An Unwelcome Hero - shadow slave

"I think the dummy finally exhausted itself to death." The soldier who said this out loud lowered his sword and let it rest back into his sheath. He approached the "child's" corpse. It looked wretched, dried, sunburnt to the point of it developing several black epidermis, needed to be shed like a lizard.

The man was a lot more wary of the corpse than he should be, but he didn't think his cautiousness was a mistake. He slowly approached and, as soon as he determined himself to be within reach, he swung his sword straight down.

His sword hit the corpse's forehead and exposed bone, but there was no blood left in the body to bleed and so nothing came out. The man nodded at this confirmation and turned to the other soldiers near him. "Inform General Elbaf, that the 'creature' has been dealt with."

The 6 of the soldiers nodded their heads and 3 of them yelled to confirm the order. Their leader nodded back and the six of the soldiers looked back at the 3, obviously voting them as the ones, who would be reporting to Elbaf. They scoffed, one of them even saying "of course we'll do this, you mute f"cks! Not like you idiots can do anything besides listen."

They furrowed their brows, but didn't say anything, as they apparently could not. The three gathered up, as they went together to meet their fortress's highest authority, the ascended Elbaf.

Even though he fell out of grace several months ago due to his inability to deal with Chiron with the cohort he had cultivated himself, he was still an ascended Guardian of Aranai. A mountain of a man, who can crush any lesser through the sheer weight of the armour he wears, much less his actual physical might, or the violence of his hammer.

With such qualifications, they couldn't afford to completely cut him off from the war, so the only thing the queen and her advisors could do was confine Elbaf to this fortress under the pretense of "guarding" it.

... And Elbaf, being the loyalist he truly is, expedited their plot by suggesting himself to be put in charge of Assai to contain the threat, that is Chiron. That is why the 3 soldiers in front of him felt nothing but complete scrutiny after reporting what had happened with the utmost diligence possible.

His gaze made them feel nothing but dread, as he searched for ANY nconsistency in their story. ANY suspicion of this being a plot. ANY reason to not have to go there and see Chiron, but the long time that passed was enough to make people forget the terror of an actual demon, much less a simple human. Even Elbaf had become complacent and was convinced to go back and confirm his death himself.

They arrived at the training grounds within 10 minutes after departing. The soldiers panted, as they had to keep up with an ascended rushing from sheer determination... And what they saw was rather normal.

Their team's leader was swinging his sword and training, while the 6 of their comrades were away. Elbaf furrowed his brows, as he looked at the now sweating leader and the soldiers, who felt unnaturally revitalized and quickly fell in line behind their leader.

"Sir, Elbaf sir! Leader of team 37 reporting! What brings you to our training, general?! *F*ck! Why did he come personally? I never expected him to come here right away. Doesn't he have more important things to do, than check on the training dummy?*"

Elbaf couldn't care less about his surroundings. He looked at the team's leader and said a simple question "Where is Chiron!" Rather than a question, it was a demand. And if he wasn't given the answer he wanted, someone would suffer.

The team leader gulped and averted his gaze from Elbaf's face and looked towards the left. "Sir! I had my 6 underlings throw him into the corpse pit to be burned, sir!" His eyes narrowed in anger.

He turned his gaze towards the soldier, who had provided him with the full report previously and said "You are from now on the temporary leader of team 37. This decision is based on the previous leader's inability to follow proper procedure. If there is any complaint, hold it in till the temporary leader takes us to the nearest designated burning pit and you better have prayed to the queen almighty, as if there is a corpse more than 1 in that pit... or less than 6 valiant and 1 vile corpses burning, you won't have a head on your shoulders to ask for redemption!"

The temporary leader gulped, as he didn't even acknowledge his new promotion and directly went to where the pit is, his exhaustion completely forgotten and replaced by wanting to sh"t his pants.

They were there within 5 minutes and saw a single guard near the edge... Which wasn't a good sign. The said guard nearly fell down when he saw the mountain of a general and quickly saluted and stood at attention. Elbaf didn't mince any words and got directly to the point "how many men came here to burn a corpse within the last hour?!"

The man calmed down and said "Sir, Elbaf sir! There have been no visit- " "at ease!" Elbaf directly cut the reporting soldier off, as he turned towards the ex-leader, who was sweating buckets and sh''tting bricks already.

His voice turned stern, as he held the man's shoulder. "According to the wartime policy, you, leader of the 37th team, are to be tried for insubordination of a direct order given by an official several times your superior and higher rank. By the authority given to me by her grace the queen you are to be tried by me. Tell me, how do you plead?!"

The man breathed a sigh of relief. He couldn't believe his luck! Elbaf turned out to be a stickler for the rules and would try him as an insubordinate, rather than direct execution. Even if inhumane, a medieval dungeon is much better than execution. He directly bowed his head, as he was being held by Elbaf and couldn't bow his head. He, without any hesitation, pleaded "Guilty! I'll accept any punishment!"

Elbaf nodded. "Commendable. According to the military law of conduct you are to be labeled and tried based on the severity and consequences of your insubordination." The soldier's complexion got paler suddenly . "As your actions of insubordination have led to a supremely dangerous war criminal and highest class threat to go Missing in Action, you are to be tried as his accomplice and be liable to be tried for half of his crimes, along with being tried as a traitor due to the status of your accomplice. By the authority given to me by her divine grace the queen I sentence you to immediate capture and to be executed with impunity!"

The soldier began sweating buckets, as he saw his life flashing before his very eyes, as Elbaf's grip tightened and his shoulder directly broke apart into bone fragments. He was going to scream in pain, but within a second a fist passed through his left cheek and out of his right temple.

He was killed on the spot. Elbaf used the "cavity" he had created to tightly hold the corpse, as he threw it into the pit and shook the blood and brain matter off of his hand. He looked at the other three and said "go to your commander minor and tell then to reassign you three!"

He clenched his fists and breathed out to calm himself before continuing "And inform him, that all 6 of your teammates have gone missing in action, your previous leader has been tried, found guilty and punished as a traitor and to create several wanted posters detailing Chiron's appearance. I will personally take the person, who brings me the head of Chiron as a retainer and guarantee a lesser position in my personal troops or a reward of equal value to anyone with information on his location!" They quickly nodded and ran off.

Elbaf turned back to the only remaining person at the scene "Burn the traitor with fiend fire and extinguish his vile bloodline if he has any relatives who dare to live on the holy lands their kin betrayed!"

He finished the official part of his job and directly stormed back to his office, not willing to let work pile up even at the expense of his psychological health. *I will get my hands on you, Chiron! No matter where you are or how long it will take! Your precious attachments will fall and I will make you watch!*

He sat down to finish up the paperwork and all the civil matters he had to attend to for the day, but one thought lived in his mind rent free, 'where the f"ck is Chiron?!'