Author's Note: Okay so first shot is done and dusted, second shot soon to come and quarantine being over before that, after that is presumably the celebratory feast for most of the town being inoculated, or at least the workplace.
Chapter 52: A Conversation
The Queen had frozen the field, all of the monsters that had been spawned by the wave had been frozen in place their bodies caked with ice. The Queen's and her daughter's levels had been maxed out long ago. The sight of the little bastards slipping and falling on the ice was hilarious but ultimately rather pointless in the long run, not when archers climbed onto the ice sculptures with ease and took aim at the surroundings with impunity. And not when they still couldn't find what they were looking for.
"See her yet?" Ikki asked Setsuna having been jumping around the battlefield looking for any sign of the other-worlder who brought out her beastly side during the last wave.
"No. You?" Setsuna had the power to see spiritual energy in it's pure form, it should make spotting a being made out of pure spiritual energy that much easier.
"No." Ikki on the other hand had been using his hundred sword crystal ball combo hunting for any sign of the woman he briefly clashed against before.
"No." If it wasn't for the fact that the Queen and the army are doing such a good job at crowd control Ikki would just be running off lopping heads now.
"Any idea how Tatsuya's doing with the boss?" Setsuna asked as she used her fancy new rocket powered spear to blow away another of the knife wielding goblins.
"Remember that flying ship he was zooming around a little while ago? It just crashed, almost ran over the village Naofumi was protecting too." Ikki stated still on the fact that there was a ghost pirate ship flying through the air.
"Well the holes in the sky hasn't gone away yet so we should assume..." Setsuna cut herself off as she stared up at something in the sky. "Ikki. You just said the flying ship crashed yes?"
"Yes I just said that." Ikki stated looking confused. "Why then is there another one in the air?"
Ikki followed Setsuna's stare up into the air and for his troubles saw another of the tentacle flailing flying ships hovering above where the first one went down. The implications were startling, that either there were more than one of the ships, or that the boss somehow just re-spawned, the fact that there was someone from the other world who carries entire warships around with him never even occurred to them. There would be more cursing if that was the case.
"So is this his idea of taken care off?" Naofumi's eyes twitched as he just bore witness to the damned ghost ship re-spawn. Bosses weren't suppose to do that. Why did the boss do that? Did Tatsuya decide to use regrow or whatever on it? "Kyubi, you're in charge until I get back." Naofumi stated as he went to go get Filo.
"Are we going onto the ship?" Atla asked looking up at what she could make out only as a giant mass of twisted and disturbed Ki. All of the wave monsters were like that really, why she wasn't entirely sure, it was like there was something broken in them.
"You bet your tail we're going onto the ship." Naofumi snapped his tolerance for bullshit today at an all time low.
Tatsuya eyed the rabbit man with blatant suspicion, what was he waiting for, if he's there to kill them he'd do well to get it over with.
"I assume you have some questions Sir Hero." The rabbit stated, genuine respect in his tone of voice.
"Are you here to kill us?" Tatsuya asked cocking a suspicious brow.
"Yes, unfortunately it seems I've drawn the short straw in that regard." The rabbit stated letting out a sigh.
"Why haven't you tried yet?" Tatsuya asked looking at the rabbit suspiciously.
"I thought I would explain things from my point of view for sake of preserving my world and maybe saving the people of this one." The rabbit stated his tone of voice somewhat hopeful.
"Do not bother." Tatsuya stated prompting a surprised look from the rabbit. "My list of priorities goes as follows: the safety of select few members of my family is at the top, followed closely thereafter by our mutual friends, shortly thereafter is the continued safety of my world, following the development of several technologies and magics I have been forced to put on the back burner is the safety of this world and by extension the the stopping of the waves. Far below several theoretical's that I haven't had time to think about but which probably includes her is your world." Well Rishia appreciated being on that list, theoretically anyway. "But right here, right now, all of that is off to the side because I have a to do list I need to accomplish before I get to do any of that. The boss was at the top of that list, now you are."
"Speaking of which." The rabbit gave a tired sigh as the tentacle acted to strike. Tatsuya blew it off but apparently the rabbit had already wasted enough of Tatsuya's time as the entire boat tilted until it was on it's side. Tatsuya still had the flight C.A.D. and activated it as casually as he blinked, Rishia on the other hand did not have such a benefit as with a loud 'FUE!' she was sent plummeting to the ground as Ethanobolt realigned the ship. While Tatsuya was busy rescuing his experimental test subject Ethanobolt made his next move. "Air Strike Fleet." The three heroes on the ground eyes went wide when they saw a dozen ghostly green images made in the likeness of Ikki's Hundred Swords or Naofumi's Air Shield materialise in mid air, the one carrying a wayward test subject followed in mouth gaping soon afterwards. "Change Fleet: Ghost Kraken Ships." Not unlike the aforementioned skills the ships transformed into the likeness of the flying ship that the boss was hanging out on. Oh speaking of which. "Spawn Soul Eaters." The cherry on the horror filled cake that was this evening was the fact that the ships started to rain down familiar ghostly fish monsters, because why the hell not?
"I'm going to kill Tatsuya one of these days." Naofumi commented bitterly sat on the back of Filo with Raphtalia at his side and Atla still riding piggy back on his shoulder. "Filo jump up as high as you can!"
To Naofumi's order Filo did as instructed. The first of the fish monsters they ran into became a stepping stone as they reached up higher yet, the second experience points on the end of Raphtalia's blade which then absorbed something from the fish monster and changed forms, again. They repeated those actions until they were where Naofumi was reasonably confident that was the location the second ship had spawned.
Ryuteimaru had been made to hold off on the fire breath, less he set the battlefield on fire again, instead he was sticking to herding whatever monsters landed on the outer edge of the wave's perimeter back inside, or outright eating it. Then he received a sudden request for back up from Tatsuya to come and support him. Flying over the battlefield Ryuteimaru soon spotted the broken ship's circling around in the air, and his master carrying the other one in his arm.
"Rishia, Ryuteimaru, try and deal with those fish things, they didn't land any attacks on me so I don't know what they do. Hang on." Tatsuya decided they weren't going to be short on boss materials this time around so he turned the boss into a weapon instead of saving it for the others.
'Conditions Met. Soul Eater Bow Unlocked. Equip Bonus: Control Undead 4Hour. Main Ability: Soul Eat. 0/100' Assuming that meant what he thought it does...
'Soul Eat: Attacks take SP from the enemy and gives it to the Hero.'
"It seems that those are spirits." The monster only unlocked one weapon, which meant that it was all just one material, no bone, no skin no muscle, and on that note Tatsuya activated the loot function and turned the rest of the thing into a sword for Rishia to use. "This should be able to hurt them."
Tatsuya watched the other Soul Eaters, noted that they made hit and run attacks on the army, not trying to kill them, presumably just scooping up chunks of SP and bring them back to the ship. He would be instructing Ryuteimaru and Rishia to try and grab some of them for the others, but the sight of a pair of forty foot long demon wolves, giant bloodied saw blades, and a yellow owl-chicken tearing into the ranks of the enemy told him that the others would have plenty of boss material. Ethanobolt were waiting for them on the ship, Naofumi managed to get up there first, followed shortly thereafter by Ikki who was riding on one of the saw blades, a 'gift' from Naofumi taken off of the horse headed boss from the arena, he wasn't using it anymore, Setsuna who simply climbed up in wolf form before shrinking down to human, and Tatsuya who were getting scathing glares from Naofumi.
"What happened to 'I can handle it?'" Naofumi stated keenly aware of the fact that this was not handled.
"He was waiting for me on the ship the boss was riding on. The last one showed up after the boss fight was over too." Tatsuya stated having already deduced their enemies strategy. "Clearly we should assume for the next one that they will be camping out wherever the monster spawns waiting for us to show up and kill it."
"Don't say that, you all will be harder to fight if you're together." Ethanobolt stated making a depressed sigh. "Well the bow Hero isn't willing to listen to what I have to say, are the rest of you guys?"
"What's he talking about?" Setsuna asked cocking a suspicious brow at Tatsuya.
"He wants us to commit suicide and allow this world to be destroyed so that he can save his." Tatsuya explained with professional detached demeanour.
"I should also mention that my allies and I will evacuate as many people from this world to ours as possible." Ethanobolt stated finger in the air. "Is that supposed to encourage us?" Naofumi snapped as he whipped out his shield.
"The weapons from those fish things will replenish your SP when you hit things with them." Tatsuya piped up helpfully. "I noticed." Naofumi stated as he instead opted for the Three Headed Dog Shield.
"We didn't." Ikki stated prompting Naofumi to spit out one of the fish monsters. Setsuna and Ikki hacked off bits of it for their weapons.
"Um... are you finished yet?" Ethanobolt on the other hand felt like they had been ignoring him this entire time.
"One last thing, Setsuna you get the ones in the back, Naofumi you go front and centre." On that note Ikki rushed forward, twin Intetsu's in hand as he aimed for the rabbit's head. A cacophony of cannon fire sounded off as the ships circling around them fired on their position, all of them.
"Backlash Wave!"
"Meteor Barrier! Extend Range!" Naofumi's barrier surrounded the lot of them as Setsuna zoomed behind them and used her spear to smack as much of the sinister green cannon fire back to where it came from as possible.
The rabbit clumsily rolled out of the way and into the grasp of the tentacles while Ikki was intercepted by the Skeleton Captain. Interesting, it was holding it's own against Ikki, that means it's stats are higher then the one they tossed over board.
"On that note: Ittou Rasetsu." That lasted about as long as the blood stayed in Ikki's veins as Ikki hacked the bag of bones to pieces. Luckily Tatsuya was there to use regrowth otherwise he would just be lying on the floor bleeding uselessly for the rest of the fight.
"Careful, that one will keep reviving if you kill it." Tatsuya healed Ikki at the same time the boney adversary got back to his feet. "Meaning I can hack off his limbs without consequence right?" Another quick burst of speed and Ikki had chopped off all of the skeleton's limbs and even scored a rusty cutlass for his trouble.
'Weapon Copy Activated: Skull Captain's Cutlass. Equip Bonus: Undead Stamina 4Hours. Main Bonus: Tetanus Proficiency 0/100.'
"Well... That's what I get for copying a rusty blade. If I sharpen you up and polish you a little bit will I get something better?" Well, the Equip Bonus was good, Ittou Rasetsu wouldn't leave him on the ground losing blood like sweat if that did what he was hoping it would do. Ikki stared down the rabbit man while he switched over to the Cutlass.
"Well all of you work very good together, but I'm afraid that there's one thing that you did not take into consideration when you made this little scheme."
Ikki ignored the rabbit's prattle as he, Raphtalia and Filo all jumped at him to take his head off. The rabbit used the tentacle to toss himself to the side as the entire ship disappeared and materialised as the jewelled platform reappeared under the rabbit. Ikki, Setsuna, Naofumi and Raphtalia couldn't fly, Filo could glide which was more like falling just slower. Before she could gain any momentum Setsuna got the rocket spear ready and comfortably floated on it, Ikki summoned over another of the giant floating saw blades, Tatsuya just activated his flight C.A.D., Rishia holding on for dear life, while Naofumi spat out a Airstrike shield to catch Filo and Raphtalia while he switched over to the balloon shield and used it to break his fall.
"Any other dick moves you'd like to add?" Ikki asked noting that his makeshift platform really wasn't suited to being used as a makeshift platform so much as it was a giant bloody serrated edge for sawing through the particularly stubborn.
"You've got the right shape anyway." Ethanobolt noted while numerous green lights spread out around them from the numerous ghostly ships that he had under his control.
"Oh come on!" Ikki rolled his eyes as he reactivated Ittou Rasetsu. Time slowed down as Ikki's perception of time sharpened dramatically, everyone was frozen in place, Setsuna looked like she was getting ready to smack away the blasts, Tatsuya was getting ready to snipe the cannon blasts, Filo and Raphtalia were already getting ready to jump out to decapitate the rabbit man. "Well this is a right proper mess." Ikki brought over the giant saw blades to cut through the ships sawing them in half. Then he took the liberty of hitting the rabbit with them and positioning what was left to block the cannon blasts and catch Filo and Raphtalia. "That should do it." Ikki stopped Ittou Rasetsu. The ships shattered, the rabbit man was turned into bloody chunks, the others in the air looked very confused by Ikki's actions wondering what happened to the ships and the energy blasts, their enemy was dead and the holes in sky disappeared.
"Well that was a productive few seconds." Ikki began downing potions because fuck he was tired. "...refreshing. Let's go interrogate our prisoner shall we?"
The Boat thing that was causing them so much trouble was inactive on the ground, Ethanobolt's body was in at least 10 bloody chunks. Setsuna picked up what she thought was a arm and switched over to the magic shackle spear and closed it around the rabbit man's wrist.
"Do it." Tatsuya used regrowth on the severed limb. Far from the man with bunny ears they were fighting just now what was hanging off of Setsuna's spear was a creature resembling a usapil. The boat glittered to life and assumed it's position underneath the rabbit's feet as Ethanobolt processed the situation and concluded that he was in deep shit.
"Should I assume my surrender would simply be redundant at this point in time?" The rabbit asked still trying to figure out exactly how this had happened.
"Let's bring him to the Queen, see what she knows about dealing with this pest." Naofumi concluded brushing off whatever he landed in when he came down. Powdered monster by the looks of things.
The Queen was in the process of removing her's and her daughter's slave seals when the heroes walked over, their prisoner hanging from the end of Setsuna's spear like a bag at the end of a hobo's walking stick.
"Heroes. Good to see the situation resolved in a timely manner, we've prepared the..." The Queen stopped her sentence mid pause as she saw the rabbit, she could wonder why Setsuna had felt compelled to take a usapil prisoner but right now she was focused on the floating platform form that trailed the little rabbit.
"He's the hero from the other world that came to kill us. Also it seems that he's saved us the trouble of resetting his level." Setsuna stated noting that the little rabbit had yet to do anything to try and escape from them. Of course he hadn't, he couldn't turn his weapon into any but the weakest of weapons, and a balloon boat was not gonna cut it here. "What do you want to do with him?"
The Queen took a nearby chair as she looked down at the rabbit.
"I would like an explanation." The Queen Stated as she sat down, glaring at the rabbit contemptuously. "As to why you want to destroy this world's Heroes."
"Because it's either them or our world." The rabbit stated in a bitter tone of voice. "The waves are fusing together our worlds, a phenomena that my world has experienced twice already, one that I'm betting that yours has already experienced twice already. These four are proof enough of that." The rabbit explained as he gestured to the four Heroes that were currently holding him hostage.
"What does that mean!?" Naofumi snapped bending over and glaring at the rabbit. "Would it make more sense to you if I told you to think of your weapons as Devices?" The rabbit locked eyes with Ikki who cocked his brow suspiciously at the rabbit in return.
"Me and Naofumi already have devices." Ikki emphasised his point by summoning Intetsu to his hand.
"Yes. You do. But some devices can be wielded by others." Ethanobolt stated prompting the others to look at Ikki suspiciously.
"Is what he said true?" Naofumi asked not liking where this was going one bit.
"They're rare, but yes." Ikki stated simply.
"Okay so who does our weapons belong to?" Ikki stated cocking a brow suspiciously.
"They belong to this world." Ethanobolt stated bluntly prompting the group to give stupefied looks.
"You mean to say that..." Oh Naofumi did not like where this was going.
"The worlds have something called XP if I'm not mistaken. Here's a question for you: What do you think that is?" They've seen Ki, they've seen Mana, they've seen Spiritual energy, so by process of elimination...
"Souls." Setsuna concluded for the group.
"And when you kill something and you receive a sliver of XP and the rest goes somewhere else." Ethanobolt followed up one blow with another. "Likewise when something is born the XP in them does not come from their parents pool, so where does it come from?"
"Then where do the seven stars come from?" Setsuna asked cocking a suspicious brow.
"Look up in the sky." To Ethanobolt's statement the four of them looked up to the sky. There were three moons up in the sky right now, they didn't know how many in total there was though, during occasions where they had looked up at the sky it appeared that they even changed colours from night to night. Though right now they probably should pay more attention. "When the worlds clash against one another the material they cast off is scattered into the sky and become satellites, with their own masses of XP, and their own souls. My people have had occasion to visit many worlds through the waves, we've seen worlds with numerous different numbers of moons. Though the ones with sixteen moons? The life sucked out of them like dried husks, falling to pieces and scattered into the void to become fodder for the waves." That did not have good implications.
"And the number of moons circling around your world?" Ikki asked already knowing where this was going.
"Eight, like yours." Ethanobolt stated bluntly.
"So if the waves are allowed to continue then both worlds will be destroyed. Is that what you're saying?" Naofumi asked one brow cocked in the air. "What happened to killing the bosses as soon as possible to stop the waves?"
"Low on the list of priorities of the ones tasked with the safe keeping of world. No for them there is only XP, and weapons, and their harems, and their game!" There was anger there, of being desperate for help, of having all of your options exhausted, and the people who were suppose to be helping you being too busy goofing off with their harems while dismissing the immanent demise of their world as unimportant or worst a good thing. Worst he went all the way to another world and told flatly to his face that he and his people did not matter to the people there. There was a madness there not to be taken lightly. The four heroes looked to each other, recognising the term game. Yet more products of the same train of thought as Takt, and the implications were, in a word, not very good. Someone was trying very hard to make someone else believe this crisis and the world it was taking place in was just a game, and that someone else might be them. "I hope this interrogation has been very informative for all of you. Now if you're done with this blatant bullying." Ethanobolt disappeared, leaving behind a crumbling anchor as he left, leaving the four heroes and three royals with more questions then they had answers.
Review Section:
RonaldM40196867: If I come up with good ideas for them.
superpierce: Hope I didn't disappoint.