It's A Wonderful Life

They stayed at the battlefield for three more weeks, to clear up and burn all the bodies. With that many corpses in a single location, chances were that a pandemic would break out. They couldn't take that chance, with as much of a mess humanity already was in.

If they let it, sickness could end them before the demons.

Ira sighed and turned his sight to his Host. After the long battles, during which she been pulled out in the middle of due to acute exhaustion (she wasted more energy performing her many powerful spells than she could afford) his Host had recovered her spirits and set her sight on a new goal. To save the Hero.

Of course, the people around her knew it was impossible, that it couldn't be done no matter if he fell in love or not, but she wouldn't hear of it. She was fast determined to succeed, even if the world ended with her trying. Now, more than ever, it was crucial that Lynne remained alive, but his Host insisted on throwing her life away.

Ira really couldn't understand humans.

When the battlefield was finally cleared of all of the bodies, they left to travel back to the camp they came from. Over half of his Host's followers were dead, their corpses just more fuel to fan the flames, and his Host was left with either the powerful or the cowards. Their Commanding Officer had survived the battle as well, and with two new scars to prove it. The only person who took part in the battle without receiving a single scar was his Host, due to the fact that she had a lot of overpowered attacks that meant no enemy could reach her.

Even Ira had ended up with a brand new scar, as well as a collection of scr.a.p.es and bruises.

They returned to the camp they had left what felt like an eternity ago, with aroumd three hundred battle-hardened soldiers. All of them but his Host were wrapped in bloodstained gauze, as even the healers (the ones that had survived) were too exhausted to do any major repairs, even weeks after the end of the battle.

Another regiment of the human army would take over the process of keeping control of the valleu they just won. From what Ira knew it, it seemed like their regimemt was meant to go from battle to battle to act as reinforcements. Fresh, energetic soldiers.

Ready to die.

They were given eleven days before they were sent off on their next mission, their Commander an impressive sight where she stood tall on a small raised platform, like she hadn't nearly lost her leg.

Ira stood on the ground in front of her, one among thousands. Their regiment had been sent back in groups at a time, to different camps, but now they were all collected at the same place.

The Commander used magic to project her voice to all of her soldiers. "I know we're all exhausted after the last battle and that you haven't had nearly enough time to recover mentally. I know all you want to do is go home to your family.

But we can't do that yet.

Our next mission is to reinforce the army up in the north. It is going to take at least, if not more than, two months to get there. We will be crossing some dangerous territories. On the way, we'll be stopping by the Capital to restock our supplies. Be warned that we will not be entering the city, nor will we stay for longer than a day. You know what happens if you get left behind.

We are on a tight time schedule. The fight in the north has taken a bad turn, and they desperately need more supplies. We are to pick up as much as we can carry or drag, and we will tighten our rations to save as much as possible. We will then leave that battle as soon as possible, as soon as the fighting begins to slow down. We do not want to waste precious supplies. We will leave as soon as the sun rises tomorrow. Understood?"

"Yes, sir!"

Ira wondered off together with another group of soldiers after the Commander stepped down and left to plan their journey out. He followed along behind them as they found their way to the improvised cafeteria.

His Host was off holding court with her followers and convincing them to support her as she saved her lover. Nevermind that the Hero didn't even know her name or how incredibly dangerous it was going to be. Ira had thought that she had learned something from that battle, but all she seemed to care about was her love. Two days after the end of the battle, and she was already off to convert more followers with her incredible powers.

Ira grabbed a tray full of food and settled own on a hastily built wooden table to eat. It was leaning to the side and his wood cup aömost slid off the table before it got caught on an uneven section. This was the table he always ate at.

A ruckus sounded from the other side of the cafeteria as a fight broke out. Ira didn't pay it any mind.

After eating his dinner, Ira continued his wandering habits. He had walked the entirety of the camp, peeked into all tents and used all available toilets. There was nothing he didn't know about it.

Like the fact that the night security of the west perimeter spent more time asleep than awake. Or the fact that people had s.e.x in the toilet shacks. Or the fact that the cooks were seriously considering poisoning all of the food for their horrible treatment. Or the fact that the Commander's right hand man was in love with her. So in love, that his Host's charm didn't work on him at all.

Like there was anything he could do about it.

As a System, he had a lot of power, and due to his rank, he had even more of it. But one thing he couldn't do was affect or alter the emotions of any sentient being.

That would just be wrong.

His wandering brought him to the tent his Host had been given after they got back froom the battle. Through the open flap, he could see her sitting and talking with the woman she shared the tent with, as well as three men he had never seen before. They made a funny picture, squeezed in as they were.

He walked closer to listen in on their conversation.

"...blue eyes, a little brighter than mine."

That small snippet was enough for him to know what they were being so sneaky about. They were talking about the Hero, the protagonist of the story and the man that had become a demon. If Ira wasn't wrong, then he was already making headway into becoming the new Demonic Leader. This was the man his Host was convinced she loved, and the man that she would probably die trying (and failing) to save.

Ira wondered if he had made the wrong vhoice to lie to her, with the way this story was rapidly going downhill. But Ira wasn't a creature of regrets, he made his choices and stuck with them.

Even when they downright s.u.c.k.e.d.

He woke up the next morning with a smile. He had had the most pleasant sleep, during which he had dreamed of his very first Host getting bitten by a snake in a place the sun doesn't shine, and then dying from the poison, because nobody would suck it out.

It would be a most fitting way to go, that bastard deserved it.

Though the sun had not yet passed the horizon completely, Ira had an internal clock that could easily be used as an alarm. It was how he always knew exactly what time it was, right down to the millisecond.

It was a lot more complicated than it sounded.

He edged his way out of the tent, past the man he had spent the last (almost) two weeks sleeping next to. The man was a fellow mob character, so there wasn't a lot of data on him. If Ira ever died and the man was still alive, he planned on possessing him next. It was a foolproof plan.

His first stop was the cafeteria, that luckily hadn't been poisoned yet. Ira was eagery awaiting it.

After a healthy and tasty (the best food went to the earliest risers) breakfast, Ira returned to his tent to pack up his few posessions and wake up his roommate. He did this by releasing a concentrated dose of Killing Intent on the man. This was the method he always used to wake him. Which might explain why the man always seemed so scared of Ira. His ability of avoidance was world class, Ira nearly never saw him outside of the tent.

The man was wild-eyed when he woke, clearly fresh from the throes of a nightmare. Ira left him alone to gather the last of his few things, which essentially amounted to a few shirts and pants and his dagger, plus an additional knife he had picked up right off of the ground.

Ira was one of the first to arrive at the gathering area.

He picked a spot on the ground and settled down to wait. It wasn't long until other people started to arrive as well, settling down on the ground either alone or in groups.

Ira spotted his Host pretty fast, surrounded as she was by her followers.

He was pretty sure that nobody had missed her.

Eventually, everybody was finally there.

Ira rose up with the rest of the bunch and watched as all the carts that they had were quickly filled up with people, among them his Host. Ira chose not to bother fighting about them and instead just started walking between two carts, right in the middle of the quickly marching army.

They started walking.

Through the haze of the smoke that was still billowing occacionally from the battlefield they had left behind, Ira could make out thousands of people, both ahead of him and behind him. They marched as one unit, with the occional horse carrying some of the higher ranking officers. Evenly spaced out were the carts, that would be filled to the breaking edge with supplies once they reached the capital.

On one of these carts, his Host was hitching a ride tpgether with most of her followers. Her presence was a bright dot on his mental map, he noticed even when she was just switching seats. He could even zoom in on her if he had to.

Not that he wanted to.

Ira hitched the small cloth bag higher over his shoulder where he walked next to a bunch of strangers. He was surrounded by soldiers who had seen battle and actually changed, even if not in good ways, because of it. Granted they didn't smell very well, but by temporarily shutting down his sense of smell, he didn't even catch a hint of it. And walking amongst them for months, during which water would be scarce, it was a very good thing.

Some things made possessing a human worth it. The way they smelled when they hadn't bathed in a while wasn't one of them.

He zoomed out on his map and searched for the Hero. Far away, deep in a mountain, he found the bright beacon. Despite the fact that he had been turned into a demon, he was still the protagonist of this world. Ira knew very well what that meant.

In his minds eye, he could see his Host as she convinced people of her plan, to knowingly search out what could very well be the most powerful demom this world had ever known. The darkness that had flowed into the Hero had belonged to hundreds, if not thousands, of demons, that had all been more powerful than the last.

There was no way this was going to end well.