Heller Pass, Hades's home.
The second night after their escape.
Hades sat on the ground in silence, his left arm carefully wrapped in bandages. Holding a little stick, he stared blankly at the roast horse meat hanging over the fire in the middle of the room.
Don't ask why he could build a fire in the middle of the house. Just look at this little mud house, where half the earthen wall by the door had collapsed and turned it into a semi-open-air mansion!
After Hades escaped the Pale Laugher's pursuit range, those bizarre creatures had flown into a rage and smashed down half the wall of his house.
The good news was that the roof over by the heated bed was still intact, so they could make do.
Calas Typhon was sitting on the other side of the fire, his eyes shining as he stared at the roast horse meat.
Meanwhile, Mortarion stood at the doorway with a woodcutter's blade in hand, keeping watch like a sentry.
This lord was convinced that his adoptive father would come after them and kill them all, so ever since they returned, Mortarion had basically been standing guard at the door.
Hades had tried to talk him out of it, but it was useless. Old Morty had been stubborn since childhood.
The villagers, who had just lived through the Pale Laugher's attack, only became more frightened when they saw Mortarion guarding the entrance.
(Still, his concern was justified. If Hades hadn't read the script, he would have been just as alert as Mortarion was.)
He gave Mortarion, standing guard at the door, a speechless glance, then resumed staring into space.
As a half-breed of alien and human, Calas Typhon had never been welcomed by the villagers. He often wandered around the various villages just to find something to eat.
Mortarion, meanwhile, was an ignorant young man who had just been abducted.
To put it bluntly, these two big brothers had nowhere to go right now.
Out of selfish motives, Hades had brought both of them to his home.
He poked the roast with his wooden stick. This side looked about done, so he turned it over to keep roasting.
Back then, they had sped away in the truck, but when they neared the valley, Hades had successfully wrecked it. The truck suddenly rolled backward.
If Mortarion hadn't grabbed him, Typhon would have flown right out of the truck bed.
Thank Mortarion.
"Fuck! Are you trying to murder me, kid?!"
Typhon cursed under his breath. Trembling with fear, he climbed down on shaky legs after the truck finally stopped.
(Only much later would Hades realize, belatedly, that this had been the Blanks constitution at work.)
Afterward, they had walked back to the village. Along the way, they encountered some low-level monsters. They attacked, and Mortarion instantly slaughtered them all.
That felt great.
Hades thought silently.
After returning to the village, the villagers' cries deeply affected the three of them. After the Pale Laugher's attack, the slaver raiders had come here for another sweep—though they hadn't taken many people.
The villagers wept as they bid farewell to the dead, while those who had escaped successfully wept as they reunited with their families.
Mortarion's group should have been welcomed and cherished by the villagers as the greatest contributors to their escape.
But all they received was fear and rejection.
The villagers gathered together and whispered among themselves, afraid that the High Mountain Lord would descend to take revenge. Some even suggested killing Mortarion and Typhon and sending their bodies back to the High Mountain Lord.
Hades rolled his eyes inwardly. There was nothing particularly wrong with the villagers' thinking, but their double standards were through the roof. They only proposed killing Mortarion and Typhon, never mentioning sending out their own relatives who had just escaped.
After all, everyone had escaped. Why only send away people they didn't know?
Besides, Mortarion, you're a Primarch. People are afraid of you. That makes you seem kind of pathetic...
Hades thought about it some more and decided to blame it on this appearance-obsessed world.
Logically speaking, there shouldn't have been any ugly Primarchs. Yet in reality, the twenty-one Primarchs inspired vastly different levels of affinity in people. Some Primarchs, such as Sanguinius and Fulgrim, had charisma completely maxed out. One smile from them could make a stranger take their infant selves home and worshipfully raise them.
Mortarion, though... his charisma was maxed out in the opposite direction. If one looked closely, Mortarion was also a Primarch like a marble sculpture, very handsome. But his aura was simply too frightening. Tall and thin, like a bamboo pole, with a pale face, deep-set eyes, and a hoarse voice, he looked at first glance as though Death himself had arrived.
The first reaction of anyone who saw Mortarion was to hide, rather than swoon like they would upon seeing Sanguinius or Fulgrim.
So, in this matter, the villagers had reached a tacit agreement to vote out Mortarion, who looked like a monstrous Death.
Even though he was a hunter who had gone on a rampage, not a werewolf.
Sigh. This appearance-obsessed world.
Still, some villagers were grateful. The families of those who had escaped gave them some straw and food.
On their first night back in the village, Hades simply spread some straw over the bed, then used the donated grain to cook a little porridge.
After risking their lives to escape, all three of them were exhausted. Hades had only eaten a few hasty mouthfuls of porridge before he became unbearably sleepy. Though the wound on his left arm had begun to fester, he merely wrapped it carelessly and collapsed onto the bed in a deep sleep.
With those two big shots keeping watch, he had no need to worry about enemies at all.
That night was one of the rare times Hades had fallen into a completely unguarded sleep.
In his dream, he was still painting little foul canned-food figurines, cursing as he painted because the reseller had raised the prices again.
When he woke up, he found that his left arm had been carefully rebandaged, while Typhon lay beside him sleeping like a dead pig.
He silently wiped the drool from the corner of his mouth. He definitely hadn't looked this embarrassing while sleeping... definitely not...
He failed to stretch. His whole body hurt, and he nearly cramped halfway through, so he gave up.
He slowly wandered to the doorway and saw Mortarion standing straight and motionless like a tall, skinny pole, gazing toward the distant mountains.
He didn't move at all. Only when he noticed Hades approaching did he slowly blink and glance at Hades without making it obvious.
But apart from his eyes, Mortarion remained frozen in place like a statue.
Hades muttered to himself inwardly. This lord was currently the highest ceiling he could possibly reach. Other than the Emperor and the Warp ■■■, Hades might not even be able to encounter an existence greater than Mortarion—
Then I absolutely have to cling to his thigh!!! Big shot, take me with you!!!
If you suddenly traveled into the past and found a rogue-like man standing before you who needed a small favor—then you recognized him as Liu Bang before he made it big. Unless you had some deep grudge against him, you would definitely sell everything you owned to help him out.
As long as he became emperor in the future and remembered that you had once helped him, then mercifully tossed you a few scraps, wouldn't you rise with him too? Becoming a little feudal landlord and muddling through the rest of your life—wouldn't that be wonderful?
Some people might say that was far too spineless, that a real man should use his knowledge of the script to conquer the world himself!
But Hades wanted to ask: brother, everyone dreams of becoming the world's richest man. How about we be realistic and first try becoming a civil servant?
He really didn't have the skills for that right now, so why take on a job beyond his ability?
Going solo was exhausting and dangerous. One careless mistake and he would be tortured to death. Better to follow behind a big shot, offer support and cheer him on, pick up a few leftovers, and live his own little life. Wouldn't that be wonderful?
Besides, he was in the world of Warhammer now. Humanity's fate here was truly miserable.
Even the ultimate protagonist among ultimate protagonists—the Emperor—had to kneel. Why was a tiny transmigrator like him joining the fun?
What ability did he have to shamelessly declare that he could save this world?
Not getting crushed flat by this world would already count as a victory!
Besides, he didn't want to shout "Long live the Emperor" and become kindling for humanity. Humanity wouldn't be better off with one more of him or worse off with one less. In the original story, the Imperium of Man had been sustainably falling apart for ten thousand years, yet it was still barely hanging on as one of the galaxy's largest powers.
And besides, he had always been a slacker. Was he supposed to suddenly turn over a new leaf just because he had changed worlds?
In his original world, he had finally advanced into a senior wage slave, saved up for a small apartment, bought some figures, and lived a peaceful life.
Just when he had been ready to coast through the rest of his life like that—
He had somehow ended up in this world.
Aaargh!!! Fuck!!!
Getting thrown into Warhammer was bad enough, but why couldn't he have landed on Terra, Mars, Macragge, Chogoris... which one of those wasn't better than Barbarus?!
At worst, he could stop being human. Wouldn't it be great to be a happy Greenskin?!
His starting point was only the tiniest bit better than the lowest levels of a Hive City...
And... why did he have to run into Mortarion?! This guy had an absurd amount of inner drama. He was infamous in 40k for being argumentative and arrogant, and his twisted personality made him impossible to communicate with.
Of the twenty-one Primarchs, only Curze, Mortarion, Perturabo, and Angron were Primarchs no one wanted to encounter at all!
No, Hades, you can do this. Think about Mortarion before he met the Emperor. At that time, aside from being somewhat gloomy, the Mortarion described in the setting had otherwise behaved quite normally. His actions could even be called truly righteous.
In fact, judging by Mortarion's experience with the resistance on Barbarus, he was also a courageous and resourceful leader who loved the people and possessed tremendous charisma.
So where exactly had things gone wrong?
After transmigrating here, Hades had already grown sick of complaining.
In short, reality was cruel, and what he could do was simple: improve his ability to survive, raise Primarch Mortarion's favorability, endure until the Emperor came looking for Mortarion, and first become an Astartes to extend his lifespan.
As for what came after, that was something for the future.
And now, wage slave, unleash your spirit of sucking up to your boss!
Heaven and earth could bear witness: I really am a Death Guard fan, or I wouldn't be writing this. (The Ultramarines of Macragge, the Space Wolves of Fenris, the Blood Angels of Baal... which opening wasn't more exciting and easier to write than the Death Guard of Barbarus?)
It's just that Mortarion's personality really was among the strangest. Any evaluation of him definitely couldn't have more positive opinions than negative ones.
I'll do my best to capture his personality, though I definitely won't be able to write that particular flavor.
Before you continue