The Wastelands:-

Yet another month passed by on Etheldor.

March had come around and the snow was completely gone, replaced with green leaves and pretty flowers.

Everything was looking great.

The entire area looked nothing like its name.

But, amidst all this loveliness, another not-so-lovely “march” had also come around.

This was a huge army of around 11,000 soldiers that were marching through the Wastelands, crushing anything and everything in their way.

All the green leaves and pretty flowers in their path were mercilessly cut down and trampled upon.

And in this large army, was a knight in royal armour in front along with a royal-looking carriage in the middle.

The royal knight leading the army was none other than the king of the Showa Kingdom, King Qin Tao.

And the carriage was carrying the former king of the Nobunaga Kingdom (which was now called the Country of Eruchea), Wang Tian.

King Qin Tao had chosen to lead the entire army as all kings should.

However, the former king, Wang Tian, had chosen to sit in a carriage.

The main reason for this was his weight.

The man was so heavy that horses had a horrible time moving if he sat on one.

So, sitting on a horse was ruled out for him.

Otherwise, the poor horse would have been crushed to death within the first kilometre of travel.

So, it was decided that Wang Tian would sit in the royal carriage of the Showa Kingdom as they travelled.

The other option was to leave him behind.

But since they were going to conquer his old Kingdom again, choosing that second option would be pretty dumb.

And since he was sitting in a carriage, he was placed right in the middle of the army to protect him from any attacks.

The army was composed of about 10,000 soldiers that belonged to Wang Tian (The ones he brought from his kingdom) and about 1,000 soldiers from the Showa Kingdom.

The 10,000 were part of Wang Tian’s original plan and the other 1,000 were the ones that Qin Tao had brought along with himself.

It was meant as protection for himself and as support for Wang Tian.

Coming back to the present, the entire group had been travelling for almost two whole months now.

On the way, they had to travel while battling many beasts that had come out of their hibernation periods.

And due to regions with unmelted snow and the size of the army, they could only travel about eight hours a day. (It was also because it was a nightmare to navigate the carriage along with the army, but no one really mentioned that.)

Even now, they were still a few days worth of journey away from their destination.

The only reason they could travel so much on horses was that just like other animals on Etheldor, the horses were also very different from the ones back on Earth.

But unlike other animals, the only major difference in the horses was that they had way more stamina and stuff in comparison to Earth’s horses.

But since they had already travelled for nearly eight hours, they decided to take a rest.

Several small tents were set up for everyone to sleep in along with one large tent for the two members of the royalty.

This was where Qin Tao and Wang Tian were to stay during the nighttime.

In the tent, Wang Tian was lying on a large bed which, as usual, was begging to be put out of its misery after being subjected to his weight.

Poor bed.

A few minutes later, Qin Tao also walked in.

He had to go around inspecting the army before he could take a rest.

This much was a must as their king.

And once Wang Tian saw him entering, he quickly started up a conversation, half out of boredom from the journey.

“Hey, buddy!

You’re back!

You’ve done so much the entire day! You should rest now!”

“No, my friend.

It was just my duty as a king. If I can’t do this much, I am unfit to be a king.”, replied Qin Tao.

It was pretty surprising that Qin Tao was reacting the way he was.

Compared to Wang Tian, he had done so, so much more work.

To the point where it felt like Wang Tian had done nothing the entire trip while Qin Tao did everything.

And, coincidentally, that was exactly the case.

While Qin Tao and the others travelled in the sun, on horseback and fought all sorts of beasts and monsters along the way, Wang Tian spent the entire time in his carriage, sleeping away to glory.

This king seemed so naïve, it was surprising that he was actually the ruler of a country.

But, that was the case with many people, even back on Earth.

They might be really smart and stuff normally but tend to be blindly biased towards their friends and family.

Like, take all the conspiracy theorists and all those similar people as an example.

They might be pretty smart and normal otherwise, but if the topic comes to the illogical things they believe in, they would usually be very stubborn and would easily refuse to believe even any hard scientific evidence if it goes against their beliefs.

So, just turning a blind eye towards all the laziness shown by his dear friend was a pretty mild thing for Qin Tao to do.

A short while later, a few soldiers came in to present the two with dinner.

The food wasn’t that great since they were on the move.

It was just a vegetable soup, some dried bread and some meat jerky.

Aka, the standard military rations for any country.

The only difference was that the things given to them were of much better quality than what the soldiers regularly ate.

Usually, the “soup” was supposed to be just hot water with one to two bits of vegetables.

The “bread” was supposed to be so hard and dry that it was almost impossible to eat without dipping it in the soup.

The jerky was also supposed to be in a similar condition as the bread.

But since the food was being served to the king and his friend, the soldiers had packed separate rations meant only for their meals.

Qin Tao, who used to spend a lot of time with his soldiers, didn’t mind the quality of the food much and could even eat the regular low-grade rations meant for the normal soldiers.

So, he ate his food quite easily.

Wang Tian, on the other hand, was not one bit pleased with the food.

He was someone who was used to eating the best of the food irrespective of the condition of his kingdom.

It didn’t matter much to him if his kingdom was prospering or was on the brink of collapse. He just wanted his life to go on perfectly.

So, usually, while his subjects were living off wild grasses and bugs during times of severe drought, he used to be chugging down bottles of expensive wine and eating all sorts of exotic dishes.

This habit could be seen in his body shape. For such a spherical body shape was very difficult to obtain and even more difficult to maintain.

The only reason that Wang Tian was not complaining was that they were only a few days away from his old country.

And once they were there, he wouldn’t need to eat any more of this useless trash.

He has used similar reasoning to keep quiet during the rest of the trip also.

Even though he was very erratic and impatient, he could easily wait patiently if he felt that there was a need to do so.

And once he had forced the dinner down his throat, he quickly prepped up to sleep.

No need to stay awake after eating such horrible food.

The next few days passed by in a flash.

Wang Tian was just so excited to get back to his old palace that he didn’t mind the boring travel and the bad food much.

And finally, he felt that all his sacrifices and patience and paid off when he saw the walls of his old kingdom appear in front of his eyes.

Now, just a few crucial steps were left before his plan could properly succeed.

Just as Wang Tian thought this, he saw Qin Tao approach.

Right on time!

“Hey buddy, since we’re here, I have already sent a messenger to inform that king guy of our arrival.

So, do you want me to go for the negotiations, or are you planning to go yourself?”, asked Qin Tao after knocking on his carriage door.

“Oh, no, my dear friend.

You’ve already done so much by accompanying me here!

This is my problem in the first place. So, I should be the one handling it.

Leave the negotiations to me! I can’t call myself your friend if I can’t at least do that much!

But, if you really want, you can accompany me or even do the negotiations yourself. You do have more than enough power over the current me to do so...”

“Oh, no, no!

If my friend wants to do the negotiations by himself, he has full rights to do so!

Go right ahead, it’s your country after all.

And remember that I’m here for support.

They wouldn’t dare harm you after knowing the size of this army that you came with!”, Qin Tao replied.

This guy seemed like the best person to be friends with.

Unluckily for him, the only friend he had was a useless person like Wang Tian, a person whom almost no one would like to truly befriend unless their lives literally depended on it.

With a thumbs up from his friend, Wang Tian instructed the carriage driver to move ahead.

Naturally, soldiers also accompanied the carriage.

But since they were going for negotiations, they decided to take only 20 soldiers.

It would seem overly rude if they took any more. It just might end up being seen as a declaration of war.

Not that Wang Tian cared much. But some amount of appearances had to be kept up if he wanted his plan to succeed without too much trouble.

And so, the black carriage with golden decorations arrived at the gates in about half an hour.

It only took so long since they were going at a walking pace.

If needed in case of emergency, the carriage could move twice as fast while the army could arrive in just 10 minutes.

Arriving, Wang Tian saw the new king waiting for him near the gates.

“This King Harry humbly welcomes former King Wang Tian to his Country of Eruchea!”, announced King Harry as Wang Tian got off from the carriage.

He could see some of the knights bowing down beside the king, as was the custom when greeting nobles or people of higher status.

“Country of Eruchea! What a wonderful name for the kingdom!”, said Wang Tian when he heard the new name that had been given to his kingdom.

Wang Tian kept a smile on his face but was raging inside since he did not like the new name.

How dare this former merchant rename his kingdom!?

The name was based upon one of the great heroes of the past who had helped humans settle in this land!

And this guy probably changed it on a whim!

Technically, he wasn’t king anymore.

Harry was.

And this meant that he no longer had any say in the decisions related to his old kingdom.

But who was Wang Tian to care?

He was a man who even planned on letting his friend die if it meant that he could get richer!

“So, Lord Wang, to what do I owe this visit? Especially with such a huge army.

Onlookers might even think that you’ve come to attack my poor country!”, said Harry with a surprised expression.

If anyone usually visits other kingdoms, the escort may be big, but it’s never this huge.

So, it was natural for anyone to have a reaction like Harry.

But there was just one thing off in Harry’s reaction that Wang Tian found.

His tone seemed to reek of sarcasm.

Wang Tian could tell that the man knew exactly why he had come but still decided to ask the question in an attempt to mock him.

It sounded as if this new king felt confident in winning against an army double the size of his own.

‘If that’s how you want to play, I’ll put up some more drama!’

Now started Wang Tian’s drama.

His initial idea was to go in, negotiate a little and eventually cause a scene and rush back to get the army.

Now, he was moving up his schedule!

“You!!

How can you be so disrespectful to me!?”, shouted Wang Tian while pointing towards Harry.

“Excuse me?

Disrespectful?”

Wang Tian smiled in his mind on seeing the confused face of the man in front of him.

It didn’t matter what happened over here as long as Wang Tian could get the army to attack this “country of Eruchea”!

He rushed towards Harry and grabbed a hold of his hands.

Now comes the slightly more difficult/painful part of his plan.

Wang Tian used Harry’s hand to punch himself, giving himself a pretty awful looking bruise.

“You dare hurt me!!”

“DUDE! WTF IS WRONG WITH YOU!?

WHY THE HECK ARE YOU ACTING SO CRAZY ALL OF A SUDDEN!?”

Everyone looked very shocked by Wang Tian’s behaviour.

By everyone, only the Eruchean side was meant.

Wang Tian had included the soldiers he brought along in his plan so that they would serve as witnesses in front of the rest of the army.

Seeing that the crowd in front was too stunned by his actions to move, Wang Tian quickly jumped back and rushed to towards his carriage.

No need to waste time explaining his plans or anything.

He had to get out while he could.

The plan explanation and villain behaviour could come in later!

But while running back, Wang Tian tripped on a pebble and fell to the ground.

And, due to his excessive weight, he ended up scraping his knee while struggling to get back up.

This caused him to cry out in pain.

But even then, his mind worked fast!

“Foolish King!

How dare you not only injure me further but also damage my garments!”

When he was trying to stand up, he ended up ripping his breeches.

So, he just decided to blame everything on Harry.

But just as he was about to proceed towards his ride, a voice came from behind.

“STOP!

MEN! Hold him down!”

Wang Tian paused for a second when he heard Harry’s voice.

But in this one second, He suddenly found himself pinned to the ground by several of the Eruchean knights.

‘What!?

How are these knights so strong!?

The ones I left were the utterly useless ones!

How could they get stronger than my men!?’

Thoughts raced through Wang Tian’s head as he looked around and spotted his knights struggling to defend against attacks from the Eruchean soldiers.

He was then dragged towards Harry while his soldiers were forced to drop their swords around him.

“I get it!

You came here with a friend or something.

And so you shamelessly decided to make it look like I hurt you so that he would take pity and launch an attack against me!

Am I right?”

So this man was somewhat smart.

But he couldn’t do anything now!

Wang Tian was already somewhat injured.

These guys couldn’t possibly have anything to treat his wounds.

“Hah!

You can do nothing to save yourselves!

It’s already too late!

No matter what you do, King Qin Tao of the Showa Kingdom will destroy you!”, shouted Wang Tian as he spits on Harry’s face.

“Oh! So it’s the Showa Kingdom!

Thanks for telling me the king’s name too!

You see, I’m somewhat bad at General Knowledge. Never really paid attention in school.

But keeping that aside, we need to deal with you first!

And I plan on doing that the same way you did. Like a shameless man!

Paint!”

Wang Tian saw Harry snap his fingers.

And a few minutes later, one of the knights came back with a few buckets filled with paint, a palette and a few brushes.

“Don’t worry, I won’t waste it by putting it on you!

I just got the paint because I don’t have a camera!”