Author's Note: So than Quarantine is up tomorrow, which means back to my actual job too. Which also hopefully means that this Covid foolishness will go away soon as well. Please Read, Review, Favourite and get your vaccines!
Chapter 58: Cal'Mira Day 2
Today Naofumi was taking the 'Dog island.' He could see the rain of Arrows over 'Penguin island' the swarm of swords on 'Squirrel Island' and the familiar howl of a demon dog on 'Rabbit Island.' Well, it wasn't like he was going any easier on the islands, the mass of Penguin meat in his shield from the day before proof of that. According to his party it all tasted like duck.
"Kiddo?" Just what he needed. Naofumi turned around to face the familiar form of L'Arc and Therese who looked like they were just getting up. "We were worried about you. You didn't show up back on the island when night fell."
"Stronger monsters appear at night or so I'm told, everything is so weak around here it's hard to tell." Naofumi stated as he scratched the back of his head. "Funny though, I don't remember anyone coming to look for me though."
"We were trapped on the island overnight, the island boss went running around on a rampage." Therese explained, the look on her face still scared. "We tried to fight it..."
"But it breathed fire nearly roasting you in the process, all of your magic attacks were beaten back, and it's flesh was too tough for your scythe to hurt." Naofumi stated finishing their sentence for them.
"You saw it too?" L'Arc asked looking concerned.
"I know her. She's on that island over there." As Naofumi was saying that the howl of a wolf echoed out from Rabbit island: clearly Setsuna was making a effort to terrorise her prey into submission today, clearly she enjoyed this a little too much.
"Holy hell..." L'Arc made a effort to pick his jaw up off the floor, it wasn't working. "That... thing is the pet of one of your friends?"
"She is no one's pet I can assure you of that much." Naofumi was amused by the reactions the others were giving. "The technical term if I'm not mistaken is Demi-human."
"I... had no idea they can get that big." L'Arc was just staring ahead at the howling, he also caught glimpse of the hell raining from the sky on the other islands before closing his eyes, suddenly sober. "Hey kiddo you wanna grind together?"
"I already got enough of a group I need to work on. Which reminds me." Naofumi pulled out a bracelet from his bag and held it up to Therese. "I believe this is..." Therese was staring at the bracelet, like a dear whose eyes were caught in the headlights, or a moth who caught sight of the flame. Naofumi moved the bracelet from side to side and watched Therese's gaze following his creation a tear coming to her eye as if she was looking at a thing of great beauty. "Are you okay?"
"Never have I ever..." Therese immediately ran off back to her bed roll.
"Oh come on, I know that I made it out of the cheap stuff..." Therese proceeded to shove a bag full of coins into Naofumi's palm. He didn't need to count it. His H.U.D. did it for him, and it was worth way more then the cheap steel he extracted from the blood of those penguins. "Silver?"
"I know it's not nearly enough." Therese proceeded to try and wrestle her companion for his coin purse too but Naofumi acted to keep him from going broke.
"ENOUGH!" Naofumi spoke and Therese immediately stopped her foolishness. "You have over estimated the value of the product." Naofumi gave the purse to Raphtalia to hold onto while he addressed Therese.
"Sir Master Craftsman-"
"I do not accept that designation."
"-your work is masterful! I can hear your creation Crying out with joy at having been made!" Therese ignored Naofumi's words as she started rubbing her face against the bangle Naofumi had made with way too much affection.
"The material you gave me is the good stuff. I'll make three more like it two of which I will give to my companions who will use them to kill monsters on my behalf and defend my life and one I will sell in what I assure you is a very aggressive auction to the highest bidder. I will get my money's worth I assure you." Therese wasn't listening, excitedly ranting off while rubbing her face against the jewel. L'Arc redirect her back to their camp where she could rant in peace.
"So what kiddo, you took the name of the most repulsive man that you could find rather than risk getting swarmed? What are you? Secretly some kinda master accessory smith?" L'Arc asked looking highly amused.
"If you keep blatantly insulting me like this I'm going to change my mind about taking all of your money." Naofumi stated bluntly, his opinion of L'Arc dropping sharper and sharper by the moment.
"In that case I'll take my leave for now, later." L'Arc waved his arm through the air as he and his companion went back to their camp.
Aside from the Pekkle Kigurumi the other drop from the penguins had been a Pekkle Spear, not very useful, he was hoping for more from the dogs. The harvest yielded only a dozen new shields as Naofumi threw his barrier around the island shoving around monsters, provoking them into attacking, and then finishing them off with broken barrier pieces. That wasn't to say he was idle during the some seven or eight times he blew the monsters away. While his skills slayed monsters his shield was set to process. While his shield churned out potions Naofumi sparred with Atla, what victims joined him in writhing on the ground typically determined by how many she could take on at a time and how long they would last. Turns out Filo is a natural at the thing too, so that ended up doubling the number of people that were getting the style literally beaten into them. Watching them from the nearby tree top, the only thing L'Arc could think during the exchange while swallowing the bitter feelings in his heart was that it really wasn't fair.
Setsuna had taken a break from the one sided slaughter of the rabbits and was enjoying some of the strange fruit she found on the island. According to her spear it was called a bio-fruit: a product of something called genetic engineering, what that was she surmised from the equip bonus she got from the fruits which gave her the ability to alter the stats of the plants.
"Try picking some of this fruit before we go, it'll go well with the rabbits." Setsuna instructed as she finished eating around one of the fruits.
"You're just saying that because you want Naofumi to cook them for you!" Rifana snapped as she none the less picked the fruit.
"If you would rather you can practice martial arts and Yuki can pick the fruit." Even though Setsuna said that Yuki grasped not only the basics shown to her by the old woman but even her backlash wave unusually fast. Setsuna's father nearly killed her teaching her that technique. "We already hit our quota for the day, and it seems that we have time to spare." Setsuna already bullied her party some too before they started to round up the rabbits, so really there was nothing left for her to do but go wait for the others to get back. As it turned out, she had similar feelings to those of the other Heroes as she arrived on board the ship in time for them to commence with their stat upgrades.
"Over hunting the islands is going to ruin growth down the line." Tatsuya stated bluntly, there were initial reports that the monster populace was overly large even for the activation event, but now Tatsuya's hawk eye skill told him that their efforts to harvest as much XP as possible had reduced the numbers to a dangerous low. "Either we find somewhere else to collect XP or go enjoy the main island's faculties."
"Eh. I'll go enjoy them anyway. Hot water is a luxury in this world." Setsuna stated as she rubbed her shoulder.
"You have fire magic don't you? Why not just heat it yourself?" Tatsuya asked with a questioning look.
"The last time I tried that I nearly boiled myself alive." Setsuna had a twitch in her eye, she did not have a good day.
"So then hot springs: good to know." Ikki concluded nodding his head.
"I'll tell the men we're taking a day." Naofumi informed notably not too upset at the notion of a day off.
After nothing but work for the past two month's a hot soak was exactly what Naofumi needed, even if he was joined by Ikki, Tatsuya and most of Ikki's party, Setsuna and the girls were on the other side, a squawk earlier indicated a attempt by Filo to hop the fence that was stopped stone cold dead. The lot of them didn't have a lot to talk about. Well that wasn't entirely true, Tatsuya still had whatever this 'Q' place was on about but he still wasn't telling them what it was. No matter, he trusted his judgement. The lot of them currently had their stats approximately in the fifties, tomorrow it would be the seventies and then the nineties the day after that. Compared to their initial grind they were moving at a snail's pace, but once they start 'trying' to get their levels up again: they would rain down hell.
"Howdy everyone!" L'Arc waved at the Heroes as he walked into the hot springs towel wrapped.
"Good Afternoon." Ikki stated in reply cheerful as always.
"It was." Tatsuya followed up bleary eyed as he looked at L'Arc.
"You guys look like you had a rough day." L'Arc stated looking at the steady bruises that the three heroes had accumulated.
"Combat training." Ikki replied rubbing his shoulder. "High stats are literally nothing without the knowledge to put them to use."
L'Arc nodded in understanding before looking at the pool of water assessing. It was quite crowded, even without the members of Naofumi's party there had to be at least eight people inside of it. Instead eyes travelled over to the dividing wall where on the other side the girls voices could be heard gossiping. A feast for the eyes that seemingly no one thought to indulge before.
"Don't mind if I do." L'Arc stated going around the pool of hot water as he proceeded to begin scaling the decorative bamboo wall.
"I wouldn't do that if I was you." Tatsuya stated as he rolled his shoulders.
"Don't tell me you guys prefer men?" L'Arc asked looking at the group incredulous as his head cleared the wall.
"No, we're just smarter than you are." Naofumi stated as he cracked his neck.
L'Arc looked confused as he turned his head to face the hot-spring, and was greeted by a rather painful sight of a clawed hand grabbing him by his head and squeezing until she drew blood.
"You want a view?" Setsuna asked having instantly climbed the wall the moment she became aware of L'Arc's plot. "Here. Allow me to help!" Setsuna pulled back her arm, still holding L'Arc by his face, and threw the man through the sky.
After the bath was the bar where Naofumi was able to seen L'Arc again, currently he was in the middle of getting a man plastered, said drunkard began voicing his low opinion of the animal eared before too long, to everyone's credit he was largely ignored.
"Hmm. A band?" Setsuna commented before scrounging around for a bit. "It's been a while." The dog woman started looking around for something.
"You were in a band?" Naofumi asked sceptical.
"I've had occasion to encounter a musician in my travels, she gave lessons and noted that my unusually good hearing gave me excellent tonal judgement. Father would often have me entertain dignitaries and merchants when he saw fit to have them over." Setsuna eventually settled upon a piece of grass and plucked it, pressed it to her lips and started to play along with the band. Rather good too, Filo even joined in after a few moments.
"Music's gone bad. Bunch of animals started howling at the moon." Setsuna was too dignified to let the words said by a man seven cups deep into his evening get to her. "Are you going to keep up with that racket or am I going to have to come over there and make you?" Make her eh? Why don't he try firing off a Judgement Spell in her face and then see if he could 'make her' do anything. "I told you to stop that rack-" The man made the mistake of meandering over to Setsuna and grabbing her by her arm, or rather tried very hard. The Spear was a gift from Naofumi, the material came from Melromarc's first boss, the Cerberus, a trident but instead of prongs it had dog heads. Made grabbing hold of the poor bastard and chucking him through the air with air strike throw stupidly easy.
"Yuki." Naofumi commented though she seemed to understand immediately.
"Kay!" Yuki went to fetch the man before he wound up skewered on the beach outside.
"Is there some reason why you felt like provoking that poor bastard into getting himself killed?" Naofumi asked understanding why L'Arc did what he did.
"Had to see it to believe it: the Hero of the Spear's a monster." L'Arc stated noting the way that Setsuna's ears twitched to the music, those were real dog ears.
"Hanyo, more specifically a hybrid of Human and something called Inu-gami. That's gonna get more common as thing's go on." Naofumi was already bored with this conversation, as wandering attention landing on a bowl full of large grapes at the bar.
"The class up ceremony right?" L'Arc had heard that it was possible to splice Monster and Demi-human DNA using the class up ceremony, never saw it in action himself. "Yah know there's a rumour going around the island that the shield hero kidnapped and tied up a little girl and brought her back to his room to do whatever he wants with her."
"Do those rumours mention how she demolished a accessory store with me inside with a magic attack?" Naofumi asked offering only a light attempt at his own defence.
"I also heard the Spear Hero murdered the king of the strongest nation on this planet." L'Arc stated wondering exactly which one of the Heroes is supposed to be the demon here.
"Sounds like the kind of thing she would do: if he pissed her off badly enough. She also bit some half wit pedophile nobleman in half back in Melromarc." Naofumi stated as he threw another of the fruits in his mouth. "That seems like a pretty good standard for people she doesn't like to me."
"So she offs one bad guy and suddenly she's a saint?" L'Arc asked his face scrunched in confusion.
"Setsuna once told me that in this world she has one enemy. Just one: The waves. If you're not going to help her do something about stopping them then for your sake don't do anything to get in her way. At the very least, she'll have to swat you aside, but worst case scenario? If you make it clear that you are not going to stop getting in her way then she will kill you and make you." There was a fear there, of someone who saw Setsuna's madness up close, of what happens to her when she gets truly properly cornered, of what happens when she simply stops giving a fuck about collateral damage and just cuts loose. "Take it from someone who's seen what she thinks about the 'allies' of the wave." Naofumi cooled himself off as L'Arc's attention turned to the rest of the bar, to Tatsuya and Ikki.
"At least she gives a damn. I've heard nuts about what the Bow and Sword have been up to." L'Arc stated somewhat scoffing at the two.
"Because whatever time they don't spend on grinding is instead spent on Training and learning different kinds of magic." Naofumi stated as he got back to popping the oversized grapes.
"How many can he possibly learn? I thought he only had..." L'Arc's eyes went wide as he finally noticed what Naofumi was doing between spitting out useful bits of information.
"I understand that he actually invents them, he can't use most of them or so I understand it. You should see what he did to Setsuna's spear." Naofumi was about to pop another one of the grapes when he saw the look of mortal terror on L'Arc's face. "What?" A quick glance around at the rest of the bar who were staring at him with looks of horror and disgust on their faces. "Rowdy people are staring at me: explain."
"Boss do you know what those are?" Rowdy asked pointing at the fruit like he was looking at some horrible concoction.
"Not particularly no." Naofumi examined the fruit in his hand, easy come, easy go or so he supposed. "Are they expensive?"
"Well... technically yes but that is not the point!" Rowdy was almost shouting at this point. "How many of those things have you had?"
"Good Question." Naofumi looked down at the bowl as Setsuna walked over.
"What's the problem here?" Setsuna was looking around the sweet smell of grapes was on her tongue.
"No idea. Something about these tasty things." Naofumi stated looking at the fruit still in his hand.
"Huh, wine grapes." Setsuna fearlessly picked up a pair of the fruits and tossed them into her mouth. Setsuna's face was immediately flushed by the light red of drunkenness as she proceeded to stumble back through the bar, destructively brushing against any of the furniture and brushing off any attempt to help her.
"These are alcohol fruit?" Naofumi asked looking at the bowl of fruit and having finally clued into what he had been eating.
"No shit dumbass." L'Arc glared at Naofumi and Setsuna's retreating figure. "Just give one of these a squeeze over a barrel of water and you got a cask of wine ready to go." L'Arc made the conclusion that having a ungodly high alcohol tolerance was a prerequisite for the weapons of this world.
"Huh so that would explain it." Naofumi non-chalantly ate the berry that the had in his hand for the past several minutes.
"You still have to pay for those you know." The bar keep stated while L'Arc's eyes wandered over to Tatsuya and Ikki.
"Please don't tell me that you two can drink by the cask." L'Arc hoped and pleaded to both Ikki and Tatsuya.
"I'm not one to drink outside of special occasion." Tatsuya stated indicating milk in his glass.
"It was never really my thing." Ikki stated while he held up his hands in a defensive gesture.
Sadeena hadn't taken her eyes off of Naofumi since he started eating those berries. It was a well known fact in Seatto that Sadeena would only take a man who could out-drink her, and as it so happens she has just met someone who inhaled a entire winery. That night the nightly battle for Naofumi's affection grew in intensity as Sadeena joined in on Atla's side, and shortly there after ended when a drunken forty foot long wolf poked her head over and told everyone to shut up and go to sleep.
"Sadeena!" The argument continued into morning with the obstinate Raphtalia glaring at both the younger and elder conspirators who were trying to take her Naofumi away from her. Well take wasn't the right word: they made it quite clear that they were willing to share, Sadeena even stating that she was doing this partly to 'train' Naofumi but the whole concept made Raphtalia all the more infuriated. How long exactly did they thing they could keep up this charade before he found out about their foolishness?
"I talked to the count, he wants to give the monsters another day to restock their numbers before we go back to making them an endangered species." Naofumi stated, pointedly ignoring the death glares that his teachers in Dragon Vein magic and Hengen Musou and his right hand were making.
"What do we do then? More training?" Rowdy and the men had identical looks of sheer horror on their faces, faces born of being beaten black and blue day in and day out for most of the past week.
"Unless anyone has any better ideas for what to do for the rest of the day." Naofumi stated, his tone loud enough to bring the silently squabbling trio to attention.
"Well we could always go into the ocean." Naofumi cocked his brow indicating for Sadeena to continue. "Aquatic monsters have made a exodus to these islands in mass, I saw them when I was in the water." Sadeena was a whale after all, or half whale, the water was her territory and she made certain that the waters would be all clear around the islands. Some species of fish abomination apparently wasn't above developing specialised water retaining organs so that the miserable bastards can climb onto land for short periods of time and gobble up the people there when pickings in the ocean start getting slim. "Monsters in the ocean always give out more experience then on the land, if that stacks with the activation event..."
"Rowdy, send for the others, we're going fishing today." Naofumi ordered and it was done, Cal Mira as it turned out had a thriving fishing community, that was good news for Tatsuya and Setsuna.
'Weapon Copy Activated. Speargun Unlocked. Equip Bonus: Underwater Combat Bonus. 4Hours Main Bonus: Spear Cooperation. Reinforcement 0/100'
'Weapon Copy Activated. Fishing Spear. Equip Bonus: Underwater Combat Bonus. 4Hours Enchantment 0/100'
They were less than pleased to see Naofumi's plan for going underwater, watching him take out some manner of gaudy penguin costumes that he got from the penguins on his first day of grinding.
"What are you planning on doing with those?" Setsuna asked looking like she had seen something deeply offensive.
"Wearing them. They sync up very nicely with one of the abilities I unlocked by feeding penguins to my shield, there's growth corrections for people wearing the costumes." The weapons he unlocked using penguin boss material gave a bonus to anyone who was wearing the costume he got using the penguin boss material. Coincidence? Probably not, but the effect was still considerably valuable. "Aside from that they also give us the ability to swim like penguins too." Filo tried on one of the costumes and tried to turn into her Filolial form, but instead assumed the form of a giant penguin like what they fought on the island. The growth correction was considerably lower then the Filolial one and Filo could swim fine in the water anyway, so Naofumi was content to leave her as is.
"You know, little Raphtalia should have a therianthrope form too." Sadeena stated as she looked at the costume and smirked knowingly at Raphtalia.
"No! Absolutely not!" Raphtalia seemed to see what Sadeena was thinking and was having none of it.
"Prove to me that you can fight while wearing one of these sleeping bags and I'll let you go through the fight without transforming." And that was how Raphtalia learned how to assume a therianthrope form, or more accurately how Sadeena had convinced her to let her teach her.
She apparently found it too embarrassing to show to the others, unlike a certain giant wolf monster there was no massive alternative form with high combat ability, so for now she had to stick to being a giant penguin. A map was drawn up of Cal Mira, divided into four squares and each Hero was dropped off into one of them to hunt.
What they would find though would be one of the catalysts to alter Cal Mira for ever.
Author's Note:
RonaldM40196867: I'm partial to the Squirrel costume myself. That would be the hero exclusive spells Aura, Down, Absorb and Enchant. I'll give it a try.
Dendrac: Unfortunately that tends to happen from time to time. Especially when you write half of your chapters during Quarantine.
superpierce: Glad I didn't disappoint.
drmcgraw186: I'm partial to it myself. For someone who constantly complains about his destroyed reputation Naofumi rarely does anything to improve his public image that doesn't directly relate to profit or revenge. I wasn't aware that being a Whip Hero was a family tradition for Rat. So are the monsters.