Volume 1, Chapter 20: Some People Need an Indoor Voice (Patreon)

“Sir, within a few hours Master Plasario’s group will be ready to set out toward Frogflower,” said a man wearing a shirt made from countless small interlocking steel rings as he approached the baseball player.

Apart from the armor, he wore a short canvas tunic, leather trousers, and matching boots, with an iron sword resting across one shoulder. The wrinkles on his face suggested long hours spent in the sun rather than old age, because his step was springy and his head still carried a full growth of dark hair.

“Don’t you fuckin’ ‘sir’ me. Get your ass moving and hurry that motherfucking master of yours up. We don’t have time! The others could already be at that fucking flower, understand?” The other man tilted his head back and exhaled smoke.

“Unfortu—” Rodrick began.

Before he could finish, the smoker grabbed him by the collar, catching both the chain mail—as though the metal meant nothing to him—and the tunic beneath it, then lifted him high enough that one of his feet left the ground.

“I don’t want to hear unfortunately, fortunately, or any other fucking thing. Get it done, and get it done now. Clear?”

“That’s not how things work. There’s order in an army, sir,” Rodrick protested.

For his trouble, he earned himself a lump on the head when the other man threw him into the trunk of a nearby mushroom that illuminated the entire scene.

The clashing of steel stopped, and the knights who had been training turned to see what had caused the commotion.

I’d had a chance to watch them before that happened, and despite their obvious experience with holding weapons and using them both offensively and defensively, their footwork left a lot to be desired. Their movements also lacked the kind of speed and fluidity I’d seen back on Earth whenever I happened to watch sport fencing or YouTubers recreating medieval sword-fighting styles.

Maybe it was simply the nature of the training they had received, but they did not impress me. Even those who were clearly dueling rather than just drilling were sloppy about it and relied almost entirely on the weapons in their hands, making little use of their free hands, legs, or even the terrain around them.

“Order is up my ass. What you’ve got in this shithole is a fucking kindergarten at best. Bring me that Platforius, or whatever the hell his name is. I need to talk to him right fucking now.”

I found myself wondering why these people allowed him to treat them this way, and whether they somehow felt a natural submissiveness toward people from Earth.

By then, Bri had grown impatient enough to stick her head slightly above the ridge of the hill where I was hiding and take a look at the scene for herself.

“Sir…” Rodrick started again as he rubbed his head and climbed back to his feet.

The smoker grabbed his baseball bat and immediately tossed it upward, making it spin several times through the air. He caught it in both hands, struck the thick end against the ground, then released it in a quick, springing motion. The bat rebounded and returned neatly to his hands.

He clearly knew how to handle that kind of tool. Maybe not as part of the sport itself, but at the very least he had practiced tricks with it.

When he finally pointed the bat at the soldier brushing himself off, the rest of the company visibly froze and a red spark raced along the length of the weapon.

“Think really fucking carefully about whether you want to end up like that band of orcs we had the pleasure of meeting.”

“That would explain why they let him treat them like this,” I whispered to Bri.

“Why?” she answered with a question of her own.

“He must’ve helped them deal with the orcs, and they took him along out of gratitude.” As I explained how I saw the situation, an older man emerged from between the tents farther inside the camp and marched onto the training ground.

His beard reached halfway down his chest and had been divided into several stiff braids woven with beads. His bald scalp was covered in tattoos I couldn’t make out from this distance. He wore only a light, asymmetrical tunic that covered the right side of his chest while leaving the left exposed. Despite the simplicity of the garment, every fold sat exactly where it belonged, the fastening lay perfectly straight, and neither dust nor loose thread seemed to have been permitted a place on it.

Even from here, I could see that the right side of his rib cage had once been badly torn apart and healed in an unnatural and uneven way. Despite that, his lean weight and muscular build made him look like someone permanently ready for a fight.

He was also the only person I had seen here who carried no weapon. Instead, he wore a small pouch at his belt.

“Master Milo,” the newcomer addressed the man who still had his bat pointed at Rodrick. He approached the weapon carefully, one step at a time, until he finally placed a hand on it and calmly pushed it down toward the ground. “I heard you wished to speak with me.”

The man, who had to be this Plasario everyone kept mentioning, glanced toward the other knights. The moment they felt the weight of his attention, they immediately returned to their training.

“Yeah, fucking right I did.” Milo leaned on his bat, took a long drag from his cigarette, then tossed the butt straight onto the ground, where it continued to smolder. “What the hell are we waiting for? Every minute we waste gives the orcs and goblins more time to prepare for us, doesn’t it? Let’s fucking surprise them. You’ve seen what I can do, and I’ve seen you.” Milo pressed one index finger against the man’s chest. Plasario did not even glance down, keeping his eyes fixed entirely on the baseball player’s face. “The two of us alone could take them apart.”

“We are waiting until the camp is ready for me to leave it. I will not leave my brothers with their trousers around their ankles and their asses pointed into the wind, only for them to ask me later why there is a breeze blowing through their bellies.”

“What the fuck does that even mean?”

“It means I have a duty to my city, and I fulfill it by leading my men. If I leave them here on their own, I need to be certain I’ll still have something to come back to.” Plasario delivered his answer without raising his voice. He tilted his head, watching me as though waiting to see whether I understood something that should have been obvious.

“Fuck, it’s like talking to a wall. Let everyone stay here. You and I can handle whatever we find there. I’m sure of it.” Milo raised his bat again, this time resting its end against the other man’s deformed chest.

“I think there has been a misunderstanding.”

“Well, fuck, so do I.”

“It appears that, in the heat of battle, both my men and I mistook confidence for competence. It happens to the best of us, but persisting in an error once you have recognized it is unbecoming of a knight.”

The bearded man seized Milo’s weapon with one hand in a quick motion, then bent his arm and drove the point of his elbow straight into the larger man’s jaw. Before Milo could properly hit the ground, Plasario helped him along by sweeping his legs out from under him with a fluid motion of his right leg. Without putting that foot back down, he planted it on Milo’s chest once he was on the ground and shoved hard enough to make him release the baseball bat.

“Without a weapon, could you still defeat the orcs in their own home? Unarmed, do you still feel superior?”

“I’m not going there with my fucking bare hands,” Milo replied, crawling out from beneath the man before getting to his feet and dusting himself off.

The other man held his bat roughly in the middle.

“Someone may take your weapon from you. Your mind and your hands must always remain alert. We wait until we are ready to leave.”

With that, he turned once more toward his soldiers and tossed the bat back to the Earthling.

Milo caught it and stared at the other man, who had already turned toward the camp.

“Shit,” I muttered under my breath when I saw Milo’s body tense and the weapon rise.

Another spark leapt from his hands and raced along the bat.

A moment later, sharp red spikes erupted across its surface, electrical discharges jumping between them while the air crackled as though charged with static. Milo swung in one fast motion, gripping the bat with both hands and aiming straight for the back of the departing camp leader’s head.

“Watch out!” Bri shouted from my right, rising from behind cover at the same time and lighting up not only herself, but me as well.

Fortunately for us, the soldiers reacted much the same way. They had also noticed the exact moment the Earthling decided to finish off their master, and they not only started shouting, but rushed toward him.

Plasario, meanwhile, hearing the warnings, ducked beneath the attack, dropping into a crouch and then springing almost immediately back toward an upright position as the bat swept toward his head. For a moment, I thought the larger man had connected, because something glittering—dust or sand, probably lit by the discharges running along his weapon—burst into the air. But my eyes had played a trick on me. Plasario’s head slipped aside without so much as a scratch.

Once he found himself on the outside of the arm holding the weapon, he struck Milo’s ribs with an open palm. Milo twisted in pain, and Plasario followed it with another elbow to the face as the larger man turned toward him. To make matters worse, he then stamped down on Milo’s calf just above the knee and shoved him toward the ground with both hands.

While Milo was still losing his balance, Plasario tore the bat from his hands once again. The moment it lost contact with the man who had been holding it, it reverted to an ordinary baseball bat. He then tossed the weapon toward the soldiers running in his direction.

“As I mentioned, do not mistake confidence for competence… my friend.” He addressed Milo where he lay on the ground, then turned to his men and ordered them to take him away and place him in isolation.

“You can’t lock me up! I’m the only fucking person here who matters! All of you are made up!” Milo screamed, struggling as five soldiers dragged him across the ground and deeper into the camp.

His soldiers hadn’t impressed me, but their master had proven the exact opposite. Even without a weapon in his hands, he had shown himself worthy of the title he carried.

And while his men remained blissfully unaware of us, he cupped his hands around his mouth, looked directly in our direction, and shouted at the top of his lungs.

“Show yourself! If you are an enemy, know that we have seen you. If you are a friend, we will welcome you with open arms!”

“Is he talking to, um… us?” Bri asked.

“Looks like your warning didn’t go unnoticed,” I whispered back, considering our options. “Still, since they seem to be heading in the same direction we were planning to go anyway, we might as well show ourselves.”

“Really!?” Bri brightened, stretching her mouth from one cheek to the other in a fiery display of joy.

I needed a persona, but there was no reason to build a stranger from scratch. This was my first lie in an entirely new world, and fewer moving parts meant fewer things to forget. Arthur would be Alexander with the identifying details filed off—the same habits, the same temper, the same jokes. A wandering mage gave me an excuse to know nothing about this country, and curiosity gave me permission to ask.

“Yes. My name is Arthur Nilrem, understood? I’m a mage from a distant land, and you’re my magical assistant. Never use my real name, okay?”

“Well, um, all right, but why? Nobody here knows you anyway, right?”

“I don’t know, and I have no intention of finding out. Better to have a faux persona ready that I can discard whenever I need to than get backed into a corner with my real name and a description attached to it. It’s much harder to control the story people tell about you that way. Trust me.”

“All right,” she replied, nodding with her entire body. “Arthur… Nir…em?”

“Nilrem.”

I rose from the ground and lifted my hands into the air, including the one holding my staff with its two lamps, then began descending the slope between the rows of mushroom trees.

The entire time, I remained under the watchful eye of the man who had just defeated one of the Earthlings. He folded his arms across his chest and calmly observed my movements, then Brigid’s when she emerged a moment later, mumbling my false name to herself.

His soldiers immediately grabbed the shields that had been stacked together in a small pile, drew their weapons, and arranged themselves in a semicircle in front of him. Then they crouched, forming a living wall.

“Easy! I come in peace,” I shouted. “I’m traveling from a distant land, and I took shelter in these caves from a sandstorm!”

“What land?” one of the soldiers at the very front called back, thrusting a spear through the gap between two shields.

“Far away. I doubt the name would mean anything to you,” I replied with a smile, giving my improvised staff with its two lanterns a small shake. A moment later, I planted it in the ground beside me, seeing that most of the soldiers’ attention was fixed on Bri, who kept her distance behind me and continued muttering under her breath.

“Why is your fire spirit preparing a spell!?” their leader shouted at me. “We can see her infernal lips moving.”

“It’s a courage spell. She’s rather cowardly for a spirit,” I replied, slipping the backpack from my shoulders and rummaging through it.

The men facing me tensed considerably, but for the moment they remained where they were.

Their commander, however, decided to come closer. He placed one hand on a soldier’s shoulder, signaling for the formation to part. Once they opened a passage for him, he stepped out in front of his men.

“My name is Plasario, Swordmaster,” he said, resting one hand on his hip.

“Arthur Nilrem, apprentice of the flames. Take a look at this.” I pulled out the horn I had taken from the orc scout and tossed it in a high arc toward the soldiers.

It landed just in front of them, and Plasario quickly bent to pick it up.

“On my way here, I found an orc who, as far as I could tell, was watching your camp. As proof that I’m telling the truth, I can show you where I left his body.”

The man opposite me smiled and gestured with his head for me to come closer.

“Any enemy of the orcs is a friend of ours. Come closer, young man!”