Chapter 111. Grand Strategy
The mages looked amongst one another. At last, Korii stepped forward. “We await your orders, s… Rhys.”
Rhys nodded, deeply pleased. Nothing quite like basking in the real-life playout of a trashy trope, the overly servile underling who struggled not to call the main character ‘sir.’ Not that he had main character energy—no, that was Bast—but even so, what a nice feeling. Trash like him only got to experience this kind of setup once in a blue moon, and if he thought about it, usually it was only when a bit villain set up a gauntlet of foes for the hero to charge through. He pinched his chin, considering, then nodded. Is that was so, then so be it. He’d be the Empress’s bit villain. Every little thing that forced her and her army to focus just a little more energy on keeping the peace, that forced her to expend resources on keeping land she’d already taken, was a little thing in favor of casting her off. He didn’t expect to personally take down the Empress himself, when he was trash, but he was quite happy being one of those people, when the heroes stood up and gave their speech, and said, ‘…and everyone else who contributed—every little thing helped,’ and know that despite the fact that the heroes never knew he existed and would never know, nonetheless, it was him they meant when they said that, that was enough for him.
In other words, he wasn’t mounting an insurgency, or anything like that, though it’d be a sad insurgency with some ten-odd people. No, his goal was to be a thorn in the Empress’s side, to prickle her insistently and irritate her until she could focus on nothing else, to the detriment of her actual goals.
He realized that casting himself as the mosquito meant he was likely to get slapped, but that was fine. What were his other options? To throw himself under somebody? That wasn’t his attitude. He liked his freedom, and though an actual army might be a better effort in the end, he wasn’t suited to regimented military training, or regimented military work. Besides, he was doing this to retain his personal freedom. If he threw away his personal freedom to take on the Empress, all he’d done was give up on his ideals in order to fight someone he disliked, and he could never get behind that kind of thinking. He’d throw away his ideals, sure, but perhaps… perhaps freedom was the one he couldn’t let go. The hope at the bottom of Pandora’s box.
Running, he’d already thrown away. He wasn’t going to run. This was a battle that must be fought, not fled from, because to flee it meant to abandon all hope of a different future. If the Alliance was retreating to fight another day, then that was fine, but there had been three years of another days by now. He couldn’t rely on anyone else to fight his battles for him. If he was going to stand up and hold his ground, then he did it now or never.
Rhys lifted his head at last, his mind made up. He looked at the mages before him. “Just to confirm, but are you all ready to give up your lives in our quest? I can’t guarantee any of you will make it out alive. No… in fact, it’s very likely that, by this time next year, there won’t be two of us left to return to this space.”
Some of the mages glanced at one another at that, murmuring amongst themselves. Rhys steeled himself. They might be less a mosquito, and more a single flea. Still, he pressed on, because this was the difference between him and the Empress: free will.
“If you want to flee, if you would prefer to take your chances and run back to the Alliance, I’ll have to take the core I gave you back, but I won’t hold anything against you. This is your last chance. If you don’t say no here, then consider yourself dead, already given to the cause.”
Korii stepped forward first. “To run is to surrender, and I will never again surrender to the Empire.”
Blake stepped forward next. “No matter what filth we have to crawl through, I’m at your side.”