Ch.2I Can’t Handle This Possession

The men who had finished the slaughter shook the blood from their weapons and scattered to gather their belongings.

As my handmaidens attempted to pack up my tent, I went back inside to check if there was anything else I needed to retrieve.

…Nothing special here.

I looked around the tent, trying to clear my head.

Even with my eyes closed, the scene I had just witnessed clung stubbornly to my mind, refusing to fade away.

It’s not like this was my first time seeing someone die. I was a soldier, after all.

It was just my first time watching dozens of civilians being slaughtered before my eyes.

Don’t think about it.

It couldn’t be helped.

I’ll have to adapt if I want to survive here undetected.

Ignoring the screams that kept echoing in my mind, I forcibly redirected my thoughts.

So, where am I? Did I really possess a character in a novel or game?

Ah, judging by this tank top-like garment that emphasizes femininity in a way inappropriate for this era, this must be some kind of possession story.

That large man from earlier, what was his name? Jahan? Jahan the Centurion.

Centurion probably means a commander of a hundred men.

Jahan, Jahan… the name sounds familiar somehow.

I felt a nagging sense of recognition, but couldn’t quite place it no matter how hard I tried.

If I just had one more clue, I might remember. I scratched my head in frustration.

“Lady Aishan-Gioro, are you looking for something?”

“Hmm? Ah, it’s nothing. I’ll be heading out, so tidy up here.”

One of the servants had entered with a bow, probably because I’d been lingering in a tent that was supposed to be dismantled.

Aishan-Gioro? Is that my family name? Aishan-Gioro Haschal?

Ah,

I remember now.

Jahan. Aishan-Gioro. Haschal…Hersella.

I finally realized where I was and whose body I inhabited.

Champion Jahan.

Hersella the Mad.

-They were boss monsters in a game I used to play.

—-

‘War of Remnant’

It was a moderately popular adult strategy RPG that I had casually played for about 200 hours.

A classic game with a predictable story: the protagonist enters the hero training institution “Remnant Academy,” grows through countless training sessions and battles, and eventually saves the world.

Despite the predictable story, the gameplay itself was quite solid.

The protagonist’s combat style diversified based on the player’s chosen development path.

Sub-characters who could become either allies or enemies depending on your choices.

Defeat scenes with explicit content that seemed to have exhausted their illustrators.

And restrictions like game over if a certain number of companions died or if you couldn’t clear within 70 turns.

Anyway, I personally enjoyed the game.

If I had possessed the protagonist or a companion character, I might have felt better about this situation.

“Haaaaah…”

I sat on a box, staring blankly at the tent being packed up.

How many times have I sighed already? I really feel like chain-smoking right now.

WOR’s main story was divided into five chapters, each with mid-bosses and main bosses.

Aishan-Gioro Haschal, known as Aishan-Gioro Hersella in the game, was the main boss of Chapter 3.

Champion Jahan served as the mid-boss.

Hersella the Mad.

The female ruler of the Ka’har, a barbarian tribe modeled after East Asian nomadic peoples.

The empress who unified the Ka’har through force and then invaded the Empire, reducing everything to ashes.

In the story, she razed countless cities to the ground, dramatically increasing the game’s difficulty afterward.

Her real name was probably Haschal, which was rendered as Hersella in the Empire’s language.

Thanks to her fierce appearance and wild yet attractive looks, she was quite popular among players.

Unlike other Ka’har people, her fair skin and blue eyes led to fan theories that she might be of mixed heritage.

Due to her backstory of losing her mother at a young age and her extremely difficult boss battle, she was commonly referred to as “motherless Hersella.”

The problem is that this character has no future.

If defeated and captured by the protagonist, she becomes an imperial prisoner, stripped naked and tied in the public square to be violated until death.

Even if she escapes capture, her subordinates, losing faith in her power, betray her, cutting off her limbs and making her their plaything.

Even in the bad ending where the protagonist is defeated, her fate doesn’t change.

If the protagonist loses, she does devastate many countries and reigns as empress for a while.

But soon after, she’s defeated by the final boss and becomes a breeding slave for monsters.

Honestly, those explicit scenes were quite arousing to watch, but that’s only when you’re a spectator.

For the person experiencing it, it’s just a tragedy.

And now I’m about to become that person.

Fucking hell.

I shouldn’t be worrying about dead civilians right now.

I’m not a marine, and being born male, I’d rather die than become a breeding slave.

I need to avoid the original storyline at all costs.

It would be like voluntarily walking into a brothel.

…Actually, I probably won’t be able to fight like the original Haschal, so I might naturally deviate from the original storyline.

But if I just sit around, I can’t predict how these barbarians who betray at the first sign of defeat might react.

The problem is that I know almost nothing about Haschal’s background story.

The game didn’t explain the boss characters’ backgrounds in detail.

Even on strategy sites, there was only information from item descriptions and fan theories.

At least Champion Jahan is still just a Centurion.

And considering they called me “Lady,” we’re definitely before the original story begins.

…So what do I do now?

Should I try my best to adapt among these barbarians?

Can I really pretend to be Aishan-Gioro Haschal without arousing suspicion?

It doesn’t seem easy, but I have to try.

Forcibly suppressing my increasingly pessimistic thoughts, I stood up.

Just then, Jahan approached with a sturdy horse.

Fortunately, they seemed to use saddles, as there was a leather one on the horse’s back.

“Lady Haschal. It’s time for us to depart.”

“Yes, depart… right. I understand.”

I have no idea where we’re going, but I can’t ask that.

At least there’s a saddle, so I should be able to ride…?

I grabbed the reins and jumped up with my foot in the stirrup.

With just a light push, my body soared up to the height of the horse’s back. Amazing.

Once mounted, I instinctively knew how to move.

It seems the saying that the body unconsciously remembers habitual actions is true.

Others had finished their preparations and were gathering around me.

Men who appeared to be warriors were all armed and mounted on their horses, while the female servants were huddled together in the empty spaces of the wagons loaded with dismantled tents.

There seemed to be about two hundred warriors and thirty servants.

Twenty warriors positioned themselves in front of me, while Centurion Jahan and the gloomy man who had spoken to me earlier moved to either side of me.

Is this man also a Centurion? Is that why there are two hundred warriors?

Finding myself surrounded by warriors, my back stiffened with tension.

Cold sweat soaked my hands gripping the reins.

At least I wasn’t at the front, which was fortunate.

If I had headed in the wrong direction, it might have raised suspicions.

Still, I probably needed to give the order to depart?

“Is everyone ready? Let’s go!”

“Yes!”

The warriors answered in unison, and those at the front began to move their horses slowly.

The pace wasn’t too fast, so I could follow without much trouble.

I tightened my grip on the reins and gently tapped the horse’s side.

The crimson sunlight was so bright that I squinted my right eye.

Northeast.

Where am I headed now?

Hopefully somewhere better than here.

I moved forward, deliberately ignoring the traces of my sins behind me.

Hoping that at least the shadows would hide the carnage.

Yes. I’ll have to get used to this anyway.

I’ll have to live with these people from now on.

That’s what I told myself.

—-

I can’t live with these psychopaths!

They’re not human. Do you know how many people have died in just 9 days?

“A village. Shall we rest there today?”

“Yes! We’ll prepare immediately. Cavalry, charge!”

A village disappeared amid screams.

“Does the food not suit your taste?”

“…I don’t have much appetite today.”

The servant in charge of cooking was torn apart alive.

“Lady Haschal? Did you not sleep well?”

“The noise outside woke me. What’s happening?”

Three warriors making noise at night were beheaded.

Every time I speak, someone dies.

Either these people are insane, or the original Haschal was such a murderous lunatic.

They seem to interpret everything I say as an order to slaughter.

Even when I say nothing, nothing changes.

Were locusts ever this ravenous?

These people gallop across the plains, butchering every traveler they meet and plundering every village they see.

I couldn’t stop them.

At first, I tried not to participate in battles and once attempted to prevent them from raiding a village.

Then five men tried to kill me at night, claiming I had grown weak.

The shock of waking up to find dark figures with raised swords is indescribable.

The ambush was so unexpected that I nearly died.

I survived only because my body’s reflexes were better than expected.

Jahan rushed in and cut the traitors to pieces, but even he found it strange that I hadn’t immediately killed them myself.

When he asked why I had only dodged, I felt my heart stop.

After that day, I had no choice.

I had to encourage the warriors in their plundering, and I had to participate in the fighting myself.

The sensation of cutting people down was disgusting.

I consoled myself by only fighting those who attacked rather than fled.

Thanks to Haschal’s physical abilities, I had no trouble fighting even with a sword I’d never wielded before.

Though not yet at her prime, as she wasn’t at the level shown in the game.

A sword swung with one hand could dent armor, and a kicked person would fly like a burst soccer ball.

Attacks from non-warriors were laughably slow, and I could instinctively detect weapons striking from blind spots.

Nine days passed like this. While ten warriors died, we killed nearly three hundred people.

The sight of victorious warriors raping village women was horrific.

Learning from the atrocities of my first day, I ordered that women and children be taken as slaves.

At least they weren’t killed.

It was heartbreaking to see slaves being dragged along with their wrists tied to carts, but a life of being raped nightly and sold into slavery was the limit of mercy I could offer them.

Once, I made eye contact with one of the female captives.

Tattered, torn clothes. Hair matted with dirt. Wrists bleeding from rope burns.

The hollow eyes visible through her tangled hair held no emotion.

Even hatred and resentment had been crushed by violence—a living but not-living appearance.

I stared at those eyes for a long time, as if entranced, before finally turning away.

Pretending to be unfazed. Struggling to hide my contorting expression.

I realized then.

I must not become accustomed to these atrocities.

I needed to escape from these people.

Before I too became a monster, by any means necessary.