Naofumi was beyond exhausted, exhausted wasn't even a word appropriate enough to describe how exhausted he was at this point. He felt like the devil himself had taken away his energy and replaced it with thoughts of sleep.
But he shook his head to clear the thoughts of that, he couldn't sleep. Not yet at least. Not until he knew whether Lucatiel would wake up, the Ring hero had nearly died in the fight. Only surviving because Naofumi heard Ren's screams for help and getting there with healing magic. He looked at the Ring hero and grimaced, he was covered in blood soaked bandages, that fucking giant had done a number on him and the branch that impaled him had grazed an artery.
Luck… that was what it was. It was purely luck Lucatiel was even still alive. That and a lot of magic from the top healers in the kingdoms church. Naofumi snorted as he reminisced that, not even the general dislike for him outweighed their terrified emotions when he was carrying a near death Lucatiel on his shield, his hands bloodied from trying to keep his blood in his body. Ren was particularly savage during the more crucial hours of that night, snapping at everybody who even looked at the shield hero the wrong way, at one point drawing his sword on a noble who suggested that Naofumi was the reason for Lucatiel's state.
"God… that was… four days ago?" Naofumi rubbed his tired eyes, he couldn't remember. He wasn't able to sleep, not that he wanted to. He wanted to see Lucatiel wake up before he did. That and…
He was pulled from his stray thoughts from the door opening behind Naofumi as a set of footsteps walked in, he didn't need to turn around to know who It was, a bow was dropped beside his right arm as Itsuki came into view and moved to the other side of Lucatiel's unconscious form. Just… standing there and staring at him.
Naofumi didn't strike up a conversation, he figured that this was a moment that the Bow hero wanted for himself. He had heard how Itsuki treated Lucatiel before and during the battle so he was definitely full of regret.
Naofumi though, was still susceptible to being surprised. "Anything new about Lucatiel's condition?"
Naofumi sighed, though this wasn't one of annoyance. "You've been here everyday, you know just as much as me… No… no there's nothing new."
Itsuki turned his gaze from Lucatiel to the floor, it was this moment that Naofumi noticed how haggard he looked. His eye bags were dark and sunken in, his eyes themselves red rimmed. He was more pale than usual as well. Has he been sleeping?
"I… I so deeply regret my actions. I'm supposed to be a hero… we're supposed to be heroes but I couldn't do anything to help Lucatiel when he needed it. If it wasn't for Ren…"
Naofumi wasn't sure how to respond to the sudden humbleness that Itsuki was showing. He'd never really dealt with emotional breakdowns before other than his own younger brother, but that situation and this one were quite different.
Naofumi's silence turned out the be the right decision, Itsuki kept talking on his own. Sounding nothing like the pompous ass he'd been slowly becoming. "Did you know that there was a celebration being prepared for our success? It got pushed back because of Lucatiel's injuries. Now everybody's just worried for the Ring hero."
Itsuki pulled a chair and sat down. His legs seemingly beginning to fail him. "I am also worried that if… he never wakes up... the waves will get harder to defeat. We can't lose a single one of us."
"So you figured out that this isn't a game." Naofumi said, he crossed his arms and stared sternly at the bow hero suddenly. "Do you still think I raped that bitch?"
Itsuki winced, he and Motoyasu had been the only ones to believe the red haired manipulator and for a time he hated the shield hero for it. But now… Itsuki shook his head. "I thought you were guilty back then, and were only caught because you'd activated a hidden quest by accident, clearly I was wrong."
It wasn't exactly an apology, but Naofumi would let It go. "How's the other heroes?"
Itsuki pinched the bridge of his nose and took deep breaths, it was clear he was also suffering from a bitch of a headache. "Ren's locked himself in his room and wont come out, says he's not in the mood to interact with anybody. And Motoyasu is hunting down stray monsters from the wave, I myself was doing the same before I came here."
"Well it'll at least keep him occupied for a while."
"You should get some rest Naofumi." Itsuki suddenly said. "You look almost worse than Lucatiel at this point."
"I don't want to be asleep when he wakes up, and at this point if I go to sleep now I might not wake up in four days." Naofumi retorted. "Besides, you also look like shit."
"So you do care."
"Shut up."
There was silence for a few more minutes before Itsuki sighed and leaned back in his chair.
"I… haven't been sleeping well myself, the epiphany that this wasn't a game has… made sleep hard to say the least, I can only get an hour or two at a time right now… that giant creature didn't help matters."
Naofumi actually shuddered at the mention of it, that giant monster that couldn't get through the portal actually made him afraid. Were they going to have to fight that one day? How in the hell were they supposed to beat it? Let alone not get obliterated…
"Ugh…" A groan came from the bed, Naofumi's heart sped up and Itsuki practically fell out of his chair turning towards it. Slowly, Lucatiel's eyes opened as he dragged himself into a sitting position, his back leaning against the headboard. He looked at the Bow and Shield hero, blinking spots out of his vision.
"Nao...fumi? Itsuki? What are you-" Lucatiel suddenly burst into violent coughing spasms, suddenly awake Naofumi hopped from his chair and grabbed a pitcher of water from a nearby counter as Itsuki patted his back lightly. Lucatiel reached for the pitcher and took it, but found he didn't have the strength to lift it up. So he did the next best thing.
He just dumped his head in there and drank. Naofumi had to summon all of his remaining will not to laugh at the Ring hero… speaking of, his gaze drifted to said ring. According to accounts from the other heroes the giant that they had fought seemed to have an obsession with Lucatiel that bordered on homicidal. It had to be the Ring, the ring was special somehow. Unfortunately there wasn't a way to prove it, the ring was one of the legendary weapons and the weapons themselves are very mysterious.
"You really shouldn't be trying to get up. You just woke up from a four day coma." Itsuki was pushing Lucatiel back onto the bed as lightly as he could, thankfully the weakened Ring hero wasn't able to resist much.
"It's because of my coma that I'm trying to get up. I need to move around." Lucatiel was panting from the exertion. "At least let me remove the bandages from my face, I don't remember being hurt there anyway."
Naofumi sighed and walked behind the ring hero and started to cut the bandages. "I put them on you, you got a concussion so the kingdoms healers blessed the bandages."
"What he means is that they literally prayed over them instead of using magic." Itsuki muttered.
"I feel fine now though, which is why I want to move around. I just feel weak and groggy."
"You haven't moved for four days, your muscles may have atrophied a bit." Naofumi suggested
"Is that how that works?" Itsuki asked.
"I'm not a damn doctor I don't know. But regardless if Lucatiel wants to walk around I don't really care to try and stop him." Naofumi snapped. "Meanwhile I'm gonna sleep until the celebration then leave."
"You aren't coming?"
"What celebration?
Naofumi looked at the both of them and sighed irritably. Why did he have to deal with this? Just his luck huh… "They were preparing a celebration for our success, but after you got your ass kicked they pushed it back until you woke up, once they know your active again they'll continue."
"I feel bad for holding people back on my account." The ring hero mourned as he stood up, a little wobbly but otherwise fine. "They could have continued, I've never been much for parties."
"That we can agree on."
"So you arent coming." Itsuki guessed.
"Why would I go somewhere I'm not wanted? I'd be painting a target on my own back. Lucatiel's efforts to help me seem to have barely helped, I'm still hated by those people if you haven't noticed."
"The savior of Lute village should make an appearance. Your much more of a hero to the people than you think Naofumi."
"I'm guessing you and Raphtalia weren't at the battle with us because you defended Lute?" Lucatiel asked.
"Right, he wouldn't know." Itsuki said. "Do you want me to explain?"
"I don't really care." Lucatiel put a hand on the wall near the door to steady himself. "I can guess the rest, I think you should come. At the very least you'll have me or Ren to defend you."
"Where are you going anyway?" Naofumi asked. "Do you even have a direction?"
"Uh… I don't know, probably just wander for a while. Try and get some strength back in my body." The ring hero shrugged nonchalantly as he shuffled out of the room, leaving an irritated and tired shield hero.
"Wander… I'll tell you where he can shove his wandering tendencies…" Naofumi muttered darkly while Itsuki looked at him wide eyed as Naofumi continued to mumble foul things under his breath.
Line Break.
"Sir Ring hero! You're awake! O' praise the gods and all their glory!" A zealot fell to her knees in front of Lucatiel, who looked at the crowd of people fawning over him sheepishly. The crowd was giving him a reasonable berth in light of his still healing body, but their fervent eyes were doing enough damage to his composure to make up for it in spades.
"I-Uh… please-please stop." He stuttered, the King behind him was stifling a laugh at his expense, he was even more embarrassed by the wide-eyed stares his sword wielding friend Ren was giving him, he helped the girl back to her feet and she squealed in happiness. "HE TOUCHED ME, THE RING HERO TOUCHED ME!" she screamed as she bolted into the crowd, said crowd roaring in approval.
A strangled sound came from the back of his throat. He was only trying to leave the castle, he wanted some fresh air but apparently there were dozens of citizens in the throne room. All of them asking for his well-being, while it was nice to be so appreciated that after four days people were still asking about you, it was also quite embarrassing to be revered this much when by comparison, you didn't do a whole lot.
"We love you Sir Ring hero!"
"You and your other heroes are awesome sir hero!"
"Impregnate me Hero-sama!"
"WHAT DID YOU SAY!?" Lucatiel's voice cracked on that last comment and he felt his face warm up, that was a bit too much for him. And apparently it was for the King too, he stood from his throne and shouted.
"Alright that's enough of you lot! Guards, escort these people out of here." the King commanded, there was a bunch of moaning and groaning from the people but they didn't fight as they were led away, a bunch of them still calling for Lucatiel as they left.
"I… I really think I rather would have died then hear that."
"Sir Lucatiel, must you be so macabre about your life?" The King sighed. "Well no matter, it is good to see you standing again. You gave your fellow heroes quite a scare."
Speaking off… Ren walked up to him, his eyes still wide as if he couldn't believe what he was seeing, at the moment he looked very much like the teenager he was… Lucatiel smiled at him. "Hey, Ren. Good job on killing that giant."
Ren snapped out of whatever shocked state he was in. "Th-thanks. That liberation skill came in clutch, I didn't even have to double tap him."
Lucatiel had no idea what that meant, but he assumed it was some video game term. "Wait a minute! That's what you say?" Ren suddenly shouted in disbelief.
"Well, you did kill it in one shot…" Lucatiel clarified, speaking of…. He turned to the king. "King I think that we have a serious problem."
"I'm assuming you are talking about the difficulty of the wave… or that giant creature that tried to crawl through the portal, the whole city saw that."
"Both actually, in comparison to what we learned about the first wave, the second wave was much harder, I don't know much about this world. But I feel like that shouldn't be the case correct?"
"You are correct, in times past a wave boss as powerful as the giant you faced never came until much, much later. In addition. A monster that large has never been mentioned even once in history. These inconsistencies will prove fatal eventually if they were to keep up."
"I don't know about the other heroes, but a monster like that has never been found in the game I played. I don't think the giant was either for that matter." Ren helpfully mentioned.
"Do you know how many waves there has been in this worlds history King?" Lucatiel asked. "That may provide some insight."
The King pondered his question for a moment before shaking his head. "Too many to remember, I can say with certainty that our world has summoned at least fourteen of each hero before."
"Okay that helps because that makes us the fifteenth. Now how close did the world get to being destroyed during the age of the previous heroes."
"What are you getting at Lucatiel?" Ren whispered, Lucatiel ignored him and waited for the King to finish thinking. Suddenly his eyes widened.
"Four sets of heroes ago… they died after what might have been the final wave. Because the waves stopped right after that one, and the heroes disappeared without a trace… we never found their bodies, they never killed the boss… it just disappeared after marauding most of the world… that was… 100 years ago I think. The same set of heroes where the Ring hero appeared a week before and was the sole survivor of that tragedy, becoming a legend among the people with his incredible power… being compared to a god by some. He lost his mind when the waves appeared again and… you know the rest."
Lucatiel's mind was whirring. So if the waves are growing stronger with each generation of heroes, then that means the waves aren't some natural disaster… and that means that they'll stop for good eventually… but it's also assumed that if the heroes fail to repel the wave the world will be destroyed… which was the case with the last heroes, so why is this world still alive?
"Mr. Lucatiel?" The king called.
We were summoned here from another world entirely, it's not entirely out of the realm of possibility that something else stopped the waves from another world… or that another world died instead of ours… Lucatiel's eyes widened and he looked at his finger where the legendary ring was. The king told me that the last person who wielded the ring lost his sanity and managed to escape back to his world somehow, which implies that the Ring has the ability to traverse through worlds… which means that there are other worlds, which means that the last Ring hero might have came from that world that died… and lost his mind when the waves started again.
"This Ring isn't from this world… you should have died…" Lucatiel realized. The King looked flabbergasted and opened his mouth to speak but Lucatiel continued. "The wave boss didn't disappear the fucking past Ring hero traversed through his world and killed It, saving your world when he failed to protect his. He had to travel through the wave portals."
"That would be why your Ring has unique abilities." Ren suddenly realized. "If it's not from this world then it doesn't abide by the same rules."
"That giant… that giant that almost killed me. It-it acted like it knew me, knew the-the ring."
"Which meant that it had a hand in destroying the other world…" The king finished.
How many more? Lucatiel thought. How many more sets of waves, groups of heroes can this world go through before it finally dies as well? How many worlds die when a wave starts… have the other heroes ever actually stopped the waves? Or have they just held them back?
Lucatiel cradled the ring close to his chest, almost like he was holding a baby. What happened to you my predecessor? What did you learn? Or did you just go mad from the stress?
"We're going to die…" Lucatiel breathed. "If we don't get stronger quickly, we're going to die and this world will fall to ruins."
Just like the world my Ring likely came from.I can't let that happen, I won't die again.
A/N: Fun fact to those who don't really write, writing through a block is like peeling layers of your skin off while swimming under water through a pipe. I had… less than zero clues as to how to continue this in a cohesive way. This took forever, including three entire chapter deletions because that was fun.
I will also be entirely frank, I stepped away from this for a while because a comment asking why I'm writing a fanfiction on a story I don't know the full plot of. It irritated me so I bought more of the novels and spent some time reading and researching the plot when I didn't fully comprehend it in the book. Now I have more ideas and a general direction of where to go. Granted I may get some stuff wrong still, not perfect and I'll never claim to be.
That's it, thanks for your patience and reading this.