The Nerd Turned Conqueror: A Fantasy Harem Adventure

by Oscar Reeds

  I should talk about Connie, yes? She was born to a beautiful, Latina-looking Cybel called Ohnie. Ohnie, sadly, died after the birth, as one of maybe three victims of the new hybrid Cybornian-Girodian tech. As a result of early trauma, Connie literally matured to an 18-year-old in the next hour, maintaining all of the knowledge her mother had. By way of knowledge transfer, I gave her everything Aida had, and Connie the Unbelievable became the latest empress of Continent 5 of Cybornia. That was the last time I would see her in person for at least a year, but right then and there I was proud of my daughter – she was literally born to rule.

  Girodians managed to hook up their teleportation systems and use the collapsed star fragments to craft the prototype of the first ever interplanetary transportation device. They crafted it so it could go directly to Girodia, where new labs were set up to receive the latest hybrid children. After all, some of the fathers were Girodian. In less than two hours after that, and more importantly after one of my new power naps, they were setting up these portals on the Dahrmite and Ehre planets, as well as Cotahan. However, I ordered them not to do it on Earth. Not yet, at least. After all, I had a whole host of obligations to finish before I could come back to my home world. And one of those included moving onto the next planet.

  CONQUEST #5: VALAHAED

  My fifth planet to conquer was by far the hardest. Both Norman and the representatives of other races told me that the Valahs are the epitome of warrior spirit. Not only are they the most skilled and fierce fighters in that galaxy, as evidenced by the fact that not even Yarhakohn dared to try and conquer them, but they were also the best weapon smiths, manufacturing the best and deadliest weapons to ever graze or wound a living being. In short, these guys were absolutely fierce, and if I were to be taken seriously, I had to claim them for myself.

  Their entire planet had a sad sepia tone to it. There were plants, animals and oceans on it, but none of them had any color. In fact, I would wager that the whole place had three shades of brown to it, at best. The Valahs themselves looked unremarkable. They had lanky, grayish bodies with elongated skulls, four arms, a serpentine tail portion instead of legs, no lips (they spoke telepathically), protruding dark eyes that clashed the brown environment, lapsed chest, and an unremarkable skin. However, they nearly always wore armor, and this armor… well, it also looked unremarkable. It barely covered them. In fact, if I had a shotgun and just randomly shot it at one (which, sadly, I didn’t try while I was there), chances would be high I would hit one of his body parts with roughly 70% of the shot. They didn’t even cover their heads.

  But they barely needed armor to speak of. They were so skilled at weapon-wielding that they could literally shoot away any upcoming shot. Not because of speed, but because they knew how weapon usage went – they would calculate every shot’s velocity, the wind, the environmental obstacles, the distances, the angle of the weapon held, the angle of the body positioned before them or behind them – literally everything, and all of it within a millisecond.

  It took me all of five hours to conquer the planet, and it wasn’t easy. The first hour was the most difficult. The very moment we landed on an uninhabited area and began setting up camp, we were overwhelmed by shots. Roughly half of my manpower died, including Penna, whom I later revived anew, and whose name still graces this field. “Penna’s Final Fall,” I called it, and it was a monument to our conquest. But at that time, it was a battlefield. Surviving Girodians used their portable portals to transport massive ramparts between the enemy and us, effectively boxing us in. They kept using them to dig up huge trenches beneath us, and we all followed, shooting back with the weapons I kept creating and giving to an army I was also manufacturing by the thousands. It turned out that they were hopelessly outgunned by the Valahs. Their general, a seasoned one called Faran Ani, knew precisely what he was doing, and we were about to learn the full extent of this.

  Weapons kept banging at the ramparts, but oddly enough nowhere near their top, or near our heads. When the first one fell, I knew what Faran Ani was up to – he wanted to tear them down, and his army literally used their weapons to chop them down and have them collapse upon us. Again, more people died, but I was smart enough to send my best down the trenches – this meant all of my top Girodian scientists, the best Ehre commanders and Dahrmite infantry, as well as a contingent of Cotahi flyers. The remaining Cotahi I sent out into the sky, to begin an aerial assault. This was a mistake. In less than fifty seconds they were down, and it was thanks to the Valah anti-airborne warrior forces, or at least that’s what I was calling them. There were barely ten of these soldiers in their ranks, and their sole mission was to locate and knock down any airborne troops. They did this with movement disruptors, kind of like massive electric shockers, but instead of electricity, they would shock your sense of balance and you’d drop on your ass onto the ground. It all looked hopeless, and Faran Ani knew it. They were closing in.

  But I planned for this as well. Or rather, improvised perfectly. My troops managed to tunnel their way under their troops, and with some teleportation, they would open up the ground, and everyone that wasn’t part of my people collapsed into the wreckage. Faran Ani died an unceremonious death, crushed by the very soil he was protecting. We had won the day, and this whole battle using teleporters gave me an even better idea, which I was about to discuss with my troops.

  The second hour was also the first one where we made an advance towards the main center of Valahaed. For reference, the center was a gigantic city called Valah’Mira, and it was ruled by a despot called Ehteg. Ehteg, like many before him, was a general, and like all rulers before him, he didn’t acquire his position via succession rites. The strongest general would become the despot of Valahaed, and when he became old and unfit to rule, the next one would take his place. No coup, no blood, no questions asked. It was effective and did the trick. Kind of like electing a pope, if electing a pope were a hell of a lot easier. But I wasn’t yet even thinking about taking over the capital. After all, there was fighting to be done where I already was, and it wasn’t getting any easier.

  The next wave of soldiers was massive, at least seven times the one Faran Ani had commanded. By now we had built an entire underground system of trenches and “runways,” so we could at least hide away well. The problem was that they kept advancing. I initially wanted to claim their weapons and have my Girodian scientists reverse-engineer them, but with the advances being so relentless, that wasn’t possible. Instead, I kept pressuring them to work on better trenchwork while also creating thousands upon thousands of Girodians to help them. They had the basic knowledge of each Girodian scholar, but they were created to learn fast, so they clicked with the originals perfectly.

  The next general was called Oraguna. He was far more vicious, and kept on pressuring his troops to nearly kill themselves as they progressed towards us. His troops died by the hundreds, which was still far fewer than my own artificial soldiers. But I wasn’t about to stop. I was, in fact, about to confuse my opponent immensely.

  Oraguna was surprised to see an entire army of his own people attack him. They were, of course, my own copies, but they looked so dead-on that they caused massive panic and confusion. All of a sudden, a Valah was killing a Valah and nobody could tell which was which. Naturally, the trenches were so well built that I could send off any number of my troops in any direction, to the point where they would seemingly pop out of nowhere only to confuse the enemy. And confuse them they did, considering that Oraguna ordered a ceasefire. I wasn’t about to listen. At the snap of my fingers, my Girodians released several hundred portals above their heads, and thousands upon thousands of plants from Cotahan dropped onto them, eating them alive. Naturally, I gave all of my own troops immunity before launching them, so Oraguna had literally no other choice but to retreat – yet I wasn’t going to allow that either. We then launched a full-scale assault and decimated them, taking up the entire area which was under Oraguna’s protection. Now we had a bigger playground, but s
adly, the plants also ate through the weaponry, so yet again we were left without proper bounty. And the attack was about to get much, much worse.

  It was fitting that the third hour of our fighting had to involve no less than three Valah armies advancing at us at the same time. They were led by three generals, called Ihtar, Ornar and Velto. Each of them had roughly fifty thousand troops to his name, far more than any I’d faced before, and they were all armed to the teeth with their weaponry. Sadly, most of my troops, me included, were outside of the trenches. The only ones inside were the Girodians, by my strict order to do so. Most others were there with us, and they were making a circle around me – it was me, then the Ehre, then the Dahrmites, and then the Cotahi above us all. But they were all my personal guard. Directly under me was a hole that led to the trench system underneath us. It was here where I launched my greatest army up to that point – non-stop, I worked my hands, and in a matter of fifteen seconds I spawned fifteen million soldiers of every race I could conceive of. It was a massive army, and even THAT wasn’t enough.

  The onslaught had biblical proportions. Skilled Valah warriors would take several hundred of my soldiers easily without breaking a sweat, and for each man they lost, I lost a few thousand. Naturally I kept on producing more troops, but they were closing in on us. Ornar was in charge of infantry, and his gunmen were leveling off my artificial troops like glass bottles. Velto had lots of armored divisions, and their tank-like vehicles were menacing – they effectively wiped out my entire left flank. Just the tanks! And of course, Ihtar had the aerial forces. Cotahi had nothing on them, and literally within seconds I had no Cotahi left, so I had to create them as well. There was an urgency about us that had to be quenched – I wasn’t about to let a few second-hand generals beat me, no matter how powerful they were as soldiers. And goddamn, they were good! At one point during the third hour, they came so close to us that they began to swipe my personal guard. I could spot all three of them, and they were closing in on me, hatred and determination in their eyes.

  And that’s where I put my Girodians to good use yet again. Just as a reminder, their planet had portable large scale transporters, which would be stuck into the ground and level massive chunks of land. Well, I decided to use them UNDER ground, and it was spectacular. Three or four fucking huge slabs of land, roughly the size of a small island, disappeared beneath the Valah soldiers, and they broke nearly all of their bones falling into them. But those same slabs then came crushing atop of them, with minor portals appearing around my troops and me to absorb all shock from the drop. Every.Single.Valah.Died. That field was now mine, and even though I had no guns to speak of yet again, I had the best tactical advantage imaginable – I had the bodies of high-ranking officials, shapeshifting artificial men, and an open access to the cities that stood in the way and hid Valah’Mira in the distance.

  Fourth hour had the least fighting, as it was pure and utter infiltration. My artificial generals and their troops entered the cities, proclaiming a standstill and negotiating a potential ceasefire. Every time they would enter a single city, my Girodian trenches would tunnel beneath it, giving access to the streets. I could supply them with endless shape shifters, and they would kill off the Valahs living there. Entire cities lost their inhabitants, some of whom had families that lived there for generations, and I’d killed each and every one of them, only to replace them with facsimiles that did my bidding. It would be much later in the day that I would earn the moniker Conrad the Blood-soaked Butcher, and these cities nearest to our battlefield were the first to taste the full meaning of that epithet.

  Sadly for me, these cities had no weapons. Every time we would strike down a soldier carrying one, he would press a particular spot on his palm, and the gun would explode. From what I learned, they kept their weapon factories in cities closer to the capital. It was easy for us to move with teleporters along such long distances, but it would still be hundreds of cities away before I actually managed to conquer a city with a weapon’s factory. It was called Evna, and the people of Evna were every bit the warriors their defeated comrades were. Not only were they scientists that designed these weapons, but they were also proficient in firing them with deadly accuracy. One such projectile hit my arm, and had I not had my healing ability, I’d have died then and there.

  With these scientist-fighters, I wanted to have a different approach. Most of my Dahrmites and artificial troops were shelling the walls of the factory, while the Cotahi were circling the skies, warning us about potential future attacks. The Ehre were stationed in emptied buildings, standing their ground and holding the fort, so to speak. However, it was the Girodians once again whom I owe my victory to. Using their beautiful teleporters, they were able to shift huge quantities of weapons from one location to the next. However, they couldn’t do this for long; the moment the Valah weapon smiths saw what they were doing, they activated a kill switch, and every single weapon of theirs exploded, wrecking our own barracks in the process. They all killed themselves promptly after. But I was not going to give up easily. Just like Penna earlier that day, I revived roughly five Valah weapon smiths. They resisted at first, but I still managed to transfer their weapon building skills onto the Girodians, and had kept them alive as prisoners. Now I had both the factory and the knowledge, but more importantly, I had Girodian brains and Cotahi collapsed star materials. It was time to suit up – Valah’Mira awaited.

  Girodians worked fast. Their first task is to “domesticate” the Valah weapon smiths. With a little mind manipulation, the five I revived became docile and helped a great deal with construction. The new weapons I gained were spectacular. Lasers that could tear off your skin from a distance, projectiles that would use sound to grind your bones into dust, disks that cut through any matter other than what I wanted them to avoid cutting – the options were endless. Valah secrets were now mine, and combined with the teleporter tech of Girodia, they were even deadlier. But I also invested a lot in the armor as well. In the first fifteen minutes of the fifth hour, all of my troops were armored with what I could only describe as “more weapons than armor.” Nothing, and I repeat NOTHING could get through us.

  We spent the following fifteen minutes teleporting from one city to the next and leveling everything. For the first time in several millennia, the Valah troops began to flee battle. They had met their match, and it felt horrible. Imagine winning your entire life, only to suddenly be utterly crushed by an unknown man from afar, with your own weapons no less. Personally, I felt like crushing Haggard again. The bastard was my own Valah troops, unbeatable, bigger, and always winning. The feeling I had when I slapped him silly was the same one I was having during the attack on the greater Valahaed. No Valah stood up against me, and sure enough, I had all of their major factories under my thumb. There was barely even a local Valah left alive, considering most of their cities – and we’re talking a planet with about ten billion people – were now populated by my Valah replicas. The very last bastion of their freedom was Valah’Mira, and Ehteg wasn’t going to give it up just like that.

  Like all of his generals, he was a warrior. Ehteg’s skill, as I later learned from the military archives, ranked him among the top ten warriors their entire history had ever had. He once led an army of roughly fifty people to conquer an entire set of continents on a different planet. He was so good at this that he even had troops to spare for a local rebellion. Naturally, his weapons helped, but it was still fifty people versus millions. He was just that good.

  But he knew war that was largely different to this one. He had never faced a warrior with my power set. When I stood up to him for a one-on-one match, he too was shocked to feel my telekinesis. But his shock was more familiar than that of others. He had known this power once before, obviously, much like the Dahrmites, though Norman never personally told me this. He had never even mentioned fighting the Valah before. But then again, I never did think to ask, as I probably should have. All in all, Ehteg did not like being airborne, so he used his p
rowess to get back down and rush towards me. The rest of his troops were too busy dying at the hands of seemingly their own – I had made my artificial Valahs exceptionally durable, and they were slaughtering them by the thousands. Not to mention that the weapons all of my races used were several ranks above the ones Ehteg’s kinsmen could ever hope to produce. There was no doubt about it. Valah’Mira was lost.

  But Ehteg, to his credit, was a warrior until the bitter end. He was shrieking (still telepathically) and went after me with no weapons, no armor, and no real will to live. Even with my aerial punches and telekinesis, I was stunned to be overpowered by this beast. By now I was battle-hardened enough to repel him, but it was still a struggle. At one point, though, he snapped and just ran to a place in his palace. I followed, with Arduck and Penna close behind. What came next shocked us – it was Ehteg, bleeding and broken, standing between us and his wife and teenage daughter. They were terrified, but both very defiant. The mother in particular decided to berate me for my butchery, and she was the one who gave me the epithet that would follow me throughout my life. But I merely approached and declared my conquest of Valahaed, instantly killing Ehteg and stepping onto his corpse for emphasis. There was no fear in the eyes of the two women, and I knew that this was something they were prepared for long before I came here. It was, after all, a part of the Valah’s soul to have loss somewhere in their mind, and this loss was so devastating that they had no other choice BUT to maintain this mental strength.

  Girodians and the local Valah scientists (the few that survived) did not manage to remove this defiance, but their mind-meddling did get the ladies to work for me and undyingly pledge their loyalty. I stepped out to observe my bounty – a torn planet with buildings in flames, and with scarcely any natives left alive. I immediately ordered for teleportation of some male survivors to Cybornia for a round of breeding and repopulating. Before I came to Valahaed, it had about ten billion people. After my epic conquest, it was left with barely a hundred or so to its name. I had now firmly established myself as a force of nature, and the other planets began to pay attention.