Author's Note: So fair warning to you all. You remember how Naofumi got framed for Rape? Kind of the whole signature scene of the series? Yeah: that's this chapter. Please Read, Review, Favourite and Enjoy!
Chapter 3: The Worst Day of the Shield Hero's Life
'Rope Shield Level Locked 5.'
Well so much for that plan, and she still had no idea where the others had gone. Bah, she should've coordinated with them on where they were going to go before she left, her designs on efficient level grinding had been foiled, unless of course she could pick up a more efficient area to level grind then what they were currently working with, and for that matter come up with something that would let her kill monsters more efficiency.
"What did I do in NWO when I'm out levelling by myself?" A thought bubble appeared in the head of the girl as sweet as her name sake featuring a mech suit made out of guns and laser beams flying above a forest raining down death and destruction from above. "No before that." A giant cross between a T-Rex, a Demon and the star of the Alien movies was shown breathing fire, nabbing and eating players and over all reeking wanton slaughter. "No before that." Three giant dragon heads coming from the back of a giant flying turtle were out right melting mobs of monsters below, leading to a light bulb to go off in Maple's head. "Syrup!" She does have all this silver in her pocket burning a hole she might as well use some.
"Excuse me!" The first bird pulled carriage Maple tried to flag down opted to ignore her.
"Pardon me!" The second bird drawn carriage she tried to flag down also ignored her. Maple made a quiet growl, the next one that came before her she ran under, intercepted the foot of the bird with her shield, before giving them both a shove and knocking them over along with the wagon it was pulling.
"What the hell!?" The merchant was firmly built with a intimidating frame.
"Excuse me. I was wondering where you bought your bird from." Maple explained with a cheesy grin.
"Brat you are in for a world of hurt!" Maple intercepted the wooden club with the jewel of the shield and got the weapon turned material sucked inside of her weapon. "You're the...?"
"You can try using your fists next if you like." Maple wiggled her shield as if bragging. "But I don't recommend it."
The Merchant's next reaction was not what she was expecting: he screamed in terror and proceeded to run away as if a monster was chasing him.
"Okay... I wasn't expecting him to do that." Maple soon noted that the Merchant had left behind his employees. Two young children with dog ears and tail. "Beast men?" Maple asked as she helped pull the two up.
"Demi-humans." The boy corrected. "Wanui."
"Right. Can you lead me to somewhere I can buy one of those?" Maple asked indicating the bird on the ground dizzy.
"We can't leave the cart, but we can give you directions." With no knowledge of land marks or signs Maple was forced to rely on a strung out series of lefts and rights. Naturally this caused her to wind up being lost in the shadier part of the town, though where she was was the least of her concerns at the moment even if she didn't realise it yet.
"Huu... was that a left, left, right? Or was it left, right, left?" Thinking that she had gone the wrong way Maple had chosen that time to turn around.
"HYAH!" She barely saw the dagger coming before she instinctively raised up the shield to block it, at minimal she would block the blow with her shield, at best she would suck the dagger inside of it. It could be said that Maple's aim was both atrocious and excellent at the same time, because closed as her eyes were the dagger indeed landed on the part of the shield that absorbs materials.
"RRRAAA!" However the pained scream from the assassin indicated that Maple had absorbed something other than the dagger into her shield.
"Where did he go?" The corners of Maple's vision started to blur as she saw the latest notification her shield had fed to her.
'Human Shield...'
"HHHYYYAAAHHH!" Maple immediately pressed down on the button that spits out the things she keeps in her shield's storage space and was rewarded by, of all things, a mangled tube of ground meat, leather and armour. Maple was far from a genius, but it didn't take one to figure out what had happened.
'd0 YoU HUnG3r?'
"No! I didn't mean..."
'Do Y0U w4N+ t0 34T Ev37y +h1nG?'
"I don't want this..."
'(0nD1+I0N'5 M3+ Shield of Gluttony Un10cKeD!'
Kuro had been up for the better part of the night feeding the contents of the Unlimited Blade works into her sword's slew of transformations, now was the time to work on the other way of unlocking transformations, feeding materials.
"There you are!" Welt, the fighter in Kuro's party, had finally managed to chase her down too. Well more accurately the brown skinned loli had allowed herself to be found. "Do you have any idea how worried we were about you?"
"With all do respect but I've been under surveillance since I was brought here. Every so often a girl needs to be alone with her thoughts." Kuro flicked her wrist and the legendary sword was flung out in the form of a simple knife, landing in the eye of a bear who had managed to sneak up on them, before the knife disappeared and reappeared in Kuro's hand. "Well that's handy. But more to the point, would there be any real point in calling the four of us here if we couldn't at the very least beat a few starter monsters?" Welt nodded her head in the affirmative.
"Anyone whose still tired from last night can rest for now. I'm going to collect some materials for this thing." Kuro stuffed the bear into her storage space at around the same time that one of the soldiers from the castle ran over to them.
"Thank heavens we found you!" The soldier breathed a legitimate sigh of relief, though the fear in his features was far from gone. "The Shield Hero is on a rampage!"
Oh damn it.
Katarina had fallen asleep studying with Elena, were Malty in a more merciful mood she would simply just let them lay there for a while and goof off some more, but alas she had to play the panicked witness.
"Katarina wake up!" Malty held Katarina by her shoulders and shook her awake.
"WAHAHAHAHAHA!" Katarina eventually roused to Malty's not so gentle prodding. "Mein? What is it? What's got you all ruffled?" When the person least concerned about going up against literal actual monsters suddenly starts acting afraid you take note.
"The Shield Hero is destroying the Castle town!" Malty shouted in a flawlessly panicked tone of voice.
"Maple?" Katarina asked clearly confused. "Ignoring for a moment how she could be doing that given her low attack power. Why?" From what little Katarina has seen of Maple she is not the type of person to randomly fly off of the handle and attack someone for no reason.
Malty gestured behind her to several towers of smoke coming off of the direction of the castle town. It would appear that someone, not necessarily Maple, is destroying the castle town.
"Hmm!" Katarina closed her eyes, crossed her arms and legs, and mustered all five of her brain cells to figure out a way of helping this situation. "Nothing! I can't think of anything that I can do to stop her!" Useless brat. Malty would feed all four of them to her pig of an uncle as soon as she claimed the throne.
"The four of you just got here yesterday. She can't be that much stronger than you are." Elena pointed out standing as the voice of reason here.
"And the Knights should be at a disadvantage if they're fighting to incapacitate her instead of killing her." Katarina quickly, incorrectly, concluded rubbing her chin.
Malty had seen to it that there wouldn't be a single knight in the city who wouldn't kill the brat on sight as a affront to their sensibilities as soon as they find her. Unless of course the Church thinks they can get more out of it by having one of the other Heroes kill her for them, or by leaving her alive long enough to rampage elsewhere as well thus further cementing the shield Hero's reputation as a monster. Malty didn't care about the specifics, only about making sure the other heroes bore witness to the slaughter.
"Well this is a right nasty mess we've gotten ourselves into." Kuro appeared above them, the rest of her party having followed her through the woods. "Are you all thinking about what I'm thinking?"
"How much level grinding did you do last night?" Katarina asked though she dreaded the answer.
"I just killed a bear a minute ago, that brought the total up to five." Kuro explained prompting Katarina to bite her lip.
"Five. We made a big stew pot." Katarina admitted. "We aren't going to get more on the way over if we go together."
"You got anything special from your world that we can use?" Kuro asked brow in the air.
She means Earth bump magic and training in a weapon she can't even use? Yeah sure, that'll be useful.
"Should I focus on the evacuation or try to find Tanya?" And that said everything about what they needed to know about what their situation was like.
"Evacuation. I'll see if I got anything I can use to restrain her." And so the two girls ran off back to the castle town.
The realisation that Maple had turned a guy into a tube of meat had not been taken well, nor the slightly glazed over look she was giving off as she stumbled through the streets.
"There's the Devil of the Shield!" Maple's previously not at all but now dark orange eyes had a hint of fear in them as she looked at the latest group of guards that found her.
"Wait! Stay away! I don't want to hurt you!" A statement that sounded more threatening than it was meant to be.
"Die demon!"
Maple deliberately pushed her shield off to the side to avoid having the strike land on it as the halberd's edge landed on her head instead, bouncing off of the thickest bone in her body. She was however knocked over and slid a not insignificant distance as one of the other soldiers smacked her away golfing style dragging the shield along the ground as she went. Everything that wasn't Maple which came into contact with the large pitch black tower shield with a pattern that loosely resembled a boar's head got sucked inside carving a path into the sewers. Maple was able to use that hole she accidentally made to stop her momentum before she crashed into a family cowering down at the end of the street, the last group of guards was even less lucky than the assassin, he at least had something that could be buried.
"After her!" Course the trade off to that had been that now she was trapped in a dank dark sewer blindly running away from people blindly attacking her. So Maple did the only thing she really could do and she ran as fast as possible, shield out front so that when they hit her from behind said shield would not eat them.
In the mean time on the surface Kuro's and Katarina's parties were just arriving at the castle town.
"What the heck happened?" Kuro asked looking around the area and seeing the destruction wreaked. Various shield shaped holes had been poked into the buildings of the castle town as something or someone made their way through them.
"Shield Hero. Rampage. We were over this already." Malty stated as the whole 'feed them to the pig king' became a more appealing idea by the second.
Kuro rolled her eyes as she spotted a merchant who looked like someone bit his cart in half.
"Which way did she go?" The merchant was reluctant to give the information to a child, basic human decency and all that, but then he spotted the princess waiting for the answer to that question.
"Under ground!" The Merchant stated indicating the missing chunk of street, before he jumped at the sight of a building suddenly collapsing into the sewer.
"Looks like she's heading to the castle." Kuro stated noting that it was likely a complete accident. "I'll head her off. Tell everyone currently heading in that direction to make a immediate 180."
Maple had taken a break to catch her breath after the load bearing wall she just Devoured her way through sealed the sewer tunnel. Running through waist high sludge did not bode well for speed, even after the damned shield ate most of it she was still tired and out of breath. Were she capable of rational thought right now she would try switching out the Shield of Gluttony, but she was up all night, terrified and the damned thing was affecting her thought process. In short, she was too tired to think. Not too tired to move though, that seemed to be the chief power of this thing, it'll sap your mind dry but so long as you keep feeding it it'll keep you going. Still what Maple didn't realise was that she was walking towards the belly of the beast. It was a little known fact that the dungeons of the castle town connected to the sewers. There had been issues with installing plumbing into the castle evidently, the pre-existing underground structure complicating the process. One of the past Queen's had the idea to make scrubbing and other sewage maintenance work the responsibility of prisoners and hence maintained a entrance where the two over lapped. A escape attempt saw the sewers sealed by a brick wall suspended off the ground high enough that sewage could get through but a person could not, even without a grate in the way, a omnivorous demonic shield saw it unsealed. Three taps against the nearest prison cell alerted the occupant inside that someone was on the other side.
"Is someone in there?" The woman in question was currently dressed in rags, noting that the voice hadn't hit maturity yet Eclair Seatto reasonably assumed that her jailers hadn't come to pay her a congenial visit as of yet.
"Yes." The prisoner shouted hoping to be heard through the jail cell.
"Can you tell me where I am?" Maple asked though she was still looking around just to be sure there wasn't anything she was missing.
"Below Melromarc Castle. How do you not know?" Eclair asked suspicious.
"I came in through the sewers. I'm trying to avoid people right now." Maple stated having a look around again just to be sure. "Why are you imprisoned here?"
"Assaulting knights of the country. My sentence is written in the book hanging by my cell." Eclair explained, not that she could lie with the slave seal written on her chest.
"I can't read it. But I believe you." Maple replied sound increasingly unsettled as the situation progressed. "Hang on I'm going to try and open the cell door."
"If the cell door is forced open the slave seal on me will kill me." Eclair explained humorlessly.
"Die Dev-" The blatant death threat from Eclair's guard was cut off by a loud and sickening crunch, her slave seal evaporating indicating what happened to him, as did the door unlocking a moment later. Slowly Eclair walked out and had a look outside, her rescuer was at least thirteen years old, fifteen if nature hadn't been kind to her. Of more important note was the black shield on her back sporting the image of a boar between all the black magic lines and orange jewel in the centre.
"Wait are you the shield hero?" Maple didn't respond, simply excused herself into the cell before closing the door and the lock activated.
"I don't want to hurt anyone. Tell people to stop attacking my shield and it'll stop eating them." On that note, Maple curled up on the bed of straw that Eclair had been sleeping on for the past several days and finally allowed mental exhaustion to take her as she fell into a mercifully dreamless sleep and her shield swapped itself out for something made out of iron.
Kuro was running for the castle, she spotted the guards, same ones who were trying to kill Maple, and 'convinced' them to rethink their life choices over a short nap. Kuro had already unlocked the most useful equip bonus from Unlimited Blade works that she could, dual wielder, from a steel Butterfly Sword, now she had twin bear swords out to rip into anyone foolish enough to try and block her path between her and Maple. Someone was on her side at least, the sound of fighting indicating that someone had entered a disagreement over some topic. Moving around the corner she spotted a blonde woman in prison sweats using a sword to man handle three people. Direct blows from the butt of twin iron sword's left two men temporarily stunned freeing Eclair up to knock out the third man and leaving the other two wide open to be put on the ground.
"Huu. Ha." Eclair sized up the girl before her, who held up the swords, clasped them back together, and returned them to the form of the legendary sword.
"Two heroes in Melromarc?" Eclair asked surprised. "And both children?"
"Four actually but that can wait for later." Kuro stated waving off the situation with her hand. "Take it you met Maple already?"
Eclair nodded slowly.
"If that's the Shield Hero, then yes." Eclair gestured down the hall. "She locked herself in my cell and told me to ask people to stop attacking her. Apparently her shield is eating people." Well that might explain where all the holes were coming from.
"Alright, I'm going to get the king and his royal authority on that, you can go back to where ever you left them and-" The duo suddenly had the conversation cut off by a explosion collapsing part of the castle on the dungeons. Looking down one of the men they thought they had knocked out had crawled over to a emergency switch that was inside of a hidden compartment inside of the wall.
His wife was going to kill him, there was no way that was not going to happen. The hero who was supposed to be their chief political pawn against Siltvelt and Shieldfreeden, the Shield Hero, was mostly likely dead, or if not dead her reputation had been thoroughly ruined. On top of that the castle town had mostly been destroyed by the blatant attempts by his own guards to kill her and he still had no idea of how it happened.
"Would somebody, some where, explain to me what is going on?" The king looked like he aged five years, which was impressive when you consider the fact that he already looked like he was nearing a hundred.
"Whatever shield Maple unlocked it destroys whatever it comes into contact with." Kuro summarised her opinion of the damage that had been done to the castle town. Eclair was tugged forward a moment later, chained at the King's order before giving a detailed description that had now been turned into a drawing of Maple's shield. "We are trying to determine what material unlocked it and-"
"It's the Shield of Gluttony." The king explained bluntly. "It absorbs everything it comes into contact with and converts that into spirit and magical power for the wielder, with the down side of reduced XP gains and other nastier abilities with stronger downsides." The King explained as he turned his attention away from the drawing and back to the remaining heroes. "It and the other cursed weapons like it only appear when the user is made to experience despair that is worst than death."
"...and how do you know this if we might ask your Majesty." Kuro asked blatantly suspicious.
"Each of the Seven Cursed Series has a corresponding animal as it's symbol." The king let the paper float over to be appraised by the remaining heroes. "The Boar belongs to the curse of Gluttony." Well that had implications. "Where is the guard captain who placed the kill order on the shield?" The man in question was walked in a moment later and gave a salute to the King. "Lay out the Shield's crimes."
"We found the shield dumping the remains of one of her victims in a alley way. When we attempted to interrupt her she demolished a nearby building, no doubt in a attempt to give chase." The man tightened his fist in anger. "Three of my men are dead your majesty, and if the prisoner's report is accurate one of the guards as well."
"Noted. Bring in the corpse." The king stated making it clear his patience had been running on fumes right now.
"I warn you the sight is... grisly." The guard captain eyed both Katarina and Kuro.
"Any who wish to leave before the body is brought in shall do so now." The king stated bluntly, leading to the guard captain to wave over a couple of his men. To their credit neither Katarina or Kuro made to move when something was carried in wrapped in a tarp and laid out on the courtroom floor before being unwrapped revealing, to the regret of the two heroes, what closely resembled loose hamburger, broken bones and mangled armour. While Katarina was loosing her breakfast the king was walking over to examine the remains. Prodding with his cane eventually dug out a line of silver chain and the trinket attached therein, but he made a show out of looking for something else. "This was one of our shadows, likely assigned to watch the shield." The King eventually managed to remove a mangled mask. "I've seen enough. Excavate the section of the collapsed castle immediately. If the Shield Hero is dead I want to know that she's dead." The King stated simply.
"And if she is alive?" The guard Captain asked making the implications clear.
"Then keep her alive. The fact that the shield is limited to the use of counter attacks is well known, as you all might've noticed by now she has a rather dangerous one." The guard captain gave a rather angry salute before he left.
"I take it you presume Maple's innocence?" Kuro asked looking at the king suspiciously, mostly because he wasn't a rotting pile of hamburger.
"Unfortunately I know my subjects." The king stated examining his original discovery, a rosary combining together sword, spear and bow. "And that they are prone to rather foolish measures when they think that they are in the right."
Malty was humming in glee, the attempt to kill the shield brat had gone better then she could've imagined: not only did she die, but she killed several of the castle town guards in the process, released the prisoners in the dungeons and destroyed half the town before she was rightfully put down like a rampaging monster. This had gone better then accusing a male adult ever could've possibly managed and she had to resist the urge to cackle maniacally at her good fortune. Thus Malty had entered the throne room to speak with the King her father.
"Malty what were you doing with the Spear Hero?" Malty's father Aultcray asked glaring at his daughter.
"Is there a problem Papa?" Malty asked innocently.
"The Spear Hero came in here earlier today requesting to remove you and young Lesty from her party immediately." Aultcray asked causing Malty to recoil. "While normally I would refuse she, and the rest of her party for that matter, claim that you had left in the middle of grinding to go shopping of all things."
"And you believe, a little child over me, your own daughter?" Malty asked appalled.
"Belief has nothing to do with it." The king said, Malty's father no where to be seen here. "The spear along with miss Rino and Miss Elena both went up at least five levels during their time out, you have not."
"It takes less XP to level up at a lower level then a higher one." Malty snapped back attempting to find justification for her lack of progress.
"Which I might be willing to buy were you not wearing the evidence of where you have been." Aultcray snapped eyeing the corset armour Malty had bought from Erhard after she had arranged Maple's murder.
"I bought this earlier when I was shopping with the three heroes." Malty stated looking down at herself as if only just remembering what she walked in wearing. "You charged the crown for the armour." Aultcray stated holding up the invoice from Erhard detailing when she had bought it. "I understand that your mother believes I've gone senile: but please don't assume that makes me stupid."
"But Papa..."
"Do you understand what I am trying to do?" Aultcray asked temper cooling to a low simmer.
"You mean to protect the country from the waves?" Malty tried discreetly donning a guilty smile.
"Oh that with no doubt, but also keeping you alive." Aultcray stated bluntly. "Faubrey is justifiably seeking compensation from us, from you specifically, after our summoning of the four heroes during the wave." Aultcray stated leaning back into his thrown releasing a tired sigh. "And I trust you understand what precisely my brother means by compensation?" Aultcray asked and all humour was sucked out of the room, from Malty most of all. "Good. Now I suggest you go find the spear, and ask her to take you back." Desperate times. Desperate measures, perhaps if Malty learns how to beg for her life she might mature a little bit.
Author's Note:
RonaldM40196867: More than you realise. I'm going to try for them, though not in the next couple of chapters as you might've been able to guess.
ptl: Mostly it's just me thinking about how Maple might be able to use her skills from NWO in the summoning world.
Captain Imaginat: Didn't plan to. I thought so too, the best way to beat stupid braggarts is to attack their ego. Hope I satisfied. Haven't gotten that far yet. The ability to recognise talent and Empathy are two of Katarina's defining traits, as is her refusal to take actions that she reasonably believes will lead to her getting hurt or worst. No, not yet I think. They'll be reasonably suspicious at first, but she should be able to win them over. Glad you like it so much.
Doom King of Lateveria: Neither did I.
Halo: Actions will speak louder than words. Also I'm probably going to steal that.
drmcgraw186: Glad you like it. Would you? For both their safety and hers, as I believe she already explained. Not a very hard thing to do, let's be real. Oh don't count on it, resources and fanaticism can get you pretty far.
Guest: Your welcome.
REINozomi: If chapters are too long fanfiction won't post them. Your welcome.
King of Fans: Thanks for saying so. In regards to Tanya, I plan on putting her to work dealing with the lion's share of corruption, seeing as how that is a obstacle to her continued survival. For Kuro, the phrase OMG OP PLZ NERF comes to mind, so I did. Well the Summoning world has a lot fewer glitches to it in comparison to NWO, Maple will have both a easier time adapting and a harder time getting through. If Myne was summoned she would immediately lock herself in the library and not come out, at least not without being properly prodded. Motoyasu buried the bar it's not very hard to exceed the standard he sets. Also Haha Noodle society. Not hard to figure out through some basic observation, especially if you're Tanya. Kuro cannot create material using the unlimited blade works and feed it to the sword, they would just be returned to being pure magical energy. Which was why Malty didn't give Maple time to level up. I actually got a few ideas for Noble Phantasms that I want Maple to copy, I recall seeing a Fate Grand Order Clip featuring a spartan using a Noble Phantasm that produced something that looked like a wall of Air Strike Shields, No idea what it's called though. Are all the lancer's Scottish or something? I'm going to have to look those up. Better yet, why not unlock a bunch of powerful weapon forms from UBW and go look for more later on?
Hmm23: Just because you don't stand a chance in a physical fight doesn't mean that you can't wreak the other guy, especially their reputation. Not quite no.