Generic betrayal isekai story (full title in first post, too long for here for some reason)

[John_Oakman]

After being reincarnated to another world to fight against the hordes of evil, the generic fantasy human kingdom tried to betray my ass but I betrayed them first, thus causing a coup and civil war!​

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You know the drill, brainrot incoming.

I been playing too much AoE3 these days, so the battles in this story will be on a much smaller scale.
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Chapter 1: He's leaving [the mortal coil] at dawn​

"We did it! We have finally done it!" The genuine excitement from Rostov's voice was undeniable, even if a bit out of place as the last climatic battle of the war had already passed from the action to the picking up of the pieces. But then again, the process of the mind is a fickle thing.

The smoke of powder had long since dissipated, revealing in the dying light of the day a sight all too common in the past few years: Of broken men and beasts lying as far as the eyes could see, the din of combat giving way to the cries for help. Help that would arrive too late, if at all.

Alex smiled a smile without warmth as he looked at the younger man, who looked far more like a hero than he himself ever will be, and in a world where perception is reality, that matters far more than it appears on the surface. "So it may seem." He mumbled. The faint memories of another life, figuratively and literally, danced in the back of his mind like wisps of ghosts.

They faintly screamed of the coming horrors. He brushed them aside. It is not that he does not believe them, for he does. It is that they offer no solutions. No solutions that they are willing to take. The chains of norms of a more civilized world. Actually civilized. A place where high trust and basic dignity of man could be found.

But it is not of this world, where the facade and the subsistence are themselves worlds apart. A fact is well known to everyone-

"... and once we get back to the capital the king will recognize our efforts and we'll be rewarded with the riches promised!" The excitement from Rostov is akin to that of a child, which in a way he is, for fate had robbed him of his childhood just like it did to countless others…

… and soon that same fate will rob him of his life, and many other things though not anything the dead would care about.

"Maybe so." Alex said with a deliberate air of reservation, not that the other man would notice such an undercurrent. "But do you think it's rather strange that every other previous hero and their party ended up falling to evil and had to be executed?"

"But we are clearly not evil!" Rostov proclaimed, shocked that anyone would even suggest such a thing, much less the architect and main reason of their victory.

"No. No you're not." Alex shook his head, making sure to emphasize the word you're. "Maybe this time will be different." He lied, knowing already that it will not be different. The him of another world coming to that conclusion from the brainrot of too many gutter picture books, and the him of this world from reading between the lines of the great tales of the past.

Perhaps he of this world is in one of those gutter picture books, but damn if he's going to die from death.

No. He'll die on his own terms, when the time comes.

"Sire. Are you alright?" Rostov asked, concerned at the sudden intense look on the older man's face.

"No. Not really." Alex said truthfully. "In fact, I'm feeling dreadfully weary. You should go ahead first. Bring the good news to the king promptly." The sudden turn towards the melodrama would have fooled no one at normal times, but the current time is hardly normal.

"Of course! I shall do so at once!" Rostov said as he all but jumped at once to fulfill the last step of their successful mission, in his zeal completely failed to notice the tinge of sorrow in Alex's eyes.

As he watched the younger man gallop away on his steed Alex sighed to himself. He's about to send his only friend in this world, perhaps the last bit of pure moral virtue in any land of this world, to a certain and unjust death. The cruelest fate awaits Rostov at the other end, and he sends him there with a smile.

He's about to prove the worst fears of the kingdom right. Whether they're prepared to be vindicated is another matter entirely.