- A Simple Transaction -
- I -
Every story spoken has been spoken before.
The boy from Earth stumbles into another realm. A world of wonder and magic, suffering beneath the Tyrant's cruel yoke. The boy becomes a man, the man becomes a hero, the hero defeats the Tyrant, and all live happily ever after. So destiny has decreed.
But the Tyrant is not so easily overcome.
So the story with something familiar to a lot of us. It's a plot that crops up a fair bit in Isekai nowadays, all though aesthetically I think it ends up having a lot of commonality with portal fantasies as well. Lord Hunger's ordeal initially seems like a reverse in many ways of Nameless'. Rather then a cruel overlord meant to prop a unjust stagnating society built on a edifice of oppression and exploitation, this time our main character would play the part of the hero meant to tear said Tyrant down. Destiny even saw fit to set him up with a happy ending for all his hard work once he was done.
In fact, if someone were to tell me this was some earlier era of of the EFB world where the fates weren't quite as cruel or that The Tyrant was a overlord, with Hunger being a Age of Glory pick like the rubric guy the elves summoned, I wouldn't be terribly surprised. Arete even sounds like a magic system that Summer would instill in the world and given his desire to break down the old social orders while promoting learning, Hunger seems like someone I could see Autumn backing. I highly doubt this is the case however.
The next line after the summary I think is fairly evocative and does a good job of making you envision the Tyrant as a true threat. I'll dig into that later on, but I wanted to make a point of saying how it really grabbed my attention on the first go through.
One thing I will say though is that i'm kind of curious if it Hunger ever thinks about his home planet. He doesn't seem to really talk about it overly much. He left at a fairly young age and I wonder if he ever thinks about what became of the people he knew or what his life might have been had he stayed. Was he like Seram at first, frustrated with his mundane life and eager to take a chance in a different world with a different set of rules where he was told he was guaranteed victory? When the Tyrant was slain and the family he had built here along with him, did he ever consider finding a way back to Earth to be with the family he left behind?
I think Hunger ending up their is a bit of a tragic tale for him, but he was a man who didn't seem like he could stomach injustice, something our own world has no lack of and is just as likely to horribly punish you for seeking to correct. At least in the one he ended up in Lord Hunger had a chance to do a lot of good thanks to his talents. Most of the problems we have here can't just be sworded away. Plus, at least now the Accursed has given a chance to right wrongs one more time and earn his happy ending.
He is wise to destiny's tricks, greater than destiny's stewards. He sets the world spinning to the direction of a new master. Destiny falters; only causality remains. And mere causality does not suffice a hero from coddled Earth to stand against the Tyrant.
The hero fails, time and again. The people of the world suffer for his impudence. He loses an arm, an eye, half a lung, all the natural vigor of his youth. The companions with which he journeyed become a procession of the dead. His quest, prophesied as the dalliance of a season, becomes a grim slog of years.
There is no certainty of victory; barely any chance of it. But the hero's heart is full of hate, and it is much too late to stop.
He learns from his enemy. Mirrors the monster's unmerciful cunning, turns to those forbidden arts his long-dead mentors warned him against. Finds in them, at last, an arena in which his talent exceeds his adversary's.
Years more of preparation, to realize the power that talent portends. Time bought dearly with the blood of his allies, a patchwork insurgency of the desperate and condemned. In sparse moments, the hero and his surviving companions carve out a life for themselves, stealing what joy they can. The long, bitter path of his journey trudges towards culmination.
The fact that The Tyrant literally shattered destiny once it had decided that his downfall needed to happen only helps sell this guy as overwhelming opposition. It's like if Sauron had managed to smack around the Maia by the time Gandalf had just left the shire with Frodo. I've considered the possibility that these stewards of destiny are the same as the Hidden Masters that orchestrated Hungers own's downfall, but I have my doubts that Hunger could have eclipsed him in power at the final battle if that was the case. Then again, I suppose it did take the Forebear's sword shattering to take him down at the height of Hunger's power,
Anyway, I'm pretty impressed kept soldiering on. He was told that he would secure victory against the tyrant in a few months, but years passed by. He began to lose his body, his comrades died in droves. No power he was told was worth seeking was enough to come close to closing the gap in all those years. At a certain point, it would have been hard to blame him for simply giving up and disappearing into the crowds of commoners. Under the yoke of the tyrant it certainly wouldn't have been a good life, but I imagine it would have been a much safer one. I don't think I could have blamed him if he did. I've worked hard for things in my life and sacrificed stuff that was important to me, but not to this extent. All most people end up being able to do irl is be a good person in a not so good world. That he kept on fighting and eventually found a path to exceed the Tyrant is a admirable trait, part of why I'm so up on his chances in this coming update.
One final sally against the Tyrant. As before, their powers are unevenly matched. But for the first time, that imbalance is in the hero's favor.
And yet even that is not enough. The gap in power does not suffice to overcome the gulf of skill still between them. There is no more time. There are no more chances.
The killing stroke descends. The hero's final companion throws herself into its path. The hero becomes a widower.
In the Tyrant's implacable guard, a momentary opening appears.
Burning selfhood like tallow, the widower mounts one final onslaught. In his eyes there is no more victory, no dreams more of failure or success. Only the enemy which must be destroyed, no matter the cost.
The widower prevails. The Tyrant is no more. The peoples of the world celebrate their liberation. Joy and adulation rain upon their silent champion, who stares ahead unblinking.
After the parade the widower buries his wife and their unborn child. It is eleven years to the day since he arrived in this world.
Finally, it pays off. Over a decade of fighting a seemingly hopeless battle, of desperate retreats and skirmishes for pitiful gains where his friend died in droves. All to secure this one moment. I wonder how Hunger must have felt when he finally went up against the Tyrant. Was it elation at finally feeling like he had a chance at victory, or frustration that even after attaining so much raw power their was still such a gulf between them that he couldn't push the Tyrant around as easily as he did when positions were reversed.
A part of me also wonders if the current Lord Hunger would have any chance against him given his current state, assuming we get Flare and Shadowcord. Rank can do a lot against unranked opponents, and Letz Sharpbright I think should make her a better pilot. If I had to make a plan, it'd probably be her distracting him in her mech, With Gisena in there as well to nullify exotic attacks, the cutest merc ever could help conceal us for a chance to get the Tyrant in a sneak attack. Between heavy buffs and debuffs, maybe it would work.
Crippled by the effulgence of that final strike, the widower is a pale shadow of his prior self. But in the eyes of the people, he is still the hero that was; their protector, their shining knight, their salvation, howsoever delayed though it may have been. And, with the passing of seasons, a glimmer of hope arises in the hero's heart. That, though the cost was ruinous, more than he could bear, there was good in the world still waiting to be fostered.
Freedom, Justice, Truth. In time, democracy. A society with the power and wherewithal to be organized around its highest ideals, rather than brute necessity. It is what they would have wanted - and if he no longer wields a hero's strength, still he has a hero's influence.
But the world did not sit idly while he mourned. The kings and dukes who fought aside the hero have filled the vacuum of power left by the Tyrant. And they are content with the system at hand. Theirs is a society of nearly faultless structure, stably and evenly arranged. Their yoke is light, the people are fed. Is that not justice? There is no place here for the instruments of modernity, much less its frivolous ideals.
The hero is not dissuaded. Too many have died for him to surrender this dream. In that resolve the nobility see the beginnings of a Tyrant by a different name. They act. Treachery achieves what all the overlord's power could not: the hero undone at last. Discarded by those who had no more use for him.
Once again you see his determination shown here. He's lost the people he's loved and his power, arrayed against the material interests of powerful people in the world. Yet he still works tirelessly to get them to accept reforms that could change the lot of normal people for the better.
That line about the nobles seeing the beginning of the Tyrant in the hero is probably just what they've done by painting Hunger as morally equivalent, but it does make me wonder if the Tyrant ever had sympathetic motivations for his reign of terror.
In the hero's final moments, despair and hate raging equally across his heart, comes a being with the form of a man, offering vengeance in the form of a bargain.
The being is power beyond measure, beyond the hero's wildest reckonings, the solemn steady heartbeat of all creation, the sword by which all stories would end.
"Are you the-"
The man cuts him off with an upraised hand. "No, I'm not the Devil, nor am I associated with any that claim to be him. There will be no souls, no contracts, no signing in blood. My offer is that of a simple transaction. I am bound by countless Curses, leaving me greatly diminished, a thin figment of what I once was. Take up a portion of my burdens, and in exchange receive a fraction of my power."
Power enough to escape this world, or remake it. This he understands without speaking. Even knowing this, he can not help but dislike the being. If this Accursed one had deigned to act sooner, could his wife and son have been saved?
But it had not, and mere dislike means nothing.
What else is there to say?
"I accept."
Mournfully the being closes its eyes. "So be it."
"If you wish only to survive," it continued, "I will grant you a modest portion of my burdens, and power enough to be free of this realm and its shackles. But if you seek vengeance against the powers truly responsible for your suffering here, then you must take on a far more onerous burden. In exchange, you will receive the power of unbounded progression, growth without limit or surcease."
People mistaking the Accursed for the devil will never get old. The fact he says it in almost the exact same way he tells this to Seram makes me think it's a line he has to use a lot. Though that that Hunger would even ask that in a seemingly serious way makes me curious about his religious leanings. Anyway, considering Accursed's reaction to us taking feeling being a bit of happiness, and going for vengeance being much more solemn, i'm starting to get the feeling he gives these choices to people partially out of sense empathy for his fellow man. It's hard for me to imagine someone who would sacrifice as much as the Accursed has, even for outside power, for no external motivation and I believe Rihaku has mentioned before he spends a lot of time fucking up a bunch of cosmic horrors.
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Only about 1302 words. Though haven't reacted to the voting options. Hoping to do this with the rest of the updates when I get a chance. I'd be happy if this ends up helping us a bit before the fight.
