Finally!! It had been a gajillion, trillion, billion years but she finally, FINALLY, found her hero. She was hoping this simple process would take her a few months but Noooooo! There was always something wrong with whatever candidate she had.

It would have been nice if she could have had help to find people, she was under no delusion that she had missed at least a few would be heroes but she could only cover so much ground and observe so many kids at the same time.

Really though, given the amount of people she had gone through. This entire kingdom had a poor quality of people. She’d probably have to ask The Big Bad Demon Lord to go easy on the kingdom to avoid them from getting wiped out too quickly.

Thankfully she finally found the perfect one to be her hero. A teen boy in some tiny little village that had the hallmarks of all the perfect protagonists. Naive, innocent, sweet, strong sense of justice, wishing for something more by the looks of it. It was a perfect candidate!

Well, maybe he wasn't perfect but at this point she’d settle for good enough, besides she can easily iron out the details as she plays the role of mentor for him before her tragic death scene.

Honestly she was just excited to get out of this damn castle. Leave it to royal court politics and greedy, noisy humans to remind her why she held no remorse for collapsing her original material world barrier and isolating herself for who knows how long in her pocket dimension. Plus there was also that Annoying-.

She heard a knock on her chamber door and inadvertently let out a groan, having a very strong feeling of who it was. Wanting to avoid it but not seeing a good excuse to do so, she got up from her chair and opened up the door to see the happy face of the Annoying Brat staring at her.

“Hey Teacher, glad to see you are awake!” He happily marched into the room without an invite as usual. He was certainly chipper this morning, but he was chipper every morning so that wasn’t really notable.

“I hope you don’t mind me coming by early. I had some questions about one of the books you lent me. I just don’t even get half of the stuff that it talks about. Every time I think I have a slight grasp on what is being mentioned it almost seems to change the rules on me. And that is not even mentioning-”

“Marrow, Marrow. I need you to calm down. Whatever it is you have is going to have to wait. I am leaving now and will probably be gone for more than a little bit.”

The Annoying Brat froze and looked at her with some trepidation. “Leaving? Why are you leaving? Does it have something to do with this hero you have been looking for after all of this time?”

“Indeed it does. I believe I have his general location and a name. I am about to head out to find him this instant.” She could actually go and grab him right now if she wanted but she had big plans for the opening act and as such she couldn’t just grab him immediately and needed an excuse as to why she couldn’t.

“Great! Then I will come with you! It would be best if two people were to go looking for this hero then one. Actually, better yet, let’s tell the queen and get the help and backing of all of her forces. We can probably find this person within a couple days at most.”

Uh.. “N-no. That would probably be a bad idea”

The Annoying Brat looked at her confused “Why not? It would be the most efficient would it not?”

Crap! It really would be efficient and if this were a real issue then she absolutely would agree to all the help. “Well.. You see… I.. Am afraid that too much movement would bring the attention of powerful demons and they might try to kill the hero before he has a chance to get to safety. This kind of operation requires stealth and I don’t want to risk an attack.”

The Annoying Brat seemed a little worried by that answer but thankfully seemed to accept her answer as fact. Thank goodness she managed to come up with that excuse just in the nick of time. His inquisitive mind was a great feature of him and she hoped he kept it but damn could it be annoying in the worst possible situations.

“Ah! If you are going to be leaving for who knows how long then you don’t want to forget your bag!” The Annoying Brat ran to the door where she had placed her bag and picked it up. Seemed to fumble with it for a few moments and then ran back to her

“Here you go. Would have been bad if you forgot all your stuff. Be sure not to leave it anywhere” He smiled at her and she took it while giving him a look.

I mean yeah. She placed it by the door for the whole purpose of not forgetting it by accident. Sometimes she just didn’t know what went on in that man's mind.

“Right, thanks. Listen Marrow, you are welcome to tell the queen that I will be going, better that you do actually so she doesn’t get worried about me being gone. She seems to have some anxiety when it comes to my whereabouts for some reason. But I am afraid I can’t tell you where I am going.”

The Annoying Brat nodded “Don’t worry, I understand. Just be careful out there.”

“Pssh. I am always careful. You don’t need to worry about me. And give my regards to Yin and her two hawks as well.”

“Can and will do. I guess I will see you later.” He seemed hesitant about something and she found it kind of sweet he was going to miss her. Strangely enough she felt like she was going to miss him too for some reason. She supposed he was a source of entertainment even if he was constantly annoying and interrupting her reading time.

She bid farewell to The Annoying Brat and headed on through the castle not bothering to stop and talk with anyone lest she get dragged into yet another pointless conversation. She got to the stables, paid her made up fee and climbed into the carriage and with all due haste ordered it to go as fast as it could within reason out of the town (City?).

She has oddly enough grown a little attached to this quaint little place. She would definitely move the heroes training here when she got him. Oooo! Maybe she should organize some kind of fighting tournament to help train him. Throw in a rival, and a secondary antagonist to interrupt the final showdown between the two where they had to team up to take down the secondary antagonist!

She started to get more and more excited at the idea and got lost in her own little world as she imagined all sorts of ideas she could do. She got so caught up in the fantasy that she hadn’t realized that the carriage had stopped at her destination.

Eventually she managed to bring her attention and focus back to the moment and climbed out of the carriage where she had first arrived in some forest that was near the capital.

After throwing her carriage into her time prison she activated her teleportation spell and her scenery changed from the bright lush and green of trees to a burnt land filled with a bunch of bunny-like creatures.

When she said it was filled. She meant filled. These things were everywhere! Did she really make them breed that quickly??? She even teleported on top of one of them!

Though said creature didn’t seem to mind her stepping on them. She wasn’t sure if that was a good thing or not so she quickly dismissed her illusion that made her look like a human woman. This caused panic chittering as the bunny creature tried to get away from underneath her.

Okay, so very concerning. She quickly levitated a few feet above the ground and threw an ice spear into the perverted rabbit's head. She was going to need to dip her feet in a tub of acid when she got the chance.

The flap of wings drew her attention towards The Big Bad Demon Lord as it flapped down from one of the mountains that surrounded the valley.

Now that she looked around though. In the center of the valley looked to be a nice house with some walls around it but that seemed to be it. The mountains that were all around this valley were carved out. They looked like multiple forts and villages all interconnected to each other, completely surrounding them. It would be quite impressive if there wasn’t something very clearly missing.

She slowly turned to The Big Bad Demon Lord who landed a few feet away from her and knelt down. Crushing a few more of these bunny creatures in the process. “Rillan.. Where is the imposing impenetrable fortress? I see a nice wall of forts that have been carved out of the mountains. Along with a dingy looking house in the center of the valley. But no imposing sinister castle or scary dreadful city in the valley. Are you incapable of following orders???”

She was definitely peeved. A gajillion stinking years was more than enough time to get a scary fortress in a scary city. Maybe even a scary tower or two but none could be seen. In fact she would say there was nothing in this valley if it weren’t for the massive sea of humanoid bunnies taking up every square meter of space. Seriously! How many of these creeps were there??

The demons hesitated for a brief moment, throwing a look at the house before looking back at her “Mistress, you gave me the time prisons with the materials needed, but did not give me the passphrase to open them and thus I lacked material to make what you wished.”

. . . Oops. “Right. Obviously all on purpose, it was totally to test how you would handle my demands without all the required material. Congrats! I will now give you the pass code for the time prisons now. I applaud your ingenuity!”

The Big Bad Demon Lord bowed his head “Thank you mistress.”

Well at least he is much more agreeable and subservient now. Makes this all easier. “But first things first. I have an important mission for you. Something to make use of these bunny creatures”

“Orants Mistress” The Big Bad Demon Lord interrupted her

“What?”

Rillan looked at her from his kneeling position “Their race is called Orants”

“That's a terrible name! Come up with something different! Something scary!”

“They seem to have grown attached to the name. It might be difficult too-”

“I don’t care how difficult it is! Change the damn name!” Ugh, what was he thinking giving these creatures as lame as that.

“Listen, while you are trying to think up of a better name I have a mission for you to send these monsters on. I want you to send a contingent of these creatures to raid a small village.”

That caused the demon to perk right up upon hearing this. “You mean we can finally start to burn those human lands! Slaughtering all the humans in the process!”

“More or less, but just the parts I am telling you too. Do not go beyond” She promptly pulled out a map of the human kingdom and showed it to The Demon Lord.

“I need you to only hit this part right here” She gestures to the smaller section of the kingdom that was on the edge of the mountains towards the southern tip. “But you must hit this little village first” Tapping a village named Haven that was closest to the mountains.

The Demon Lord looked intently at the map “I don’t recall humans putting tiny villages on maps unless they hold a stronger purpose?”

She just casually waved him off “Obviously the map makers for this map were more detail oriented. So listen, send a bunch of these bunny creatures to invade the village. Send one of your kids too. Kill them all, yadda yadda yadda. Think you can do that?”

Stolen content alert: this content belongs on Royal Road. Report any occurrences.

There appeared to be a slight hesitation before shrugging and a grin started to spread across his goat-like face. “It would be my pleasure~ Shall I send them now?”

“Yep! Now I have a few things to do so I am taking off. Can’t wait to see what kind of havoc you will reap in a few days. Have fun with the destruction”

“W-wait! I still need the pass-”

Pop

She teleported away. She couldn’t be bothered to micro manage everything. The Big Bad Demon Lord would just have to find a way to solve his own problems.

Oh right! She needed one of his kids to study. Eh, she would get that when she went back at some point.

Either way she was excited. While she would be monitoring the village when it was attacked, it would be only to make sure her selected hero survived the massacre. She would be watching the whole thing properly when the whole adventure was done. She couldn’t wait!

Where was she? Why above the village of haven! Like really high up, cloud level high. She was currently sitting on her flying carpet (She got the idea from reading a book she lost somewhere in one of her book rooms).

She wanted to be ready for when the army was to invade and make sure the Hero got away safely. Sure she didn’t need to be here instantly as it would take time for the army to arrive but she honestly just didn’t want to talk to The Big Bad Demon Lord or be around all of those Oran… Nope! She was not calling them that.

Plus, if she was being totally honest with herself. She just wanted to read some more. And every second of talking was a second of not reading and she just couldn’t have that.

But first she pulled out one of her scrying orbs and began to monitor the Hero of her new story that went by the name Jacob.

She already has sent several dozen scrying orbs down to the village more or less. Largely for set dressing for when her story starts and before it burned to the ground. She already had a couple of scrying orbs following her Hero now. This was going to be a pivotal moment in his life

With that she sat and waited…. And waited… And waited…. And she got bored 5 minutes in and decided to start reading some of her “To be read later” books she had stashed away in one of her time prisons. Plus she didn’t want to spoil herself for future events.

And just like that two full months had passed before her without even realizing it. And by that she meant she absolutely realized it! Why the hell would it take two freaking months for an army to march over some silly mountains!

What had dragged her out of the enjoyment of her book was the sound of bells blasting down below and as she peeked over her carpet she spotted something in the distance, coming from the mountains.

A mass horde of Ora… Nope! She still refuses to call them that.

A mass horde of the bunny creatures being led by a monster that did seem to be a weird mix between the creatures and The Big Bad Demon Lord. It kind of looked dorky so it clearly took after the dad but maybe the humans would find it scary.

She sat forward and looked down at the village… Though now she looked at the village a bit more closely though. They sure had a lot of soldiers. And they were all manning the wall already? Well guess they wouldn’t be caught unawares but the results should be the same.

She didn’t want to watch the battle though. Too many spoilers for her and she didn’t want to risk the Hero accidentally getting killed. Thus she proceeded to monitor the Hero who was currently with his family hiding in their house. It was actually really sweet. Oh she was definitely going to shed some tears when she watched this play out. Or she would if she actually had eyes! HaHA!

So she waited…. And waited…. Slowly the sounds of battle from her scrying orb as well as up here began to quiet down… And then silence…. Why was there silence?

She looked up from her scrying orb and towards the village. When she saw what happened, her lower jaw dropped and landed onto the carpet which she quickly scooped up and reattached to her skull before her body started to burn.

They won??? Not only did they win but they also seemed to have crushed the invading force! The walls looked a little worse for wear and there were clearly people dead but compared to all of the dead bunnies she would say it wasn’t even close! Hells! The Big Bad Demon Lords kid that was leading the charge was currently being dragged out of a tower on the wall utterly mutilated and definitely dead!!

Infuriated she got up from her carpet, and with a small pop teleported back to the valley and screamed

“RILLAN!!” Her real voice cracked through reality, warping space and time when she shouted, several of the bunny creatures that were nearest to her bled out of their orifices before collapsing unconscious (Dead?) and she had to remember to force her real voice down lest she grabbed unwanted attention from her family.

She waited impatiently, fuming at how her story got turned around like this. This was the opening act! The opening scene that destroyed the Hero's understanding of the world and put them on a path they always wanted but couldn’t be prepared for! And The Failure Of A Demon Lord completely blew it!

She conjured up some blue fire into her eye sockets to show how mad she was and it would allow her to glare at The Failure Of A Demon Lord! Which she made sure to use as he swooped down and landed bowing towards her.

“Mistress! I understand you are upset but it wasn’t my fault! You said it was a simple village! Not a massive fortified city!”

“It is a village! That dinky little hamlet wouldn’t even have registered as a populous back in the world I came from! You clearly aren’t trying hard enough! Send a larger army! With more competent children to lead them!”

She caught a slight growl coming from The Failure Of A Demon Lord and her voice turned cold “Is there a problem demon?”

“No Mistress..”

“Good, I expect a better result with this next attack and to watch the VILLAGE burn.”

Rillans head shot up to look at her “Wait! The time pris”

Pop

She teleported away. She had stopped listening to that blasted failure once he said ‘No Mistress’. Honestly she was far too upset with him ruining the start of her story to even bear the idea of listening to his grating voice or looking at that ugly face.

She plopped her bare bony butt down on the carpet above the tiny VILLAGE with her arms crossed as he glared down at the VILLAGE. “Yall better die this round. It’s already screwing up my story”

* * * * * * * * * * * *

“DO I LOOK LIKE I AM JOKING!?!?” Cathryn yelled down to the Noble before her as she glared at him from the top of her throne. Several guards stepped forward brandishing their weapons as the noble swallowed and Cathryn continued.

“An unknown threat of monsters has attacked the city of Haven and for all we know that was just a test on the city's defenses. If you refuse to send some soldiers to help bolster the cities defenses then I will assume you are on the monster's side and will be incarcerated with all of your assets seized.”

The nobles eyes widened “You can’t do that! The nobles will rebel against such an act of tyranny!”

Cathryn merely stared at him with her eyes narrowing “Are you willing to place your life on the line for that statement”

The noble swallowed before speaking “At the very least you will need to compensate me. Soldiers need to be compensated after all.”

She almost ordered the man's execution right there. The sheer audacity and greed of these nobles. They were already swimming in wealth because of how much gold Captain Gates was throwing around, to the point that the economy was becoming more and more unstable. But no, they couldn’t possibly fund their own soldiers. They needed her to do it for them.”

“Very well.” She said through gritted teeth. “You will have some funding. But I expect your soldiers to make it to Haven within 3 days or else”

The noble bowed “Your majesty is most kind” He then turned and left with Cathryn glaring daggers at the back of his head.

“Riez, Aganem, please step forward.” Riez and Aganem stepped forward. Aganem was a recently promoted general and one of the youngest generals this kingdom has had. But his tactical prowess along with his gift in the blade made him rise up quickly. The fact that he was the son of a duke and had both Ignes and Riez recommendations certainly helped a lot too.

“Riez, I want you to send a couple of court mages to Haven. Ones that specialize in earth magic so they may help bolster the cities defenses as quickly and as strongly as possible. You yourself are forbidden to go” She quickly added in when she saw Riez open his mouth for a question and snap shut after she said it.

“Would her majesty at least allow me to send a third of our mages to Haven, one who has specialized in beasts and beasts taming. Perhaps they will be able to offer some insight as to what these creatures are and where they might have come from”

Cathryn thought for a second. She didn’t like the idea of sending two mages much less three but he did make a valid point. The more they knew about this unknown enemy the better it would be.

“Very well. I will permit this. Have him report back all of his findings of these creatures whenever he can”

Riez bowed “Of course your majesty”

She then turned to Aganem “How many soldiers can we muster up within a week to send to Haven.”

Aganem thought briefly for a moment “We can probably muster up more than is necessary. If we are preparing for another potential siege battle having too many soldiers could be more of a detriment then a benefit. Of course it’s even harder to accurately predict when they’re so many unknowns on our side”

“Give your best guess then” she responded and Aganem thought for a second more before responding.

“I would say six to seven thousand max. But that would come with the caveat that we were given additional food and supplies to help feed everyone. Especially if the second attack is one of a protracted siege”

“Done. I will be sure to get one of our administrators to help you acquire the food and supplies you need. You have one week to gather the men and when you do I want you to march as fast as possible towards Haven. Understood?”

He bowed “Understood. Though may I make another request of you, your majesty?”

“And that would be?”

“I understand that Haven has a garrison of Rangers at its city with the mountains but I worry it might not be enough. I would like to request some more rangers so that we can increase our potential scouting area and can hopefully be warned before another attack. If we remove any element of surprise it would be greatly appreciated.”

“Done. I will send the captain of the Rangers over to you and you can plan out what rangers and how many you can take with you. Is that acceptable”

“It is mam. Thank you”

“You are both dismissed as is everyone else. We will reconvene in an hour.” The people in her court all gave bows and left the throne room leaving her alone. Well, not quite alone.

“Ignes.” She responded and the shadows behind her throne morphed and Ignes stepped out of what almost seemed like nothing.

“Your majesty” He gave a bow.

“Cut the formalities. It is just the two of us. Have you received any word yet from the shadow you sent to Haven.”

Ignes shook his head “I am afraid not. It is like Captain Gates vanished off of the face of the earth.”

She leaned back in her throne in frustration. It was a sheer stroke of genius on Marrows part by sneaking that tracking rune into her bag before she took off to find the “Hero” She was constantly going on and on about.

The only real downside was it wasn’t precise and would instead give a general location. Either way the tracking rune had been hovering over the City of Haven for the past two months but there had been no word or sign of her anywhere. It wasn’t like she was ever subtle in her actions. They had been trying to figure out what she had possibly been doing there but after this attack she was now almost certain she was behind it.

“I’ll be the first to admit. I had my hesitations about having someone like Marrow be used to help learn more and grow closer with Captain Gates, but his quick thinking about placing that tracker in her bag was really smart.” He then looked at her “How did he take the news when he found out about the potential threat of Captain Gates”

“Not well. He just didn’t believe it at first despite Riez, myself and others backing up our claims. Even now he doesn’t seem to really believe she is an actual threat and has argued in defense of her character on several occasions. I hope this event will finally wake him up to reality. Both him and his girlfriend.”

“Yin was it? She is also fond of Captain Gates too then?”

Cathryn nodded “They both seem quite fond of her. I do not question their loyalty to the kingdom, but I do question their loyalty to me.”

Ignes fell silent “We will have to make sure they aren’t around to potentially help her when we finally spring our attack on her. They could also just interfere in general.”

“Speaking of that. We will be postponing the ambush of her given recent events”

Ignes nodded “I thought that might be the case. This potential threat is going to have to take far more precedent. Though now that something has happened it does leave me curious when her Captain Gates location did briefly jump to that area deep within the mountains.”

Cathryn nodded “I have been wondering that too. It wouldn’t be much of a stretch to believe one could hide a massive army deep in there without anyone ever knowing. I have already spoken to the captain of the Rangers and he is sending several rangers to roughly those coordinates to report back to us on what they find.”

Ignes turned a concerned look towards her. “When this is all over. I highly recommend you get some rest Cathryn. This comes from a place of love but you look like a wreck”

Cathryn snorted and shook her head “Just stress. It’s one crisis after another it seems and not even crises I can predict either. Captain Gates seems to delight in us running around like headless chickens. She is probably taking delight in the fear she is causing us.”

Ignes was silent for a while before he bowed to her “If that will be all I will take my leave at least temporarily.”

“Go ahead. I will see you tonight”

Ignes suppressed his smile though Cathryn could tell just by the very faint lip quiver “As her Majesty commands” And then melted back into the shadows.

If there was one thing she could say, she was really happy to have Ignes back.