Author's Note: Got nothing to say right now, new anime season so I'm gonna be having some fun for a while. So Read, Review, Favourite, Enjoy and please stay safe! Edit. I knew I forgot something. Alright rest of the reviews will follow shortly.
Chapter 35: The Ivyred Territory
A territory lord being a loyal devotee of the Three Heroes Church was one thing, after all this country followed their blatant brainwashing since it's founding it would be illogical for one of these lords not to be raised on it's indoctrination, at least not without good reason. Near as the king could tell this fellow seemed short on good reasons lately, for instance it seemed he was lacking in reasons to raise the tax around here to exorbitant amounts, he did so anyway, he just didn't say why he did so, nor for that matter has the kingdom been receiving any of the money for it. They were keeping a pretty good lid on it too, up until a wave of starving refugees invaded the nearby village and bartered for/raided Naofumi's stocks of supplies. It did raise the question of why Naofumi wasn't the one who was dealing with this then. Pay back for the Peryton's he assumed, that and his generally sour demeanour didn't lend itself well to diplomacy. Not that it ever seemed to keep the man from getting what he needed, only he knows where he got all of that fresh fruit from to feed those people. In any case Tatsuya and Ryuteimaru touched down in the area, he immediately had no problem coming to the conclusion that a hoard of starving refugees had come from this place based on the drought like conditions and debilitated nature of the place. If he didn't know better he would say this place has been hit by a wave.
"Sir! You have... to... pay... ah-" The guards at the gate saw the angry dragon that was walking up behind Tatsuya.
"Now lemme ask you a question that I would like your honest opinion on. Are you being paid enough for this?" Tatsuya would make for a pretty good troll if it wasn't for the completely calm and neutral look on his face, the jury was still out on whether or not that added or subtracted from the effect.
"No sir." The Soldier proceeded to open the gate to let Tatsuya through. "Please keep your pet outside, we'd like for the buildings to remain as intact as possible."
"Yes. It would be shame if the lord had to go out and find another pile of barely habitable ruins to barely keep the rain off of his people." Tatsuya stated making his opinion on how the place was being run clear.
"I take it you would like to see the governor then?" The soldier asked having guessed the purpose of Tatsuya's visit.
"Close I would like to see the person who has been making the decisions around here." Tatsuya stated holding the title of Governor to a bare minimal standard.
"Right this way sir." The knight led Tatsuya to the lord's mansion which was in marginally better shape then the rest of the town, not by much. The governor was a lot better dressed then the people of the town was, a quick glance at the materials of his clothes and some quick mental number crunching later and he determined that even recycled the coat could probably be sold for enough gold to feed everyone in the town for a month.
"What is it I'm busy!?" The Lord demanded looking up at Tatsuya like he found out someone spat on his sandwich. Tatsuya held up his bow and had it change forms several times.
"Sir Hero!? My this is a honour!" The lord stated as he rubbed his hands together like the fly who just found the biggest turd on the field. Instantly changes his tune when someone with authority shows up. Noted. Tatsuya would actually respect him more if didn't switch out his act so fast, then he would just be a beleaguered bureaucrat with too much on his plate instead of another corrupt noble that needed sorting out.
"Your town is a dung heap. Why?" Tatsuya half asked and half stated.
"You don't know the Geography of our world very well do you Sir Hero?" The lord led Tatsuya over to a nearby window where desert, desert, and more desert could be seen. "Right over there on the distant horizon is the nation of Zeltoble. Ever heard of it before sir Hero?"
"Nothing good I'm afraid." A massive loose knit alliance of Mercenaries, criminals and merchants situated on the best trade route between the various nations.
"Before we simply had to worry about paying them protection money, a fee to make them go away and leave our humble little town alone. But now? Monsters I've never seen before are coming out of the desert, with each month that passes they grow in ferocity becoming more and more powerful as time wears on. In addition to the damage from their attacks we are forced to rely on the same criminals who have been extorting us for our protection."
"I will address the Zeltoble and Monster problems. After I return you and I will have a conversation I promise you will not enjoy." Saying that Tatsuya flew off leaving the lord be. Now that his little hero problem had taken care of itself the Lord go back to enjoying himself.
Once in the air Tatsuya did a full molecular scan of the entire territory. He found no signs of hidden buildings, underground structures, little in way of places the pope could hide. Tatsuya also looked to see if he could find any sign of the genetic material of the one he suspected was the pope either or any trace of the legendary replica but couldn't find it. Instead Tatsuya had a look through the villages store house and examined the materials which they had been accumulating from fighting against the monsters and used that as a reference point for when he went looking for them. On that note he decided to fly over the desert in search of the source of the monsters that were constantly attacking this place. It wasn't long before he found the source of the trouble.
'Each wave spawns a unique 'boss' monster. It is the alpha of the pack and the strongest off them all. Defeat it to end the wave.'
Tatsuya looked up into the sky. Whatever wave this thing was a part of ended a long time ago. Instead Tatsuya began assessing his quarry, a giant snake resembling a cross been a spitting cobra and a rattle snake, it was surrounded by a horde of rabbit monsters with deer antlers sticking out of their heads, and the ruins of the failed attempts to catch it by the looks of things Zeltoble slave hunting groups. That though didn't concern Tatsuya nearly as much as when he got a second notification of a boss monster. A humanoid figure was floating through the air, goat horns adorned the top of his head while flames wreathed his entire body, the most important detail was that it and the snake weren't fighting each other rather they looked like they had planned the meeting out in advance and were now hooking up. If they were heading for Zeltoble the situation wouldn't be so bad, it was farther away and more heavily fortified, and perhaps for those very reasons they instead started heading for the village.
"Huu. Lovely." Tatsuya had no idea where these thing's nests were, and leaving giant piles of eggs belonging to a invasive hostile species out in the middle of nowhere did not seem like a good idea to him. Once the two groups of monsters had left for the village Tatsuya looked down at the desert based vehicle the snake looked like it chewed up and spat out and quickly went over to examine the wreckage. "Let's see how much these people know about their quarries." Tatsuya pulled out the scrolls from the cabinet of one of the carriages and started going through them one by one examining their contents. Finally he found a map with two dark red X's, their purpose obvious to anyone with half a brain to think about it. "Alright now that that is settled, lets go collect some materials."
Tatsuya didn't know a lot about how these wave bosses fought, only that Setsuna had completely written them off as a threat. Which would also give him a chance to see how much of threat Setsuna is like when she loose her mind again. Pulling back the draw string of his bow Tatsuya aimed at the area above the enemy forces.
"Arrow Rain. Meteor Shot!" Loosing the string the mass of SP was loosed above the heads of the two groups of monsters and spread out into a cloud raining down Meteor Shot projectiles on their heads. The greatest number of casualties appeared among the mob monsters, the two bosses took very little damage from the skill Tatsuya had casually dumped on them. What's worst is that that the burning man had taken great offence to his actions just now and punted off into the sky after him, clearly gravity had no real hold over him.
"Ah damn it." Cue Tatsuya taking off through the air being chased down by the burning man while the snake took one look at the situation with the man who had been shooting at him, dismissed it, before rallying what was left of their forces and started heading for the town. Luckily Tatsuya had anticipated this Scenario, that was the reason Ryuteimaru was back at the village instead of with him. Using the Slave Seal Tatsuya instructed his dragon to protect the town, who then flew over to the space between the town and the monster hoard.
"I call upon the origin of power! Gather the galling winds and push me forward! Zweite Gale Speed!" Under the influence of the magic Tatsuya's speed shot straight up, along with the rate of fire on his bow. "Aqua shot! Thunder Shot! Ice Storm! Dragon Blast! Meteor Shot!" Like that Tatsuya began rapid firing skills at the monster that was chasing after him, he's upgraded to the 'beer helmet' model not unlike that preferred by Ikki. It would be one thing if he could use this thing to fire off magic attacks in lieu of skills but as that was not the case he needed to secure a external supply of spiritual power. That said this thing was starting to get pretty annoying to deal with and Tatsuya had formulated a plan to deal with it. Thus Tatsuya touched down in the desert and sat cross legged waiting for the fiery monster to come to him. And it did just that shooting at Tatsuya like a rocket as Tatsuya went over the offensive wind magic in his head.
"I call upon the origin of power, create a void in front of my and suffocate my target in the nothingness. Zweite Vacuum." It was wind magic of Tatsuya's own design, cutting a opponent apart in a windstorm was one thing, but what he'd really need if either Naofumi or Setsuna went wrath series on them again was something that would put out fires, not increase their severity. So thus as the burning man before him was now becoming painfully away of, no oxygen, no fire.
"Rrraagghhh!" The creature before him moaned as it reached out to try and strangle Tatsuya.
"Bugger off." Tatsuya stated as he fired one last shot this time into the miserable creature's head before he sucked him inside of his bow and tried to break him down for materials. "Material type monster eh?" Tatsuya received a explanation earlier, this kind of monster wasn't so much a living organism as it was a pile of suppose to be inanimate materials that had managed to gain sentience and learned how to self replicate, not unlike the Balloons. "Fine then, what does this unlock." The effect of the newly unlocked Ifrit Bow was simply giving Tatsuya a new fire attack, if it was Naofumi it would probably be fire resistance. "Hmm. If Naofumi ever does have to use the Shield of Wrath this could mitigate the side effects... very well I will give him some the next time I see him."
Tatsuya eliminated all of the fire balls and stuffed them into his bow's storage space. He had learned a while ago that he could revive monsters from this storage space at any point in time so long as he had stuffed them in during the twenty four hour window, he would question the slave dealer about the Viability of trying to put these things into use later, for now there was a snake that needed killing. Or so Tatsuya had been led to believe. Ryuteimaru was throttling it until it's eyes went white and foam came out of it's mouth. Tatsuya could only shake his head while he finished off the half dead boss and it's minions and sucked them into his bow. He already disabled the notifications for new weapons a while ago, he'd look through them later for something useful, otherwise it was the usual pattern of picking out the good stuff before moving on with his day.
"I'm going to go look for their nests, signal me for when the next payment collection party shows up." Ryuteimaru gave a confused look as Tatsuya decided to phrase that better. "Tell me if anymore people show up." Ryuteimaru nodded his head as Tatsuya took off through the air. The first of the nests were relatively close to where he found the snake for the first time, getting there Tatsuya noticed the massive hole that someone had covered up using the massive amount of sand in the desert, and beneath that hole was a giant mass of monster eggs. Tatsuya saw rabbit DNA in the hole and Snake DNA, so this was the nest of the animal type wave. Tatsuya shoved all of the eggs into his bow before he took off into the air again. Tracking down the Ifrit's nest was slightly more complicated in that it wasn't a nest at all so much as it was a collection of living balls of fire that had coalesced together into a group. They lasted about as long as it took Tatsuya to shoot them all before shovelling the remains into his bow, he didn't know what these thing's reproductive cycle looked like and he didn't care to find out either. He didn't find any nests hidden or otherwise and so moved on with his efforts, now that he was finished out here the next step was finding the so called thugs that were shaking down the town in the name of protection.
"We're making good time. Think we'll have arrived a couple of hours ahead of schedule." One of the men on the sand gliding ship that was being drawn by a Filolial stated while he looked at a map. "Stop over for a bit before we get there, they were a little light on gratitude for us last time, I want it to build some more this time around." One of the men stated as he downed the contents of a alcohol bottle. Tatsuya slammed into the sand glider hard enough to leave broken boards in it's floor, with a kick he shoved the bottle into it's drinker's mouth leaving broken shards in his throat and causing bits of glass to stick out the back of his head. He then followed that up with a point black head shot on the second while he swept the legs of the third and pinned him to the floor with his bow.
"Now than I have questions and you have answers." Tatsuya explained as he grabbed hold of the reigns and made the birds stop. "Rather unfortunate for the both of us you understand. Because it means that in spite of my distaste for it I'm probably going to have to torture you now." Tatsuya stated as he started browsing bow forms.
"The Bow Hero!?" The thug stated looking at the shape changing bow with a feeling of mortal terror.
"Astute observation." Tatsuya stated before he settled on the 'Basilisk Eye bow.' It promised him the ability to turn his target into stone one limb at a time. "Now tell me everything you've observed about the lord that you all have been dealing with?"
It was into the wee hours of the morning before the flood of information ran dry. Firstly the lord of the Area, the Ivyred territory, was not the same person that Tatsuya had talked to, which would explain the huge contrast that existed between him and his surroundings. The person Tatsuya had talked to was the lord of the Everlue territory, who hired the very same thugs that Tatsuya had killed and interrogated respectively to drive the area into ruin using arson, outright harassment and blackmail. But the thing that made the Sloth Bow flare in the back of his mind like a burning pillar was learning that once the Everlue lord had driven the Ivyred's into financial ruin he took their daughter as collateral and was now 'enjoying' her presence occasionally along side these thugs every night. And guess who just saved him the trouble of fending off the combined forces of two waves.
"Ryuteimaru. Wait for me to get there." Tatsuya flew back to the village while he looked up the the details of his own cursed weapon. 'Bow of Sloth. A volatile cursed weapon which gradually saps the will to live with it's curse in exchange for power.'
Nope. Not using that. Tatsuya needed to do something to salvage this situation and he needed to do it right now! And he had just the thing in mind. Flying back over to the Ivyred village Tatsuya walked through the Everlue lord's stolen mansion. Cursing himself at being interrupted the lord quickly threw back on his clothes and walked back into his office to greet the Bow Hero.
"I trus-" Shortly before he fell to the floor dead, a single arrow composed of spiritual power sticking out the front of his head.
If he was innocent Tatsuya would just revive him shortly, but less than a single minute into his investigation and he concluded that he wasn't. This is what he reasonably believes a victim of rape should look like, Malty should take notes. She was beaten, severely, bruising all over her body and not insignificant amounts of different kinds of drug's in her system with burn marks and groves from a whip's lashes littering her body. A cursory molecular scan of her body revealed the presence of Everlue's genetic material in her mouth, anus, uterus most notably in her womb mixed in with her own genetic material. Once outside again Tatsuya pulled out the snake's corpse from his bow and used regrowth to restore it into a proper living creature, then he did the same with Everlue's body, his previous instantaneous death leaving him extremely confused.
"Convey my words onto the Basilisk for me." Tatsuya stated directing his attention to his one and only party member. "I find that person to be truly despicable enough that I think he deserves to be eaten alive, but I don't want this fellow to develop a taste for human flesh. So I am willing to spare you for now if you are able to give that person a most horrible and painful death."
"WHAT!?" The Lord of Everlue asked unable to process what he was hearing. "If you dare to...!" The snake seemed to accept Tatsuya's terms. First it started with spraying it's corrosive venom all over his body electing screams of pain from the lord, followed by snapping it's jaws down on his body and swallowed him whole leading to his muffled screams all the way down into the gullet, even then the screaming lasted for an uncomfortable amount of time before it was finally over.
"I won't be gone long, you two are in charge until I get back, any misbehaving while I'm gone I will replace you using the same methods I am employing to replace your idiot lord. Understood?" Tatsuya stated bluntly.
Several guards nodded in terror as Tatsuya used the teleportation function on his bow to return to the castle.
Review Section:
Amatsumi: Are you implying that I've been getting it wrong up until now? I have a head cannon that before the Heroes can make use of reinforcement methods they have to meet a bare minimal number of requirements, willingness to fight for the sake of the world and it's people. The weapons loosened this restriction because they were desperate because they got stuck with three idiots, that isn't the case here. The bar has been raised so the weapons raised them.
edboy4926: Thank you for saying so.
RonaldM40196867: It is. No, none that I have planned.
Marauderprime12: True. Thank you for saying so.
