Fanwork#1383 Words
So let's start this game with a brief look into a (hopefully) impossible future! It's mainly brief because this combination doesn't encourage long-term survivability (or even short-term), but YOLO, right?
Omake: "Ultimate Vengeance Waifu Quest"
Life as a guard was a pretty sweet gig in a city like the Golden Capital, Sam believed.
Despite the rumors about its prosperity its citizens didn't shit gold. Nonetheless, it was the trade center of the Eternal Empire, and that brought a certain amount of wealth with it. As a connection point for the vast majority of the imperial portal network, a huge river of resources flowed through its veins every day, so it shouldn't be surprising the guards' pay was proportionally significant.
Unlike the cities on the fringes of the Empire, there were no worries about sudden monster tides or barbarian invasions. The surrounding Dungeons were regularly cleaned by plucky adventurers, and the last time an insane mage tried to blow up the city for some perceived slight had been... maybe a decade ago?
He'd been hired soon after, and his colleagues didn't like to talk about it for whatever reason. There had been no such incidents during his career so far, - even the worst crimes he had had to deal with so far were of a more mundane bent, - so Sam suspected the story was part of the usual hazing for newbies.
Who would be insane enough to go attack the Empire's heart anyway?
So yes, Sam didn't expected his shift as a gate guard to be any different from the usual monotony. The only thing disturbing that boredom were his partner's stories about his former adventurer life. Say what you will about that chatterbox, but Pete's unending optimism and open friendliness had a way of brightening up the day.
"-and then I shot him in the knee," Pete grinned, winking at a farmgirl as her father filled out the forms. The girl blushed prettily, and Sam once more felt a pang of envy at his companion's easy charisma. "I didn't quite think it through, I guess, because the walking flamethrower immediately targeted me, but little did he know!.."
Still, Sam had heard the story countless times before, so he found his attention wandering. That was why he was the first to see the next visitors barge in.
They were a colorful bunch, a haggard man accompanied by three beautiful women, - though calling one of them beautiful was like calling the Emperor rich, it hardly did anything to encapsulate the sheer magnificence of her presence. They were dressed in wildly different attire and carrying items of obviously magical nature. In a corner of his mind, Sam noted that the gate alarms were blaring.
It was difficult to pay that any attention though. Because the man...
He had been a Hero once upon a time, a bonfire that had burned with the strength of a thousand suns. He had failed time and again, lost everything he cared about, but he hadn't given up till the very end. Now there was none of that fire left, the spark snuffed out only to leave a hungering black hole that desired to devour all of Creation, the infinite expanse of countless realities a mere appetizer before his endless greed.
The thin threads of his Curses were holding him back from realizing his incredible potential, but that would not matter to mere mortals. With every second, every act, every passing thought he grew ever stronger, standing as far above the greatest human genius as the sky was above a gnat.
No laws of man or god would find purchase on this man's mind, for his will would not tolerate any authority above his own anymore. Cursed the fallen hero was, but the Favor of @#!$# shone upon him, and that was all the legitimacy he needed. The magic he wielded knew no limits and imposed its own rules upon reality, as befitting of a Tyrant like him.
And this wasn't even his Final Form!
"Are you the-"
"No, I'm not the Antichrist or whatever your local equivalent is," the walking apocalypse replied surly. "No wonder the Accursed avoids people like the plague if that's how everyone reacts."
"You can't blame him, darling," the supernaturally beautiful elf at the side of the Incarnate Evil frowned. Sam would have probably hopelessly fallen in love at first sight, if he could drag even a iota of attention away from the Inevitable End Of All Things right next to her. "Even my own spiritual perfection fails to resists some of those effects."
"Hmph," a raven-haired woman in a black-and-red uniform snorted contemptuously. "Sir is merely showing the proper bearing befitting of his station as a world-conquering Ty- Hero."
"Krista," the Hole in the World said tiredly. "You're not doing me any favors with this."
"Naturally, my liege," she nodded seriously. "Otherwise I would have to demand payment for my services, which would be an affront to everything an Evil Overlord's Lieutenant stands for!"
"When I got an offer to go on a heroic adventure, this is not what I imagined," the last woman complained. She was a blond girl that looked the most normal of them all, which would have immediately made Sam suspicious. If he could think about anything but his life streaming away into the hungry maw of Death, that is.
"Maybe next time someone offers you ultimate power in return for all-powerful Curses," Krista added dryly, "you should hesitate before picking all of them?"
An angry vein seemed to pop on the man's forehead.
"Thank you for your very unhelpful advice, Krista," the man squeezed out through gritted teeth, ignoring her as she nodded contentedly. "Can we just get this over with? I'd like to proceed into the city and buy all we need so that I don't have to see these people anytime soon."
"Now that's unfair, darling," the elf girl shook her head, scattering her cherry-blond hair in a very distracting manner. "They aren't so bad. They even had the good sense to name their city after me!"
"You," the blond girl pointed at the elf, "are the most charming egotist I've ever met, Aurelia, but you need to learn that not everything is about you."
"But I'm the Hero's Fated Companion?" Auerlia - what a beautiful name - tilted her head in confusion. "The only way I could be more important would be if I was the Heroine herself. But," she looked at the Dark Lord To End All Dark Lords and shook her head gently, "I think I'll pass on that one."
Sam knew. He knew he should just shut up and make himself as inconspicuous as possible, letting someone else deal with this.
But he had his duty, and a guard didn't shirk back even in the face of ultimate evil! These people wanted to enter the city, and the law was clear about the rules. So even if he wished nothing more than to let them pass by unopposed-
"S-Sir," he stammered, then gathered his courage. "You need to fill out the proper forms first! Unless one is a citizen of the Empire, everyone must register upon first entry into the city."
"Darling," Aurelia tried to intervene, but it was too late.
"I will not," the Beast growled, barely held back by the veneer of the man he used to be, "sign your f*cking forms. Nor will I apply for citizenship in your ridiculous Empire. I just want to enter this damn city, is that so hard to understand?"
"M-maybe," Pete smiled sickly, "you would be agreeable to wearing a badge, sir?"
All that could be heard over the sudden silence was the still-loud blaring of alarms and the running footsteps of their reinforcements. This did not reassure Sam as much as he wished it could.
"A pity," the golden-haired girl sighed. "I liked this place."
AN: Sadly my imagination failed to plot a path on which the Hero's meeting with civilization wouldn't end explosively. Would have probably been better to turtle up in the wilderness and grind his way to victory, but let's just say his last experience with the Apocryphal Curse dissuaded him from that notion.
How is this a Waifu Quest if there were only three candidates chosen in exchange for all those Curses, you ask? The Hero sunk the rest into Accursed Favor, for only the pursuit of the ultimate waifu can warm his dead heart anymore, and such lofty goals require appropriate sacrifices. Let's call it... long-term investment.
