I dont want to be the he.., p.1
I Don't Want to Be the Hero Vol. 2, page 1
Copyright © 2021 M.E. Thorne
All rights reserved
The characters and events portrayed in this book are fictitious. Any similarity to real persons, living or dead, is coincidental and not intended by the author.
No part of this book may be reproduced, or stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without express written permission of the publisher.
ISBN-13: 9781234567890
ISBN-10: 1477123456
Cover design by: Andreea Sava
Library of Congress Control Number: 2018675309
Printed in the United States of America
Contents
Copyright
Author’s Note
The Story Thus Far
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Chapter 25
Epilogue
Afterward
Books by M.E. Thorne
Author’s Note
Summer 2021 is here! It might be hot outside, but Malory and company are about to have a wintry adventure. I had a blast writing this book, and I hope you all enjoy it as well!
I’ve already started work on my next project, which will be the first entry in a new series! This is going to be my first foray into the kingdom-building genre of haremlit (though don’t worry, my goal is to have I Don’t Want to Be a Hero Vol. 3 out this Fall). There’s a lot of adventure and smut coming your way for the second half of 2021, so stay tuned.
As always, you can sign up for my newsletter or follow me on Facebook and Twitter for the latest updates. If you enjoy this book please leave a positive review and spread the word!
Thank you again!
The Story Thus Far
Growing up in The City, Mal was told that it was a utopia, overseen by the benevolent Goddess. She protected her children from the outside world, a dark wasteland ruled by the Demon Lord.
But even in a perfect world, Mal felt like an outcast and a freak. He had the unique ability to see magic. And any spell he could see, he could break, shattering hexes, bindings, and blessings as easily as he breathed. Only his friend and lover, Sarah, believed in him and saw his value.
All of Mal’s illusions about the nature of his world were shattered when he turned eighteen. Branded a Hero by the Goddess, he was brainwashed and exiled out into the outside world to slaughter and kill in her name. Only a chance encounter with the demon knight Annowan and her dragonkin squire Gilly saved his life.
Becoming Annowan’s squire at the same time as the orc Thalie, Mal slowly learned about the world of Amalgam, and the empire ruled by Annowan’s grandmother, Lilith, the Immortal Empress and the ruler who sat upon the Throne. He also learned the truth about the Bitch Goddess, who had once attempted to conquer Amalgam along with her human, elven, and dwarven allies.
He resolved to defeat the Bitch Goddess and to save Sarah from her clutches.
Using knowledge implanted in Mal by the Bitch Goddess, Annowan resolved to find and kill the Four Generals, the legendary warriors who had led the Bitch’s army during the cataclysmic war between the empire and The City. During this journey, they were joined by the goblin dragoon Krencha and her mighty mole-dog Scrapple. The party braved ent haunted woods, cursed dwarven ruins, and abandoned cities full of mutant insects to reach the Red Mountain, the resting place of the first general.
Mal also became romantically entangled with Gilly, Thalie, and Krencha, coming to love the three women and their unique strengths.
Upon arriving at the Red Mountain, Mal was horrified to find that the Bitch Goddess had possessed Sarah and was using her to claim the general. During the climactic battle, Mal used his spell-breaking ability to free the general, who in turn attacked The City’s troops and saved the party.
Revealing herself as Tarial, the Last Herald, she had volunteered to carry the party to Babylon, the demonic capital and the home of Lilith and the Throne.
Chapter 1
Much to my surprise, I discovered that the miraculous and the divine can turn mundane, and even boring, after just a few hours.
After the battle at the Red Mountain, Tarial, the Last Herald, had swooped us up in a magical gust of wind and lifted us all into the sky, declaring that she would fly us to Babylon. I had expected a thrilling journey across the world, seeing the fields, forests, mountains, and deserts soaring beneath us, like some kind of beautiful tapestry. I thought I’d get a chance to see all the wondrous cities and towns of Amalgam, maybe even get to wave to the people as we passed.
Instead, after we had ascended, I had found we were thousands of meters up, with most of the land below hidden by the clouds. I only caught glimpses of the land below as we flew overhead, just splotches of green, blue, and brown.
Even the towns and cities were difficult to see. Only the larger ones were able to make a fleeting impression with their orderly laid-out streets and avenues.
If there were people, they were so small as to be invisible. Much like we were to them.
“This is not as impressive as I had hoped,” Krencha growled.
Even though we were flying, the goblin dragoon was still mounted on the back of her mighty war mount, the mole-dog Scrapple.
“Hey, angel,” she called, “take us lower! The people need to see us pass! How else are they going to tell their children and grandchildren about our procession!”
“She can’t hear you,” Gilly groused. She was lying flat on her stomach, with her arms cradling her head and her tail coiling behind her. “As far as I can tell, it’s taking all her concentration to fly and carry us with her. If you disturb her, we’ll probably fall and go splat.”
Thalie, sitting next to her, looked sick at the joke.
“Don’t even kid about that,” she pleaded. “This is already disturbing enough as it is, I don’t even want to think about falling.”
“I’m with her,” I agreed readily, “Let’s not break Tarial’s concentration and die. Also, Krencha, if you want to stay on her good side, call her by her name. She seems to find that less offensive than just yelling ‘Hey, angel.’”
Tarial had been entombed on the Red Mountain, magically kept asleep for a thousand years. I imagined she was delighted to finally be awake and free of the brainwashing magic the Bitch Goddess had used to make her one of her Four Generals.
“This is awful,” the goblin sulked, sinking into her saddle. “At this point, killing all those undead giants, mutant insects, and necrotic angels will have been for nothing.”
I still couldn’t fully understand the goblin dragoon’s glory-seeker mindset, but in my defense, I hadn’t even known goblins, orcs, or dragonkin had existed just a few weeks before.
Krencha had once compared me to an oversized, weird-looking goblin, which was strange because I first saw her as a short, odd-looking human. She was barely over a meter tall, with oversize features that would have looked outlandish on a human, but I found strangely endearing on her. With large, piercing green eyes, long, pointed ears, and coppery-red skin, she certainly looked like no one I had seen before leaving The City.
“What are you staring at?” Gilly yawned.
“Just thinking how weird everything is,” I admitted.
“What?” she laughed, “like me?”
And the truth was, if I hadn’t known her, Gilly would have been an incredibly strange sight. She was a dragonkin, the descendent of dragons, and had inherited many of their features. Compact and strong, she kept her arms and legs bare, revealing her blue-tinged skin and the matching scales that ran along her shoulders and hips. Crests and horns poked up through her hair, and I knew for a fact that she could breathe fire.
I shrugged, thinking about her question. “Everything, I guess. Just a little while ago I thought I was a regular human, living in The City. I spent most of my time trying to avoid graduation and being assigned as a ditch-digger for the rest of my life.”
Then I had been branded a hero by the Bitch Goddess. I was marked as one destined to go out into the wastelands to fight the Demon Lord and to kill in her name.
In truth, I had been brainwashed, my thoughts robbed away by the Bitch’s evil magic. A sword had been thrust into my hands and I had been exiled from The City. I had been sent past the protective Aurora with an order to kill as many orcs, demons, and monsters as possible, to bathe the land in their blood.
Under the Bitch’s influence, I had seen the outside world as a barren wasteland, full of nothing but evil, deformed creatures. I shamefully remembered that I had almost killed Thalie during my delusion. Thankfully, an encounter with Annowan and Gilly had given me a chance to break free.
I possessed the unique ability to see magic in all its forms. And once I’d seen a spell, enchantment, rune, or sorcery and understood how it worked, I could break it. Using this power, I had shattered the brainwas
“I’m just realizing how things really can change in an instant,” I told Gilly. “Once, I thought everything beyond the Aurora was evil and foul, and that The City was the only good, safe place left in the world. But then I met all of you and learned the truth. You gave me the opportunity to fight against the Bitch Goddess and to try and stop her plans for ending the world.”
I laughed, “I’m a squire to the granddaughter of the empress, and I’m flying to Babylon with a real, honest to goodness angel.”
“Herald,” Krencha reminded me pointedly.
“I’m so happy that you were able to break free,” Thalie said quietly.
I moved over and took her hand, giving it a small squeeze. As an orc, she had emerald-green skin and matching hair. Her arms were long and lanky, and I found it strangely cute when she smiled and let her tusks poke up above her lip. I sat and studied her for a moment, my heart swelling as I remembered all the wonderful, loving evenings I had spent with her, Gilly, and Krencha.
I saw her blush. She was clearly thinking of the night before, which we’d spent with my other two lovers. It certainly had been a lively evening.
Turning the other way, I saw Annowan sitting by herself. The demon knight was staring intensely at nothing as the clouds drifted past.
Crawling over, I called, “Are you okay, boss?”
Her hair, red as fresh blood, twisted in the breeze, occasionally wrapping itself around the two great ram’s horns that curled up from her temples. Normally it was tightly braided and stylized, but the last few days of chaos had tumbled it loose. Her skin was a fainter shade of vermillion, and when she turned towards me, her eyes glowed like dampened coals.
“What do you want?” she said gruffly.
I shrugged. “Just checking on you, you seem kind of down?”
“Down?” she gave a short bark of laughter. “Why, just because we failed in our mission, and are now being carried back towards the capital by the very general we were sent to slay?”
“Think you might be taking things the wrong way --” I began
“Seriously, Annie!” Gilly threw herself forward, landing next to the demon knight.
“Gilly!” I shouted, “Don’t you realize that flopping around is a good way of breaking Tarial’s concentration? Didn’t you just say we should avoid doing stuff like that?”
“That was before I noticed Annie sulking.” She reached over and poked the demon, “Let me guess, you were hoping to return to Babylon, the general’s head in your hands? But instead, you’ve stumbled into this complicated mess and are feeling depressed. Am I right?”
Annowan huffed but didn’t respond.
“Come on,” the dragonkin cheered, “this is a great thing! It’s clear, based upon that helmet I found, that Lilith and Tarial had something hot and heavy going on. I mean, you don’t commission golden armor for your angelic lover unless --”
“Gilly,” Annowan said stiffly, “stop talking before I toss you off this ride.”
Doing everything in her power to suppress a giggling fit, Gilly scooted off.
I sighed, rubbing my face. “Listen, I’ve recently become an expert on expectations not meeting reality. Mostly in drastic, horrifying ways.“ I paused, thinking.
After I had broken the Bitch Goddess’s mind control, I had become Annowan’s squire, along with Gilly and Thalie. Meeting up with Krencha, we had fought together against impossible odds to reach the Red Mountain, one of the resting places for the Bitch’s fabled Four Generals. We had planned on killing the person we found entombed there, but instead, I had freed her from the evil magic that had kept her bound to the Bitch’s service.
“I guess, for you, nothing has gone as expected,” I told her, “But as Gilly said, I still think this is a win, a momentous one. We should be proud of what we have accomplished.”
“Here, here!” Krencha cheered. “I fully expect a parade when we land!”
Annowan didn’t say anything, but rather just raised her hand, indicating she wanted to be left alone again. Unsure if my words had proved any relief, I went and joined the others.
Tarial flew through the night, apparently never tiring, never looking back. She was driven by some deep emotional bond, one I couldn’t fully fathom, that drove her towards Babylon, towards the capital of the empire and the one she loved.
Sleeping on a gust of wind was incredibly comfortable. You didn’t have to worry about a scratchy mattress, lumpy stuffing, or laying in a weird position and giving yourself a leg cramp. Our insubstantial bedding was perfectly giving yet supportive, like sleeping on a cloud.
We all ended up huddling together, with Gilly in the middle while Scrapple slept at the foot of our bed. The dragonkin gave off the same amount of heat as a stove, which meant that we didn’t even need blankets to stave away the faint chill in the air.
Annowan, if she slept, did so alone. She was in the same spot we had left her the night before, still looking at the scenery below.
That, at least, had changed. Below stretched a vast, brown desert, with dunes stretching off in every direction. We were following a thin, black thread that ran straight and true through the breaking and cresting hills of sand.
There wasn’t a cloud in sight. If we had been below, we would have been scorched by the burning sun overhead. But Tarial’s magic somehow protected us from the intense rays.
“The Endless Dunes,” Gilly explained when I asked where we were. “This was originally part of the world where demons came from, an arid and infinite desert.”
The world of Amalgam had been created thousands of years before, during some kind of terrible catastrophe that had violently merged countless different worlds, different realities together. Demons, Humans, Dragons, Elves, Dwarves, and countless other races had found themselves lost in a new, patchwork world. One that the Bitch Goddess had demanded she rule by divine right.
“I like the Dunes,” Annowan grumbled, rousing from her silence. “I remember we used to play down there as children, visiting the local oases and traveling markets.”
“You had fun,” Gilly groused, “I spent most of the time looking for water and trying not to shrivel up.”
“It certainly is brown,” Thalie said sadly. As an orc, she had an affinity with nature and greenery, exalting in living plants.
“It’s not so bad,” Gilly consoled her. “She wasn’t kidding about the oases. They’re little pools of water surrounded by the most stunning, green plant life.”
“And in the palace, there’s the Imperial Garden,” Annowan said pridefully.
“I’ve heard of it!” Thalie perked up, “It’s said that it boasts the most stunning arboreal displays and flower gardens in the entire empire. It’s an orc’s dream to visit there.”
Annowan smiled, abandoning some of her lingering melancholy, “I’ll be sure you get a chance to visit them.”
“How much longer till we get to Babylon?” I asked, scanning the bleak horizon.
“Probably the rest of the day,” Gilly stretched, laying back out. “They don’t call it the Endless Dunes for nothing. It’s the largest patch of territory carried from any of the original worlds, measuring thousands of square kilometers in size.” She glanced down, “The Imperial Highway runs across the entire desert, connecting Babylon to the rest of the empire. I imagine we’ll just be following this for a long while.”
And she was right. The sun rose, rolled overhead, and began to set towards the far horizon before the unchanging scenery began to give way to an amazing sight.
“Hey?” I rubbed my eyes, sitting up, “is it just me, or are there two sunsets?”
Against the far, western horizon, the sun was just beginning to set, dyeing the sky shades of purple and orange. But just to the north of that, a new corona was beginning to blaze, with bursts of light that shone red, blue, purple, and white.
Squinting, I could just make out the faint outline of shapes, obsidian black against the shining lights.
“Home,” Annowan said, her eyes glowing red hot.
