Homesteading in a fantasy world

Vivienne stops her army just before they make it into extreme arrow range. She had no reason to fear the mages against her. She could easily defend against them but added attacks from arrows might prove dangerous. However even more dangerous was the man who stood far in front of his army with two other men. That made Vivienne smile. That meant that they wanted to talk before anything went down. She would be able to use this to her advantage.

Before she could enact her plan everyone on the battlefield shivered. The wind had changed direction and instantly it caused an even colder wind to encompass the surroundings. Only a few moments later one by one people looked up. Curses were heard from both armies as they could all see snow slowly starting to fall. Fortunately, the speed of the wind slowed so at least they wouldn't have a blizzard on their hands.

Vivienne didn’t let herself be distracted and quickly cast a small spell to enhance her voice. I am willing to let you live if you hand Rich Dirt over to me and lay down your arms. This is the only ounce of mercy I will give you.” Her voice carried a long distance, but she was disappointed when the United Freeholds soldiers didn't even look at each other to see what others would think.

Rich smiled when he heard that. “You can head back to the defences.” He said to the two people beside him. Both commanders were outraged by their enemy’s demands. They had never understood why they would even try diplomacy. Everyone had known that there would be no reasoning with The Slicer but now all the puzzle pieces fit together. In unison they said. “We will not leave you here it is too dangerous you must return with us.”

Rich let out a defeated sigh. “I was not asking you it was a direct order.” That shut the two commanders up, but they still wanted to argue. They, however, saw the look on Rich’s face. There was no convincing him. They just had to hope their general knew what he was doing.

They both gave a salute and hurried back to the defences. When they were about halfway back. Rich’s powerful voice was heard by all.

“Your hostile intent is noted Vivienne “The Slicer” Hearthweaver. I find your reason for war weak. The way you assembled your so-called army of yours is pathetic. You have condemned so many to death when all you needed to do was challenge me to get your revenge. I was the one who fought your party members, and I was the one who won. You know what I do not even remember his name.”

At first, Vivienne was disappointed. She had hoped that Rich would need to come closer so he could give his response, but Rich could amplify his voice ending her small scheme. The words, however, made The Slicer angry. Eventually, she could barely see straight. She wanted to rush him and slice him into small pieces but that smirk on his face made her use the last of her willpower to calm herself down.

While she did not attack, she could not hold back her words. “You arrogant bastard. Just because you have gained a little power you think you’re a hotshot now. You think yourself a hero, but you need to learn your place in the world.”

"SILENCE,” yelled Rich out of pure anger. Everyone heard this as this one word contained so much power and emotion. A few people who were only level 1 collapsed from hearing it. The world itself stopped all other sounds before slowly things returned to normal.

Rich was furious and eventually, he spoke again. “Never again call me a hero. You do not know the meaning of the word and I will never experience that pain again.” Rich could not hold back the memories that came with being called a hero.

He was once called that, but he will never forget how the very people who called him his friends and comrades lost their spark. They followed him into countless battles and one by one they all died or even worse were left empty husks by the actions Rich commanded them to do. Rich had promised himself that he would never be a hero again, knowing what the price for being one was.

Vivienne was shocked for a moment. That power was shocking but to her mind, it must have just been an ability and not an indicator of how powerful her enemy was. She had succeeded in making Rich angry and she wasn't going to let go of that opportunity. If he attacked her when she was so close to her army, she would have all the advantages.

“You don’t command me, Hero.” That was all The Slicer was able to speak. As soon as Rich heard the word hero he pulled this sword's tip out of the ground and rushed The Slicer with all he had while yelling. “I am what becomes of a hero who lives too long.”

Vivienne had not realized her mistake. For most other opponents making them angry would make them lose reason and would give you a better chance at defeating them. Rich, however, had long ago learned to use his anger to fuel his fighting.

In the Third World War back on Earth where battles lasted for weeks and months. During those times finding something to give you fuel to keep going was hard and many broke down never to recover again. Rich had found a way to keep fighting. He would use his anger of losing his friends to fuel his body. Vivienne wasn’t facing an unthinking angry Rich instead she was facing someone who was fueling his already impressive capabilities with absolute anger and resentment.

The Slicer, however, has fought for many years, especially during the last few. She has grown strong with the amount of killing she has done in the last few months giving her lots of stat points and levels.

But even that barely helped her. She wasn't able to use any of the complicated spells that she had planned to deal with Rich. He was moving so fast that she had to rely on spell abilities. With them, she was fast enough to react to the speed at which Rich was closing in.

A mana shield appeared a few feet in front of her. To the people who couldn't see mana the air only wavers a bit but others who could see they saw a blueish shield that Rich was about to flatten himself against.

The slicer had expected Rich to try to slow down or go around the shield. Her eyes widened even more then she noticed him moving his shoulder in front of him like someone who was trying to bash through a door.

A huge amount of energy rushed out of Rich reinforcing his body. To everyone's surprise, he just broke through the mana shield while pumping more energy into his sword to finish this fight with one strike.

The Slicer and everyone else who could see mana and energy was terrified to see what was happening. Usually, as soon as mana encountered energy mana started to eat energy at a fast pace. Currently, it almost looked like energy was eating mana. This, however, wasn't the case but the usual ratio of mana versus energy was a lot lower and the huge amount of energy made it look like that.

The Slicer had finally activated her accelerated mind ability at full strength. She was glad that she had a few traits that helped her mind otherwise she wouldn't have been able to respond in time. Now she had a little bit of time, but she couldn’t keep her mind accelerated to such a degree. She had to rely on her spell abilities to gain distance, so she started out with her most powerful spell ability mana slice.

Mana slice flew out aiming for one of Rich’s hands, but he was able to block it with his sword cutting through the spell making it useless. Once again, his energy should be losing, and his own enchantment of his blade should have been eaten but that didn't happen. While Rich did lose more energy defending against mana at the current expenditure, he would have more than enough to win a resource battle.

The slicer continued to launch spells faster and faster but each of them was cut down while Rich was slowly approaching. Vivienne was so used to her spell ability that she could use her other hand to cast another spell. She used an air bomb which wasn't actually a battle spell but was used to extinguish wildfires. She exploded it between herself and Rich so they would both be blown backwards giving her enough time to cast a more complex spell.

Just before the spell exploded Rich buried his sword halfway into the dirt while kneeling on one leg and making himself as heavy as possible. He expected an air-type spell as he recognized that element inside the spell. He had seen a similar structure plenty of times when Goose used air manipulation to accelerate explosively.

Vivienne was flying through the air concentrating on casting a stabilise spell which helped her land without taking any damage. She immediately started to cast her body buff spells so she could better react, but she almost lost her concentration when she saw that Rich hadn't been blown back and was once again rushing towards her.

Luckily she was able to get far enough away to finish casting her spell before she had to dodge a strike from Rich’s sword. With a smile on her face, she quickly got up. Rich’s attack had left him off balance and close to her. She landed a heavy blow with her fist to Rich’s side expecting to break ribs or kill him outright. Her smile instantly froze when a hit that should’ve killed a low first-rank warrior didn't have any effect on Rich.