A proper isekai’d Dark Lord would probably be some kind of military history otaku, someone who could take a bunch of bandits and use his armchair knowledge of medieval warfare to turn them into a real, effective army. Actually, from the tidbits I’d picked up, I think that might’ve been Yomiko’s backstory. It was not mine. I haven’t even read the entire Art of War; it’s awfully dry. I don’t know any military history because history bores me to the point of coma. Too many droning teachers and contextless lists of dates and names coming up through the school system left me rebellious at even the thought of studying history. What I liked were the stories—the interesting ones, the ones about which it’s most dubious that they even happened at all, because very little that’s actually interesting ever does.

Musashi and his oar, Scipio sailing to Africa, Kongming playing his guqin atop the walls. Ironic twists and dramatic reversals, the stuff real wars are not made of. Real war is brief episodes of traumatic brutality to enliven what is otherwise the only thing more tedious than sitting in history class.

Later, when I was justifying my current insane bullshit to myself, I would inevitably think of Chamberlain’s Charge, my favorite anecdote from the American Civil War. Colonel Chamberlain had been assigned the defense of a hilltop upon which hinged the entire flank of the Union army; he could not relinquish it, or the battle would be lost. Hard-pressed by the Confederates, his troops were whittled down to a skeleton crew, and eventually, entirely ran out of ammunition. They were about to be overrun.

He could not retreat, and could not hold his ground. So Chamberlain did the only other thing possible: he attacked. Outnumbered and practically disarmed, his few remaining men charged bayonets-first into gunfire.

And they won, capturing the Confederate forces in front of them who, like Sima Yi retreating from Zhuge Liang, surrendered because they smelled a nonexistent trap. Because surely no military commander could possibly be doing something as pants-on-head stupid as what Chamberlain was doing; there had to be a hidden danger.

I learned, that day, that in the heat of that moment, Colonel Chamberlain didn’t think himself as clever as I and generations of historians re-telling that story gave him credit for being. He was just desperate, terrified shitless, and cursing himself for the stupidity of doing what was right instead of anything that made a goddamn lick of sense. Or, who knows, maybe he was thinking something completely different; the man had been dead for over a century by the time of Seiji’s Charge. Maybe when I got to Hell I’d ask him.

Should be any minute now.

I didn’t so much hit the ground as land on top of a bunch of people, which of course wasn’t optimal. Trying to surprise crowd-surf on a hostile mob is one of those suicidally stupid things that I only got away with thanks to bullshit cheat magic, in this case my Surestep Boots, which it turned out ensured me perfect footing on any surface, including the heads and shoulders of a bunch of goblins who immediately wanted me dead.

I’d run past Yoshi and company before jumping; they were now off to my right, busy being overrun by the crowd under me. In the second and a half it took me to position myself properly I was bludgeoned three times and stabbed once, but then I got the angle right and cast Windburst.

Downward at a steep angle and toward the gap. Being close to the ground but suspended off it, this was enough to send me airborne again, but I had taken the precious seconds to get the angle right and instead of flinging myself into space, I was instead hurtled backward to slam against the wall of the ledge off which I’d just jumped.

That hurt.

Obviously, I instantly cast Heal on myself and was ready to rock by the time my boots hit the ground.

More importantly, the Windburst had just made a complete wreck of the part of the mob that was trying to push the Hero party off, flinging quite a few of them into space, to judge by the rapidly fading screams. I cast it again, then again, and again, chaining Windbursts and forcibly creating a space around myself—between the main body of Jadrak’s army and Yoshi’s team. They were still partially encircled, but Yoshi and Flaethwyn were now making short work of the goblins in front of them with their swords and Pashilyn had got another Light Barrier up to prevent the flankers from continuing to push them toward the edge. That left a smaller group of around ten goblins who seconds ago had been the leading edge of the charge suddenly isolated between a wall, the Hero’s party and a surprise Dark Lord.

They did what most people would do in that scenario and attacked with renewed frenzy. That barrier began flickering immediately as it was hammered with weapons; Pashilyn looked like she was about to lose consciousness.

“Heal, Heal, Heal, Heal!” Casting out loud to ensure everybody knew what was happening, I brought Yoshi and company back up to fighting shape. He and Flaethwyn had both taken wounds and needed it; Amell looked fine and I suspected Heal wouldn’t do much for whatever kind of magical fatigue Pashilyn was suffering, but it was worth a shot considering how little time and effort it cost me. “Crush that group before they can rally! I’ve got the front!”

After bellowing my instructions I turned to face the oncoming crowd of goblins without waiting to see whether they obeyed. Barely in time, too; goblins might be magically as strong as a human but they still only weighed half as much and that sequence of Windbursts had tossed them like a salad. But there were still hundreds behind, and the nature of a mob is that its inertia is not blunted that easily. I barely had time to cast again before the swarm was on me.

This was almost as bad as the slaughter in Cat Alley. Goblins in CGI are all mercifully copy-pasted from one base model. These were just…townsfolk. I could see their faces, see the horribly relatable fury and terror of people desperately protecting their home from an invader—in this case, me. I could see the way they dressed, how they wore similar styles to the Fflyr, each outfit probably stitched from castoff human scraps but made with care and individualized in a way that made sense given the art I’d seen in these tunnels. It was howling, raging chaos and I blessedly didn’t have time to focus on any particular face, but even amid that I could tell.

Just people.

Windburst, Windburst, Windburst, Windburst!

I desperately bought space, but now I was trying to fight the full inertia of a charging mob channeled along one narrow ledge, one spell at a time. It wasn’t working. I had to rapidly give ground and in seconds found myself alongside Flaethwyn as they retreated. At least they seemed to have managed to do something about the goblins who’d flanked them, or so I earnestly hoped, otherwise I was about to get shanked in the back.

Apparently so, as this brought me even with Yoshi and having done whatever they did to the other enemies he was now able to direct his focus forward again. Having me out of the way opened up his options.

“Force Wave! Force Wave!”

That was an even more effective crowd-clearer than my Windburst. The two of us hammered the oncoming front line with spells, blunting the charge until goblins actually began to pile up on top of each other in front of us. We all three wielded swords when they got too close; I could tell that Yoshi only sort of knew what he was doing with his arming sword and shield combo, but with Rapiers of Mastery Flaethwyn and I were like surgeons precisely dispatching any goblin unlucky enough to stumble too far forward.

It wasn’t enough.

Even when Pashilyn began throwing Firecrackers from behind, we were still being pushed back, and the most control we could exercise over our course was to prevent them, barely, from shoving us over the edge again. There was a ramp up to the next level where the tram station was, but it was angled the other way and maneuvering to get up it with a mob forcing us every step was going to be a nightmare.

“That’s the one!” a voice screeched above the din, and lo and behold, there was my old buddy Fazfer, about twenty meters deep in the crowd and apparently being hoisted aloft on the shoulders of his fellows. And, once again, pointing at me. “Fire Lance!”

Nothing happened, obviously. Guy just didn’t learn. I’d have Slimeshotted him but I couldn’t spare the attention from the barrage of Windbursts that were all that was keeping us from being overrun.

Unfortunately he did learn.

“Fire Lance!” The next yell sent a shrieking spear of fire directly at Yoshi. He brought his shield up, but it looked like—

“Light Barrier!”

The barrier got up in time, but it was weaker than the others. Exhaustion was taking its toll on Pashilyn. The glowing wall shattered on impact, weakening but not stopping the spell At least Yoshi caught it against his shield, but the force sent him stumbling backward.

Fazfer’s crow of triumph was cut off by an arrow taking him right in the mouth.

The onslaught was beginning to slow, and I finally saw why as they rushed past us overhead; along the ledge I’d jumped down from an entire row of ranged attackers were in place, hammering the mob from above. All eight of Sneppit’s security crew were deploying those slingshots of theirs, which fired plum-sized balls of iron covered in spikes and made a nasty mess of whoever they hit at that range. Adding to that was Ydleth and Madyn’s crossbow fire and Nazralind methodically picking off high-value targets as she saw them, including the sorcerer.

Then a blur charged between Flaethwyn and I from behind, coat flaring to reveal the flash of her artifact chain mail.

Aster brought that huge greatsword up and then down as soon as she was past us, dropping to one knee to skid along the ground toward the goblins and whipping the entire thing in a vast horizontal swipe at what would be just under waist height on a human. The length of that weapon meant her full-armed slash carved an arc nearly the entire width of the ledge, and she did it with the full force of her own forward charge backing up the sword’s weight.

Blood fountained and heads flew as the entire front three ranks of the goblin charge were guillotined right in front of us.

That finally did it. An angry mob these might be, but they were no soldiers, just folks whipped into a frenzy. They’d been hammered back by constant spellfire, peppered by sniping from above, and suddenly there was a new element that simply took them down like so much wheat before the scythe.

Aster adjusted her stance, preparing to flow into another mass-slaughtering swipe, but she paused as the attacking mob finally broke in front of us. They stumbled, slipping on blood and tripping over corpses; it wasn’t an even retreat as the crowd took time to fully reverse its direction, but we were finally able to stop.

Even the archers above ceased once it was clear the attack had broken. We stood our ground, weapons up and gasping for breath, but no longer having to defend ourselves as we watched our erstwhile attackers turn and flee.

That was how the battle ended: no sudden signal, just a sequence of reversals that took their momentum and eventually turned it backwards. Trailing to a halt atop a pile of corpses and leaving us catching our breath, half-crazed with adrenaline and no longer having anything to stab.

I was looking at utter devastation. Bodies, pieces of bodies, and everywhere the stench. Not just of blood. That was something stories don’t tell you about battlefields: the omnipresent stink of shit. Corpses don’t have bowel control, and it wouldn’t matter if they did when they died from the application of edged weapons to their internal organs. This entire ledge was splattered in blood and worse like it’d been hosed down.

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A few hours ago, this had been a street. People just living and working here. Probably at least some of the people now strewn across it in pieces.

So much for making peace with the goblins. Nobody was going to hear any good intentions out of me after this. Why had I even done this? Yoshi and his idiot friends weren’t my problem or my responsibility. They were part of the very mechanism I was fighting to break, a political machine that sent him down here to keep these goblins oppressed and frightened in their own homes. And what credit did I even deserve for this “victory?” I was no Chamberlain, certainly no Kongming. Nobody would ever praise the tactical genius of Dark Lord Seiji. I’d only gotten away with his because a bored, demented goddess turned me into a walking weapon.

So pointless. All of it.

Maybe it was the adrenaline ebbing away, but suddenly I was aware of sounds I hadn’t been conscious of a second ago. Groans, weeping… And now that I looked, I could see movement among the bodies.

“Be careful,” Aster urged as I stepped forward, hand upraised. I didn’t acknowledge her, just focusing on the first goblin I could see who was still alive. He looked middle-aged, his spiky black hair beginning to be peppered with gray. Lying half on his side and staring glassy-eyed at the ceiling, gasping desperately in short wet gurgles. The neat hole of a rapier stab wound was just below his collarbone; the thrust had missed his heart but his lungs were filling with blood.

“Heal.”

I stepped carefully through the carnage, viscera squelching around my fancy artifact boots with every step. There were more dead than dying, and only a couple here and there trying to crawl away who seemed like they might have made it on their own. I cast Heal and moved on, not waiting to see their reactions.

This wasn’t like the mad dash through Cat Alley in the aftermath of the battle there; I couldn’t just cast it on every body I saw. Of this I was harshly reminded when I Healed a goblin who had lost an arm to the greatsword swipe; the spell stopped him from bleeding out, but his arm was still gone. I did not look him in the eyes, just looked at another softly weeping goblin who was just a trailing mess of wet organs from below her ribs. I looked, and turned away, leaving her to die. I could Heal that, and condemn her to a much slower, more painful death as one third of a person missing a lot of vital bodily functions. I wouldn’t be that cruel even if I’d hated her.

The triage got much easier once I was past the residue of Aster’s great finishing move; nobody else had been hit by anything powerful enough to separate them from their vitals that way. I paused at one twitching man whose skull was half caved in and brains leaking onto the floor behind him, the spiked iron ball still embedded there, and then moved on without condemning him to life as a vegetable. The spell would fix what was still in the remains of his head, I’d seen it do so, but he’d lost way too much. Better to spend seconds that way than years.

Aster stayed at my side, stone-faced but eyes gleaming with unshed moisture, while I did what I could. It didn’t take long; scarcely a minute later I was meters away from the other humans, looking around for more targets.

“See anybody else?” I asked quietly. Aster just shook her head.

“Why?”

I turned back to look at the young woman I had just Healed after pulling a crossbow quarrel out of her chest. She had one hand over the spot, glaring up at me with her reddish-purple eyes squinting in suspicious confusion.

So were the other…fourteen goblins I had Healed. Just fourteen that I could save. Well, most of them; a few were quietly sobbing over fallen friends. The rest were staring at me, clearly unsure what I might do next. Nobody had tried to flee yet, nor attacked.

I turned back to the speaker, the only one brave enough to address me.

“I am the Dark Lord.” I spoke without passion, with barely any inflection, just projecting enough that I could be sure they’d all hear me. “And I didn’t come here to slaughter goblins. Listen to me very carefully: I will kill whoever I need to. But I don’t want to kill anyone, and I will not harm anyone who doesn’t make it necessary. Your King decided to attack me and mine, and for that, the punishment is death. The Goblin King will die, and so will anyone who gets between us. You had better decide whether that includes you.”

I couldn’t say whether I judged it strategically inappropriate to continue or just didn’t have the energy for showtime right now, but with that statement I turned and walked back to the others, paying the fallen goblins no further attention. Probably would’ve served me right if one of them shot me in the back with something, but nobody tried.

“Stop him!” Zui’s voice suddenly shouted, and I lifted my head from watching the ground so I didn’t slip in blood to see Yoshi charging for the edge, where there was nothing but an endless fall into the core.

Flaethwyn was closest and moved to block his way, helpfully shouting “Are you crazy?!” Yoshi roughly shoved her aside and she staggered backward, looking utterly flabbergasted that he would dare.

I was not closest but moved into a run, slipping briefly on the blood before I caught my balance and managed to intercept him. The rest of his party, despite being nearer, were no help; Amell was a weeping mess on the ground and Pashilyn swayed on her feet, looking confused and half-catatonic. Aster continued to follow me but did not get in the way as I managed to grab Yoshi’s arm and stop him from lunging at the too-short barrier.

“Let go!” he insisted, trying to shrug me off. “Raffan could still be—”

“There’s nothing to grab, kid,” Gizmit said helpfully from somewhere behind us. “It’s pure drop.”

“You don’t know that! I have to try, he could have…”

“Yoshi.” The new voice was high-pitched and quiet, and I was confused for a moment until Yoshi’s little familiar buzzed into view in front of us, a cute pixie-like creature with butterfly wings and, currently, a sad expression. “There’s…nobody is clinging nearby. It’s a sheer drop, everyone who fell is…gone. I’m so sorry.”

“But…” I could see on his face that nobody was getting through. His eyes were wide and constantly turning toward the gap, refusing to focus on any of us. “I can’t just—you don’t abandon your friends! If I could just—”

“YOSHI!” I seized him by the collar with both hands and jerked him back and forth until he focused on me. “You. Are going. To lose people! There’s not a thing you can do about that. This whole world is built on bloodshed and foolishness; there’s something horrible behind every shadow. It will happen behind your back where you never had a chance to help, and right in front of you while you still can’t do a damn thing to stop it. And when the shit’s still going down and there’s work still to do, it doesn’t fucking matter. Do your crying later when you’re alone. As long as people are counting on you, you don’t get to be weak. You are not allowed to break in front of your people. So long as they need you, you keep. Moving. Forward.”

I ran out of things to say. Yoshi was staring at me—gaping, in fact. Amid the distant sounds of yelling and violence still echoing through the cavern, I could hear much closer the soft buzz of two sets of wings, our respective familiars hovering nearby and saying nothing.

Belatedly, I realized I had slumped forward while shaking Yoshi until I was half leaning on him, using my grip on his coat to prop myself up. I straightened, released him, and stepped back.

Everybody was staring at us.

After a second, Yoshi drew in a breath, closed his eyes, let it out, and nodded once. Then opened them again, and just like that, he was back with us.

“Right. Thanks, Omura.”

I just nodded back, turning to sweep a look around our environs. Because obviously I should scan for threats, not because I suddenly felt awkward about anything.

“Don’t touch me!” someone suddenly shrieked, and I swiveled to see Amell staggering away from Zui, who’d just approached her. “Get away, monster!”

The goblin’s expression closed down and she dropped her outstretched hand. Behind her, Gizmit rolled her eyes.

I sympathized with them. Honestly, I was surprised Zui had been trying to help Amell up, or show her any consideration at all. What would be the point?

Aster was looking at me, and I had a sudden memory that suggested maybe Zui understood more about life than I did.

Whenever you can, be kind.

“They’re just people, Amell,” I said. “Monsters, maybe, but no more than anybody else. You could see carnage like this in any country on this world with no goblins involved. People are monsters, and goblins are just people. This is their home; they belong here, not us. What would you do if someone invaded your home like this?”

The alchemist drew in a shuddering breath. Her face was a mess; streaked with snot and tears and splattered with the merest spray of blood just for emphasis. Her eyes cut to me, then back to Zui, then over at the gory battlefield behind us, and she took another shuffling step backward.

“I don’t seem to be helping here,” I muttered. “Yoshi, could…”

“Yeah. Amell’s a good person, Omura, it’s just… It has been a lot.” He stepped past me, lowering his voice and saying something quiet to Amell as he approached her.

Spotting movement, I shifted again to see the surviving goblins I’d just Healed trickling away. While I watched them, the girl who’d been the last caught my gaze and held it. She reached up, pulled off her green armband, then turned and walked away, dropping it in the blood.

Well. That was…something, I guess.

“Hey, Lord Seiji,” called Madyn from the ledge above. “I think you should see this. Catch!”

She was holding up a long, thin object; I stepped over to stand underneath and she dropped it into my waiting hands. It was an arrow. Specifically, a beautiful spiraling missile that gleamed like platinum but was light as aluminum, currently half-covered in blood. I’d seen its like once before.

“Are you fucking kidding me,” I growled. “Seriously? Of all the bullshit I do not fucking need.”

“I can’t believe you just dropped an arrow on him,” Nazralind was exclaiming up above, interrupted mid-rant by Aster.

“Madyn! Where did you get that?”

“It was in a goblin who fell off the next ledge above us,” Madyn called down to her. “Had a green scarf and a slingshot. Not a fancy one like our friends here, but she had several of those scary metal death balls with the spikes. I think she was gonna shoot at either us or you guys down below, but somebody sniped her first.”

“Seems we have another ally down here,” Aster said quietly to me.

“This idiot has already gotten enough of our people killed,” I hissed back. “There are allies we don’t need, Aster.”

“Do you really want to talk about whose fuckups have gotten how many people killed?” she retorted, still keeping her voice low. “I don’t. None of us would come out of that looking good. Here and now… Don’t you think it’s weird none of us got shot in the middle of that fight, despite being surrounded on all sides by ledges and overhangs and bridges and windows? This whole place is a sniper’s paradise and it’s full of hostiles. Somebody took them out before they could take any of us out. I’m inclined to start forgiving our shady dark elf friend, based on today alone.”

“She ain’t wrong, boss,” Biribo commented. “The dark elf will be more desperate than ever to win points with you, after their efforts with the cat tribe backfired. You should think about letting them help. If they get to feeling confident enough to come out and talk to us, you can hopefully start giving them orders and not have to deal with their…improvising.”

They weren’t wrong, much to my annoyance. Considering the repercussions of this elf’s antics, I was not in a rush to forgive. But…my advisors weren’t wrong. She or he had quite likely just saved at least a few more of my people from snipers.

I sighed in annoyance, then nodded grudgingly and stepped forward out of the blood and mess, leaving red tracks behind me as I rejoined the others where they’d regrouped up ahead.

“We need to get the hell out of here,” I stated, raising my voice to address everyone present. “We’ve secured an exit, and a route to rendezvous with somebody who can provide information, resources and a defensible position. From there, we can figure out a way to take out the Goblin King and put an end to all this insanity. You coming with, Yoshi?”

“Come with you?” scoffed Flaethwyn, who notably had not been addressed. “You, and a bunch of these scurrying little… Just how stupid do you think we are?”

I could spend the rest of the day answering that question and showing my work. I could draw them charts, and compose a musical mnemonic to aid in retention. Right at the moment, though, taking Flaethwyn down a well-deserved peg was an extremely low priority.

“He just saved us, Flaethwyn,” Pashilyn snapped. “Again.”

I gave her a wary look. On our previous encounter, I had pegged Lady Pashilyn as the most composed member of the group. Right now, though, she looked like a woman on the ragged edge of cracking. Understandably, considering…everything. Flaethwyn was too taken aback by the rebuke to keep flapping her yap, which was all we needed for now.

“Well, it’s not as if I can force you,” I said. “If you want to stay here fighting random goblins and getting picked off one by one while Jadrak is off doing who knows what evil bullshit, that’s your prerogative. We’re withdrawing to plan his end. Come along if you’re coming.”

I turned and walked toward the ramp that led back up to the tram station, my own people falling into step with me or trotting along the ledge above.

“Come on,” Yoshi said curtly from behind me, and one at a time, four sets of feet started moving after us.

It was a start.