The Nerd Turned Conqueror: A Fantasy Harem Adventure

by Oscar Reeds

  I had to use this. In a bit of a bait-and-switch move, I charged at him with both hands forward, but when he put out his own hands to defend himself, I crafted millions of dollar bills, which flew right into his face and body due to the powerful wind our movement was creating. He was covered in thousands of paper cuts, and the screams, I ought to point out, were worse than those of my broken ribs or arm. He had not expected that, and he had definitely not expected my fist plowing through them. Aerial fist, that is. After a spectacular round of punching, Struza was all but incapacitated, just about to drop on his knees and not get back up again. All I needed was a single, well-placed punch, and his ass would have been mine. I wanted it to count, so I charged my fists with the eldritch magic and, in a rare moment of silence where I could hear myself draw breath, I charged at him.

  My face felt concave from the punch. The dark-blue shirt was all I could see, and the fist that managed to mangle my nose was that of general Orss. He spoke with an oddly paleontologist-like voice.

  “Oh, I’m sorry to butt in, young emperor Conrad,” he said, smiling, “I thought you two were on a break.”

  His fighting style was vastly different to Struza’s. In fact, it could be explained away as “rapid fire punching.” Every time I would deflect a single punch, five more would land on my face. At one point, I simply stopped trying to defend and let my instincts guide my powers. Telekinesis and aerial punches were the ones doing most of the deflecting, but the bastard was only fighting me with one of his arms. It was humiliation unlike any I’ve ever felt, and I was once glued naked to a flagpole with a hairy midget pointing at me and laughing (Haggard actually put a lot of thought into that one). In order to confuse him as well, I began to produce millions of coins from above, allowing them to rain on him. Confused, he felt the punch of a few hundred, but quickly adjusted his hand to deflect them, while fighting me with his other hand. I was dumbfounded; he was THAT good at melee fighting! I had to think fast, but instead I merely moved fast – all that fighting made me forget I had super-speed. As such, I began to lay my own hits onto him, actually landing one straight onto his dumb, black-haired face.

  He was angry.

  “In years, nobody has managed to graze me, son,” he growled, “let alone hit me. You, sir, are going to die.”

  His four limbs were a helicopter. I’ve never seen someone move that fast, with that accuracy, yet under that amount of rage. The earth around him rose and subsided with each swing, the air received many sounds of whips, kind of like a kid whirling a belt about. And these hits would have been deadly had I not synced my super-speed with my healing. I would have mortal wounds open and close in a matter of seconds, and if I were to be left powerless right there, I would have literally died seventy times over before hitting the ground. But my deflections weren’t enough, so again I flew up – only to be knocked down by Orss’s fists. He had a damn good jump, that man. Barely making a landing, I again tried my coin trick, but he merely brushed them off with the air his limbs were producing. I then shifted all of my focus on a very risky, very broad combo of my telekinesis and my super-speed. Billions of tiny objects were flying at Orss, which he of course effortlessly deflected. But my smile made him worry.

  “What are you smiling about, boy?” he grinned, but felt his mouth drip with blood. Choking, he screamed for help. The one thing he didn’t notice while I was launching that shit at him was the aforementioned sentient bacteria that were now eating him alive on the inside. He was on his knees, and I was approaching him.

  “Right, Orss, time to feel my—” and I felt my teeth rattle as I kissed the ground one more time. General Spuh Ceffik was there, using his own brand of telekinesis to extract all of the bacteria from his comrade. His movement was so peaceful, so graceful that he would have fit in at any ballet show. But his voice was crass and uncouth. He sounded like he had been chasing a sheep in a big city for two seasons.

  “That matter is not private, the public execution of an emperor,” he said cryptically. I was getting back on my feet. “My boy, you have put up quite the resistance, but here we all are…ready to make you take your medicine.”

  “Erm, can you run that by me one more time, there, general?” I was genuinely confused by his rambling, which he could tell.

  “Ah, sweet Conrad, how you long for a simpler, yet unattainable living condition that every creature of sapience craves,” he was walking towards me slowly, which made his rambling ten times creepier. “How you ache to fumble about in the succor of the autumn winds, unburdened by the gaping maw of society’s ails.”

  “Dude, can you, like, shut up already?”

  He kept moving towards me, but he didn’t run, which I found odd. I was expecting an attack, but none came. I didn’t even feel him use telekinesis. This was…something else.

  “Oh, woe be the one who aims to perplex the disturbed face of divinity of nature!” he cried like a Baptist preacher, “for are we not those who yearn to suckle upon the teat of valid reason and from within it extract that sole granule of hope known as ‘meaning?’ Are we not, tell me, oh child, the ones solely destined to break the mold of reality and ask naught in return but more secrets to break?”

  I fucking hated him at that point, so I decided to attack first. Yet, I wasn’t moving any closer to him. He was still moving closer to me. That was it – I wasn’t moving! I was frozen, and anything I did was somehow made slower. The grin on Spuh Ceffik’s face proved me right yet again.

  “Oh, Conrad, child, a betrayal of one’s own is merely loyalty to one’s other,” he kept on blabbering like a post-modern poet, or worse – a registered Democrat. “Feel you not the pinch of pain, the squeeze of suffering, the fist of failure?”

  Oh, I felt the fist of failure, alright. This entire battle showed me the limits of my abilities. Or rather, it showed me how easily I forgot I had some.

  “My child, if only you would UURGH!”

  I loved that sound. It was the sound of his throat freezing, while his entire body still moved towards me. He wanted to stop it, so he gurgled and clawed at it. I only made his legs freeze next. He was unable to move towards me, and I was out of his verbal hypnotic spell. He looked at me perplexed.

  “That was a good trick, boy,” I grinned like a maniac, teasing his nose with my finger, “but sadly I beat you like a trucker beats his wife. Yooooou looooose!”

  He looked pissed. They all looked pissed. It’s no wonder, then, that they all attacked me at the same time. Fekk was observing, not losing a bit of his cool. The three generals were combining their abilities like they were a single being – when I wasn’t being hit by Struza’s multiple bodies, I was slapped around by Orss’s super-speed and slowed by Spuh Ceffik’s odd hypnotic tricks. There was no way out. This was the closest I felt to a proper death that actually felt unfair and brutal. The three generals, I took it, were never as humiliated as they had been today. My mere act of victory had made them lose grace, and thus the only purpose they had had was to kill me dead.

  My healing ability was at its breaking point. More and more wounds on my body were left open and oozing blood, and lots of bones were broken. My telekinesis was also dropping in efficiency, as were my aerial kicks. There was really nothing I could do. The three stooges were pounding me into defeat, tossing me about like a rag doll. The few times I managed to teleport, one of them would be waiting with a fist to the face or a kick to the groin. No need to ask – they both felt just as bad. But the worst was yet to come.

  Struza, I believe it was, used his armor tech to summon a weird little device he attached to my forehead. I could only watch.

  “This device here will syphon out any ability you have, kid” he said, smirking, but still openly pissed off. “But it will do far more than that.”

  “Mmrmmmph…?” My mouth couldn’t move from the pressure.

  “It will also syphon HIM out.”

  I froze. He was clearly pointing at Norman, who had until this point been actively m
oving beside me, not commenting, not saying a word, not even messing with me. I had to consult him.

  “Norman, I know you can hear my thoughts” I told him, not moving my lips but merely thinking the words. He was nodding his head. The generals didn’t like that I was conversing with him, so they applied more pressure on me. I howled into my forcibly-closed mouth.

  “Norman,” I thought, losing consciousness slowly, “I’m…my powers are leaving me…I need to…I need…”

  “Kid, what you need will cost you dearly,” he said, “possibly even cost you any new abilities down the road.”

  “Norman…”

  “Just say it, kid.”

  I managed a powerful shriek.

  “Give me the essence of my whole empire!”

  The surge that came created a localized earthquake. All of the generals, all of my soldiers that were around, everyone that was close by – they all felt the effects of this quake. All but Fekk. That man was still standing as sturdy as a rock. After the dust had settled, I had the power of a nuclear power plant…mixed with that of every Japanese anime hero ever to exist. My whole planet, and the other eight I had, was now inadvertently pouring its energy into me. I was like Goku, in a sense, getting energy from everywhere my leg had set foot. And it felt good.

  The generals forced themselves onto me. Each of them lost an arm. After screaming, they lost their lower jaws. And yet again, after more screaming, I tore their heads from their bodies and ground said bodies into dust. The power I wielded now was beyond any expectation. This, I thought at the time, must be what it feels like to be God.

  But a god had responded to my new power with a charge. It was Fekk, at long last locking fists with me. He was nothing like his generals, He was nothing like Hanalquan, he was nothing like Staerg or the sorcerer that summoned him, and he was nothing like Urm-Shashkan or Farthemir. Hell, he was definitely nothing like Haggard back in the day. This man was raw power poured into a rock devoid of emotion. Every fist he pulled was strategic, aiming at roughly sixteen planned attacks my body had mapped out instinctively. He had swung at me with all of his might, leveling chunks of my flesh which, of course, healed the same instant. He made me lose my footing several times, and I was floating mid-air. There was nothing my new, godlike body could do that Fekk could not counter.

  “Conrad,” he said, avoiding eighteen hundred and two of my fists launched in that millisecond alone, “you need to relax.” I wasn’t listening. My body just did what I wanted it to do, and, more importantly, what IT wanted to do. “You need to remove this power from you. It is not yours to have. It isn’t anyone’s to have.”

  “AND WHAT KNOW YOU OF POWER, YOU GNAT?” My own voice surprised me there. I sounded like a sexier Christopher Lee, may god rest his soul.

  “I know of your power, Conrad. I know of the man who gave it to you. I know—” and my head began to buzz with horrible pain. Godlike as I was, I fell to my knees and screamed in utter horror. It felt like daggers ramming in and out of my skull, piercing the most sensitive parts and leaving open sores. “DEAR GOD, MAKE IT STOP!” I screamed, while Fekk spoke of something which I could not hear. Desperate, I threw my arms at my side and created a massive sphere of energy, which expanded at a horrifically growing speed, launching everyone – Fekk included – away from me.

  I was finally alone with my thoughts, if only for a brief moment until Fekk regained his foothold. I needed Norman.

  “NORMAN!” I screamed. “THIS ISN’T ENOUGH! I NEED MORE POWER!”

  “What you need is an ally, kid,” the warrior said, and his voice sounded almost impatient. “These wannabe conquerors will not be able to stand against multiple opponents.”

  “CONQUERORS?”

  “Well, conquerors, pirates, loan sharks, slave traffickers – you name it. The Order of the Steel Sword acts like an interstellar mafia, kid, and they don’t do well against strong opponents. Especially united ones.”

  “WHAT ARE YOU SAYING?”

  “I’m saying I can make one more wish come true for you, kid,” he uttered, calmly. I felt Fekk charging towards us. “A wish so powerful that you actually have to make it twice.”

  “WHICH ONE IS IT?”

  “You have to release me.”

  A massive explosion. Fekk was already preparing an attack, when my words pierced the sky, making him drop to the ground.

  “NORMAN, I MAKE ONE MORE WISH! I WISH FOR YOU TO BE FREE!”

  “No!!” Fekk screamed. “Don’t you dare, Conrad! You cannot release him!”

  “OR WHAT, FEKK? OR FUCKING WHAT, GRAND MARSHAL?”

  “Or you’ll destroy us all!”

  “YOU DESERVE TO BE DESTROYED, FEKK! YOU AND YOUR ORDER! NORMAN!!! IN ORDER TO HELP ME, IN ORDER TO PUT A STOP TO THIS WAR, IN ORDER TO DESTROY THESE GODAWFUL CRIMINALS OF OUR VAST UNIVERSE – I RELEASE YOU!!!”

  Fekk looked genuinely confused.

  “Criminals? We’re not criminals, Conrad.” I looked at him befuddled. “We’re a peacekeeping force.”

  A dim noise conquered all. And then a loud, eerie laughter.

  ***

  I’ve never made as grave a mistake as on that day; Norman was free, and nothing was ever the same again.

  Chapter 15

  I’ve always been alone and friendless. I’ve since acquired friends, but I’d solved the loneliness part first – the first ever person I spoke to one on one that didn’t treat me completely like shit was Norman.

  Norman was the ghost that followed me around everywhere. He was the pendant spirit that gave me powers beyond my wildest imagination. He gave me advice on how to beat stronger foes, felt bored when I wished for more mundane abilities, and genuinely enjoyed me beating the crap out of anyone who looked at me funny. I wanted to consider him a friend as well, and the more powers I learned, and the more independent movement he earned alongside me, the closer we felt.

  But that day, I learned that all of it was a lie.

  I was now on the ground, all of my power subsiding, and me left lying there confused and disoriented. Fekk was there before me, genuinely terrified, nothing like the man who had just gone toe to toe with a god. But it was the man above us that was the biggest oddity. It was Norman, literally in the flesh, in all of his quasi-Viking glory. He was hovering, and thunder erupted from his skin, surrounding him, frying every living thing near him. And he was smiling. A vicious, vile grin that made my skin crawl.

  “Norman…?” I called out, my voice sounding normal again, if a bit frightened. He turned to me, jaw gaping open, staring into my very soul.

  “Hello, kid,” he uttered, more chillingly than he had spoken ever before. “You’ve fulfilled your purpose.”

  “What?”

  “It was very simple, you see,” he said, slowly landing on the ground and walking towards me, purposefully stepping on Fekk’s hand, which made the Grand Marshal shriek. “I was sealed in that pendant for countless years, and the conditions of me coming back were somewhat…specific.”

  I kept looking at him, unable to move.

  “You see, kid, someone had to find me, someone crazy enough to venture into the Woods of the Weird Wolf.” I then remembered the wolf that was staring at me back then. It was still a fascinating memory to have, especially in a moment like this. “But you couldn’t just wish for me to be set free. No – you had to make exactly 99 wishes before you could do that!”

  I was confused.

  “But what if I had made that wish before the 99, or long after?”

  “I’d stay sealed, waiting for the next guy to come along.”

  “That’s a big gamble.”

  “It is, kid. But it was a gamble I was willing to take. After all, I’d have done anything to get back to my passion – conquest and destruction!”

  I slowly began getting up, only to notice some of my troops teleporting close to me. Penna and Arduck stared in sheer horror at Norman.

  “That’s the man who destroyed our empire
!” they shrieked. “That’s the man who…wait…” Arduck’s eyes widened even more upon another realization. “He is the one who defeated Yarhakohn! He looks exactly like the old texts describe him!”

  I couldn’t believe my ears. Norman merely laughed.

  “That’s right. I’ve conquered and annihilated many worlds, during the many thousands of years of my life. And I’ve always had different names,” he then stared at me. “My original name is one you will never be able to pronounce, young emperor. It’s a shame. Normally I reserve my enemies the final wish of telling them my name, but not you. You see, kid, I liked your style. You gave me everything I ever needed to finally crush the Order of the Steel Sword and plunge this universe into chaos!”

  Fekk tried to launch an attack, but Norman deflected it with frightening accuracy. This made the lawman cringe.

  “Fekk, you pathetic creature,” Norman uttered, squeezing Fekk’s head. “Let me guess – you brought THAT along with you, right?”

  The lawman’s eyes widened in fear, and he mumbled into the hand of my former body-mate. Norman merely slammed him into the ground.

  “The Obfuscator is there, no?” He looked at the sky. “But it’s rather well guarded, I see. You did your job well, Fekk. But now I intend to use your ideas and…go in a different direction.”

  He zoomed into the sky, leaving a trail of thunder which injured nearly everyone around. I approached Fekk who was barely standing.

  “Fekk!” I screamed. “Fekk, damn it, what is he talking about?! Fekk?”

  “He’s talking about the Obfuscator, Conrad,” a voice proclaimed behind me. I turned swiftly – it was Dwyer, or rather Hanalquan, limping leaned against Gene and John. “It’s a massive device that can shatter the fabric of reality on a small scale. Normally it’s used for the worst criminals, like dictators and genocide practitioners.”