Seth the Brave, Hero of the Republic
By Amirul Karimuddin
Prologue
People often ask me “What does it
feel like to be the Hero of the Republic?” and I’m often tempted to tell them
the truth “Like a big, damn fraud.”
I never ask to be the Hero of the
Republic. I never ask to be the saviour of the entire Federation of Nation. I
never ask to have a fan base dedicated to me. I never ask to have that new
military academy in the south named after me. And I certainly never ask to have
that awful ten-foot tall golden statue in the middle of the capital to be built
in my name.
Despite what many may think the
perks of being the Hero of the Republic is nothing compared the risks I have to
take, the sheer vomit-inducing terror I have to face, and the many, many
encounters I had with death only to be saved at the last moments by events and
accidents purely outside of my control. There’s really nothing to be gained in
it except a few fame and admiration and also the chance to have free food via
invitations from the upper class who’d thought that having the Hero of the
Republic attend their daughter’s wedding party is a good way to boost their
popularity with the masses.
Being the Hero of Humanity is a
terrifying job. You are constantly under attack by one thing or another. If not
by Demons, Orcs, or Vampires, then by douchebag politicians or stuck up
nobleman who believed that you are, somehow, a threat to their power or that
you have somehow stained their honour or something. This could range from the
good-old-fashioned occasional amateurish assassination attempts to something
entirely ridiculous like sending an entire army after you or demanding that you
fight them in a duel of honor.
As you will no doubt discover from
reading the pile of bull that I published as my ‘autobiography’ I grew up in a
family of war heroes. My great-great-grandfather was an acclaimed hero of the
Great War. My Grandfather meanwhile, had served ten years as an officer in the
Dunes. Carrying on the tradition of making money out of the art of killing, my
father also became an officer who served for twenty years in the frontiers
where he met my mother.
Growing up in this happy family of
killers, I was fed numerous stories of the great and heroic feats of my
predecessors which are of course embellished and polished a bit on the side to
suite the mind of a young child. Being the naive kid that I was I took upon
this story like a drug addict to a heroin party. They inspired me and gave me
something to look up to. Sometimes I even took out one of our family’s
ancestral weapons from the armory and ran around the house pretending that I
was the heroes my parents loved to tell me about. For a short time being a hero
became my dream.
Fortunately though, I quickly
learned of my mistake.
As the years grew by I begin to wise
up a bit. I realised then that being a hero wasn’t all sunshine and glamorous.
Most of the stories regarding my ancestors being brave and valiant is
usually followed by the word died and
sacrificed. I’d also learned that
those of my ancestors who were remembered as heroes died young and horrifying
deaths with very few of them ever reaching old age or living off a happy long
life. They spent their lives surviving one battle only to be sent to another,
usually more suicidal, battle.
It didn’t take long for the
implication to dawn on me but when it did it was tid-bit too late. By that
point my father was already convinced about my resolve to become a hero and
had, in turn, began to put me through a brutal training regimen that made all
those training regiment in the military academies looked like kindergarten
play. It was clear that he intended to make me into the hero I always wanted to
be. I knew that there was no point in trying to dissuade my old man so I
didn’t.
When the day came for me to be put
into the military academy I passed with flying colors. My score was very high
and because of that they allowed to choose what kind of department I wanted to
be placed in. The military usually put someone in places where their scores and
skills fitted them the most, so if you have, for example, a high score in
marksmanship you’ll likely to be put in the sniper department or special unit
department. But if you managed to pass with a high enough score the military
allows you to freely choose what kind of you’d want on the army. I have a high
score in all of them, partially thanks to my father’s training regimen.
I’d considered my options very
carefully one wrong choice and I’ll be sent to a brutal battlefield where I’ll
most likely die a horrible death. I didn’t want to be put in the frontline, so
officers and the usual military private and sergeant was out. Sniper was a bit
better, I would placed far enough from the main frontline, where the majority of
the deaths would be, the only problem was that I couldn’t imagine myself
sitting for hours on end in the same position. And while being a sniper put me
a bit away from the frontline I would still be placed on the front where the
greatest dangers lie. No, I need to place as much distance between myself and
the frontier. Artillery crossed my mind, the idea of bombarding the enemies
from a far distance away seemed appealing and then I was reminded of Jaunty
Jack, one of my ancestors who died a horrible death, and I immediately thought
NOPE.
It was at this moment that the
perfect job seemed to come to my rescue. The Commissariat or the Military
Police is a special sort-of department of the military. They are a unit
specialized and dedicated to handling morale of the army, investigating crimes
done by military officials and soldiers, and handing out punishment to those
deemed guilty of said crime. They usually work behind the desk and when they
are sent to the frontlines they are usually placed at the very back, far away
from any dangers whatsoever. And so with little to no hesitation I applied to
that particular department
It took me awhile to convince my
father of the merits of my choice. My father argued that the Commissars are
behind-the-desk job that’s unworthy of our family name. I refuted his argument
by sprouting some bull about how our family never had Commissars. In the end
after a long debate he finally relented and allowed to take the mantle of a
Commissar.
The day I was due to depart was
perhaps one of the happiest days of my life. What is there to worry about?
nothing, really except a bunch of paperworks and perhaps an occasional visit or
two to the field. I was looking up to a life of boring hours in the office,
safe from any dangers or any threats of potentially dying a horrible, horrible
death. With this kind of attitude I walked into the train that would carry me
to the Commissariat Department in the capital. As I sat on the first class
seats, drinking a cup of tea milked and sugared I thought to myself what could go wrong?
The answer to that particular
question, as I am about to discover, is everything. Everything could go wrong.
Very, very wrong.
~0~0~0~
