Reborn as a Fantasy General (Army-Building Isekai)

Chapter 7

"He who wishes to be obeyed must know how to command."

Nicolo Machiavelli



-Grindlefecht, Boss Skegga's stronghold-


He watched the Kobolds groveling beneath his feet, slathered in the blood of their fallen comrades.

Slowly, he began to understand the words they were yammering at him. These little beasties were even dumber than tadpoles, always bumping and jumping and shouting about something.

He leaned forward, allowing the rolls of his fat, slathered in slime and mucus, to loll over the throne of crushed rats and dwarf they had built for him.

"You are telling me you let those rats beat you?"

The Kobold survivors looked at eachother, fear overcoming their tiny frames.

"Where is Gith?" he asked.

"He – he died-died, Boss," one of them barely squeaks.

He sat back and wiped his greasy, webbed fingers over his moist face.

He nodded at the guards around his throne.

"Take them to the pit of stilled-jumps," he said. "May they

"N-no Skegga! No, please, I-"

"What is our name?" he asked.

The timid Kobold who had spoken out nods frantically.

"Sk-Sk-Skeg-"

"MY FIRST NAME!" he bellows, his jowls shaking with the force of his voice.
"Boss!" the little creatures yip in unison. "B-Boss Skegga!"

"Hmpf!" he snorted. "Your commander died because he did not teach you proper respect. Let the pit be your teacher!"

"N-no!" they yelped as his honor-guard started to drag them away by force. "It was not our fault!"

"Take them from me," he said with a weary wave of his flipper.

"We have information, Boss!" a desparate Kobold pleaded as he was dragged away by both his flailing arms.

"You cannot tell us anything that we do not already know," Skegga replied, rubbing his slimy forehead. Honestly! These cretins could tire even the oldest bullfrog.

"They – they had a humie with them!"

Hold on...

"Stop," he called out to his subordinate guards. "Let this wretched one speak."

The Kobold was thrown down at the foot of his throne while his compatriots were trundled off to die. He didn't spare a look back at them.

"I – we – we saw him, Boss Skegga! He show them how to become big metal column! How to wear shields like hats! He – he reason they lives!"

Skegga rubbed his feathered chin. A human...

"Make yourself useful, wretch," he snarled. "Tell us where the rats of Skeever-Steelclaw were going."

The little demon jumped at the chance. "K-Knifegut!" he squeaked, remembering Boss Gith's speculations. "They – they must be going to Knifegut, Boss! It is small fort behind Gulch. Small, weak-weak. Will crumble if we hits it good, yes-yes!"

"Hmpf," Skegga replied, moderately amused by the little thing's audacity. "What is your name, mongrel?"

The wretch pelted it out like he was singing for the surface Gods, "Klega, my Boss! I is Klega!"

"Well, little slime," he said. "You have indeed brought us some most interesting tidbits. You will lead a detachment of our forces to Knifegut and secure this human. He is pivotal to our ascension."

"Y...yes-yes holy one!" Klega chirped like a songbird. "It will be done! Rat-rats die-die! Human die-die!"

"NO!" Skegga roared, puffing out his great larynx and shaking the very foundations of the ancient stone stronghold. "Bring this human to me – ALIVE."

"Y-yes..."

"Yes – WHAT?"

"Yes, Boss Skegga! Yes-yes most holy of holies Boss, yes –"

"Give him a detachment of three Skags and remove him from our sight. He shall ride out immediately."

The command was given to a thinly veiled figure that stood to attention beside Boss Skegga. A figure who could have blended into any shadow, even that cast by the great horned toad as he lorded over his kobold subjects.

"It will be done, Sire."

Skegga slammed a slime-coated fist down on his armrest. "How many times have we told you to refer to our glorious form as 'Boss'?"

The creature bathed in shadow bowed his hooded head, the dark crimson of his eyes gleaming in the dark.

"Apologies, Boss Skegga," he said. "Old habits are being hard to kill."

Skegga wiped spittle from his mouth and commanded his throne to rise, displaying his rolls of lumpy fat and gut to all the kobolds around him.

"What a thing it is to control," he said to his confidant as his throne levitated above them all. "How gratifying it is to be a God. Silas, do you not know what this means? The appearance of a human amongst your former brethern?"

From the darkness of his throne room, Skegga heard the twitching of whiskers and a silent acknowledgement.

"You are thinking it is the Shai-Alud, Boss Skegga?"

"WHO ELSE!?" the great toad thundered, laughter spilling out of his bulging throat. "If the time of prophecy has come, then it can only mean that our cause is a righteous one!"

"If you are saying so, Boss Skegga."

He ignored the chittering of his advisor and let his great arms fly out to encompass all of his realm – a world of ancient stone plundered from the dwarves, where their arsenal of cannons and powdered weapons would prove sufficient to finish his extermination campaign – wiping the Under-Kingdom clean of filth and ushering in the era of the Horned One – of Boss Skegga.

But first, he would make this human kneel before him. If he truly was the Shai Alud, then Skegga would have his secrets. He would hoard them like a dragon's golden lair. They would be his ticket to dominating the surface, once all this was over.

Then his 'benefactors' would know his vengeance. Those damned snake-fiends who thought they could control the world! His world!

The Great horny toad spun back to face his guards, and opened his massive maw – showing them the jaws that would swallow the entire world, in time.

"Ready our forces!" he called out from his flying throne. "The time of the Kleansing has come!"


***


Even as he trudged through a grim, dank tunnel with a squad of fetid rats, Marcus was in his element.