I Was Mistaken for the Reincarnated Evil Overlord

The morning sun had barely crested the jagged mountains surrounding Fort Blackthorn when the convoy reached the final rise.

The fortress loomed ahead, massive stone walls covered in ivy and reinforced by ancient dwarven steel, standing proud against the backdrop of the northern wilderness. Spikes lined the outer curtain, enchanted watchtowers pulsing with mana at their peaks, and ballista crews stood at attention, watching the incoming army with nervous hands on triggers.

It wasn't often that a force of over 4 thousand marched directly to the northern gates.

Especially not dragging a hundred wagons behind them.

"OPEN THE GATES!" one of the gatekeepers shouted after receiving confirmation of the king's seal.

And so they opened.

With grinding steel and booming echoes, the fortress gates parted.

And then the first cart rolled through.

Silence fell like a guillotine.

The soldiers stationed at the outer plaza—Blackthorn regulars in shining green-and-silver armor, stared with wide eyes as the strange, ragged company entered. Most expected exhausted men, half-starved, or perhaps glorified refugees.

Instead?

They got chaos.

And monsters.

Lots and lots of monsters.

The first five wagons were packed to bursting with massive, blackened ant carcasses, each one easily the size of a warhorse, their exoskeletons cracked open like split armor. Massive mandibles the size of shields clacked loosely with each bump in the road. Legs dangled off the sides, some twitching slightly due to residual nerve magic.

Behind those came another five wagons—each carrying the armored husks of ant warriors. These were bigger. Bulkier. Their natural plating was carved in precise slashes, some cauterized from magical burns. One was missing a head entirely.

The sixth wagon was the first to spark actual panic.

It carried half the head of a monstrous ant nearly the size of a carriage—the Queen, her massive crown-like ridge shattered. Dried blood and ichor clung to her once-regal antennae, and one of her jewel-sized eyes hung loose from a destroyed socket.

A Blackthorn soldier vomited behind a barricade.

And still the wagons kept coming.

There were creatures from the Reaper Forest too—tentacle limbs, fanged beaks, mutated roots with eyes, and one massive cage containing the petrified remains of something that looked like it had once been a tree and a spider at the same time.

Then came the cores.

Barrels of them.

Monster cores, each glowing faintly in various hues—purples, reds, oranges. Some hummed with unstable power. Others were perfectly refined. They were packed in enchanted crates, sealed with layered sigils by witches from Darin's company.

One cart had an entire plinth rigged on top of it to hold the largest core of all, the Queen's. It was the size of a small child and pulsed like a second heart.

The moment it came into view, all the mages on the wall immediately passed out.

Darin, riding on Steve (who was enjoying the new northern wind like a proud, oversized red doggo dragon), casually turned toward the gaping Blackthorn gate guard commander.

"Oh, by the way," he said, loud enough to be heard over the creaking wheels, "you'll want to get someone to start writing up a value estimate on the cargo. Might be… a little profitable."

The man didn't answer. Just gawked at the corpse train like he was witnessing the end of the world.

Vincent rode by next on horseback, lazily munching on a roasted lizard tail. "Smile! You're about to become the richest garrison in the kingdom."

Alvin, walking alongside, flicked a bloodstained coin into the commander's palm.

"For the funeral," he said darkly.

"For whose?" the man croaked.

Alvin smirked. "Your pride."

As the final carts rolled in, Blackthorn's garrison scrambled like a kicked anthill.

Officials were dispatched.

Scribes were woken and dragged out of their beds.

Mages were brought in to identify, measure, and, when possible, contain some of the more unstable components.

At least six magical containment tents were erected in under an hour.

The duchess's quartermaster nearly fainted when she saw the tally list.

—Fort Blackthorn Material Intake Log—

71 Subterranean Ant Warrior corpses

109 Worker Ant carcasses

14 Ant Mage remains

1 Ant Queen (Partial remains)

1 Ant Queen Core (Active, contained)

6 Eldritch Tree-Spawn limbs

3 Displacer Root Worms

1 Tentacle Horror (petrified)

1 Bag of cursed feathers (??)

1 Barrel of eyes (???)

219 Monster Cores (Refined)

88 Monster Cores (Unrefined)

1 Live shadow cat (non-hostile, appears to be staff?)

1 Adolescent dragon (unconfirmed status, highly food-motivated)

Darin stood in the temporary courtyard, watching as the last of the cargo wagons was unloaded and tallied by trembling scribes.

One clerk was shaking so hard her quill snapped in half while trying to write "Ant Queen Head (Left Half)."

Darin turned to the quartermaster and patted the tall ledger being scribbled into with a tired smile.

"You might want to leave some space at the bottom."

The quartermaster blinked. "What?"

"There's more cargo on the way," Darin said casually. "We had to leave a few wagons behind with the rear Blackthorn escort unit. They're bringing up the second wave."

The man stared at him like he had just announced a second ant queen was coming too.

Darin stretched his arms and yawned. "Couple more carts of preserved limbs, some rare cores, maybe a tentacle arm or two we forgot to strap down. You know. The usual, probably a couple of thousand."

The man didn't respond.

He just slowly turned and whispered to the nearest scribe, "Update the log. Add... incoming horrors, batch two."

The scribe nodded without blinking, and added a grim note at the bottom:

—Second Caravan Incoming—

Status: Unknown.

Contents: Probably cursed.

Darin patted Steve's head as the young dragon sat beside him, tongue lolling out with exhaustion and pride. Grumble was now perched atop the largest pile of cores like a greedy little king, his fur shimmering with faint shadows as he snored dramatically.

"Tell the duchess to prep a vault," Darin muttered to no one in particular. "We're going to need one."

…

Back at the temporary courtyard camp, Darin stretched his back and let out a long breath.

"Feels weird not having things trying to kill us."

The Sorceress sat on a nearby bench, sipping tea that tasted vaguely like death and cinnamon. She glanced over at him.

"Enjoy it. In a few days, bureaucracy will kill you instead."

"I prefer monsters," he muttered.

Steve padded over and dropped what looked like a rib bone from the Queen's carcass at Darin's feet. Grumble flopped onto it like it was a throne.

A cultist passed by, bowed, and whispered, "Glory to the Overlord's beast."

Darin didn't even flinch.

He just took a sip from the Sorceress's tea and nearly choked. "Is this cursed?"

"Yes," she said. "But only mildly."

Meanwhile, at the duchess's castle, a messenger sprinted up to the command tower, wheezing.

"Duchess… you need to see this."

Mary of House Jade, hungover, mildly annoyed, and elbow-deep in a bucket of pickled garlic, grumbled something unintelligible.

"It's about Darin," the messenger panted. "The man the king sent."

She froze.

Then slowly rose, eyes gleaming with predatory interest.

"How stupid did he make you all look?"

The messenger just handed over a parchment list.

She read the first few lines. Then paused.

"…Tentacle horror?"

"Yes, Duchess."

"Ant queen core?"

"Yes."

She lowered the list.

A smile slowly crept across her face.

"Finally," she whispered, tossing the bucket of garlic aside.

"Something fun."