[New Shield: Magic Jewel Shield
Ability(locked): MP up(medium), magic defense 5
Special Equip Effect: Spell Capture & Release]
After being pestered by his Servant every day since the trip to the mine, Naofumi had to begrudgingly admit that feeding one of the few gems he got with magical charge added to his shield wasn't a waste after all. Not with a skill like that.
Now if only he could get Kuro to stop looking at him with a smug 'I told you so' look every time he needed to talk to her, that would be great.
"As the source, I command you to conceal my target: Hide Mirage."
As the incantation finished, the polished emerald-like shield on Naofumi's arm that he was inspecting disappeared with a shimmer.
He lifted his arm and waved it around. The weight of the shield was definitely still there.
Even in the form of an illusion, having his person free of the accursed thing still felt incredibly odd. The shield had been a constant presence ever since he was summoned to this world.
"Thanks, Raphtalia."
"I'm just glad I can help," the tanuki girl replied with a smile.
Much to Naofumi's dismay, his daughter-but-not-really was making leaps and bounds in comparison to him during Kuro's lessons. She had already started tinkering with the spells she learned, now able to do things like adjusting the area of effect of Hide Mirage. This way, they had a much more effective solution for hiding his identity as the Shield Hero than the Book Shield he disguised it with until now.
Of course, Firo too had joined the sessions out of curiosity but stuck to only watching as much of Kuro's explanations seemed to go over her head.
To be fair, she was barely around a month old.
"Everyone, masks on. They're saying there's a disease going on in this village," Naofumi called out.
"Yeah, I can actually smell something tainted in the air," Kuro confirmed, scrunching her nose as she tore a piece of her half-cape and tied it around her mouth like the rest of the party.
Her shroud was already frayed. Another piece won't make a difference.
And yeah, they did ask what was with the red cloth that it was so effective at keeping out poison, but the white haired girl had uncharacteristically said it was simply enchanted instead of going into another tale of magical lore.
Kuro thought it sensible to withhold the bit about this sort of cloth being normally used by the Church to preserve corpses of people- even if they were those of Saints.
Mirso village looked...sickly, in a word. Not only were there dark clouds covering the skies to add to the impression, but the entire village seemed to be shrouded in some sort of miasma of darkness that washed out color.
"W-who are you?" a sickly villager walked up to them, "I-it doesn't matter. This village is plagued by sickness. You should-"
"I'm a merchant. I came to sell you cures," Naofumi talked over him impatiently.
"You are? Oh, I have to tell the others!"
And so, it was announced that the Bird Saint came, and he was led to the building where the sick were kept where he began to administer the medication to people.
The usual, really. It kind of became a routine by this point.
Although, he did find himself inspecting the people more closely to see if they had visible signs of corruption or something. After encountering the Alchemist's Plant, he wasn't willing to take any chances.
Naofumi walked up to the village's doctor once he finished attending to everyone. In record time, too. That [Medicine area of effect up (small)] effect was deceptively useful.
"Where did the disease come from?" he asked. His reinforced medication couldn't completely cure the sickness, so it has to be something pretty serious.
"Amazing, simply amaz- oh, erm," the doctor coughed into his fist self-consciously, "Well, in short, it was blown by the wind from the mountains."
"And…?"
"And over there is a rotting corpse of a rather powerful dragon that the Sword Hero slew back a month ago," the doctor answered concisely, sighing. The young man tried to act patient but he could tell he was the type that hated wasting time.
"So the disease can't be completely cured because the cause is constantly being blown in," the merchant hero concluded.
"Indeed. We made a lot of money out of stripping the carcass so we hired some adventurers to check on it, but they came back sick like everyone else. That's why I'm so sure about it."
"If you know what's the problem, then wasn't it taken care of? You did say you had the money for it."
"Too dangerous," the healer shook his head, "That entire territory became so saturated with poison and sickness that nobody would be willing to venture in even if they weren't already afraid of the disease."
"I see..." Naofumi acknowledged, his expression becoming contemplative.
"Do you have any ideas?" the doctor asked with cautious hope in his eyes.
"Well...the heroes are too busy for this, aren't they? I assume you sent money to the Crown for support. If you cancel it, will it be refunded?"
The older man raised an eyebrow at this. "Bird Saint, are you suggesting what I think you're suggesting?"
The merchant hero only smirked in response.
~~o0o~~
Holy shit, they weren't kidding. This area was thoroughly infested.
Naofumi was about to say as much when Raphtalia caught his eye and glared at him. His jaw quickly clacked shut, lest he get slapped over the head for his trouble.
Insects, monsters, the air and even the vegetation, you name it. Everything on the goddamn mountain was venomous or poisonous.
They all came in droves, too. Thankfully, the party had already learned how to navigate areas that couldn't be cleared out of monsters, employing either an explosive shot or wind spell to clear a path as necessary.
In a relatively short time, going in the direction where the miasma seemed the thickest, they reached their destination. The air was so thick with rot and death that even Naofumi with his poison resistance would be hard pressed to remain functional if they didn't have the enchanted masks.
The corpse of the dragon that was sitting in a clearing, in Kuro's honest opinion, was underwhelming. And disgusting, utterly so. No claws, horns, fangs or even scales left, merely a rotting pile of meat that had vaguely draconic form. The only thing that could be made out was that it was a western dragon of roughly 20 meters long or so.
On some level, she knew that the monsters encountered in this world were greatly different from the Phantasmal Species she had learned about, but Dragons were supposed to be this apex being that was the pinnacle of each category it was in who produced ginormous amounts of magical energy by simply breathing.
Kuro was expecting no Dragon of Albion but she thought it would be...more.
"...I'm going to have to absorb this into the shield piece by piece," Naofumi thought out loud. "Raphtalia, Firo, take care of the flies and watch the perimeter while me and Kuro butcher it."
The Servant nodded to herself before holding out an arm to the side. "Trace, on."
Raphtalia whacked at the flies around the corpse with half a mind, more interested in watching what the white haired girl was going to take out this time.
She could tell that it wasn't going to be something on the level of Hrunting or Gram, but the result still left her blinking with furrowed brows at the...weapon in Kuro's hands.
The tanuki girl could understand why she picked it, but it was literally a large sharpened slab of rock that was one and a half times taller than Kuro herself.
'Can she even- yes, yes she can, even if it looks like her hands can't even completely wrap around its handle,' Raphtalia thought with a nonplussed expression as the Archer seemed to heft the thing with relative ease. 'When did I start having opinions on swords?' she wondered, shaking her head.
Kuro seemed to be about to start butchering it when her movements froze mid-swing.
"Naofumi," she called carefully, "Please tell me I'm wrong and that it didn't just twitch."
"I mean, it's probably filled with maggots and stu-"
Whatever words were on his tongue died as a low rumble that resembled boiling reverberated in the clearing.
Its movements started imperceptibly slowly, but the rotting pile of flesh was definitely moving.
It shambled, but it sat up on his haunches with jerky movements and roared toothlessly at the party that was watching in a mixture of astonishment, horror and disgust.
"▂▃▄▅▇█ !"
...
"Nine Lives Blade Works!"
Rotting gore flew through the air with each of the nine impossibly fast strikes Kuro performed, beads of sweat already appearing on her brow in an instant from the difficulty of performing a technique designed for human opponents.
Naofumi, though now covered with horrible-smelling viscera, didn't bother trying to wipe it off and only looked at the undead dragon, desperately hoping that the missing upper arm, collarbone, throat, temple, torn belly, side, tail, and haunches enough make it fall over.
Yet, it was not meant to be.
The flesh on the monster seemed to liquefy in a nauseating display, flowering over its body and forming the previously missing parts.
In an instant, a whole Undead Dragon was before them.
"▂▃▄▅▇█ !"
It raised a large claw in the air and began to attack the one who dared to hurt it in its incomplete state with strikes that gouged the earth.
The axe-sword in Kuro's hands was wide enough to act as her shield to weather the first few hits but cracked with every new one. Though imposing, it was only mere stone in the end.
She had to trace a magnesium blade to overload it and use the flash it caused to get out of its striking range.
Kuro took everything back. This was a Dragon with a capital D and just as terrifying as it was supposed to be.
"Firo, Raphtalia!" Naofumi called, "Use the strongest attacks you can think of! We can't hold back with this one!"
"Fast Tornado!" Firo cast while Raphtalia faded out of view.
The spell hit the dragon in the side, but only seemed to have the effect of making it angrier. Kuro followed up with some rapid blasts from her bow that seemed to make it angrier and somewhat hurt it.
"Hiyah!"
Meanwhile, Raphtalia used the distraction and stepped out of her invisibility with a cry, striking at the back of the dragon's left knee. Her blade sunk into the joint, but when she made to pull it out, she found it lodged into flesh that was still very much rotting under the new hide.
Before she could try to pry it out however, the dragon moved and something hit her side like with the force of a freight train, making her cry out as she felt something break.
Naofumi watched in horror as the tanuki girl was flung over his head and knocked out against a nearby tree hard enough to make the wood groan.
"You!" Firo exclaimed with fury in her eyes, "You'll pay for hurting Big Sister!"
The filolial charged in, her anger compounded by the racial animosity between dragons and filolials.
"Firo no!" the outworlder shouted in alarm, broken out of his stupor by panic.
With a few rapid lunges, Firo closed in, then jumped into the air to reach the head and struck out with a powerful leg, knocking it aside with a small thunderclap.
Yet, she didn't even have the opportunity to reach the ground before an enormous claw grabbed her out of the air. With an unhurried motion, the dragon's slightly deformed head turned back at her. It locked eyes with Firo as the head wound twitched and reformed itself alongside the others, smirking at the filolial's angry expression as if to say 'That tickled.'
The dragon returned the racial animosity, it seemed.
However, the inter-species banter quickly lost its novelty as its maw with rows of regrown fangs opened and swiftly lifted the filolial towards it.
"Overedge!"
A pair of white and black swords that would be best described 'frayed' sank into the forearm of the dragon before exploding with a billow of smoke, making the dragon roar in frustration at the interrupted meal.
Somewhere, unnoticed by the participants of the fight, the sound of a blade sinking into wood could be heard.
When the smoke cleared, both sides were surprised by the sight. The dragon was missing its entire claw from the wrist, which had fallen to the ground.
"▂▃▄▅▇█ !"
It roared, furious that the flies it had been toying with managed to injure it in any significant way.
With another nauseating boiling sound, the claw regenerated as it made for the one responsible.
"Rope!" Naofumi quickly cast the skill over an indignant Firo, pulling her out under the claw that was about to crush her underfoot.
The dragon charged with reckless abandon even as it was hit with exploding blades that exposed bone.
'Dammit! I don't have the time to set up a charged shot and it's regenerating too fast for anything else!' The white haired thought with gritted teeth as she dodged the rampaging dragon, flinging pairs after pairs of Kanshou and Byakuya that were overcharged until they resembled flashes of purple and white light when thrown.
'I can't even use the contingency I set up. At this rate...wait!'
'Naofumi! You need to wake Raphtalia up and tell her to pick up the sword in the tree above her!' she sent to her Master.
'Tch, fine!' Naofumi neither liked being ordered around nor listening to any involving Raphtalia fighting in a hurt state, but the only reason he was even able to patch her up was because the Archer was distracting the dragon.
"Raphtalia, Kuro needs you to get that thing over there," he said, pointing above them.
The tanuki girl blinked the last dregs of unconsciousness away, looking up to see that there indeed was a large cruciform sword embedded in it. It was just barely within her reach.
Naofumi grimaced as she reached up, visibly wincing from the injury on her side he couldn't completely heal. He almost made to take it out himself, but the chasticing vibration of the shield sensing his intentions stopped him.
With a groan, the hefty blade was pulled out, making the brunette stumble for a second from the weight.
"I've got it! What do I-"
"I need you to invoke it!" Kuro cut her off as she landed before them, shocking both with the command. "The activation phrase is 'O' Sword, let thee be filled'!" the white haired girl said as she watched the dragon growl in frustration at its slippery prey before it noticed them all clumped up in one place.
It seemed to smirk as a sickly light shone through its gullet.
"But-" Raphalia wanted to protest, both at the order and what she saw the dragon was about to do.
"Me and Naofumi will protect you! Hurry!"
She looked towards Naofumi only to be met with a firm nod, his eyes also more focused on the dragon. With a gulp, she braced herself and repeated the phrase at the same time as Kuro invoked a phantasm of her own and Naofumi activated a skill.
"O' Sword, l-let thee be filled." "Rho Aias!" "Air Strike Shield!"
With those words, even her panic at the sight of the incoming breath attack was washed out, as there was only so much Raphtalia could do to stop the sword from simply flinging itself from her hands. In an instant, such wind began to buffet around her that the poisonous mist was swept away.
Power surged down her arms from the glowing sword in her hands.
The closest comparison she would describe it with was hot lightning lancing through your veins. It was...terrifying, intoxicating, exhilarating, but most of all exhausting.
A common mortal's body was simply not made to be able to withstand being exposed to such concentrated magical energy.
Even if it was only for a moment, it took everything just to keep standing.
And yet…
Even as she began to see spots in her sight, Raphtalia held on, knowing for whose sake she's doing it. So she listened- listened to that something that told her to lift the blade above her head as the twilight aura of the sword became a tower of light that threatened to pierce the clouds.
"Raphtalia! Repeat after me! The Evil- argh!" She heard Kuro yelp as Raphtalia saw something magenta shatter in front of her.
"The Evil Dragon will fall!"
She declared the words that came to her mind unbidden to the Archer's shock.
Unknown to Raphtalia, a connection between her and the sword was already created by the time she invoked it.
What occurred to Kuro only much later was that although Balmung had been gifted in its own legend, as the evolution of Gram, the sword-in-the-tree and the model for Caliburn, it likely still retained the qualifications of fulfilling the same role.
Thus, what actually happened was that Raphtalia pulled the Sword of Selection from its resting place.
Just like Sigmund, the first hero of the Völsunga saga had.
Just like King Arthur, the Once and Future King of Britain had.
And she was now raising the Noble Phantasm to slay an Evil Dragon, just like its original owner, Siegfried had.
Unaware that she was lost royalty much like Artoria was, the tanuki girl was unknowingly re-enacting a legend.
"All shall be purified of both blessings and curses. Let the world be returned to equilibrium."
In a way, Balmung mirrored Siegfried in its properties to become a demonic or a holy sword depending on who holds it, as to become more suited for whatever tasks its owner has for it.
And in Raphtalia's hands?
In her hands, Balmung becomes a holy sword of a Pacifier, negating both blessings and curses alike to bring back balance to this world that had the odds stacked against it for so long.
"Fall ― BALMUNG!"
With a cry, she stepped forward and swung, crashing the tower of light into the charging undead dragon and unleashing a torrent of pure white that enveloped everything in front of her.
The dragon wanted to rage against it with its whole being, but it had no opportunity to even roar in defiance as the white light swept both its rotten body and anger away.
...Wyndia, daughter...I'm sorry…
The shockwave and flash could be seen for miles.
...
When vision returned to the party, they all gasped in surprise.
The woods for several hundred meters in the general direction of the blast were just...gone. Alongside a bit of the mountainside as well. In a long gouge in the ground was a fist-sized blue crystal orb, which the party guessed was all that remained of the dragon. Yet, the destruction was accompanied with the complete lack of the previously deeply entrenched poisonous miasma in the surrounding area.
"Woah..."
"Big Sis?" Firo queried with a tilt of the head.
The party turned to see the tanuki girl on her knees, only sitting up by supporting herself with the sword in her hands. She seemed to be looking at the blade with amazement in her eyes.
"Can I...keep it…?" Raphtalia asked weakly, blinking blearily at Kuro before toppling over to everyone's panic.
~~o0o~~
When Raphtalia came to, the first thing she noticed was the metallic taste in her mouth.
"Ugh..."
"Oh, you're finally awake."
She opened her eyes groggily to look at the source of the voice, finding the Mirso village doctor's face when she blinked the blurriness away.
"Doctor, where…?"
"You are in my humble home. I had offered to your companions upon your return."
The brunette trailed off when she saw a sheathed cruciform sword leaned against a nearby wall and it all came back to her.
"The dragon..."
"Indeed. Your party won't tell me what exactly happened but if your magical exhaustion is anything to go by, you've played an instrumental part in taking out the Undead Dragon, and for that, you have my deepest gratitude," the older man said, bowing his head.
"O-oh, I..." the tanuki girl stuttered, not used to being on the receiving end of treatment like this, unlike her caretaker. "W-we only did what you paid us for," she decided in the end, taking a page out of Naofumi's book.
The healer only chuckled at the girl's fluster. "Yes, that does sound like something the Bird Saint would say," he said, standing up from his stool.
"Now I'll be out of your hair. Your companions seem impatient enough to eavesdrop on our conversation," he said, opening the door to the room to reveal a sheepish Kuro wearing an apron.
"Thanks for looking after her," the white haired girl said.
The doctor only briefly bowed before stepping out. "It's the least I can do."
"Well then, Dragonslayer Raphtalia, how are you holding up?" she asked with a toothy grin, making the tanuki girl flush at the title.
"I'm sore all over," she groaned.
"Yeah, handling True Ether does that to you," Kuro nodded, sitting on the stool at the side of the bed, "Naofumi and I got kind of roped into throwing a feast for the village to celebrate while you were out. I barely got away," she said, motioning her to her apron.
"I'm sorry I couldn't help..." Raphtalia said, sighing.
"Nah, don't worry your pretty little head over it. Just rest up while we handle payment and stuff. You deserve it," the Archer said with a reassuring smile, petting the girl's head to her indignation. "Do you remember what you said before you passed out?"
"Ah!" Raphtalia exclaimed after a moment in embarrassment, "I didn't really mean i-"
"You can keep it."
"Huh?"
"I can only trace imperfect fakes, and because of that Balmung only had enough Ether in the gem of its hilt to be invoked once," Kuro explained, taking the blade from its spot and resting it on her lap. "So what's left is 'only' a magnificent sword with holy properties," she went on, partly unsheathing it to reveal gleaming white metal.
Raphtalia couldn't afford to inspect it during the battle, but now that she had laid her eyes on it proper, she could truly say that it was an incredible piece that was one of a kind, with an otherworldly air that she would've expected the Cardinal Weapons to have before she met Naofumi. It was only noticeable due to the dimmed lights of the sunset entering the room, but the blade of the sword emitted a very soft white glow.
What stood out the most to her however was that unlike Hrunting or Gram, it didn't give off an aura of overwhelming magical pressure, but instead had a subtle presence of strength that she found comforting for some reason.
A chuckle interrupted her thoughts, making her look up at the white-haired girl.
"If you want to handle it yourself, you only have to ask."
Raphtalia looked at her with furrowed brows for a moment before she realized she was subconsciously reaching out for the handle of the sword wrapped in burgundy red.
(Kuro didn't tell her that it didn't have that color before.)
"I-it's fine," the tanuki girl said, pulling her hand back, albeit the motion came to her reluctantly. "It's just...really like what I thought a sword of legends would be like."
"That's because it's made of them."
"Pardon?"
"It's literally made of legends," Kuro clarified unhelpfully, "You know, I never actually explained what a Noble Phantasm is, did I? I only told you how the heroes of your world and mine were different. Figured I prattled on long enough about concepts you need to jump through hoops to wrap your mind around for the day, so I left out the fact that a Noble Phantasm is not the same as the weapon the Hero actually uses."
"...how is it not?" Raphtalia blinked, uncomprehending.
"A weapon is able to attain the status of a Noble Phantasm only after a person's death, when their fame and accomplishments are judged if they are worthy of ascending to the Throne of Heroes, where the souls of those who are acknowledged as a Hero by the World go to become Heroic Spirits that are summoned in special circumstances.
"What you need to understand is that Heroic Spirits and their Phantasms are greatly influenced by belief. If the story says that a Hero used a named sword against many monsters, then it will become a sword that is incredibly powerful against monsters," she explained, tracing a papier-mache of Hrunting and letting it fade after she made her point. "If it's said a sword is used to slay a dragon, then it will become a dragonslayer's sword.
"That's why they aren't just powerful weapons. They are the accomplishments and the entire story of a Hero given physical form- crystallized legends," Kuro concluded. "And you get to have one," she added with a half-grin as she placed back the blade in its sheath and leaned it against the side of the bed's headboard.
"Anyways, I just wanted to tell you that. I should get back or else Firo might eat everyone's food before it reaches the table. You just take it easy and wait for the food Naofumi will bring you in a bit," Kuro said and stood, ruffling the tanuki girl's hair for a little before she left the room.
Raphtalia didn't react to her rumpled hair nor to the promise of food despite the growl of her stomach, but only stared at the weapon leaned against her bed, her previous excitement gradually turning into apprehension as the enormity of what she had been entrusted with sank in.
