Chapter Text
On the other side of the Ohgma Mountains, Linkle and Ignatz were riding away from another burned village. "This is the fourth one of their own villages they've burned," Linkle said. "Why are they doing this?"
"Armies consume a lot of food," Ignatz said. "By destroying these villages, taking everything they can carry and burning the rest, they deprive us of any opportunity to restock our supplies."
"It's monstrous, is what it is!" Linkle declared.
"I agree," Ignatz assured her. "And so do most of Fódlan's people. But some commanders don't care. Victory is the only thing that matters to them, and anyone standing in the way of victory is the enemy."
Linkle's eyes scanned the horizon, until she saw a column of black smoke. "There!"
The two of them quickly rode towards the smoke. Hopefully, they would get there before the enemy left.
When they got there, they found Markus Lindenhurst, with a few dozen men. A dozen bows were pointed at the two of them, and several mages pointed their staves at them as well.
"Well, well, well," Markus said sarcastically. "It looks like we have guests." His men laughed at that. Looking past Markus, Linkle and Ignatz saw a few dozen villagers tied up in the street.
The two of them both individually ran the numbers in their heads. Maybe they could beat Markus and his men. But the villagers wouldn't survive, and Linkle wasn't sure Ignatz would survive either. She knew Markus was much stronger than Ignatz, and if the two tried ganging up on him, he might put his full effort into killing Ignatz.
Ignatz decided to take a gamble. "We are surprised you would offer us guest right, but we graciously accept your offer of hospitality."
Markus's eyebrows raised at that. "Ah. I suppose I should have watched my words more carefully," he said flippantly. It sure didn't seem like he had made the offer accidentally. "Oh well, I suppose I'll have to make the best of it. You simply must dine with us."
Linkle scowled at him. "You're the one who has been wiping out these villages?"
Markus shrugged. "My brother ordered me to destroy the crops along your path to keep your army from resupplying, and I couldn't just let the villagers starve. That would just be cruel!" His men laughed at that. "I'll tell you what. I'll let you take some of the people of this village back to your army after we dine. You can do as you wish with them."
"Just some?" Linkle asked.
"Many of the villagers fought back," Markus explained. "An example must be made. We can kill some, or all. I don't care either way."
Linkle and Ignatz fought down the temptation to kill him there and then, knowing he was likely expecting them to try. "Fine," Linkle bit out. "But the children get to live. All of them."
"Oh, very well," Markus said, and his men quickly set several children and teens aside from the other two groups they had cordoned the villagers off into.
"So, kill the ones who fought back?" asked a large, middle-aged man with a thick beard.
"Oh, heavens above, no!" Markus said, almost scandalized. "Courage and the will to fight are what set men apart from cattle! Those traits shouldn't be punished! Kill the ones who didn't fight back."
Linkle stared Markus in the eyes. "I'll kill you. It won't be today, but I will kill you for what you did to those people."
"I look forward to when you next try," Markus said.
Markus had insisted that Linkle and Ignatz dine with him, or else none of the villagers would be spared, so they had no choice but to dine with him and his men in the village's largest building.
Markus took a puff from a pipe, and blew a smoke ring. "So, Linkle. Tell me about yourself."
Linkle stubbornly stayed silent. "I could tell you about myself," Ignatz offered once the silence was too awkward.
"I don't care about you, boy," Markus said. "You're only alive because I took an interest in your friend. I believe she has the capacity to be a great hero, like me."
Linkle slammed her hands down on the table. "A hero? You fight for a monster like Nemesis, you massacre innocents, you have no honor, no virtue, and you think you're a hero?"
"Those things are entirely unrelated," Markus said. "The qualities that mark a hero aren't kindness, benevolence, and honesty. If they were, anyone could be one. No, the mark of a hero is determination.
"When I was thirteen years old, my brother and I were taken as slaves by a Sreng raiding party," he continued. "I managed to help my brother escape, but I wasn't so lucky. I was forced to fight in death matches in a cage. My first fight was against a man twice my age. He was stronger than me, more experienced than me, but that didn't stop me from killing him. I survived simply because I was more determined to live than he was. And that was only my first fight. Many times, I fought enemies who by all conventional wisdom should have killed me. And each and every time, I killed them, because my will was stronger. That cage was the crucible that burned away all of my weaknesses.
"Eventually, I realized that the guards could not stop me any more than the other fighters could. I killed them, and then I blinded, castrated, and disemboweled the warlord who had owned me. I declared myself the new leader of his men, and offered to let them challenge me for leadership. Not one of them did.
"Most people just drift through life, never making a decision that changes anything. They're too cowardly to try to impose their vision of what the world should be onto it, or they give up when it becomes too hard. A hero is a person with the force of will to decide how the world should be, and then make the world fit that vision, no matter what pain, suffering, and agony the world throws at them to dissuade them." The fervor in his gray eyes could have put the most fanatical Yiga to shame. "Morality doesn't factor into the equation. Everyone has a different idea of what is good and what is evil. The hero is the person who forces the world to accept his definition. Evil refers to the loser."
"Then why serve Nemesis?" Linkle asked. "If you're so convinced of your own superiority, then why would you play second fiddle to anyone?"
"Nemesis's philosophy almost matches mine, but is flawed in a way that serves mine," Markus explained. "Nemesis lives by the philosophy of 'might makes right.' He believes the strong have the right to rule over the weak, to do to them as they see fit. On this, the two of us agree. But Nemesis is under the delusion that the place of the weak is simply to obey the strong, and to revere them. He thinks that if he grows strong enough, all of humanity will bend to his will, unwilling to challenge him. He's wrong. If he defeats Lycaon and Seiros, someone else will rise to challenge him. And someone else after them, and someone else after them. Because that is the right of the weak ruled by the strong: to strengthen themselves and try to overthrow their tormentors.
"For as long as Nemesis's reign lasts, it will be one of endless war. He will try to make the world bend to his will, and it will challenge him constantly. An endless crucible, forcing humanity as a whole to constantly grow stronger, and forging men and women into their truest selves. A perfect world," Markus concluded, a look of honest-to-goodness awe on his face as he described a possible future that Linkle could only equate to Hell itself.
"You're insane," Linkle said.
"Am I?" Markus asked. "I'd argue that you're the ones who are insane, thinking that humanity should ever have peace and plenty. Good times weaken us. They bring nothing but complacency and decadence." He took a puff from his pipe. "But that's perfectly fine. You have your ideal world, and I have mine. In this world, victory is the only thing that matters. I represent one world that could be, and you represent the other. When we fight, you'll have your chance to prove me wrong."
"Uh, boss?" One of Markus's men said, holding a box-shaped device with a dial (a radio, though they didn't know what it was at the time). "Nemesis wants to talk to you."
"Markus," Nemesis's voice came from the device. "One of your men says you're playing host to two of Seiros's specialists."
"I am," Markus answered. "What of it?"
"Why haven't you killed them?" Nemesis asked.
"I have decided to let them go," Markus replied.
"I'm ordering you to kill them, Markus," Nemesis said. "I can replace you."
"No. You can't," Markus said. "With the deaths of Agnes von Daphnel and Tribune Brom, the only Tribunes even potentially capable of joining the Elites are Tribune Krake and Tribune Stendahl. And neither of them could beat me. None of the Elites would even try, not when they wouldn't know if they would win. You would have to kill me yourself, and you might be able to do it, but certainly not without taking wounds you wouldn't recover from. And I don't think you can afford that right now."
Nemesis stayed silent for several seconds. "You are making a very big mistake, Markus."
"I do as I please," Markus said, pressing a button on the box that made it shut off. He then turned to his men. "Which one of you reported to Nemesis?"
The big man with the beard stood up. "I've had enough of your stupid decisions, Markus. You're just a kook who bought into his own hype. We're gonna get rid of you, then we're gonna do what you should have did, kill these two and get our reward from Nemesis."
"We?" Markus asked. "Does anyone else concur with Bernard?"
None of the other bandits stood up. Bernard was surprised at first, then angry. "Cowards!"
"Perhaps you should have thought out your bid for leadership better," Markus said. "Would you like to give up, or will you fight me for it?"
Bernard's eyes flickered nervously to Markus's sword, hanging off of his chair. But then he drew his axe. "I'll fight you, right here, right now. A wise bandit always has to be ready for a fight, right?"
"Quite," Markus said.
Bernard lunged at Markus, but Markus sidestepped his swing, grabbed his chest with one hand, and punched him with the other. A spray of blood came from Bernard's chest, as everyone saw that Markus had torn one of his ribs out. Bernard swung again, horizontally this time, but Markus simply stepped back to avoid it, then lunged forward and plunged Bernard's rib into his temple, killing him.
"You have my respect, Bernard," Markus said. "You made a stupid desicion, but you followed through with it to the bitter end."
He then sat down once more. "I don't think I need you to tell me anything about yourself anymore," he said to Linkle. "How you reacted to my philosophy tells me all I wanted to know. Instead, I'll leave you with a question to think about, to answer when we see each other again. What do you believe sets a hero apart? From a villain, and from a good person who isn't a hero?"
As they took the surviving villagers back to the Adrestian army, Ignatz noticed Linkle fuming. "Are you alright?"
"No, I'm not alright!" Linkle shouted. "That bastard made a mockery of everything I've ever believed in, and I couldn't do anything about it! Next time I see him, I'm going to shove his words down his throat, then kick his skull in!"
"Are you angry at his philosophy?" Ignatz asked. "Or that you didn't know how to disprove—" he was cut off by Linkle grabbing the front of his shirt.
"Not. One. More. Word," she spat threateningly.