The False Hero, Volume 12, Chapter 22

Chapter 22

----- Lutz -----

“Great.” I pull my weapon from an Archfiend’s corpse, only to be met with another before I can even wipe the blood from the spear tip. “Just when I thought I’d be able to focus on some small fries for a while.”

“We won’t let you do whatever you want.” The Archfiend jumps straight into combat, knowing that his fate will be no different than the one before.

“And you think you can stop me?” I leap up and land on an [Air Step], looking down on the small arena that the normal fiends refuse to enter. “Maybe I’ll just ignore you this time and see how you like that.”

I turn from the Archfiend, looking out over the battlefield. Of course he wouldn’t like being ignored, so I fully expect him to attack my back as soon as I show it to him.

An attack does come, as expected. But what I don’t expect is that it comes from the front, not the back. And on top of that…

“A second Archfiend, just for me?” I meet the gaze of the new Archfiend on the other side of my spear.

“You’ll stay here and fight.”

“Don’t you know that the more you tell someone what to do, the more likely they are to do the opposite?”

“I don’t care about any of that!” He attacks again.

Fighting a single Archfiend isn’t much of a problem for me now, even though they’ve gained a few levels from their god’s interference. Still, defeating a single one takes time, and when one falls, another arrives to take his place.

At the very least, it’d be nice to be able to move around and help some of the other soldiers instead of getting bogged down in my own duels. Unfortunately, the enemy seems very keen on making that as difficult as possible for me.

“Hmm. What to do…” I leap onto another [Air Step], still unsure if I want to go back down to the small arena and fight.

They clearly want to keep me busy, but I can’t understand why. Defeating Archfiends is actually a good use of my time since so many of the ordinary soldiers can’t stand up to them. Yet something feels off.

RAM is with them. A sentient artificial intelligence fueled by far more processing power than all of Earth’s supercomputers put together.

There’s no way she’d be making a mistake by keeping me busy. So if that’s what she wants, then should I do the opposite?

But what would I even do? Go fight weaker fiends? How would that help…?

Despite the battle going generally in our favor until now, I can’t shake the feeling that, somehow, we’re still losing.

It seems someone doesn’t like my indecisiveness because they send a third Archfiend to join the fight. He comes from above, feet first, as if he intends to knock me back down into the arena.

I catch the boot in my hand and cancel my [Air Step]. The Archfiend’s momentum pushes me back toward the ground much faster than gravity alone, my feet sinking into the grass when I land.

The Archfiend is still above me, standing on my raised arm. He must not like that positioning because he leaps away, joining the other two Archfiends.

I say he joins them, but the truth is that they have me surrounded, so it’s more like he just takes his spot in the encirclement.

“Sometimes when you’re trying to figure out a difficult puzzle.” I brush off my hand before grabbing my spear. “It’s best to stop thinking and start doing.”

The Archfiends finally get what they want, so they waste no time fulfilling their god’s demand to keep me busy without a single thought that it will cost them their lives.

While they likely think I’m actually focusing on them, the truth is far different. I put my body on autopilot, letting the battle take me where it may. If they attack, I evade and counter. If I can’t dodge it, I take the hit and return the favor anyway.

Outside observers are watching an epic clash between three Archfiends and the four races’ most powerful hero. I’m sure to them it must seem like a battle that no mortal man can step into and hope to survive, a battle that showcases the strengths of both sides to see which will show cracks and weaknesses to be exploited as the day drags on.

But to me, the battle is a distant affair. I’m fighting. I’m winning, even. Yet my focus is in an entirely different world than the one where the battle is taking place.

“Hey, Goddess.” I walk casually through her domain in the Mana Network, even as I battle three Archfiends on the outside.

“What do you need?” She’s still standing in the exact same position as always, her eyes closed.

“You can see the future, right? Can you check to see how this battle will play out if it continues like this?”

“I cannot see the future, but I can use Network resources to analyze the possibilities.”

I nod. “Yeah, that. Can you do it again?”

“If you wish.” Her concentration shifts as she begins to look into the future.

I hate asking her to do things like this, as she’s the only thing stopping that mad god from taking complete control of the Mana Network. Any time she diverts her focus elsewhere, there’s a chance he will find a way to take advantage of that.

But no matter how much I think about it, I can’t shake the feeling that we’re missing something. Something important.

“When the Lord of Chaos steps onto the battlefield,” the Goddess begins, “your plan shall give you the opportunity you desire to secure victory, though the outcome is still uncertain as I cannot peer beyond the veil you intend to cast upon the world.”

I nod, the outcome being exactly the same as before. “But what if he doesn’t join the fight? What then?”

A moment of silence. “Should he abstain from battle, his minions would eventually fall to the four races. The victory will come at great cost, but when alone, the Lord of Chaos will have no choice but to defeat you in a direct contest of strength. When that moment comes, your plan will unfold with no foreseeable differences.”

No changes, she says. Either the Lord of Chaos joins the fight soon and I can play my final ace, or he sits by and watches as his army is cut down. When there aren’t any fiends remaining, he will have no choice but to fight.

Everything is going exactly as RAM predicted. It was my plan, but RAM was the one who calculated every move to ensure that each step would lead directly to the next. There have been some surprises, but she accounted for even them, which is how we’ve managed to maintain our dominance in this battle until now.

I raise my hand, a disc held between my fingers. It somehow looks both antiquated, like an old floppy disc, while also looking futuristic, like how older movies imagined devices and technology would evolve over time.

RAM made it specifically for me, no doubt taking the design from my explanations to her about Earth’s science-based technology. She doesn’t show her emotions much, as they’re regulated by her own artificial intelligence.

But RAM has her own ways of expressing her inner thoughts.

Even when she was being abducted by that mad god, she only thought about what she could do to help us win…

Contained within the disc are memories. RAM’s memories.

She knew everything. All of our plans, all of our weaknesses. If the mad god were to get ahold of that information, we would have to abandon everything and start over right when the final battle was upon us.

So she locked them away. She tore out the part of herself that the mad god could use against us and placed it inside this disc. It’s only because of her actions back then that I can even fight with confidence today.

And yet, the anxiety remains.

RAM isn’t gone. She’s just switched sides.

She’s still the Network Overseer, an artificial intelligence that’s being guided by the consciousness I call RAM. Unlike the two Administrators, RAM isn’t just connected to the Mana Network. She’s part of it. Even if the Administrators have authority over her, nobody can compete with RAM when it comes to utilizing the Network resources to their fullest.

RAM helped me craft a plan that can even take down a god. And now, she’s working for that very same god.

There’s no way RAM is losing this battle so badly. She’s right where she wants to be.

But if that’s the case, then what’s her plan?

The answer doesn’t come to me.

I pull my spear from the corpse of the final Archfiend. The battle was a little rougher than usual since my focus was somewhere else, but in the end, it’s my victory.

Unfortunately…

“Just when I thought I was free to go.” I look around me, and many new faces stare back. “Five Archfiends this time? Aren’t you underestimating me a bit too much?”

“I’ve been waiting for this day.” One of the red-skinned Archfiends talks like he knows me.

“Oh, it’s you. The one who was leading the army that sieged Roshar. You know, I should thank you for that. If I hadn’t come back to help Roshar, I don’t know if I would have managed to find my way back to the path I needed to walk.”

“I don’t want your damn thanks!”

“Lay off.” Another Archfiend gives him an order, his voice almost playful.

“Shut it!” His response is as poor as I expected, but curiously, the angry one doesn’t attack.

At least their leader looks to be having fun. Too bad I have to kill him.

Archfiends retain much more of their humanity than other types of fiends. However, depending on how they’re born, there can be a lot of variation. Typically, the stronger the person, the more of themselves will remain when turned. That’s true for both their personality and their looks.

Because of that, it’s possible to simply look at an Archfiend and find out a lot of information about them. The more demonic their appearance, the weaker and more predictable they are.

By contrast, Archfiends who appear almost human are the ones to be feared most, as they had more innate skill and strength as a human, which in turn makes them more powerful after being turned. On top of that, they’re more likely to use more complex tactics instead of relying on brute force.

And when looking at the five Archfiends that surround me, it’s clear why the playful one is considered their leader. If it weren’t for his pale skin, he could almost pass as a normal person.

“Well, then.” I take a combat stance, indicating that the time for talk is over. “Let’s add another five notches to my belt.”