Chapter 62: Shelled Monsters
On the way to the village, we got to talking and found out some things about Rishia. Basically she was the daughter of a lesser noble house and a more powerful noble did some shady things in order to take her from her parents. Then Itsuki stepped in and saved her, after which she decided to dedicate herself to helping him however she could. That explains why she is willing to put up with being treated like a slave and even being pawned off to an old lady when there is work to do. I worry for what she will do when she realizes that he doesn't care about her in the slightest and probably only helped to feed his own ego. We also learned that she was something of a bookworm, could use any type of magic, and actually liked wearing the squirrel kigurumi, not for the stats, but because it hid her face.
It was just before noon when we were able to see the village, or rather, we were able to see four towering bioplants in the distance. Since I minimize propagation on the one I left, I assume there being multiple means that the villagers planted some of the seeds it produced. As we got closer I could see that the tallest one was where I planted it and was now several stories tall, they all had damage closer to the base, and there was a fifth that seems to have been killed, likely a result of the fight with the church. There was also a sixth growing a bit further out, but the size and lack of damage suggests it was planted more recently. It seemed that the people had to make ladders in order to harvest the higher fruits and there was even some rudimentary scaffolding set up around the original.
"Well, it's good to see they didn't go out of control this time."
"Are these the source of that plant you used to grow food before?" (Eclair)
"Technically they're just a different variation I made. The one I got the seeds from went out of control and mutated into monsters. So I'm glad to see that my modifications stopped that part."
"I wonder if her majesty had that in mind when assigning the areas to investigate."
"I wouldn't put it past her."
The roots of each tower had spread quite a bit and Blake had to navigated around them to reach the village. As we made our approach, the villagers that recognized her waved and started climbing down to come see us. By the time we stopped at the center of the village we were surrounded by grateful people all trying to thank us for the bioplant and asking if there was anything they could do for us. Eventually the village chief got them all to calm down. He then invited us to have lunch while we discuss our current business. It wasn't much of a surprise that the majority of the meal was made from bioplant fruit, but they had managed to find quite a few ways to prepare it and there was some meat and bread as well. It seemed that they were trading the fruit for other foods. Probably more because they didn't want to only eat the same thing every day than the problems such a diet could cause.
The chief made sure to express how grateful they all were for my modifying the bioplant. As he spoke, he went on to describe the fight with the three heroes church in detail. It seemed my theory about the dead stalk and the damage to the others was correct. The zealots found out that I had a hand in making the bioplants and ordered them destroyed. The villagers forced them out of town, then they came back and managed to kill one before the village could organize a defense. The others had been far more damaged than they currently appear but seem to be recovering well enough.
After the chief was done telling the story and thanking me, I was able to tell him why we had come, the mysterious monsters.
"Really! Well, it's excellent that you have come. We've been worried!" (Chief)
"Can you tell us anything about them?"
"Well, we haven't seen any yet today, but lately adventurers and some people from a nearby village have run into them and ended up hurt. Some have even died. Please, help us be rid of them."
"I can try, but it would help if I knew what I'm going to be fighting."
"Of course. One of the corpses was brought back to the village to see if anyone knew what it was. It's right this way." The chief led us to the creature.
What kind of mad scientist came up with something like this?! It looked a bit like a bat with only one big eye and its back was covered by a turtle shell. We all looked at it trying to determine if any of us had seen something like it before. Apparently the closest thing was some sort of balloon Eclair once saw in Faubrey. If anyone knew anything about it I'd suspect it to be Elder Sensei, simply from age and experience, but the one who eventually spoke up was Rishia.
"I, um . . . I feel like I've seen it before, but I can't remember where."
"Does that mean Itsuki's party fought them before?"
"No, I'd remember if it was a fight. I think I might have seen a picture in a book somewhere."
She saw it in a book? What was she reading, a monster encyclopedia?
"How many of these things are there?"
"There seem to be many of them. But they appear suddenly and at random, which makes it very hard to fight them off." (Chief)
"Do you mind if I feed it to my shield? With any luck it'll tell us what this thing is called."
"Not at all."
—'s familiar (bat type) shield conditions met
Well that's a first. Either something is hiding its master's name or it's one of those things I need to learn before it will tell me.
"It says it's a familiar, but it won't tell me who or what it's a familiar of."
"So there is someone else ordering them to attack?" (Seb)
"Most likely. The queen asked us to eliminate them, so that probably means we are going to have to take down their master as well."
"That makes sense, but how will we find this master?" (Eclair)
"I don't know. Try following them back to where they came from maybe?"
"That doesn't sound very convincing."
"Do you have a better idea?"
Eclair remained silent.
"Monsters!"
The scream came from outside, and when we ran to see what was happening there was a swarm of at least 30 of the monsters flying towards us. Then their eyes started to glow and they shot heat rays at the villagers who were trying to get away. Seriously? One-eyed turtle-shelled bats with freaking heat vision? These things are even weirder than the bats with megaphones coming out of their butts that spoke things you were afraid to hear. And it looks like, as with most predators, they are targeting the weakest people first. Well I do have a way to change that.
"[Hate Reaction]!"
The 20 familiars that were within about 15 meters of me stopped what they were doing and turned to look at me. It was a rather disturbing sight, but then they started firing their heat vision at me and I had to move fast to avoid them. I summoned a clone that jumped from one familiar to the next kill them as it went. Because of the shell I had to stab through the eye to get a sure kill, and with the way they were flying there were a few which my clone had to cut the wings of instead. Those ones fell to the ground where Keel and Rishia were able to finish them off.
At the same time, Seb used his ice to take some out and Blake used her knives to do the same. Unfortunately throwing knives have become something of a disposable item for her since there aren't many durable enough to handle being thrown by her more than a few times and they don't show up as a drop very often.
There were only a few left, but they were determined to attack rather than retreat and had to be killed. I guess we won't be fallowing them back to their master. We spread out to treat the wounded and look for anything that might be a clue. All there was was a corpse from a monster indigenous to this area. Apparently these shelled monsters attack other monsters as well.
When we talked to the chief again he mentioned that they had looked for a nest but never found anything and that they always come from the east. It also seemed that the shelled monsters had killed off the majority of the monsters indigenous to the area.
When it was getting close to sunset I went back to the castle, leaving a clone and the rest of my party to defend the village. In retrospect I should have just left a clone at the castle so I didn't have to go back and forth to report in. I had to wait a bit for the others to arrive, and Motoyasu brought Freon with him. We relayed what we found and I brought out one of the corpses that my shield had absorbed to verify that we were all fighting the same thing, a benefit of coming in person I suppose. I also mentioned how the shield I got didn't tell me their name other than that they were familiars of something and that Rishia though she saw something similar in a book but was unable to recall the details. This caused Itsuki to scoff and call her "useless as usual." Someone really needs to teach that idiot the meaning of loyalty.
"If the same thing is happening in so many different places at once, it must be safe to assume that something unprecedented and strange is afoot." (Queen)
I'm not too keen on relying on a source that has provided bad intel in past, but it is better to check. "Did your games have anything that might give us an idea what this is?"
They all fell into thought and looked at each other before responding.
"No idea." (Ren)
"Sadly, no." (Itsuki)
Motoyasu was about to say something when Freon spoke up. "Why are you lying?"
The room fell silent for a moment as we all looked at the two of them.
"I didn't lie." (Itsuki)
"Motoyasu, tell your bird not to make stuff up."
"Freon is a beautiful angel, and these things are obviously familiars of the Spirit Tortoise, so there's no point in denying it." (Motoyasu)
Spirit Tortoise? Isn't that one of the four benevolent animals? Or maybe it was one of the four symbols… I never paid too much attention to that stuff.
"If you know about it why are you talking about it in front of the queen? You should know that by the time it starts to wake up it has control of the world leaders so they'll try to stop us from killing it." (Ren)
What? I glanced at the queen and she seemed to be hiding her confusing behind her fan.
"That's if it wakes up normally which shouldn't be for at least three more waves. I doubt it could have mind-controlled them this early." (Motoyasu)
"So you are risking our lives based on a guess?" (Itsuki)
"HEY!" I got their attention. "One of you mind filling me in on this?"
"Right, so the Spirit Tortoise is a boss fight with a lot of story behind it, but it basically causes chaos and wars before it wakes up, and turns the leaders of countries against you if you try to convince them to help you take it out early. Thing is that the familiars aren't supposed to show up until after it's awake and unless someone unseals it, that isn't until the seventh wave." (Motoyasu)
"So you think someone woke it up?"
"Maybe? Things are going different than they did in Emerald Online, so I don't really know."
The queen snapped her fan shut, drawing attention to herself. "What is it that the two of you planned on doing after pretending not to know this?" She glared at Ren and Itsuki. I'd be mad too if someone lied to me and then said it was because I was being mind-controlled.
"We'd kill it." (Ren)
"We'd have to in order to fulfil your request to eliminate the monsters." (Itsuki)
"And your excuse for attempting to hide this information is that you believe I'm being controlled by it…"
The two of them were silent.
"The country in which the Spirit Tortoise is said to have been sealed is four days away by filolial. With the wave coming in less than five days there wouldn't be much time. And besides, with a threat like this it would be best to put forth a united front with the other nations and the seven star heroes."
"So you're asking us to wait on politicians to get together and decide if we should fight it?" (Itsuki)
"Not exactly making a good case against the 'mind-controlled to buy time' plotline." (Ren)
The queen was looking more ticked off every time these two opened their mouths. They are probably harder to deal with than the people of other countries that she normally has to talk to. At least they don't insult her to her face… probably.
"Hold on a sec guys, the queen does have a point about the timing of the wave and we could go mark the location so we can fight it afterwards. It would only mean waiting a day or two and we would have new weapons from the next wave boss." (Motoyasu)
Ren and Itsuki shared a glance and a nod.
"Fine." (Ren)
"Agreed." (Itsuki)
"I think the three of you are underestimating the threat posed by the Spirit Tortoise. This is a creature so large that an entire mountain range is said to rest on its back. And while the heroes of old were capable of sealing it away, they took the secret with them to their graves." (Queen)
"Hmph. It only has a suggested level of 60 if it wakes up early, we are all level 80 and should have no problem. I'm leaving to tell my party we'll be heading out in the morning." (Ren)
"I as well." (Itsuki)
The two of them walked out regardless of protests.
"They do know only one person needs to travel in person, then they could just bring the rest of us over to set up portal locations, right?"
"Just let them go, it's not like they would do any good staying here anyways." (Motoyasu)
"Sigh. I will inform the other nations of the threat and hopefully they will be able to evacuate before it's too late. I will also look into the specifics of how the Spirit Tortoise was sealed. I would appreciate it if the two of you would continue to protect the people of Melromarc and have your parties prepare for the wave and the fight that will come after."
"Of course, but before I go, I have a question. Motoyasu, if Freon hadn't called the others out on their lie, would you have hidden the information as well?"
"Huh? If I didn't want you to know I wouldn't have said anything."
"Right. Just checking."
This time I remembered to leave a clone behind before heading back to my party.
AN: The lie detecting loli strikes again. I'm not sure if Motoyasu in this situation really would have told them or not, but defending Freon is a perfectly good reason for him to spill the beans. Also I had to go back and check how Endou modified the bioplant he left then consider how it would grow differently.
Drmcgraw186: Endou didn't bother telling the queen about Ost since he didn't have enough details to tell her anything other than "Some sort of ghost appeared to me and asked me to destroy it." Then he forgot about her when everything else happened.
