The next day, they signed up for the army to fight against the demons.

Ira signed up as well, just to have an excuse to be close by his Host, not that he had any intention of doing any more work than absolutely necessary to keep up the illusion that he was a human soldier. His Host seemed to have recovered by the time that they were carted off to another camp where they would be placed in different squads. Due to the dire situation in the war, there was no time to teach anyone how to fight, they simply accepted anybody that could, no matter where they came from.

He, his Host and his Host's followers traveled on the same cart to the location. At least he no longer had to walk.

They reached the camp by nightfall.

The camp contained a few thousand humans, all of them either scared, stupid or arrogant. Ira could see the looks on their faces that belayed their true emotions and he was not impressed. It seemed that most of them were brave fellows that believed they were powerful enough to take on the world.

They were the ones that would die first.

Not that he cared.

Ira followed after his Host as she departed from the cart and found her way to the barracks. In his mind, he could see the entire layout of the camp, but revealing that would just spoil his fun at watching his Host traveling in circles, getting more frustrated by the second. And doubtlessly, she'd demand that he use the map to help her if she was to find out about it.

His first few Hosts had always expected him to relay everything to them about the area, all the dangers and safe-zones and where everything was. It got tiring after a while. After all, there was no rule that said that he needed to help them at all.

Systems existed outside of time and space, if a mission failed, it was only a matter of getting a new Host and going back to try again until it succeeded.

If multiple failures occurred, another System would simply take over without any consequences.

For the Systems, that was, the Hosts were utterly screwed.

Occasionally, there were multiple Hosts in the same world, belonging to different Systems. At such times, depending on the various missions given, they could either work against or with each other. More often then not though, they tended to blow everything out of proportion and fight each other to the death. Humans were such needlessly dramatic creatures.

Everything was always do or die with them.

When they got to the barracks, they all sat down on different beds next to each other. Ira managed to secure himself a bed up top, which meant that he could shake it and wake up the person below him every time he pretended he needed to go the bathroom in the middle of the night. And to his luck, the unlucky person that grabbed the bed below him was his Host, the annoyance that she was.

Ira looked forwards to ruining her sleep.

They went to bed immediately.

On account of the fact that he actually was tired, as much as he had napped in the cart, and to instill a false sense of security in his Host, Ira slept the entire night away without making one false trip to the bathroom. Which was actually just a small shack in the middle of nature, but Ira saw nothing wrong with it. He found it to be charming.

The next day, his Host complained loudly about the uncomfortable sleep, as if she wasn't already used to it. Ira ignored her with his usual style, not even budging when she pouted at him, as if it was even attractive to him. He was a System, he had no concept of attraction. Certainly not the human sense of beauty.

After a very bland breakfast, during which his Host made several amusing faces, they made their way to the training grounds where his Host immediately picked up a shiny sword and started swinging it around, grinning with triumph. His Host's followers followed along and picked up weapons as well, starting their own training. Ira glanced disinterestedly over the collection of tools of murder and chose a rusted silver dagger. It was of poor quality, unbalanced and on the edge of falling apart, but it had a certain character that he enjoyed.

Ira walked over to a doll tied to a tree and made up of straw, and stabbed it where the lung would be on a human being. He could go for the heart, of course, but he wasn't human and possessed no instinct to deliver a swift and painless death. 

And watching the hope die in a human's eyes was always fun.

A soldier walked over and looked at them sternly until they stopped what they were doing. The soldier cleared her throat and said, "Squad 748? I am your Commanding Officer. We'll be going into battle in precisely four hours. Prepare yourselves. Meet up by the carts at the time for further briefing. If you're late, we're leaving you behind and you'll be sent to a... less than pleasant location. Clear?"

They barked out a "Yes, sir!" in response.

When she was sure the soldiers were gone, his Host turned to him and demanded, "So? How am I doing on this mission? Good, right? The progress bar must be pretty far by now. Soon, I'll meet the protagonist again and he'll realize he loves me."

There was no such thing as a progress bar.

Ira smiled a hollow and disconcerting thing, and said, "You are at 4.3% right now. Continue working hard and this mission will be a success."

Yeah, right.

Ira had already filed for a new Host, on the basis of undue confidence and reckless arrogance. It was telling, that these were both accepted reasons. Whatever the result of this mission, he wouldn't be there for the fallout.

Lucky.

He almost pitied the poor sap that would be taking over the care of this Host.

The four hours went by fast and soon they were collected at the carts.

Ira didn't bother packing actual supplies, as he had none, but instead spent the time letting his imagination get away from him. He imagined his Host at the frontline of the war, hopelessly outmatched and torn into tiny pieces by pissed off demons. It was a balm to his immortal soul.

One could always hope.

When everyone was finally there, there were about two dozen people waiting of which half were followers of his Host. She certainly hadn't wasted any time to make her (supposed to be secret) dream of having a reverse harem come true. It was plainly visible that she thought less of her female followers, even when they met her standards of attraction. Ira did not understand the human need to separate the genders so carefully. Of course, he was in no way attracted to human females as well, but that was because they just made no sense.

It had nothing to do with the fact that they were women.

On the other hand, if they were stupid, it didn't matter how attractive they were, he was out.

Their Commander arrived and took stock of everyone present. She gave them all a frosty glare that was just made more severe by her gray hair. She clearly had no patience for idiocy.

A kindred soul, she was.

She coughed loudly to get everyone's attention and explained, "Listen up! We are reinforcements for a battle that has already been waging for two days. Once we arrive, you will be fighting immediately. Some of you will sustain heavy and permanent injuries, some of you will be captured and tortured by the enemy and some of you will die. The ones that die are the lucky ones. For the less fortunate that survive..." here, she paused and smiled viciously. "Welcome to hell!"

"You're never going to leave!"

The entire group felt a cold shiver run over them. Ira had to fight off a savage grin at the fear he could sense all around him. Hopefully, his Host would never forget the lesson that she was about to be given.

There was nothing more inherently cruel than war.

They climbed up on the carts. Ira settled himself down next to his Host, having the perfect view of her shaking hands. She had no idea what she had gotten herself into. The monsters they had been fighting so far didn't even compare.

His Host came from a relatively peaceful world, and she had died a very unremarkable death. She'd crashed her car, a fairly common way to go, and died on impact. She had never even had time to feel much pain. How she reacted to the sight about to greet her would clearly show how strong she was mentally.

It was not going to be pretty.

The first thing they noticed was the smoke.

It rose above them and the road they were riding on like the ominous sign it was.

The second was the sound of battle.

There were screams of agony and rage, the feeling of burning hatred poisoning the very air itself. It was still midday, but the smoke covered up the sky and made it seem like night. A fire raged around them, the crackling flames heavy with heat and danger. The closer they came to the battle, the worse it got.

Eventually, they were close enough to hear the yelling.

Sharp and clear orders were called out, the name of spells and wards and incantations falling from the lips of exhausted mages.

Desperation burned in the air like fuel.

The carts stopped.

Their Commander turned to them from where she was sitting at the very front. "This is how it's going to go. You'll go down there and kill all the demons you can find. If you know Healing or Warding, those Generals are probably still alive, so find them and report for duty. They'll tell you what to do. If they're not... make sure to take as many of those demons down with you as you can! This is a highly strategic location that we can not, under any circumstances, allow the demons to conquer. Understood?!"

"Yes, sir!"

They marched into battle.

Within the first few minutes of rushing screaming onto the field that the battle was taking place at, Ira lost sight of his Host. His map let him know exactly where she was, as well as all allies and hostiles. They were even helpfully color-coded.

Ira grabbed his rusted and unbalanced dagger and let loose his murderous tendencies onto unsuspecting demons.

He didn't spare so much as a thought to worry about his Host.

The ground was littered with human bodies, all of them having died in truly gruesome ways. In this world, when a demon died, it shattered into pure darkness, a force that could then (if powerful enough) infect another life-form and turn them into a demon themselves. There was no way to protect oneself from it. But in this situation, trapped on a battlefield full of nothing but death, these clouds of darkness had nothing to infect. Instead, they were absorbed into already existing demons, making them even stronger and harder to kill.

So the only thing on the ground were bodies of dead humans. Ira nearly tripped on stray limbs multiple times while he tried half-heartedly not to die.

This was neither his body nor his life, after all.

His Host let loose a powerful rare spell on the other side of the battlefield, a flash of light that took out all surrounding demons following it, and Ira smiled mirthfully. Lynne was powerful enough to be a Knight Mage, it was a shame that that was the road that led to her death. And the destruction of this world.

Otherwise, Ira might have very well left her alone.

A bright beacon appeared on his radar and Ira smiled with relief. The story was finally properly starting. After all this time.

The Hero had arrived.