Hearts of Iron 4 Player's Guide to Save the Isekai World

Collie 1.10.3

Revised August 2024

***

Time waits for no one. It's a law from some school of philosophy that not many care to know. One could argue that time is just another branch of the universe. An astrologer might take it up a notch—the moment you wrap your head around knowing you exist, the time you close your eyes for the last time, and that's it. That's the one second the universe gave you.

That's why there was nothing poetic about Erich Kasper's death. The world has already been scarred by far more tragic fates lost in the memories of those who lived it. If there was any consolation to him, though, it was that this was not his world. And what he's destined to do will turn his ultimate death into an epic.

***

Erich gasped. A shallow breath was suffocating. A deep breath was gratifying. Mint was overpowering his nose, and his body twitched with each beat. Bear fur spilled onto his legs as he sat up. It was bulky, but it was soft and warm. He raised his left arm, clenching and unclenching his hand, twisting and bending the forearms, wrists, and fingers imaginable. Then he traced a finger down the arm and shuddered at the sensitive tingle.

He's alive. To make that assumption meant he was thinking—thinking, hearing, seeing, feeling.

Something tapped. A maid, french style and younger than Erich, was on her tiptoes. Her face paled, but Erich looked around and saw nothing. She then bolted for the door and opened it for a giant of a man in armor looking back. But the giant already had his sights on Erich. Once the fear kicked in, subtlety was the last thing on someone's mind.

"He's awake! The hero is awake!"

Usually, the Swiss Guards looked silly. Aside from the puffy clown costume, there's the goofy helmet. But add thick blue plumes and a romanticized face shield that looked like a reverse Norman helmet lacquered in black, and they start to look a little less silly. Ornamentation took priority in their black-lacquered armor. It matched scarily with their white tunics underneath its shadow.

A romanticized renaissance isn't usually what one expected the brain to fantasize on its last neurons, let alone being called a hero. Sounds continued blending outside, shouting, clanking; everyone seemed in a rush. But it was a rather warm December day without the buzz of a heater. The place outside was too green, too peaceful, with no honking and whatnot.

Erich got up and went to the window, and the brochure Niagra Falls stretched across the City of Verona and the massive lake. With a heavy breath, he wobbled back to the big bed and sat down, supporting his heavy head. It was satisfying, but his throat was parched. There was a pitcher and glass on the nightstand, the former full of condensation.

Scooting over, he poured some into the glass, meeting the cold and swallowing the cold. It ran down the pipe and into his stomach, and he breathed out, refreshed.

He set the glass back on the nightstand before the twitching on his hand stopped him. The bedroom was too sublime for someone who owed too much to repay the favor. Factor in the real estate and the building permits, and the price could make actual sense for once to break even.

Then the clacking came—footsteps, and many of them. It was a cadence. The giant earlier snapped into attention, and a bear of a man entered, built like a Viking but groomed himself an Emperor adorned in aquamarine with broad shoulders and a beard as white as age, his superficial presence emanated imposition over a surrounding full of feebleness. Not even the giants joining him and their armor matched the same level of majesty.

It's as if the giants weren't there to protect him. It's as if they were only there because of what the man wielded he could not contain. The cadence stopped. The bear was looking at him, surely. Erich focused on steadying his breath to care.