The north was cold.

The ground was covered entirely by a thick layer of ice and snow, sparkling every time the midday sunlight hit it. Even the river and small lakes they passed were frozen solid for several centemeters and in order to fish and get water, the various soldiers had to let looze on the ice with a variety of weapons, from spears to swords to axes. All ice that they managed to dislodge was then melted down to water, which was used to cook food and drink. Their army had thousands, they couldn't afford to waste such precious resources.

They had stopped at the capital about a week into the journey, where all the carts had been filled to the brim with supplies, food, medicine and clothes among them. Not to mention the weapons. While magic was useful, it eventually ran out. In that situation, having a blade to rely on meant you could at least have a chance to reach the healers.

Ira hadn't entered the capital because, quite frankly, he held no interest in it. To him, it was just a city like any other. Once you had seen one, you had seen them all.

His Host on the other hand, had almost been left behind because she spent so long in the capital. She had used up all of the money she had buying pretty accessories and the like, all useless objects for a war. She was now at the very back of the army, together with everyone else who had had to run to catch up. This included essentially all of her followers, except those who hadn't entered the city because they had been on supply gathering duty.

Ira was still somewhere in the middle of the army when they finally reached the military camp up in the north, amongst the snow and cold.

The camp was situated on snow-covered sloped mountain, where there were hundreds of tents, and even some smaller cabins, spread out over quite a distance and height. The snow covered the tents and cabins as well, giving some natural camouflage to the otherwise eye-catching sight.

Ira followed along behind the other soldiers to one of the soldiers that had already been stationed at the camp, holding a stack of paper and standing leaning against a wall of a wooden cabin. The man, with bandages covering about half of his face, including an eye, was directing every newcomer to their sleeping locations. Ira couldn't remember the name of the body he was possessing, so it was good that he had applied to the army with his actual name. This world, after all, didn't have anything that worked as IDs.

You could claim to be anyone you wanted.

Eventually, fter hours of waiting in a slow mpving line, it was his turn. The soldier didn't even glance at him as he asked, "Name?"

"Ira Snow."

He'd had to use this body's original last name when he filled out his application, but at least it was easier to remember then the overly complicated first name.

The soldiers hummed and said, "Okay. You're in tent 423-F in the east part of the camp. Take this map and follow the directions. Next!"

Ira accepted the map he was handed, despite the fact that he didn't it at all, and started making his way through the insanely big camp to get to his new tent. He didn't know how long they were going to be staying here, but he needed to establish that he was the BOSS to his new roommate. Otherwise, misunderstandings might evolve, and no-one wanted that.

There would be unfortunate casualties. People might even get caught in the crossfire. And no-one wanted a repeat of that unfortunate accident.

That would just be an absolute tragedy.

The tent he was assigned was about the same size as the last one, before they had started the two and a half long journey to this camp. Ira crawled in to find that it was empty, apparently his roommate had yet to arrive, and started making it comfortable. He arranged things just the way he liked them and fluffed up the pillow he claimed as his. It was the fluffier and more comfortable one.

About an hpur after he had finished and was just lazying about, a clear voice signified the coming of hus roommate. As soon as his roommate crawled far enough in to see Ira's face, his entire face crumpled and a look of deep despair toom over his eyes.

This was his old roommate, that Ira had had at the old camp. Talk about good luck. Now he didn't have to train a new one.

"Isn't this a lovely coincidence?" Ira smiled at his new/old roommate.

What good fortune!

The man abruptly fainted.

Ira tilted his head sideways in thought. Humans were such odd creatures, weren't they?

This time, the battle they were to fight in was experincing a lull in fighting when they arrived, so they had about two days to rest after the long march before they were sent off into battle.

During this time, the Hero had arrived at the demons camp, on the other side of tge mountain. Three months was certainly enough time to become a scarily powerful demon when one had the protagonist's halo.

About as difficult as stealing candy from a baby.

Just with, you know, lethal danger to motivate you to do the stealing in the first place.

At this point, Ira hadn't seen his Host with his pysical eyes in months, not that that was a bad thing. But now he was debating with himself about whether he should tell her or not that the so-called love of her life would be present in the upcoming battle. On the other side.

As an enemy.

But... Ira had no obligation to tell his Host anything and the öast few months has proved that she didn't even think about him. Why shound he have to go out pf his way for her? Anyone could tell that she didn't truly love the the Hero. In order to do that, she would actually have to get to know him. He wasn't sure why his Host was so fixated on him, but it wasn't love.

A crush maybe, or a serious case of hero-worship, but not true love.

Not the kind of love that could bridge the gap between worlds.

Between universes.

The battlefield wasn't as big of a mess as the last one they had been on when they arrived. During the lull in fighting, somebody had obviously gone around and collected all the bodies to burn, which was what that odd smell had been when he had turned his sense of smell back on again after arriving at camp. Pn the other side of the field, covered by snow, there was hundreds of demons that were beginning to arrive.

The Hero, on the other hand, had not yet arrived.

Ira spun the dagger in his hand. He stood next to his roommate and potential new body on the field at a fairly flat piece of the mountain. His Host was on anpther part of the battlefield with the other powerful mages. Ira was only a common soldier that couldn't even use magic, so he was pretty much forgotten by the brass. But demons were attracted to pure strength, which meant that they essentially ignored him at the beginning of battles, so it was perfectly fine with him.

Then they figured out that they couldn't absorb the stronger soldiers, and everybody was fair game.

It was actually fun.

The battle commenced with the sound of a horn echoing over the battlefield.

At once, as if they had practiced this a thousand times, everybody started running, rushing towards the demons. Ira followed along by the flow and atruck hard and fast when he reached the lines of demons, who were running as well. Being at the very front of the battle line meant he had to fun fast not to get trampled by his own allies.

As always, fighting in a large battle as a common soldier was fun, becuase nobody kept an eye on you. You were free to fight as dirty as you liked. Ira especially enjoyed the part where he got to eviscerate demons that thought he was easy prey. And if he happened to kill some humans along the way...

Well, nobody could prove that it wasn't an accident.

Ira didn't tear through the battlefield so much as he just stayed in one place and killed anything that came even remotely near him. There were a lot of unfortunate victims of his knife and dagger that way.

But there also wasn't anybody who cared nearby. The people he just happend to kill becuase they got in his way, were common soldiers like him. They held no value to the brass and nobody would even notice them dying.

Much less throw him in jail for it.

A change in hus map nade Ira turned around and stare in another direction. He couldn't see anything with his physical eyes, but his mental one was searching for that broght beacon he would be able to recognize anywhere. Somewhere out there on the battlefield was the Hero, the protagonist of the story. Now if only he could find him...

"You're a very bloodthirsty little thing, aren't you?"

Glancing over his shoulder, Ira raked his eyes over the body about a step behind him. He knew very well who this was, but for the sake of not appearning all-knowing, he asked, "And who are you?"

"Alaric Gold." the demon, the Hero, answered.

Ira rose an eyebrow and decided to ignore him. It didn't matter if he got killed for it. "Well, it was nice meeting you Allie, but I've got things to do."

With that, he walked away.

Surprsingly, he wasn't killed for it. Nor did any demon come close to him for quite some time, so to combat his boredom, he had to hunt them down actively. That was the first time he had ever been searched out deliberately by a main character not his Host. Wonder what was wrong with that man?

Must be something quite serious.

The battle ended with a lot more fanfare than it deserved. Ira decided that he should probably go find his Host, though he knew full well that she was still alive. It seemed like something he should do after a battle, just to be polite.

He found his Host in a medical tent, being treated by a male healer that she had clearly been able to turn into her follower if the intense blush was any indication. Ira ignored the feeling of privacy they gave off, and intruded into their personal bubble with intentional rudeness.

Yeah, there was no way his Host was actually in love with the Hero.

His Host glared at him the moment she noticed him. "System, you can't come by unannounced. Why are you here?"

Ira just smiled at her, the fakest one he could. "The Hero was present in todays battle. I wanted to make sure you weren't dead."

His Host starec at him for a tense minute and then suddenly started crying and sniffling. "I know he was there. I even... even spoke to him. And he was so mean. He called me a weakling and said that I don't have any potential. And he... he said that he doesn't love me. That he has someone else."

His Host had a vicious look in her eyes when she demanded, "Who? Who does he love, System?"

Humming in thought, Ira answered. "That would be the Princess, Host."

"The Princess..." his Host growled and even her eyes shone with her power. She was clearly furious.

That couldn't lead to a good thing.

Maybe he should stop the clearly nefarious plans she was developing?

But that would be a lot of effort for somebody he didn't care about.

Better to just let her be and experience the sharp sword of failure (and knights) on her own. Surely she would just grow in her character for it.

Oh, it would be hilarious.