Author's Note: Second chapter of the new story is posted. Again you all have been wonderful with your overwhelming support for this story. Read, Review, Favourite and Enjoy!
Chapter 2: The Heroes Shopping Day
After breakfast came errands, they had a lot of work to do if they wanted to get ready to go out into the world.
"Hey Tanya, why do we need all of these books anyway?" Maple asked looking at the closest thing they had a leader for information on this.
"Because being trapped in another country without any idea of what any of the signs say is a good way of getting up to our eyes in trouble." Tanya replied as if the answer was obvious.
Maple had discovered a convenient storage function on the legendary weapons, so they could make off with the books and study them at leisure at least. After that was the issue of companions. The information inside of the help menu read the day before explained that they could form parties that would share XP. For Maple especially with her appallingly low attack power this was especially important. For the others though?
"Heroes, we've assembled a elite unit of adventurers and soldiers to serve as your companions during these trying times." Elite Unit? Tanya could tell from how these losers carried themselves that they've never seen real combat in their entire lives and they especially knew that. Kuro's opinion wasn't much better, her powers taken from Emiya were still intact, and with them the ability to see the history behind a weapon and how armour had been made. The conclusion? It wasn't that they had been poorly funded, on the contrary all the enchantments leaning towards keeping cool on the road and lightening the armour together with the decorative bits implied a good degree of wealth behind them, they just weren't very useful in a fight. In addition the swords had been owned for a while but in most cases hadn't seen much use, what enchantments had been attached was less 'useful in a fight' and more 'special effects.' Whatever, they would keep up or they would get rid of them. "Now brave adventurers choose your companions!" What followed was three lines of five people and one person by herself, if you include the four heroes. "This could be a problem." The King stated leaning into his face into his fist observing that no one seemed to have a interest in joining Maple's party. Well that's what you get when you spend the entire introduction quivering your chin stupidly while everyone else carries on around you. "Is there someone who wouldn't mind partying with-"
"That won't be necessary your majesty!" Maple however put on a confident cheesy grin as she held out her hand for stop. "I can make do until I can find some reliable people myself!" And thus the King's second plan was foiled, he was not sure if she was doing it on purpose or not.
"I understand. We've prepared a budget of five hundred silver coins for the bow, sword and Spear heroes and since the shield is without companions 800 silver coins for her." The king's adviser carried over and gave the four heroes as many bags of silver. Tanya noticed The eight hundred was prepared in advance, as if they anticipated that Maple would be going companion-less. That was the second time the king treated her differently.
"We'll be working together for the day anyway." Tanya stated bluntly. "Unless you have child size armour lying around somewhere that we do not know about then we'll be visiting most of the same shops and locations anyway."
"Yosh! Let's go!" Katarina stated fist in the air.
The first order of business was just that: armour. Because while it would be convenient if the king had four sets of armour suited to their size lying around the castle somewhere it would also be incredibly disturbing. Luckily the King had already taken the liberty of booking an appointment with the best blacksmith in the castle town.
The bell hanging above Erhard's front door rung leading to the somewhat preoccupied black smith to come out from out back. Looking at the Castle Knights and the four little girls that had followed them inside he came to a perfectly sound and reasonable conclusion.
"Sorry can't outfit your daughters today, big order for the castle I gotta work on." Erhard stated measuring tap slung on his shoulders.
"These are the four Heroes summoned by the royal family." Something seemed to crumble in Erhard's mind.
The Blacksmith pointed to the four children in question and the Knight nodded. The black smith proceeded to do so again resulting in a second nod from the knight. Then Tanya fired a arrow into the ceiling and Erhard regained his senses.
"I understand that this is difficult for you to comprehend but we are on a time table so if you could please rejoin us in reality now we would greatly appreciate this." Seeing as how eager she was Tanya was the first one taken out back.
"None of us really talked that much about each other last night, trying to go through all the information on the weapons." Maple stated and Katarina decided that this was as good a time as any to talk.
"What do yah wanna know?" Kuro's attention seemed preoccupied by the weapons on display.
"What was life like for you back in your world?" To Maple's suggestion Kuro snorted.
"Life, I'm not sure that's the right term." Kuro stated bluntly. "To use simple terms: I was living on borrowed time, to the point that I needed daily transfusions from my sisters, my brother and a couple of the neighbour girls." Maple and Katarina had simultaneous looks of horror on their features.
"Are you going to be okay?" Maple asked concern clear in her voice.
"Fairly certain the issue has been resolved: cause the last thing I remember before coming here was dying." Kuro had a look of peace on her features. "Still I died surrounded by my family, if I had to say anything about it, I would say that I have no regrets." Both Maple and Katarina gave Kuro hugs simultaneously. Kuro parted after a minute as a thought occurred to the brown skinned girl. "The help menu said that we could copy weapons that we pick up that are the same type as our legendary's right?" Kuro stated indicating the rack of weapons behind her.
"We should ask the black smith's permission first." Katarina stated the look on her face thinking her logic was infallible. "How would you feel if a bunch of strangers walked into your store and made a copy out of everything inside."
"What do you mean make a copy of everything inside?" Erhard asked having finished with Tanya. "I'll explain your concerns to him." Kuro stated as she walked inside of the back room with a light tone of annoyance.
"Warrant Officer?" Maple asked looking at Tanya with suspicion. "You hold rank?"
"Barely." Tanya explained simply. "I just finished officer school a couple of month's ago." The two girls sized Tanya up. "I'm nine years old if that's what you're wondering." The young warrant officer stated bluntly.
"Well... it's a little older than a I figured but not the point." Maple stated still having a hard time wrapping her head around the situation.
"Why is a nine year old joining the military?" Katarina asked on both of their behalves.
"Morton's fork." Tanya stated bluntly. "We are currently being invaded on multiple fronts so the military needs every asset it can find. While under normal circumstances my age might give pause I have an abnormally high level of magical power, what's worst is that I am a orphan which means no one to argue against me being drafted. Given the choice of being inducted or going to the academy so that I would receive the proper training to increase my odds of survival I chose the latter, and now stand here as a warrant officer, and a baronet on top of that having been tied to the empire with a title of minor nobility."
Not that she could really enjoy those privileges until the war ended, she had to survive being used as a guinea pig for that to happen. Maple and Katarina both walked over and gave Tanya a hug, based on her reaction not something that she was really use to.
"What are you doing?"
"Giving you a hug. You don't want it?" Maple asked though she suspected that she knew the answer.
"I didn't say that." Tanya said though they were soon interrupted by the appearance of the black smith and the Sword Hero.
"We interrupting something?" Erhard asked cocking a interested brow at the three children.
"Not really." Tanya separated from Maple and Katarina as she returned to professionalism with a cough. "Have you asked about the weapons?"
"You can copy them if you want to." Erhard stated noting down Kuro's Measurements. "If the waves end up dropping directly on top of us I need you four as strong as possible. That and free advertisement during the next wave can't hurt either."
Cue the four girls pillaging the weapons of the black smith's store. They weren't actually taking anything, only copying stuff, so it was probably for the best that Kuro doesn't reveal the Infinite Blade Works yet. Not only the power to produce a limitless supply of weapon copies, but also overloading them with mana until they explode and then flinging them at the enemy forces turning them into disposable ammunition in the process. Katarina and Maple admitted their back stories weren't quite as interesting as Kuro's and Tanya's, one just being a pro gamer and the other a noble man's daughter in another magic fantasy world. For now they had armour to tend to.
"Getting armour for all of you ready is going to take a while, even taking your uh... suggestions into account." Erhard seemed to glare at Kuro. "That is not armour." Kuro's bikini plate aside the girl's had made requests for much more practical armour sets, Erhard showed approval to Maple in particular for wanting full body plate mail, and Katarina for accepting the suggestions he made to keep her safe and able to move somewhat decently. Tanya lost some points requesting only the minimal amount of armour but justified it by stating that she planned to be moving through heavy brush.
"You want to buy more armour?" Kuro was looking at one of Katarina's companions with blatant suspicion.
Red head, wearing brand new leather armour and carrying over more. It was even worst then the luxury ones the other soldiers had on before. It flat out left her midsection and most of her breasts exposed and left a wide open path for any industrious swords man or spear man to run their blades through her neck, chest and waist. The multiple jewels set into it existed for no other reason than pure decoration in a way that offends her every sensibility as a magic castor. In short, in the same way Kuro's plate mail had been less armour and more bikini, this was less armour and more corset.
"You actually made this?" Kuro asked pointing at the Armour that the woman who introduced herself as Mein had collected. "Don't get me wrong the quality is nothing to sneeze at but in regards to protection it's absolute garbage."
"Sir Hero." Mein had a clearly annoyed twitch on her face. "I understand that you have certain privileges but please keep in mind that you're being rude to our esteemed host."
"Yeah can't argue with your logic there kid." Erhard stated prompting Mein to recoil in surprise. "Most of that stuff is for looking good in front of male suitors when they go out hunting." Erhard himself admitted looking ashamed for himself. But for every rich moron he outfits he can outfit five people cheaply in decently gear so that they don't get killed trying to provide for themselves or their family's as adventurers. "If it's protection you want keep the armour you have now miss." And on that note, Mein's efforts to rip Katarina off were smothered. "As for you four. These are the smallest size that I've got." Erhard handed the four hero's chain mail shirts, which on their build was really more chain mail dresses. Maple less so then the others, under developed and short for her age she might be but at least it would show through in some situations.
She also took the liberty of picking up a knife for carving, not for stabbing people, the weapons didn't seem to like it when they used anything but them to fight as made evident by the blade that was now lodged in the ceiling when Maple picked it up.
"Should we go out and level now?" Katarina asked noting that they now have a bare minimal amount of armour to work with and a hand-full of weapon transformations to work on unlocking the bonuses for. That was another thing that the weapons could do, each new form came with a little more power to work with, or a new ability that they could use to ruin someone's day.
"Don't you guys know that in video games you stock up on supplies before you go exploring?" Maple looked like someone who thought her logic was infallible. "It's too late to go to a store and buy some when you're trapped in a cave with a hydra that's trying to eat you."
"Why do you look like you're speaking from personal experience?" Kuro asked cocking a brow suspiciously at her.
"She's right though." Tanya pointed out so the group started to make their rounds beginning with a potions store.
While making their way through the town Tanya received some important information that she felt compelled to share.
"Ladies tell me: what do those look like to you?" The four of them had passed by the local church, the main building, the steeple, was surrounded on three sides by three attached towers, at the top of each was a weather vein made in the likeness of a sword, a spear, and a bow. Kuro responded by looking down at the transforming weapon in her hand as if comparing it against the church.
"They... worship these weapons?" Katarina asked seemingly looking for confirmation.
Some of their companions had gone inside already, one of Tanya's, a heavily armoured man by the name of Mald, was still outside watching them. Tanya had them all turn around before she talked in a hush.
"Most of them." Tanya stated looking at Maple who was stiff with the same realisation. Mind you Tanya's realisation went a step deeper. "It also explains why the king was treating her the way he was." Tanya stated which managed to yank Maple out of her stupor.
"What do you mean?" Maple asked having not figured out what she meant.
"First when we were introduced to the king." Tanya stated reminding the group about their first meeting as she raised her finger. "He made a deliberate effort to dismiss Maple before she could introduce herself, a sign of contempt if nothing else." Then she raised up a second finger. "The pouches of silver."
"Maple got more then the rest of us though." Katarina stated confused. "Shouldn't that mean he's favouring her?"
"And if that was the reason he gave us I wouldn't be so suspicious. But it wasn't." Maple got no companions during the selection so the King gave her extra money to help make up the difference. "If it was a decision he made on the spot because Maple didn't have any companions why was her bag of silver with eight hundred coins inside prepared in advance like ours? If it was something he decided on the spot shouldn't someone have been fetched to pick up the extra silver? Or at least a second bag added with the extra three hundred inside?" Katarina wanted to point out that they could've just filled the bag with more silver but then when did they see them do that?
"So the king knew in advance that no one was joining up with Maple?" Kuro stated having come to the same conclusion by now. "Or he had another reason for giving her more. Before she interrupted him he looked like he was about to make one or more of the adventurers become her companion anyway." They know too little about this situation, well they did just get here after all.
"Oi!" The four of them turned around to face Mald who was looming over them. "Are you four going to stay out here in the street gossiping and holding up traffic or are you going to come into the church now?"
The four of them each entered the church, the people inside looked a little surprised to see them but that was not chief among their concerns, rather the four of them just walked up to the frankly massive hourglass that was at the middle ground of the church which then shot a beam of light at the weapons downloading new information into them in the process.
'Melromarc 29Days 6Hours 20Minutes.'
"Well that's good to know." Kuro commented. "So then, Grinding?"
Thus the four of them were led out to the fields outside of the castle ground in order to hunt some weak monsters.
"If we're going to level grind then we need to split up, and some of us are going to be in the woods." Tanya stated looking up the technically older girl brow cocked in concern. "Are you sure you're going to be okay by yourself?"
"I'm always wandering off by myself, but I always end up picking up something good." Maple admitted prompting a suspicious cock of the brow from Tanya.
"Alright. If you're sure." Thus the four heroes and three parties went their separate ways.
Maple didn't have to wait long before the orange balls started to swarm her and bite at her.
"Yosh!" Not that she had much to worry about, ridiculous defensive power stopping the attempt to gnaw at her dead. Instead Maple pulled off one of the balloons and proceeded to shove it inside of her shield. "This part is just like NWO too!" And thus Maple rediscovered the joys of devour. After feeding ten of the poor bastards to her shield it notified her of a new form. Thus Maple pressed down on the new icon and was rewarded with the Orange Balloon Shield, and of the 100 experience points she needed to level up she now had 10. "Hmm. Should I go somewhere that'll be more efficient? But if I do that I'll interfere with Tanya and the others." While thinking about that Maple saw a giant version of the balloon enemies she had already stuffed into her shield floating in the sky. "Wow!" If Maple had Syrup she could fly up on him. Or if she still had machine god then she could blast her way up, even Savagery or hydra could simply reach up and yank them out of the air. While thinking about this Maple received a notification for the grass shield. Looking down she saw that the shield she was pressing to the ground was still on 'Absorb everything it comes into contact with' mode so now it had eaten the ground. "I can feed regular stuff to my shield too?" And then light bulb. "Oh I bet I can find something in the castle town I can use to get up there and take one of those things down!" Rope seemed like a good idea, or failing that some kind of bird.
It took Kuro about five minutes before she ditched the rest of her companions. Make no mistake she didn't find them unlikable, only that she needed some alone time.
"Well it's not like I don't know why I'm here." Kuro materialised a pair of blades, one white and one black, Kanshou and Byakou and noted that the sword could copy her constructs. "Shall we get to work?"
Sadly though the sword wouldn't let her use them, not even to fling them at a enemy but she could make do. She also discovered that the Noble Phantasms now had a ridiculous amount of mana behind their cost, why she couldn't be sure until she had done some more experimenting. Thus after downing a mana potion Kuro instead proceeded to make copies of the weapons in Unlimited Blade Works and let the legendary sword copy them, feeding them it if you would, the weakest would sadly only unlock at around sixty, and Kuro had yet to gain a single point of XP. But it was necessary, she had to know, she had to make sure that her body wouldn't start fading away if she ran too low on magic. Her companions were close enough that she could siphon them in a emergency but that wasn't the case.
"So you kept your word, you bloody monster you." Kuro didn't know what kind of creature could broker deals to recruit legendary heroes, only that thus far he had been honest in his dealings. And that there was something far worst here then just the waves of catastrophe that people keep talking about if something like that has decided to get involved.
Tanya paused in her walk, not for the first time either, as she took a look at the sky and used her bow to snipe several of the birds that had taken flight above them causing them to drop into the woods within walking distance. Well walking distance for her.
"Get it." Tanya ordered looking back at the members of her party which she had been treating as work mules and hunting dogs ever since they left the castle town earlier.
"If I may sir Hero..."
"Where are we going?" Tanya interrupted Mald's question as she glared at him to do as he was told. "I saw some mountains earlier, we're going in roughly a straight line from here to there."
"Are you mad?" Mald questioned wide eyed. To be more accurate Tanya has little information on this world so in her mind she could be forgiven for not knowing anything about the territory they were going to. "That's a eight hour walk through rough terrain into Griffin territory!"
"Is that all?" Tanya asked brow cocked in surprise.
"What do you mean is that all?" Mald was becoming angrier by the moment.
"I have standards." Tanya stated in no uncertain terms. "Was promised the best of the best and I will have them. Your blatant whining is leading me to believe your king lied to me."
"How dare you imply-"
"That a fully grown and trained warrior some how has less stamina then a nine year old under fed orphan?" Mald fumed as Tanya directed his attention back to her earlier kill. "That will be your supper for this evening. I don't care if something else gets to it first."
The banging of a gavel indicated the second meeting of the Council of Katarina in the new world.
"The topic of this afternoon's meeting will be Katarina's companion rankings!" Chairman Katarina explained as images of their four companions appeared above their heads. Mein, Rino, Elena and Lesty.
"For our first topic: Rino!" Rino was the team's sword's woman, which made her a front liner along with Katarina with the legendary spear, aside from that she was also quite knowledgeable about the local plants and animals which made her the team cook.
"She was really helpful when we fought against that Jackalope thing!" Hot Blooded Katarina stated nodding in satisfaction.
"And it tasted really good when she fried it with those mushrooms!" Intellectual Katarina stated hand on her belly.
""AYE!"" The remaining two Katarina's that hadn't spoken yet both gave a unanimous agreement.
"Second topic: Elena!" Daughter of a knight, but prefers archery and magic to close quarters combat, opposite Katarina in some ways in that she had a lot of intellect but not a lot of physical ability. Still she knew how to get her to work.
"Learning a new language is hard..." Timid Katarina stated making a exaggerated show of being sprawled out on the table.
"Well there was those good deals on potions that she got everyone in the castle town." Apparently she was the daughter of a merchant, she knew all the prices, could make out quality at a glance, and understood when they were being scammed.
"Third: Mein."
""""Eugh."""" Quick to spend money and little to show for her efforts beyond playing the role of cheer leader.
"And Lesty?"
""""Nay!"""" Lesty also served as cheer leader, course she was not as bad as Mein since she at least had enough of a sense of self preservation to roast monsters that got near her.
"Right then! So we keep Rino and Elena on the party and convince Mein and Lesty to leave as soon as possible. All in favour?"
""""AYE!"""" They didn't have anything against the two glorified Cheerleaders, but as someone whose been dodging doom flags for the past year Katarina knew for a fact that the battlefield wasn't a suitable place for them. This was for their own good too.
"Katarina are you paying attention?" Elena snapped using a tap of her finger to Katarina's forehead to make her come back to reality.
"Ow ow ow!" Katarina for the most part was trying to recover from the slightly too rough love tap Elena had given her.
"You were the one who said that you wanted to learn the country's language." Elena stated glowering with disapproval.
"Right! Right! Where were we again?" Katarina stated her hands going from her head to her book.
"The Alphabet." Elena stated bluntly. "From there we can focus on words, and from words magic."
That caught Katarina's attention.
"Magic?"
"Yes Magic." Elena stated brow twitching. "Magic learned from a book is more powerful then what can be acquired from a crystal ball. If you are aiming to be as strong as possible for chasing away the waves then I assume that this is rather ideal for you is it not?"
"Eh. True." Katarina looked around for a moment. "Where's Mein and Lesty?"
"They went back to the Castle town while you weren't looking." Elena explained while Rino brought over some fresh baked bread.
Maple was just finishing her 'Hot air balloon hunting' shopping and was currently on her way back to the fields. Mein, Malty S. Melromarc, merely smiled at some thugs gathered behind her as they went to work.
Author's Note:
Captain Imaginat: Don't worry, I too find it annoying that I can't edit reviews. I've already got Raphtalia's and Filo's introductions planned out.
mcstrategist: In a manner of speaking. Though the question you should be asking yourself is why were Kuro and the others summoned into the same adventure he went on.
RonaldM40196867: Thank you for saying so.
Hmm23: This is both true. Don't worry, I've got plans for Raphtalia and they don't involve Tanya.
drmcgraw186: Wish Granted. I'll see what I can do. She'll be able to learn something similar. True. Maple has a unique talent for finding loop holes in the system, the pseudo devour is a prime example of this.
123ABIR123: Don't worry I am.
ptl: To the best of my ability, constructive criticism is always welcomed.
REINozomi: I do too.
Azure-Star-Dragon: Everything Maple does will be within the realm of possible that I've read in the web novel, light novel, manga and anime.
JtBlack-Hawk3198: I'm aware.