From one of the cabins on the mountain came a loud yell of shock. Ira rolled over where he was trying to take a nap in his tent. But due to the fact that his senses were always honed in on his Host, even when he wanted nothing to do with them, he couldn't quite manage it. His Host was holding a meeting to discuss her plans with her most trusted followers, but it seemed like at least one of them was able to realize what a bad idea it would be.

His Host wanted to go to the stronghold of the demons, in order to find the Hero and prove her love.

In his mind, he could see how one of her followers, a clumsy-looking short girl with large eyes and golden hair, stumbled out of the cabin with a look of deep shock on her face. It seemed that this one was at least smarter than she looked.

Turning over on his mattress again and hugging his stolen pillow closer to himself (his roommate, unfortunately, didn't have one anymore) Ira attempted once more to ignore the idiocy that was going on all around him. Not to mention that he had heard his Host egging on some of the male soldiers into killing the princess of the nation for her. It was slow going, but give it a few more weeks, and she would manage to convince them.

Ira wondered if all humans were this stupid, or if his Host was somehow contagious.

His roommate was whimpering in his sleep beside him, but Ira had long since learned to ignore that noise. They seemed to be suffering from an overabundance of nightmares. Which wasn't odd, what with all the demons they constantly fought.

Hugging his pillow even closer to his chest, to such an extent that he would have suffocated it if it was alive, Ira burrowed deeper under his thick cover and sighed deeply. He'd turned down his ability to be influenced by the temperature, but he couldn't turn it all the way off, or it would be noticed, so he was still colder then he was used to. In his natural form, he couldn't even feel cold.

Or hot, for that matter.

His mind showed the image of his Host standing over a table on which there laid a large map. She was pointing at it as they discussed the best way past the guards into the demons fortress. What wasn't said was how many of her followers were going to die getting her there. Ira thought that his Host truly didn't think of it, that the thought honestly never even occurred to her. She was so obsessed with her goal — with the Hero — that she couldn't even see the obvious way that this was going to go.

Ira didn't think it was maliciousness, so much as just plain arrogance. She honestly thought this was going to go alright, that she would find the Hero and then they'd live happily ever after. She had read way too many stories where the cannon fodder counterattacked and got everything they wanted.

Unfortunately, this wasn't such a story.

This was a save-the-world kind of story, one which she was failing.

Zooming out on his map, Ira let his mind go blank and finally managed to fall asleep.

The morning treated them to the same routine as always. Ira fumbled around in his tent, still half-asleep and on the edge of falling back into that delightful dreamworld. He clumsily pulled on his uniform, a warm coat and strapped all his knives and daggers to their rightful position.

Making his way to the cafeteria, Ira collected his rations and drank the warm water gratefully. His Host entered the cafeteria with the same drama that she always used, followed by her gang of followers and a series of resentful looks from female soldiers that were jealous of her. Ira saw her preen in the spotlight, treating it as if it was her right. He turned back from her and went back to eating his breakfast.

Ira was good at his job, which meant that when his Host finally wandered off to infiltrate the stronghold of the demons, he would follow her.

Resentfully, but he would still follow.

Ira ate his food gratefully, thankful that he didn't have to endure hunger pangs. They were always so annoying to deal with. His Host and her followers were a loud collection of people, laughing and teasing and telling jokes as if this world wasn't on the edge of destruction. He understood that humans were fragile creatures that didn't deal well with meeting proof of their mortality, but it was still a little excessive.

They could do well with calming down some.

The other soldiers that weren't part of this exclusive club gave them glares and resentful looks. These were people that actually took the fighting seriously and had lost people they loved to the demons. They didn't appreciate the fact that his Host treated it as a game. Or that her followers were so jovial in the middle of all this death.

It made it seem like they lacked compassion.

Or just common decency.

Once he was finished with his breakfast, Ira deposited his tray to be cleaned and made his way to the training grounds. There were some targets put up by amateurs, but most of it was just open grounds where people could fight each other. Sometimes it was just a relief to fight an actual human being.

Ira picked up his knives and daggers and got into position opposite another soldier. He ignored the fact that the camp was being spied on by the demons, and got to work.

He fought and he went for only non-lethal hits and didn't use the sharp edge of the blades, which just took all the fun right out of it. When the first opponent yielded, he moved on to another. And another. And another.

It was a little bit like therapy.

Eventually, after hours of hard work, he ran out of opponents. When he did, he moved on to another favorite practice of his.

Throwing his sharp, pointy weapons at people.

Or, in this case, the poorly constructed training dummies.

Throwing them at people was far more amusing, though.

Despite the fact that he was on the edge of exhaustion, Ira spent at least another hour just throwing them from different positions. Running, standing still, even sitting. When he got really tired, he laid down on the ground and just threw them from there. There were some helpful people that kept retrieving his weapons for him.

Not all of humanity were obnoxious arrogant idiots, and thank the System God for that.

Ira didn't know how he would be able to endure working if that were the case.

He'd probably get fired and then he wouldn't be able to buy his manga or anime. In desperation, he'd have to take a job as an Observer, where his mission would be to visit all the worlds that ever had, did, or would exist and write down their original stories. And Ira just wasn't cut out for that kind of work.

There was way too much illogic and way too many plot holes in those stories.

He much preferred changing them.

Ruining them because of an incompetent or uselessly arrogant Host worked too. Ira was paid regardless. It was the Hosts that suffered in the event of failure.

This was why new Hosts were such pains. They had not yet experienced failure, so they didn't know the absolute torment it was. As such, they didn't perform their mission with the dignity and seriousness it entailed.

The only one they could blame for their failure were themselves, but a lot of them still liked blaming him.

Which didn't, in any way, endear them to him.

Ira's picture of his Hosts had already been ruined by painful past memories.

After his long and hard training session, Ira went back to the cafeteria for food, followed by a short bath in warmed water before he retired to his tent for some well-deserved sleep. He ignored his roommate, as was the custom, and went straight to sleep. As a System, he didn't actually dream; he didn't have that capacity. But he could program movies or tv series to show in his sleep while his body got the rest it required.

He could enter a meditative state where it would all feel like a real dream and where he also got rest from real life. It was the closest he could come to dreaming.

Just a few hours later, in the middle of the night, he was woken up again.

Ira blinked in the darkness and adjusted the settings on his eyes so that he could see around himself. For some unfathomable reason, his Host's face was right in front of his eyes.

When she saw that he was awake, she smiled at him and said, "Good, you're awake. We're leaving for the fortress now, System. Get up, we don't have any time to waste if we want to sneak past the patrols."

Ah, he remembered now. His Host was feeling suicidal.

He smiled a smile so fake it was probably physically painful to watch. "Of course, Host."

His Host frowned. "You could call me by my name, you know? You're the only one that knows it here."

Of course, he couldn't. He didn't remember it. It was surely in her file, but if she didn't bother to even ask if he had a name, why would he bother to remember hers?

"I know, Host."

His Host didn't see what the problem was, so Ira didn't bother to enlighten her. Instead, he packed his things and made himself ready, which didn't take long, given that he slept in full uniform. Otherwise, it was just too cold. He burrowed into the coat and followed after his Host to where her followers stood, waiting in the darkness.

They looked concerned, but brightened up when they saw his Host coming. None of them even spared him a glance, which showed how well he had chosen his current body. A true mob character.

Completely forgettable.

Ira followed after them as they started sneaking away from the camp, to make their way to the demons' stronghold. They were actually pretty close by, about four days of walking at a decent speed should get them there, barring any unnecessary drama. That wasn't to say that getting there would be easy, there were so many traps surrounding that place, not to mention actual guards, that it was almost ridiculous. At least if he died, there were plenty of unimportant bodies around him to jump into.

Sneaking past the guards and patrols surrounding the camp was easy, helped along by the fact that two of his Host's followers were patrolmen and knew the route they needed to take. As they were leaving the well taken care of camp, the snow that previously didn't bother them reached up to almost their knees at some places. Not to mention all the rocks and roots they couldn't see and kept tripping on.

Ira did his best at containing his gleefulness at the situation to himself. He didn't think they'd appreciate it. Everybody seemed way too high-strung.

A war about humanity's survival didn't get you serious, but a mission to unite your not-so-secret love with the love of her life did? Talk about skewed priorities.

Then again, humans weren't known for being logical.

Or rational, for that matter.

The moonlight showed the way for them, as the light bounced off the snow and lit up their way. The two dozen or so of his Host's followers lead the way while his Host stayed back, out of the way of danger. Considering the way that things were going, Ira supposed the only question left to ask was; would the Hero kill his Host quickly, or torture her first?

It was a genuinly interesting question.

After all, the Hero should have some feelings for Lynne, but the question was what those feelings would make him do. Demons weren't known for having warm and fluffy emotions. A demons love wasn't gentle, nor was it kind.

So did the Hero care enough about Lynne to kill her quickly, or did he not care at all and would torture her for the fun of it?

Or was he like his Host, a person that deluded themselves about what love was, and already convinced he was in love with his Host?

Ira really hoped not.

That would just be pathetic.