she personally told those damn wolves to chase me. She hadn’t shown up in the middle of the night for something trivial. She’d just had the misfortune to visit on a day when Terry was really, really, really done with Chinese Period Drama Hell bullshit.

“Sorry,” he said as he reached up and rubbed at his eyes. “I had a very long day yesterday and an even longer night getting back here. I shouldn’t have taken that out on you. Come inside.”

Terry opened the door and entered, Analina trailing behind him. Even though he’d only owned the place a brief time, he still felt the telltale unburdening, the inexplicable feeling of security, that always accompanies returning to one’s home. His shoulders loosened a bit, but not as much as he might have wanted. Those monster soldiers remained far too close for his comfort. Analina was still there; no doubt having arrived to try to talk him into doing something else he didn’t want to do. Although, he supposed that wasn’t entirely a bad thing. He would have had to go talk to her anyway. Any organized threat that close to the town was as much a problem for the Adventurer’s Guild as it was for him or any local noble. For all he knew, they represented a threat to the entire region. He just would have liked to do a few things before all of that caught up with him. Small matters like washing off about a gallon of dried blood and collecting those dire wolf heads.

I guess that’s a trope in its own right, he thought. Things always happen when they’re inconvenient. It was also a trope that applied to life in general, even back on his original world. It wasn’t special to him. It was just irritating. He’d also neglected to account for Ekori, Jaban, and Haresh being right there waiting for him. There were questions. So many questions. All at the same time. Flying through the air and hovering around his head like wasps. He ignored all of them and went looking for something to drink. He found a pitcher that was half-full of water. He didn’t know where it had come from, and he didn’t care. He lifted the pitcher to his lips and drank the pitcher empty. He’d eaten enough dire wolf meat that it had kept hunger at bay, but it was damn hard to be certain that water was clean enough to be safe in the dark. He continued ignoring everyone and their question as he went and found a waterskin. He drank and drank from that until he felt like he might pop. Only then did he go back to face the others who had fallen silent after he was so obviously not going to say anything until he was ready.

“First things first,” he said pointing at Analina. “I figured out what probably killed the people you sent to investigate.”

“What?” she asked, curiosity burning in her eyes.

“A pack of dire wolves.”

“Dire wolves?” she repeated. “Here? They haven’t been seen in this area in over a century.”

“A pack?” asked Jaban a little skeptically. “How many is a pack?”

Terry had done some counting on his way back, so he had an answer ready to go.

“Thirty four,” he said and then lifted a hand. “Wait. No. I kicked that one off the cliff. Thirty five.”

“You saw a pack of dire wolves that was thirty-five strong?” asked a stunned-looking Ekori.

“No,” said Terry, getting relieved looks from everyone. “I killed a pack of dire wolves that was thirty-five strong. Well, I guess I don’t know that one that went over the cliff actually died. I definitely killed the rest. That was a huge pain in the ass.”

Everyone was staring at him. It resurrected some of that social anxiety he’d been whittling away at ever since he arrived in this new, terrible, horrible, awful world.

“What?” he demanded.

Haresh recovered first and asked, “How big were they?”

“About the size of horses, I guess,” said Terry before he fixed Analina with a firm look. “I expect to be compensated for all that work. I just need to go collect all their heads. I know you people need proof. That reminds me. Does anyone know where I can get a really huge blanket or a cart? Maybe both?”

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“As big as horses?” asked Ekori, her voice a little numb.

“I don’t believe it,” said Jaban.

“Look at me,” said Terry waving a hand at his tattered, bloody self. “How do you think all of this happened?”

“I—” started Jaban.

“That’s what I thought. So, big blanket? Cart?”

“I’m sure we can find something,” said Analina. “I’m glad that you dealt with them, even if it is going to cost me an arm and a leg, but that’s not why I came here. Lord—”

“I wasn’t don’t yet,” said Terry. “While I was out there butchering dire wolves, I saw something you all need to know about.”

Four pairs of expectant eyes locked on to him. It was a little creepy if he was being honest with himself.

“There’s a camp of what looked like monster soldiers off that way,” he said and waved a hand in the general direction he’d come from.

That revelation led to a lot more shouted questions that ran into each other and melded into a lot of noise that Terry just ignored for a while. At one point, he walked away and found a piece of fruit that someone had left out. He ate it while the others kept peppering him with questions. Of course, only catching one word in three made it impossible to guess at what the actual questions were. Not that there was much mystery to it. They were almost certainly yelling at him to give them details or asking him things he couldn’t possibly answer. He knew his first question would have been about where they came from if he was in their shoes. He thought they might eventually wind down, but the longer it went, the more deafening they became. It was like they were that worst kind of American tourist in a foreign country. The kind that imagined that saying things louder in English would somehow make their words understandable.

“Quiet!” bellowed Terry. “This is exactly what I imagined it would be like going to a rock concert. Loud and incomprehensible, and that’s before you take the audience into account.”

Everyone else’s stunned silence turned into confused silence as they tried to make sense of Terry’s other-world nonsense. Exactly as planned, he thought. He took those precious moments of quiet to finish eating the vaguely pear-ish fruit he’d found. When that was done, he wiped his mouth and pointed at Analina.

“You. Ask a question.”

That was how it went for the next ten minutes until they all figured out that he really didn’t know anything more than what he’d told them. He didn’t know enough about this world to have identified anything useful about the small army he’d seen. He hadn’t been close enough that other-Terry could glean anything either, working primarily from Terry’s awareness and memories as he was. Other-Terry had suggested they could get closer to scout some information. Terry had shut that shit down immediately. He was not trained for that kind of thing, and he’d been in no shape for another brutal, extended fight. Something that had seemed almost inevitable if he’d been seen, which had also seemed almost inevitable. Plus, an army was definitely not a problem for him alone.

Pretty soon, the other four were bickering among themselves about what to do. Terry took the opportunity to slip away and head outside. There was a well nearby, and he drew up a bucket of water that immediately tipped over his own head. He tried not to notice the way the runoff from his makeshift bath stained the ground red. It was a little revolting. Shower, he thought. I need to find someone who can make me a shower. He poured several more buckets of water over his head before he noticed that Dusk was sitting nearby, watching the process with a mixture of fascination and deep wariness. He glanced around and saw Drumstick even farther away and looking even more apprehensive. He shook his head at the chicken-lizard.

“You literally live outside. How can you possibly be afraid of a bit of water?”

Drumstick squawk-roared something at him that Terry couldn’t make sense of. Terry contemplated a couple more bucketfuls of water. He did feel marginally less vile but suspected that he was going to need hot water, a mountain of soap, and maybe some steel wool to ever feel clean again. Just about when he resolved to do one more bucket, Analina came out of the house. She looked around, spotted him, and walked over. She wisely stopped several feet away. Outside of the bloody runoff radius.

“I really told you everything I know,” said Terry.

“I believe you.”

“So, this is something else?”

She hesitated before saying, “I thought it was. Now, I’m not so sure.”

Terry eyed her before it came back to him.

“This is about that noble, lord whoever, isn’t it?”

“Yeah,” she admitted. “He offered to double the payout on the contract but only if you took it.”

“Let me guess. He didn’t offer any more details, and now you think he knows about this army. You think he was trying to rope me into fighting this army without disclosing it.”

“Well, yes, but I think it was more than that. I think he was trying to get you killed.”

“Probably,” agreed Terry.

“You don’t sound surprised.”

“Why would I be? This is exactly the kind of shit I expect from nobles. Someone probably put him up to it. Some other noble or maybe the Church. I’m not sure it matters.”

Analina hemmed and hawed for a few seconds until Terry lost patience.

“Just say it,” he ordered.

“If that army comes here,” she said, looking as scared as she probably felt, “what will you do?”

Terry’s eyes wandered from the admin to his new house and then over to Drumstick and Dusk. It was an odd little life he’d started to cobble together for himself. It was also the only life he was going to get unless he could figure out a way to summon and blackmail Truck-kun into sending him home. Since that struck him as deeply improbable, that made what was around him now it. This was home. The weird chicken-lizard and the four-eared cat were his family. Granted, Dusk was like a cute niece while Drumstick was like a weird cousin, but they were family all the same. Haresh, Ekori, and Jaban were his friends. Even the overly cheerful Analina was like some weird combination of work acquaintance and supervisor.

Well, Terry? Asked other-Terry. What will you do if that army comes?

Terry answered Analina and other-Terry at the same time.

“If the army comes here, I’ll do the only thing I can do. Aggravating hero stuff.”

This ends Isekai Terry: Tropes of Doom

Terry will return in Isekai Terry: Aggravating Hero Stuff