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Isekai Terry AHS: Chapter 1 – Corpse Detail
🕑 Added 2024-10-23 02:16:05 +0000 UTC“Stupid dire wolves,” grumbled Terry as he gave one of the bodies a desultory kick.
Then, with a sigh, he threw another oversized wolf’shead onto the big blanket. He had managed to secure a cart to transport the evidence of his mass slaughter to the Adventurer’s Guild. Unfortunately, getting it all the way out to where he’d killed the dire wolves proved impossible. The going was too rough, and the trees were too densely packed in too many places. He’d semi-abandoned the cart, grabbed what he called the big blanket – which was actually several blankets tied together – and taken that out to where their corpses were waiting.
He had briefly checked on the monster army encampment. They seemed content to stay where they were for the moment, doing… Doing whatever monster-y things that monster army soldiers did in camp, which suited Terry just fine. He’d take action against them if he absolutely could not avoid it, but he’d be damned if he was going to get proactive about that nonsense. As far as he was concerned, a monster army was a problem for people not named Terry Williams, and people who weren’t unwilling victims of isekai stupidity and the tropes that came with it. On his second viewing of the camp, he’d felt the need to reiterate his loathing.
“Fuck you, deus ex machina.”
Once he was more or less confident that gathering up the spoils of his fight wasn’t going to trigger another big fight, he’d gotten to work. He had gotten a nice big strength boost from being run down by Truck-kun and deposited in another world, so it wasn’t really hard work. It just rotated between being tedious, kind of gross, and something he wished was someone else’s headache. A sentiment that almost perfectly summed up his entire experience since landing in Chinese Period Drama Hell. The only thing that livened up his experience of dead head gathering was when he had to chase off some kind of scavenger bird that looked like it might have been a vulture.
Although, that vulture would have had to have died, gone directly to hell, worked its way up the ranks of hell through pure malice and violence, and then escaped to try to rob Terry of his hard-earned profits, but it was a vulture all the same. He briefly considered whether it was worth chasing the thing down and killing it. In the end, he decided that was too much work without knowing if he could wring some more gold out of the Adventurer’s Guild. He had killed all those dire wolves without knowing if it was profitable, but they had been trying to kill him at the time. The hell-vulture had limited its aggression to a nasty look and shooting a couple of half-hearted fireballs at him. The failure of those to drive him away had been enough to convince it to leave instead. Besides, he was leaving most of the meat behind. He just wanted the heads and any cores he might have missed. It could always come back later and gorge itself.
Haresh, Ekori, and Jaban had offered to come out and help him with the work, but he’d ultimately declined. Terry’s willingness to be a little lazy in the right circumstances was offset by his conscience. There was just nothing redeeming or life-affirming about cutting the heads off of dead monsters. While Terry was only vaguely fond of Haresh and Ekori, and grudgingly tolerant of Jaban, even he couldn’t countenance asking them to help with this kind of grisly task. Also, if they helped, they might expect a cut of the profits. He didn’t mind letting them have some of the money for things that were easy to kill, but he’d put in a lot of effort to bring these wolves down. He wanted every red cent of the money going into his pocket for these awful creatures.
And you’re broke, observed other-Terry.
“Yes, and I’m broke,” admitted an annoyed Terry. “Thanks so much for that uplifting reminder.”
I do what I can, said other-Terry.
If he was being honest with himself, declining help was mostly that broke thing. Buying a home and even more so buying land wasn’t cheap. It was still cheaper than buying a home back on Earth if he had his currency conversion math right, which was questionable, but that was a damned easy achievement. Cheaper had in no way made it affordable.
With a bit of a shudder, Terry picked up the very last wolf head and tossed into onto the pile. He had at least had the good sense to start at the most distant body and work his back toward the ones he’d killed a little closer to the house. He took a moment to pull out a waterskin and wash his hands before he gathered up the four corners of the big blanket and tied them together with a length of rope. The “blankets” he’d gotten were more like canvas tarps than soft cotton. While he could maybe imagine using them to shelter from bad weather, he struggled to picture them on a bed. Shrugging the thought away, he started dragging the huge bundle back toward the house. The fact that only his absurd, enhanced strength made it possible was not lost on him. He would have needed a truck or maybe a four-wheeler to pull that load in his old world.
He was surprised that he didn’t have more trouble with scavenger and monsters on the way back to the cart. Maybe they just decided that anything with the brute power to pull that load was something they weren’t going to mess with if they could avoid it. Whatever the reason, he was happy enough to do without the fighting. He was still feeling a bit drained from the confrontation with the dire wolves. That attack he’d done with the ice was really effective, but it wasn’t the kind of trick he could pull out all of the time. He thought he might be able to do it twice in a fight, and then he’d likely need a few weeks before he could do it again. An objective part of him was happy that there were limits on power in this world. It was still hard not to feel a little annoyed that he didn’t have an easy-to-use trump card.
“I guess it wouldn’t be a trump card if I could use it whenever I want to.”
That sounded almost reasonable, said other-Terry. Did I miss it when you got a head injury in that fight?
“Jesus H. Christ! Don’t you have an off switch?”
Not an A.I., snapped other-Terry.
“Don’t I know it. An A.I. would have a useful feature like an off switch.”
I think you’re confusing A.I.s with microwaves.
Terry used the excuse of spotting the cart to ignore that last comment. He half-lifted and half-threw the giant makeshift head sack into the cart. It made a vaguely ominous creaking noise but ultimately endured the weight. Terry wondered if he should commission a sturdier cart for transporting things to the Guild but figured that he probably wouldn’t ever need to move so many monster parts again. At least, he wouldn’t if the universe had even the tiniest shred of mercy in it. Damn it, he thought. I better get that cart made. Shifting over to the cart sped up his progress considerably. His initial estimate barely had him making it back to his house before sundown. Now, he thought there was a good chance he could get to the Guild hall before Analina closed up for the night.
That actually happy thought was dashed the minute he exited the forest and crossed over onto his property. There were people hanging around that he didn’t know. He was equally sure that he didn’t want to know them. They had the look of people that would aggravate him. Unfortunately, there was no good way to get to the trail that led into town without passing them. He hung onto the hope that maybe they’d come to see Haresh or Ekori. Anything was possible in a world full of magic, after all. Even that dim hope was snuffed when he saw an anxious looking Haresh brighten up and point at him. A man who reeked of self-importance planted himself directly in the path of Terry’s cart. There was a moment when Terry considered just walking over the guy, but he thought that was probably taking a bit too far, even for him. He reluctantly came to stop.
“You are Terry, the rank 2 adventurer,” pronounced self-important guy.
Terry shot Haresh a look that promised retribution before he said, “Yeah.”
Self-important guy stared at Terry, clearly expecting him to ask the obvious question. Instead, Terry started to walk forward. The other man’s eyes went wide and then narrowed in anger.
“I am here on behalf of lord—” started self-important guy.
“Get off my land,” commanded Terry.
“What?” spluttered the man.
“I said, get off my land. Now.”
Self-important guy drew himself up and said, “You peasant swine. I see you need to be taught your place. Guards, beat him.”
Terry let go off the length of wood that served as a sort of handle. He reached into a pocket and pulled out one of the stones he’d picked up to deter monsters in the forest. The second someone started to move, Terry threw a rock at them. There was an almighty metallic gong noise. The breastplate the man wore crumpled. He was lifted from the ground and flung backwards as blood erupted from his mouth. Everyone stared at the injured, possibly deceased man on the ground as Terry closed the distance with self-important guy. He seized the man by the collar and kicked his legs out from under him. As the self-proclaimed leader of this group hung from Terry’s grip and slowly started to suffocate, Terry glared at the rest of them.
“Take your injured friend and go. Don’t ever come back.”
The men all exchanged nervous, uncertain looks. Some of them glanced at self-important guy for direction, but he was too busy turning purple and uselessly scrabbling at Terry’s arm to tell them to do anything. The guards seemed to sense that they were out of their depth and swiftly departed, carrying their friend.
“Terry,” said an aghast Haresh. “What do you mean to do with him?”
Terry lifted the self-important guy up so he could look him right in the eye.
“I mean to kill this man.”
Terry actually heard the man’s bowel let go and, unfortunately, smelled the result a few moments later.
“You can’t!” shouted Haresh. “He’s—”
“Calm down,” said Terry. “I’m not actually going to kill him.”
“Oh, thank the gods.”
“I’m just going to give him the treatment he wanted to give me. I’m going to beat him within an inch of his life. You know, so he’ll know his place.”
One beating done over many objections by Haresh, Ekori, and Jaban, as well as a pleasant walk in the afternoon air later, a much more cheerful Terry pulled his cart to a stop at the town gate. He unceremoniously shoved the unconscious form of self-important guy off the improvised head sack. The limp body dropped onto the unforgiving ground with a thud while the town guards stared in mute horror.
“I need to take some things to the Adventurer’s Guild,” said Terry, gesturing back at the cart.
One of the guards found their voice and weakly asked, “And the corpse?”
“Oh, he’s not dead. Just a trespasser. He made threats and tried to have me attacked, so I dealt with him. He should probably be locked up.”
“Oh,” said the guard in a relieved voice. “We can see to that. You can go in.”
“Thanks,” said Terry and pulled the cart inside.
Other-Terry seemingly couldn’t keep quiet any longer. You have to know that’s going to come back and bite you on the ass, right?
“Zip it, buzzkill,” muttered Terry under his breath. “I’m finally in a good mood.”
Comments
shackcat
TYFC
Chad L.
I think that’s part of the trope. Nobles and their flunkies often have no grasp on reality, and little instinct for self preservation.
Angela Roberts
Terry!! Love Terry. He never did find out who the seriously miscalculating, self important man was in service to which Lord but I'm sure he will soon. With Terry's luck he'll be a patron to the church.
Marian Ch
I mean it's nice to see an asshole get their just rewards, but that seems to make no sense. Surely it's well known what a T2 adventurer can do so nobody sane would ever order such a dumb thing? Dunno, that scene didn't quite make sense even with how self-important nobles can be.
Ben Heidenreich
More Terry please.
Elijah Overland
Ah, the catharsis of explosive violence.
Eric Dontigney
I might have snickered about that myself.
BelligerentGnu
"Fuck you, deus ex machina" It's pretty funny watching an author yell at himself.
Kanyau
So... he's a supposedly super powerful rank 2 adventurer, and this man thought it would be a smart idea to... have him beaten?
ParoxysmDK
Awesome that Terry is back in action again. Tftc.
