Well, I am not very confident about this but duck it. I had a fan fiction on my mind and somehow started writing about a child after the massacre of Katze Plains. If you have the courage to read the prologue, which is nothing more than a summary of the "battle" which occurred in the 9th novel from a soldiers perspective then I am open for feedback and improvement tips. Maybe you even want to stay and see what I intended to do.

Onward then brothers and sisters.

Prologue: Stephen Ambro

Even after being called to arms for the 7th time a hardworking carpenter isn't someone who is high enough regarded to complain, let alone to straight out refuse the call. He despised it, but it was better than to explain his actions before the tribunal and convince them not to execute that poor carpenter.

It has almost become a ritual to take up the sword and march with his fellow citizens to the plains accompanied by their hopes of return. Knowing, not all of them would return from a pointless battle. He remembers how he got that cold, heavy metal in his hands for the first time. The sensation of heaviness hasn't been caused by its actual weigh, but rather by its meaning. A tool with the sole purpose to kill. What makes a sword dangerous? It's edge? No.

The reason Swords are dangerous is that they are deadly in everyone hands. Even in the hands of the commoner Stephen.

"Protect the Re-Estiz Kingdom's future you peasants! Our heroic deeds are the stuff legends are made of!"

The most hilarious jokes were shouted by the kingdoms commanders for the seventh time. It has been the same every year, and it never changed. That also includes that the hardship of leaving ones wife, son and work also never changed. "Stephen!"someone shouted from somewhere and Stephen stretching his neck to find an old friend.

Aden Hagerst made his way through similarly clothed soldiers and they greeted each other like the old friends they were with a rude shoulder bash. Stephen and Aden have been raised in the same village, but they took different paths after marriage and while Stephen moved thanks to his wife into the city E-Rantel and became a carpenter, Stephen stayed. The first time they saw each other again was 6 years ago within one of these fights. Ever since then it was a ritual to search for one another and being in such an unorganized army with more men than weapons it wasn't hard to leave your assigned formation.

"So you just sneaked out again, you cheeky bastard?"

"Haha, is that how you greet me? How is your wife and kiddo?"

"She just becomes more annoying every year and that lil' boy doesn't know when to stop growing."

Both burst out in laughter and wiped the tears away. It wasn't funny at all but just talking about daily things on the battlefield made them laugh. But in all seriousness Stephen's wife is his biggest love and luck. Her parents made it nearly impossible to marry her, but he couldn't give up. They fell in love. A completely strange person suddenly became the most precious thing to him. And when his own parents wavered and tried to persuade him to give up on her, it just made it's less acceptable. In the end it was like a love story a bard would tell bypassing a village. A farmer boy marries the town girl. What a joke! But it really happened. He married the wife he wished for and she became his biggest treasure. Well maybe their son made an exception but that was negotiable. His now 10yr old had a knife and every time he thought he had grown he carved his height on a tree. Then he would run to his father and present him proudly that he has again grown for like an inch, whereupon Stephen couldn't resist hugging that little fellow and be as proud as he could get. Of course the boy recently struggled with it and tried to escape this embarrassment for how it is normal for kids his age. When did he grow up?

"Just as me! It feels like I am raising a tree!"Aden bends over from his own not stopping laughter. That made him snap out of his daydreams. Aden's son died long ago, sometime around the 4th skirmish against the empire, to an illness and when Aden returned from the battlefield with a trauma he couldn't accept his sons death and lived since then in his own world. An illusion.

"And your wife?" Stephen asked cheerfully with a forced smile. The friend hoped for him to have left at least one shadow behind but he hasn't.

"She's doing pretty well, but she always gets angry at me for drinking to much at the bar, y'now."Aden states sad as it would be a common problem. Another lie, his wife left him after their child's death because she couldn't live on with someone who lived in the past. She has once been at Stephens family home and told him how she couldn't live like that.

"Why? Hasn't he lost enough yet?"Stephen remembered asking her.

"You! You can't imagine what I am going through you lucky bastard!"she shouted and lost control over her breath. Stephen swore to see tears coming from her eyes while she is whispering explaining: "Imagine you son died and one year later your wife is coming to your bedroom and casually talking about your dead son. How he apparently caused trouble to the neighbors or played with their dog or how kind he was to an elder of the village..."Stephen was speechless and proposed her to stay, but she left. To begin anew.

The gods know where she went.

Stephen felt an immeasurable pain burning in his chest back then, and he felt lucky, lucky to still be welcomed by a loving family after a hard day.

Nonetheless, he felt bad for being happy while Aden probably hasn't even realized in his sick mind that he doesn't have a family anymore.

But none of that mattered right now, right here on the battlefield. All they could do was to pray to whatever gods they had and fight like every year for their return.

"I just hope that I won't have to come back for this childish game the empire and the kingdom do next year."

"Aye."replied Stephen not being entirely sure if that would be a good thing.

After wishing the best of luck they moved to their respective wings and formed up. While Aden was stationed in the front main force, Stephen was in the rear of the left wing. Before departure they speculated who was at higher risk here: Stephan, who was in the rear but part of the wing that would probably attack first or Stephen who was in the front but whose troops were more or less only to protect the king.

The 2 armies stared down each other on the Katze plains, the place where dead come back to life when enough blood is shed upon them. Like usual the armies lined up, the empire before their outpost and the kingdom between them and E-Rantel.

Some soldiers looked around like Stephen to see the man. Stephen never personally met him but when he saw him in the last skirmish fighting he recognized the whispers that slowly turned into tales to be true. Gazef Stronoff, renown hero throughout the nations, is Re-Estize's Warrior captain and is to be said the strongest sword fighter In existence. But that didn't matter to Stephen. The man was a hero among heros for him because if what he heard was true, Gazef was a commoner like him, like most of the people on the battlefield. And to see someone reaching so high made him want to reach higher as well. But one thing bugged him, where was Gazef Stronoff? Normally he would have ridden around the army to keep up the moral, but he was nowhere to be seen. Did he stay with the king? Was there a reason for that?

After 7 years of the same kind of repeated warfare even an uneducated peasant like Stephen understood how the things were.

But today has been different... why was that?

Rumors tell that this time a powerful magic caster would take part on the empires side and most of the surrounding soldiers couldn't help but converse about what is the meaning of all this. Is Gazef-dono protecting the king? The confusion reached its peak when soldiers noticed that the empire hasn't charged yet. It wasn't only Stephen who was a commoner but actually nobody had a clue why the empire didn't start with their usual offensive. Stephen made up a plan like last year, he would look for an opponent who wasn't that strong and keep him occupied as long as he could and then run away. He was a carpenter, not a fighter. That certainly hasn't change after 7 years of self-repeating war.

Suddenly a commotion erupted and stopped everyone in their chats. A dark figure was above then and flew towards them from the enemy camp. This must be this magic caster...

Everyone stopped in their tracks. If this is an attack, it's the signal for all of us to attack, right? Stephen looked around to find the noble responsible for this wing but he was way to fascinated by these flying figures. Shit!

He couldn't see much from the rear, but he identified at least 3 figures which now stopped between them and the empire above the katze plains.

The monstrous big one in the middle that made his skin wire did something and as a result he and both of his followers where in something like a column. This column was encircled by many strange signs and even though he couldn't read and only write his name, Stephen didn't recognize any letters. These symbols shined like the moons reflection on water. There was only one word to describe what was happening here. Magic

The moment this column burst into nothing something like dust moved towards them and for a second nothing happened, but then the soldiers, riders and horses started to fall one after another only to be embraced by eternal slumber. Stephen Ambro died before hitting the ground. He would never know what killed him. The only thing the poor farmer Ambro took with him into nothingness were his concerns for his wife Penny and his son Reid.

These were the last thoughts of the carpenter Stephen Ambro before his death. The "black wind" which was more than a dust that nobody heard or smelled slaughtered that very moment 70.000 men and used them as sacrifice to summon monsters which again butchered in a terrifying way another 40.000 men by stomping them to sludge.

These soldiers were a sacrifice to establish the rule of the sorcerer king Ainz Ooal Gown in the newly found nation, the sorcerous Kingdom.

"Give me back my daddy!"

"Give me back my daddy! You monster!"

Why did I throw that stone, asked Reid himself. He didn't know why; it just felt like the right thing to do. Natural, like breathing. His mother has been talking about serious matters Reid wasn't able to understand with a relative in a closed up house. He didn't know why everyone was so uneasy and didn't like the atmosphere, so he went out to catch fresh air. When the boy used the backdoor, he was able to hear a mysteries music playing, but he hasn't had much time to wonder because suddenly a figure emerged from the shadows. Anything that came after that was a blurred memory from an old man and the feeling of throwing a stone. The boy just wanted to throw a rock at that parade. And when he finally got to throw it at this scary parade, his mother caught up to him and hugged him tight as she would shield him and screamed but he didn't know why, all he did was to stare around in confusion. How could he have known back then that he threw a stone at the most powerful magic caster in existence? Moreover the new king of this land and city. He's sure that he was so confused that he doesn't remember the largest part of what happened, but one thing he couldn't forget.

His idol. The great Momon. The dark hero. A greater legend in E-Rantel than Gazef has ever been. And then that great hero even talked to him, shacked his hand and petted his head. And even though this was one of the best things that ever happened to him, it couldn't blend out the beating he received from his mother either. Shortly after he had thrown that stone, his mother slapped the hell out of him. Like a punching bag. 5 years ago he was so confused he couldn't think straight but recently when he thought back to that event he realized that it must have been his mothers despair after losing father that made her so angry. How could he, must she have thought, how could they both her husband and her son, do something so stupid? Just dying without her. How would she live on without either of them? Surprisingly Reid didn't die. The reason was, as he was later pridefully explained by a beautiful maid, that all subjects of Ainz Ooal Gown deserve eternal prosperity.