The Nerd Turned Conqueror: A Fantasy Harem Adventure

by Oscar Reeds

  John the Lutist had it rough as well. In fact, his lute was the one thing keeping him from burning the school down. He got it on a bazaar once, when his dad was still alive, and was playing it well by his eighth year. Sadly, during the great storm that shook our town that decade, the same dad lost his life. He was the only man in the town who got struck by lightning in many decades. After the funeral, his mom began drinking, and in her drunken stupor she would beat him so hard that she even broke two of his fingers beyond repair. This made his lute playing far more difficult, and it even got to the point where he began to drink. Young, nerdy, and drunk – that’s what you want to be when you enter the school premises, alright. After her intervention, she drank less, but then began to verbally abuse him. And it went like that to the point of him forgetting long swathes of time which included his darker ideas. Once he purchased roughly seventeen gallons of petrol and a Bunsen burner. From what we could all tell, he was getting ready to burn down the school and make it look like an accident by not lighting a match. But the moment the cashier asked him what he wanted all the petrol for, he apparently snapped out of something and shrugged it off, not going through with the purchase. Everyone at school called him the Wannabe Arsonist for that whole week, and the bullying didn’t stop, or at least until they got bored with him and got back to me. You’d think he would at least frighten them into not making him go overboard and killing them all, but no. As I’ve said, people of Knee Dahcologne aren’t particularly bright.

  Dwyer did approach John and persuaded him somewhat as easily as he did Petra. But Gene was a different story. Of course, everyone messed with him, considering he shared a name with that crackpot. However, unlike Petra and John, Gene didn’t really have a problem at home. In fact, quite the opposite. He had all the money he needed, and then some, and both his parents were alive and doing well. That’s right - both alive and both doing well. Too well, in fact. He hasn’t sat down with either one of them to talk things over for…well, for the whole of his life. They kept going on meetings, speeches, business trips, casual business trips, srs bsns trips, etc. and he was always left to their maids and butlers. He never even had kids his age around until he started high school. Yup, he was homeschooled. No other kids, no socialization, nothing. So when he and Dwyer became friends over being bullied together, he was somewhat jealous when Dwyer wanted to focus on helping me. This held his attention for a while, until he eventually chose to go through with it. After all, it was a chance to earn himself another friend, possibly one who has been through far worse.

  And everyone had it fucking hard. Petra had her shoes stolen and scribbled on, largely with jokes having to do with Slavs or Eastern European trash. Once they even fed her those same shoes. John never took his favorite lute to school, but merely kept its photo in his locker and played a different, much cheaper lute. Haggard, of course, broke this other lute and tore the picture, but considering how poorly this lute was crafted, John would merely repair it in under a day. That little lute was surely repaired at least several dozens of times, and I have to commend John on his increasing instrument repair skills. Gene never had his money stolen. He had his pants and shorts stolen, though. Stolen, torn, and force-fed to him (if you hadn’t guessed, our bullies have a preferred method of humiliation, and it’s always oral). Most of his books ended up as kindling in the yard. Considering how often he would buy the same exact book again, no less than forty-five in total ended up burned. Money well wasted. And then there’s the curious case of Dwyer. It’s curious for other reasons, but back then, I hadn’t really noticed him being bullied. He always looked and acted as if he were, but nobody actually came out openly that they bullied him. It was odd, yet it was also accepted as true, considering how often he hung out with the other three. And now those three were with me, and we were discussing things.

  “So, there’s a spirit within you giving you powers?” John asked, for the third time since we started talking.

  “Yes, John. He’s named Norman and has lived here for a while.”

  “And you cannot get everything you want, right?” Petra chimed in.

  “No, not really. Nothing sweeping or Godlike, I guess.”

  “That kind of sucks.”

  “Yup, it does.” After that, I turned from her to Gene. “You do realize you don’t have to sit there and say nothing, right?”

  “Oh, oh yeah!” he muttered. I never realized this, but his voice was similar to that of Buckminster from the Ice Age movies, sans the accent of course. “Look, I mean…can you do anything with yourself with those powers?”

  “Like what?”

  “Like, I dunno…make yourself look different?”

  “Sure I can,” I said.

  “Inflate your hands until they look like Schwarzenegger’s?”

  “Yup.”

  “Grow wings?”

  “Yup.”

  “Make your penis bigger?”

  At this both Melissa and I blushed.

  “Well that seems like perfection to me,” Gene finally concluded.

  “I do have one question, though,” John noted, unzipping his jacket for some reason. I merely nodded. “You say that Norman makes all of this possible, right?”

  “Yup. He gives me everything I need.”

  “Well, how do you know he won’t just up and take it at some point?”

  “I mean, he might…”

  “Or how do you know if he’s even a good guy?”

  I looked at Norman after this statement, but then it hit me – he hadn’t spoken a thing for a very long time. He was just as intently focused on something as he had been for days now, but this time it was…different. Like we were too unimportant for him to even pay attention to.

  “Norman?”

  He didn’t reply.

  “Norman?”

  Again, nothing.

  “Norman, goddamn it!”

  But instead of a reply, he merely lifted his index finger, indicating me to shut up.

  The same index finger that was about to point towards the sky.

  “What the fu—”

  Janine didn’t even get to finish the sentence before a powerful laser hit the floor of our school, the same laser that pierced the roof and melted anything metal in the way. Seventeen more followed as we made our way to the exit. Yeah, it was a mistake to get back into the building for our talk, but hey, hindsight is always 20/20. We went out, and then I realized what Norman was pointing towards. It was a spaceship. An honest-to-God spaceship. And after its laser assault, it landed right there on the grass.

  The massive black door opened up, and roughly seventeen guys exited, all wearing bright-pink suits and helmets that looked odd. They were humanoid enough, apart from the flat face with five eyes, no nose, and an odd mouth which didn’t do any talking, a fact I was about to find out soon. What looked like a leader of these guys came out, slightly taller, with a uniform that looked sharper than the rest. He struck me as one of those people who’ve been through some shit, and are now men of commandeering stature and a singular purpose. Yes, I could tell this, even with his odd look and body movement. And he was about to speak.

  …in a language not one of us understood. Save for Norman.

  “Erm, Norman?” I said, and immediately felt a surge. It was then that I felt the creature clear its throat in a different, more human voice. But I wasn’t done there. “Now let me understand all of them that are present.” A surge later, I asked Norman to make everyone understand everyone where they were, but he didn’t budge. Naturally, he could not make others do things, so I shifted the wish into me being able to give that ability to anyone. A surge followed and all was good talk-wise.

  “Who are you lot?” I asked, others clearly shitting themselves behind me.

  “We are the Dahrmites,” the leader said, “and I am Hrogh Fernoosh, the lieutenant of Troop 99-17.”

  The entire troop saluted.

  “What do you want with us, Hrogh?” Janine
managed to muster up a question.

  “We want retribution,” he replied quickly. “Retribution for our fallen comrades, for our planet drenched in ruin, for our younglings weeping for their parents. We want to eliminate him.”

  I really didn’t like the way they were pointing at me, considering they were doing so with what looked like weapons.

  “Why him?” Melissa interjected. “What did Conrad ever do to you?”

  “Yeah,” I added. “I’ve never seen you before in my life.”

  “LIES!”

  A few lasers found their way towards us, and one shot John the Lutist right in the foot. It was the first time I felt the smell of burning human flesh, and it wasn’t pleasant. I quickly used my telekinesis to move him and the other two nerds we talked to mere minutes ago next to an open van, which Petra later drove to the hospital. Now it was just Janine, Melissa and me against the horde of aliens. Or rather, it was just me vs. them.

  “You lot really don’t want to make me angry,” I said, preparing my fists. They did nothing but growl back. And so our fight began. I remember throwing two punches and getting two in the head, but they didn’t fall. These people must have a different weak spot, I thought, so I levitated them all, which only resulted in them shooting off lasers everywhere. How a runaway laser didn’t hit Janine or Melissa, I’ll never know. During their little flight, I kept punching one all over his body until I found where they’re the weakest. It was a little below the inner thigh, in a hard-to-reach place. I then dropped them to the ground and used my telekinesis to remove what I thought were their weapons. It worked! They were flailing about trying to get me, but as I’d proven time and time again with my previous attackers, my punches didn’t need to connect to their bodies physically, so each advance was for nothing. I’ve successfully dispatched at least eight of them. The remaining ten, Hrogh included, kept advancing, and one even managed to pull a punch. It was the first time I was punched by an alien, and I must admit, it hurt like hell. Far more than, for instance, every punch my father ever threw. I tried to get up, but was soon overwhelmed by the throng. In confusion, I couldn’t really do anything power-wise. My mind was in a rush, and the adrenaline made it difficult to dig around for the right state of mind to produce any ability. Somehow, after feeling the fifth punch to my face, I froze them all, but only as far as their legs and arms. They were still able to talk, and from what I could gather, it was largely cussing.

  They all stood there, except for Hrogh. The bastard was tough. Even under this power, he moved towards his ship, and he moved fast. I kept focusing my freezing ability on him, but he still managed to reach the entryway to his ship and press a single button. When I approached his frozen, yet still fidgeting body, he did something very similar to a smirk.

  “You’ve beaten us here and now, monster,” he said, and that’s where I noticed how much strain his movement had put on his body – it was snapping in so many places that, had he been human, he’d have been a walking blood fountain. “But you’ve not won. More of my people will come, and you’ll be punished for what you did to us.”

  I snapped his head, which did nothing, unlike me snapping his groin and belly. The dead lieutenant just lay there, and I have to admit, I vomited all over his ship. I’d actually killed someone. Granted, that same someone was after me and shooting up everyone while doing so, but it was still a horrific moment. I then noticed that his troopers also lay there dead. Were they interlinked somehow? I had no answers.

  Janine and Melissa came out unscathed. They approached with caution.

  “You okay, Conrad?” Melissa asked.

  “Yeah, I’m good.”

  “What did they even want with you?” Janine was inspecting the lieutenant’s corpse as she asked me this. “You don’t even know them. Or do you?”

  “No, I don’t. This is the first time I saw them,” I said, roughly a second before I spotted the police, the fire department, and the local press approaching. “Let’s get out of here, I really don’t want to be giving any statements.”

  Chapter 7

  I hated hearing my name on the news. The same damn town that was effectively against me during my entire life was now singing praises to me. I have no idea how this didn’t go through to the Pentagon or wherever, but nobody made a fuss from higher up. And frankly, I preferred it that way. The less attention I had on me, the better.

  Tohrumi was brewing tea while the rest of us discussed what to do next. Janine was repairing our torn clothing and fumbling about looking for sewing tools, which my house had a distinct lack of. Melissa was leaning onto me, and I could actually hear her heart pound with fear. It was the first time a girl had gotten close to me in this regard, and naturally, I was sweating. Petra was with us as well, while Gene stayed with John at the hospital. She was sitting between my father and Yukio, the latter of the two barely wearing any clothes having just finished her session online. Danny was at my feet, wagging his tail and generally being lazy.

  “They knew where I was,” I said, looking past the people who were sitting in front of me. “Not to mention that they were expecting my powers. How is that even possible?”

  “Are you sure you haven’t met them anywhere before?” Janine asked, busying herself with a needle.

  “No. Not even once. I’ve only been doing this for a couple of days. And besides, you were with me nearly the whole time! You’d know.”

  “Well yeah, but I have no idea if you actually met them in the past or not,” she added, some of her old spunk returning to her. The kind I didn’t like, but could tolerate.

  “They could be able to trace people with abilities,” Melissa added. “I mean, they are from outer space, surely these things are mundane to them.”

  “I doubt that’s the case,” I said, getting up. I needed to stretch my legs. “Because judging by how Hrogh acted, they were specifically after me.”

  “But that makes no sense if what you say is true,” dad said. “You’ve never met them before, so how can they be after you?”

  “Maybe they’re not after you,” Tohrumi added from the kitchen. Naturally, I immediately turned to Norman.

  “Is she right? Are they after you?”

  He didn’t answer. Again, he was distant.

  “Norman, was Hrogh after you or not?”

  “The Dahrmites are a warrior kin,” he replied, avoiding answering me. However, he clearly knew who they were. “They do not like those who rival their own power.”

  “But he mentioned revenge,” I said, “…I think. Or at least it looked like that to me.” Norman didn’t budge. “How do you know them, though?”

  “I’ve had fights with them before, ages before this Hrogh was even born.”

  “Did they ever visit earth?”

  “I have no idea,” he wasn’t irritated, but I could feel unwillingness to talk back. “I’ve fought them on their world.”

  “So what else can you tell us about them, then?”

  “They don’t give up,” he frowned, but more of a frown of a thinking man than that of a worried one. “They will in fact come back for more, that’s for sure.”

  Everyone nodded, more or less agreeing with him. It was more than evident that they were going to come back. The question was when and where they would do so.

  “Would I be able to beat them?” I asked.

  “No, kid. You can’t beat them by yourself. The best way to strike them is to strike down their queen.”

  Melissa leaned more into me.

  “They have a queen?” I asked while holding Melissa closer to me.

  “Yes. She’s just as battle-ready and scarred as the rest of them. She’s fierce, if not fiercer than the others.”

  “Then what about the soldiers? How many do they have?”

  Norman shook his head.

  “No idea. They had an entire planet when I fought them.”

  “And how many are enough to beat me, even with my power?”

  “
One higher official and three soldiers are enough to beat you, kid,” he said, only partly sarcastically.

  “Erm, can you guys please open up the floor for the rest of us?” Yukio asked, apparently echoing the sentiments of everyone else. Norman shook his head, but I had an idea.

  “Okay, so allow for me to echo your words so that others can hear you talk, even if they cannot see you.” Naturally, we had to test this after the surge. Norman saying “Echo” made everyone’s ears ring, but they could now hear him, the mysterious man who inhabited my body.

  “Norman said that four well-placed soldiers are enough to even beat me,” I said, and then Norman took the floor.

  “You see, the higher rank you have, the better, more agile and fitter soldier you are. That’s why the lieutenant endured your freeze attack, kid. And that’s a lieutenant. Their colonels are even worse, and their ruler is an absolute horror.”

  “Well, can’t we help somehow?” Janine asked, finishing a bit of clothing.

  “Not in any way that works,” Norman replied. Petra frowned at this, which he noticed. “Trust me, lady, it’s better that you don’t help.”

  “So I can’t beat him alone, and I cannot count on the help of my friends here.” It felt really odd, saying the word ‘friends’ as honestly as I had just said. “But you’ve fought them before. How did you fare?”

  “I was severely injured, but I survived, and I’ve won,” he replied, indifferent.

  “But how? Did you have powerful magic?”

  “Not at that moment.”

  “A good position?”

  “Nuh-uh.”

  “Well tell me then! Don’t keep me in suspense.”

  He shifted his arms and crossed them again.

  “I had a trusted army to help me claim victory. You’ll need several thousand people to actually make a difference in this fight.”

  I looked around, but all I saw were frightened faces. My father had just gotten his life back, and there was no way he was about to stop living now. Melissa was scared, though I suspect Janine to have felt the same, even though she hid it perfectly. Petra couldn’t provide anything useful. Tohrumi was still brewing the tea, and Yukio was twiddling her thumbs.