Author's Note: So for the late posting gents, got a little tied up writing for Cute heroes this morning. Read, Review, Favourite, Enjoy and please stay safe!
Chapter 49: The Four Heroes Conference
Originally this room was created as a guest room for one of the liaisons of the royal family a few generations back, it was for the most part designed to be very nice. The three steel deadlock bolts and iron and copper shuttered windows were added after it became apparent that the King enjoyed the envoy's company as much as the Queen did. Now a days it served as the lodgings of any political prisoners that the Kingdom takes in, up until there was too many to put in one place thanks to the King back peddling so many of the policies that the Queen had worked to put in place. The room was cleaned out of prisoners now, everything made neat and orderly in time for the meeting between the Queen and Four Heroes.
"Nice place." Naofumi commented idly. "Then again most Gilded cages are."
"Feeling paranoid Queen?" Setsuna used one of her fingers to bend one of the shudders a couple of inches. "Your walls look kind of shabby to me."
"These walls are lined with Copper." Tatsuya noted looking around at the brown of the room. "It's extremely magic resistant, any scrying spell strong enough to break through would melt a hole in the wall."
"So no need to worry about prying eyes in here?" Ikki asked as the Queen had the shutters closed and magical light lit.
"It would be extremely difficult." Tatsuya admitted as his attention turned to the queen.
"To business I see? Good. During the last wave the four of you made plans in advance to deal with the wave, the Shield Hero and his party carried the pieces of a dismantled fortress into the battlefield and built it around a town. Then after the town was destroyed he identified a suitable evacuation spot for the villagers and escorted them to safety there." The Shadow pulled over a map of the kingdom, various towns marked out. "The Shield, Bow and Sword Heroes have fortified a couple of towns in anticipation of the waves, which while good there should be more ready to go."
"You want us to stuff a fortress into our weapons?" Setsuna asked cocking a brow suspiciously.
"She wants one of us to stuff a fortress into our weapon." Naofumi corrected having seen where the Queen was going with this plan.
"It's good that all of you understand what is going on." The Queen stated as her fan was folded shut. "Normally I would propose learning as much about our enemies as possible before we engage them in battle. In the case of the wave that is impossible, but the other worlder: that is a different story."
"She's a spirit, a clump of Sp given life. I can purify her, Ikki's sword Intetsu can hurt her in it's illusion form. If either of you have SP draining skills or Decay magic you can too." Setsuna explained giving the details of the fight against the other worlder she was already involved in.
"Decay? That useless spell?" Naofumi had desperately scrounged for any sign of offensive magic he could use a while back.
The fruits of his labours were Decay and Weaken. The latter was a debuff spell that might see some use during the next wave, the first was a combination of offensive and healing magic which makes things rot, or at least it would if his attacks weren't so abysmally poor. At this point in time he uses it to make soy sauce and other examples of Fermenting, not exactly what he was hoping his studies would lead him to. He tried to at least enhance the attack power of his other party members but all that really got them was rotten food.
"She also has something that looks like a Seven Star weapon, so I have the Sitera Stone Spear which neuters legendary weapons and Ikki the dagger." Setsuna explained providing yet more confirmation that she and Ikki would be fighting Glass during the wave.
"And you Sir Bow?" The Queen asked looking at Tatsuya suspiciously.
"Sorry. Don't got anything to contribute here." Tatsuya stated bluntly.
"That is fair. Is there anything else you were able to see during your brief battle with the other worlder then?" The Queen decided to wring one last bit of information out before she moved on.
"No, I don't remember anything else." Setsuna explained shaking her head in the negative.
"Then I ask the Shield Hero to defend the villages caught in the waves, The sword and spear heroes to focus on hunting any other worlders that appear on the field of battle, and the Bow Hero to focus on defeating the boss." The Queen explained making use of her own tactical ability.
"And what do we do about the monsters coming down from the sky?" Naofumi questioned his face full of blatant suspicion.
"That will be my responsibility to deal with." The Queen stated her voice carrying firm Iron. "In terms of a military commander I lose out to my husband, but the four of you left us with a great gift during the last wave."
"Gift would imply we gave it to you." Naofumi stated clearly sore about it all.
"So it would. But it is our country that is at stake because of the wave, and contrary to what the four of you may think we do not consider you disposable." Even on purely pragmatic grounds, the four Heroes are powerful assets against the waves, and considered gods among the people of this world. Disposable and Heroes were not words that went together. "As long as we have a asset to throw at the waves, throw it we will. That said, if the four of you have any ideas that might be of use to us, I would like to hear it."
"Can you map out the levels of the monsters in these regions?" Naofumi asked looking at the map curiously.
"I can. But why?" The Queen asked looking at Naofumi suspiciously.
"Naofumi here was born with a ability that lets him control animals." Setsuna explained indicating the shield wielder. "And the four of us unlocked weapons that powers em up. The more levels they have, the bigger the power up gets."
"I see." The Queen snapped her fan shut while she had the map taken away to be divided into average levels for whatever area they belong to. "That is useful. But would it work on the creatures of the wave?"
"The last one was full of Zombies, I wouldn't count on it." Naofumi stated making his doubts known.
"I understand. Is there anything else the four of you have found that could augment our combat power for the wave?" The Queen asked looking at the four of them suspiciously.
"Well there's this." Setsuna stated as she tossed Ikki a sheathed katana blade.
'Weapon Copy Activated. Inugami Katana Level Locked 80.'
"Inugami? You didn't?" Ikki asked looking at the blade vaguely recalling what manner of monster Setsuna was supposed to be.
"I used one of my fangs, get your minds out of the gutter." Setsuna stated with a glare. Ikki looked at the blade suspiciously, that was a big fang. "I've got another form dumb ass. When I fed one to my spear it was... weird, it just increased the number of spears I could throw out for Air Strike Javelin."
"Then does that mean you got anymore fangs to spare?" Naofumi asked looking at Setsuna with rapt attention. More Shields for Air strike shield was good.
"Ugh." Setsuna reached inside of her mouth and ripped out two fangs for the legendary shield and bow. "I hope you guys choke on them."
'Conditions Met. Inugami Bow Level Locked 80.'
'Conditions Met. Inugami Shield Level Locked 80.'
"Oh come on! What level are you!?" Naofumi snapped glaring at Setsuna like someone had dangled something juicy in front of his face and snatched it away before he could indulge.
"130, thank the members of Takt's harem for that." Setsuna explained smirking a cocky grin.
"Then what I have to say next should not apply to you. After the wave is over Cal Mira should become active." The Queen noticed that they weren't following.
"It's a exotic island chain a few hundred miles off the coast, once every decade it becomes 'active' when those killed there give dramatically increased XP. Monsters progressing through their normal life cycle of hunting other monsters for food level up at a dramatically increased rate, and by extension age, generations span days, the strongest and most proactive hit the eighties."
"Eighty? There are some weapon forms I've been wanting to unlock around that level." Tatsuya admitted as he scratched his chin.
"Eh go for it. I've been wanting to get out of this country ever since I got here." Naofumi muttered while he glared down at the shield.
"So we'll all gonna be grinding, so what is she gonna be doing?" Ikki asked looking at Setsuna curiously.
"While the three of you are away, someone needs to deal with Faubrey's wave with them." The Queen stated while all eyes were on Setsuna.
"Yeah, yeah I'll deal with their wave for them." Setsuna stated in a tone of voice that was not at all happy.
"I'll warn them not to make you mad." Good luck with that by the way. The other countries want one of these temperamental mobile weapons of mass destruction to set up camp in their country? She'll like to see how long that'll last. "Now than, are there any other convenient abilities the four of you have?"
"Ugh. How to explain this?" Naofumi stated prompting the others to give him a strange look. "Eh. I'll just have to show it to you guys." Thus Naofumi sent the four heroes and the Queen party invitations. Looking at the Shield Hero suspiciously, the Queen accepted the invite and noticed a half filled meter appearing next to her her XP bar and cocked a suspicious look at Naofumi. "I found my reinforcement technique, so long as you promise not to laugh." Naofumi stated, aware that there was a chance that none of the people here knew what a dating game was.
"I don't get it, what's this little bar got to do with anything?" Setsuna asked looking at Naofumi with blatant suspicion.
"Relationship meter, the more mutual trust that we share the bigger that it gets, the bigger it gets the more powerful we both become." Naofumi explained as he looked to the Queen and meant to use her as an example. "Take her for instance. I know next to nothing about her other than she's the wife of Trash and mother of Bitch so I trust her about as far as I can throw her." Well given Naofumi's status that was still a bit of a distance, but the metaphor held. "This abnormally large amount of filling must mean that she trusts me whole heartedly." The Queen trusted Naofumi's sense of Pragmatism and spite, for instance she knew he knew that the only way he was getting back to his home world was beating back the waves, and that he would stay where he would get to watch the people he hates the most suffer horribly.
"So where did this come from? It wasn't a thing during the last wave?" Ikki stated noting the relationship meter that had appeared in the corner of his vision and the sizeable increase in stats that came with it. Naofumi made a difficult face in response.
"Lemme guess." Setsuna looked like she's done this before. "This is one of those 'I can't tell you this super important useful thing you have figure it out on your own or you'll never get it' isn't it?"
"The weapons are holding out on us, they're sentient." Naofumi noted that Setsuna was surprisingly accurate with her guess. "You'll have to figure out the rest on your own."
"Well that's cryptic. Anyone got any thing else?" Setsuna asked looking at the Queen suspiciously.
At that moment one of the soldiers walked into the room and whispered something into the Queen's ear, resulting in a disturbed look.
"How was this possible!?"
When did things go wrong? She had framed the Shield Hero. She had the support of the Church. She had brought the Three Heroes into this world, so why was she here!? Locked away like a common criminal awaiting trial, her face and body mutilated beyond recognition by that accursed Shield, her royal title stripped from her along with her name Mal-
"AAAHHH!"
She can't even think it now? What precisely has she done to deserve this?
While Bitch was busy answering her own questions a light was shining over to the castle town: A struggling pair of lights one a light yellow and the other a sinister pink. The yellow was trying to pull them away in one direction, the pink light was pulling them in another, they were both drifting towards the castle but the pink light won out as both of the lights crashed through Malty's window. Both Malty and the shadow were stunned to see the knife that had appeared in Malty's hand. Vast swathes of new information appeared in Malty's vision and she knew by instinct what to do as she jumped out the window, no longer confined inside of a building Malty tapped the portal function of her new weapon and went for the first location on the list. The Shadow tried his damnedest to stop her, though it was a lot less grabbing her and a lot more attempting to activate her slave seal, sadly though Malty was a 'hero' now, which made it impossible for her to be a slave.
"The miserable little Bitch!" Setsuna slammed her fist down on the table clearly enraged. "How the hell did she get chosen by one of these weapons!?"
"Was there anything strange about the Claws before Yuki got them?" Tatsuya asked looking at Setsuna with a brow cocked in the air.
"There was... something trying to drag them off, don't know what. Had the same pink colour as all of the accessories that he had on his other weapons." Setsuna stated recalling the strange patterns that the other weapon spirits were making in the sky. "I caught the claws using the same technique I use for the back lash wave and destroyed the spirit that had been attached to them."
"A weapon stealing accessory?" Naofumi asked looking quite suspicious.
"More like a... weapon enslaving accessory." Takt didn't need accessories to steal weapons, Setsuna's spear had nothing of the sort attached to it before or after the weapon had been taken from her, but they might've been put to use to enslave the weapons to his whim after the fact.
"If we were able to salvage the accessory from the claws we might not be so far on the back foot right now." Tatsuya explained as he held his chin. "It would've surrendered such relevant information as what it's made out of, clues as to who made it, how to work and how best to counteract it beyond simple 'destroy.'"
"Or how to track it." Naofumi stated which Segway into his next point. "Where's the bitch?"
"Presumably at one of the locations Tact had pre-programmed into the Seven Star Projectile weapon." He lived in Faubrey, but until Setsuna had killed him everyone had thought the other Heroes he had killed and stole weapons from were still alive. Which meant that he had been posing as them. "Aside from the claws which were associated with Siltvelt there was also the Projectile which came from Zeltoble, The Whip with Faubrey, the Axe with Shieldfreeden, and the Hammer from Q'ten Lo." The Queen explained. One of those names didn't sound like the others.
"I don't seem to remember Q'ten Lo ever coming up in the talks about the big name countries before." Naofumi stated as he looked at the Queen with blatant suspicion.
"Having a Seven star weapon does not automatically make you a big name country, The Gauntlet's have never been associated with a major country, only a small kingdom in the far south of this world." The Queen explained, which made sense, the vassal weapon was only as good as long as you have someone to wield it, on top of that a big country implied that they had something big to deal in like Faubrey's army or a excessive amount of goods. One discount hero does not a functioning country make.
"Do we know if he's okay, the Gauntlet Hero I mean?" Ikki asked looking genuinely concerned, if there was someone out there treating the Seven Stars as targets after all they should probably help them.
"In that he doesn't exist: yes." The Queen explained holding her fan in front of her face.
"Well that's unexpected." Setsuna commented while she thought about what this implied. "So Tact and in theory others of his kind can only steal weapons, they can't claim them the normal way?"
"This would seem to be the case. The temple where the Gauntlets is open to the public and considered to be low security. It would not be hard." The Queen stated closing her fan with a shrug.
"A potential weapon of mass destruction in the making is kept in a low security area? Did I hear that right?" Tatsuya asked wondering if the equivalent to a active tactical nuclear weapon was being kept on public display in the middle of a densely populated area for any one to take or detonate at whim.
"What you have to realise is that until Takt came along it was thought to be impossible to steal one of the legendary or Seven Star weapons." The context of Tatsuya's logic doesn't really apply to this world. "If you could leave with it, that means that it's rightfully yours."
"Let's back track here. Where will Malty want to go?" Naofumi asked glaring at the Queen.
"Cal Mira. It has anti-curse hot-springs with the necessary power to remove the rest of the curse on her. Assuming that has already been taken care of she wants to be somewhere that she can heal herself of the wounds you put her through, after that she will be seeking to resume the luxurious life style that she is accustomed to." The Queen stated letting the implications sink in.
"And now we have a bunch of countries missing Heroes that are willing to put up with her if it means having someone who can deal with the waves for them." Naofumi slammed his head against the table as he let out a groan. Bitch was about to become diplomatically immune isn't she? And they can't hunt her down and kill her without more people trying to kill them. Again.
"Are we done here? I need to look through portal spots with Yuki." At Setsuna's prodding the meeting was ended, Setsuna returned to her room and promptly face planted onto her bed, too tired to do anything else tonight.
"Master." Yuki was prodding Setsuna in her arm with the hand that didn't have the claws on them, Setsuna didn't respond. "Daddy wants to talk to you." Setsuna rose with all the might of sleeping giant that was woken up way too early.
"Yuki, Nero's dead." Setsuna stated as she sat the griffin girl onto the bed to talk with her.
"Unfortunately yes." The Claws were blinking as Nero's voice came out of them. "Luckily I was able to move my soul into them at the last moment, the bastard couldn't resist stabbing me with them."
"It's... good I think to hear your voice again Nero. Apologies for the luke warm reception but in my world when this kind of thing happens it's not a good sign." Setsuna stated as she still gave a lukewarm smile.
"Thank you for saying so. I remember that you took my death kind of hard, I could see the cursed weapon you were wielding from inside of the claws." Because that's all Setsuna needed, a reminder about how badly she had screwed up, though Nero didn't seem displeased by her actions. "So what do you plan on doing now?"
"Kill the Bitch." Nero had no idea who that was but he felt course correction was needed.
"After you do that can you make a promise for me?" Setsuna nodded in affirmative. "Save this world, not just from the waves. This is bigger than just them."
"Yes." Setsuna closed her eyes as she took but a moment to think about it. "I will." A promise, not one that Setsuna would break lightly, and she was rewarded for doing so.
'New Reinforcement method unlocked.'
"The hell?" Setsuna recalled Naofumi's conversation during the meeting, so the condition for making these things cooperate with them is to sincerely and honestly pledge themselves to keeping this world safe.
'Ore Slot. By equipping a weapon form with a piece of ore it can be given a unique effect. In addition, a piece of ore could be imbued with a Enchantment, and can be transferred between weapon forms without consequence.'
Experimentally Setsuna produced the Meteor Spear, the one that she stuffed full of porcupine quills but noted she had no ores to experiment with. Instead she spotted the decorative sword on the wall and walked over to pick it up and put it in the spear.
'Refined Iron 0/50. Stun attack.'
"I can work with this..."
Author's Note:
RonaldM40196867: Thank you for saying so. 150, she scores extra hideousness do to her emotion amplifying power and nasty personality.
superpierce: He has every reason why not to. For one thing he only get's increased stats and magic through the stat based physics of the summoning world, without them there's very little the sword can do, on top of that even if he could he would have to explain to them where all this extra power suddenly came from. He can however make use of his training in Hengen Musou and later on the Dragon Pulse though.
Guest: Agreed, now the ugly's on the outside too.