Author's Note: Another Week down, got a little time off and so I'm using it to get caught up on some reading Video Games and Anime. Read, Review, Favourite and Enjoy!
Chapter 86: The Search for the Missing Weapons
Tanya was in her office doing paperwork. She was still one Seven Star Weapon short, Projectiles, and she still had yet to get a read on where the tiger was located. That flatly ignored this sacred gear business as well. A loud crash later and Tanya looked over to Rishia who had fallen over along with a pile of paper work. "We might've gone overboard." Tanya opted to take a break as she went outside of her office. The Queen had given Tanya control over the Ivyred territory which she was using her 'Bow of the Beast King' to fix up some. They had been looking for information on where the Projectiles was located which was surprisingly easy on account of their neighbours outright evaporating. Zeltoble was no more, it's slavers butchered each other in a gang war, it's mercenaries were gang pressed into Faubrey's army, and its black smith's had moved on to Q'Ten Lo and it's greener pastures. There was nothing left of the country now but a pile of ruins, Tanya knew that she should be upset by the loss, but she wasn't. She had more important things that she needed to worry about.
"Has Faubrey gotten back to us yet?" Tanya asked as she and Eli began walking along the path through the rapidly growing town. "I'll be happy to ask my father to go pick up the item in question if there's a problem."
"The only problem is that they can't detect the projectile weapon." Eli explained by way of response. "Which shouldn't be possible unless..."
"Unless someone made off with it to the other world while we weren't looking." Tanya stated as she felt a headache coming on. "Lovely, and now we have to find a way of retrieving it." Tanya grumbled as she debated her options, of course she wasn't the only hero in Ivy-Red Territory either. S'yne as she called herself spent the majority of her time flittering between Q'Ten Lo for meals and wherever else she got a read on a Reincarnated entering the world. The question that followed these feats of blatant gluttony was then 'how does she know where the reincarnated appears?' When asked about this S'yne simply produced a ball of yarn, one of her weapon transformations no doubt.
"The lady says: 'this yarn ball contains a map between all of the worlds that I have travelled to.'" The latest puppet she had conjured looked like Blitz in her monster form, which while cute in by itself was also wholly irrelevant.
"And that lets you know when an other worlder is about to appear?" Tanya asked and S'yne nodded in the affirmative.
"The lady explains: 'I've set up several of my familiars to detect the presence of divine magics, pivotal to the process of travelling between worlds. If you need me to pick up something from another world you merely need to tell me which one and I can devise a plan to get there.'" The Blitz puppet explained, though sadly there was nothing about that sentence that made Tanya feel better.
"'Worlds?' As in Plural? Multiple?" Tanya said each word slowly as if emphasising the term she was coming to terms with.
"The Lady explains: 'Yes. On average a single world will connect to four or five other worlds during the process of the waves. Aside from the worlds she intends to fuse together such worlds have already fallen to the enemy's control and act as a breeding ground and base of operations for her mad foot soldiers.'" Tanya blinked stupidly.
"Of course." Was it too much to ask for the planet saving contraption they needed to find at least have the common, bloody decency to limit its search radius to a single planet!?
'Nooo' Tanya could imagine Being X mocking her 'Why would a god ever make it easy for an atheist like you?'
"Right then. If that is the case then I may require your assistance to launch some research probes to other worlds." Tanya immediately began devising a cunning plan to narrow down the location of which planet the Projectile weapon was located on and thus pin down the damned weapon before anyone could make off with it again. "Faubrey has a contraption to track weapons right?"
Cue Tanya popping over for a quick visit to Faubrey. The country had seen better days, most of the upper echelons of the government had managed to butcher each other trying to figure out who was supposed to be sitting on the throne now. The army had already died in droves as a result of the aforementioned conflict, the bulk of the civilians had left the damned country for greener, less bullet ridden pastures, without the constant influx of materials from other countries to fuel them the factories had been shut down and for the first time in hundreds of years Faubrey's skies had been visible. The treasuries were being actively emptied out as the now much stronger and much more stable countries on the rest of the continent dropped by to re-collect their owed money, plus interest, for the blatant thievery of Faubrey's king and government over the years. In short, they had no real government, no army, no money, no jobs and do to the aforementioned reasons, no people. Tracking down the Church of the Four Heroes then required a relatively simple task of simply identifying which country was willing and able to accept a church which worships all four of the Legendary Heroes into it's borders. In short, Tanya had to pay a visit back home to the castle town.
"Sir Hero. It is a pleasure to see that your adoption under the Queen of Melromarc has gone smoothly. That said..." Tanya ignored the religious prattlers as she fed the chunk of stain glass the church had been working with into her bow. "We really must protest this!"
"Oh you're upset about me taking your precious hero tracking contraption right?" Tanya had anticipated this, and so ordered a identical piece of stained glass brought in which she imbued if the same skill she just got from the previous piece of glass, that being said...
"Four legendary weapons, and seven sub weapons." Making that observation Tanya then turned and faced the church officials that were just getting mad at her. "Where's the last one?" Tanya asked looking at the church officials with blatant suspicion.
"Pardon?" The individuals in question looked very confused by the question. "When Maple was on the other world she made note for four legendary weapons and eight vassals for a total of twelve." Tanya then gestured to the stain glass window. "Bow, Shield, Sword, Spear, Whip, Axe, Hammer, Projectile, Claw, Cane and Gauntlets for a grand total of 11 weapons between the legendary's and vassal's. Where. Is. The. Last. One?"
"A missing weapon? Miss you do realise we call them the Seven Star Weapons for a reason right?" The head priest of the Four Heroes church asked like he was speaking to someone stupid, right the dungeon door, they probably thought that was referencing the weapons.
"Then I suggest you have a new name ready for when I get back, might I suggest the Octogram?" Tanya dismissed the stupid people while she held her chin in her hand and walked out of the new Church building.
"What are you thinking about?" Eli asked looking at Tanya suspiciously.
"That after we deploy our probes I'm going to have to go out and have a chicken dinner." Tanya stated bluntly.
Nothing about that sentence made Eli feel remotely better. Syne had prepared several of her stuffed animals which Tanya used Metamorphosis to imbue with the skill she took from the Church to seek out and locate the Seven Star weapons. S'yne, with Rishia's and several Jewel's help, was currently preparing a magic circle on the ground as part of her efforts to reach the other worlds. Gravity to establish a connection, Creation to imbue the link between two worlds, Metamorphosis to protect the traveler's body, soul to protect their soul, Space and Time to make sure you get to the right place at the right time and Evolution to tie it all together.
"I thought it was only Heroes who could receive divine magics?" Tanya asked sounding suspicious of S'yne's ability to put together this array.
"The Lady explains: 'All magic comes from the divine magics, this isn't divine magic it is very specific magic that was refined from divine magic designed to do one thing and one thing only, which makes it no different from the common wind and earth magic you use to cool yourself off.'" The Blitz puppet explained while it worked on carving the formation into the ground.
"Wind magic isn't going to open the way to other worlds, or find the projectile weapon." Tanya stated while she lined up the various stuffed animals. "We pop them over, drag them after they've had enough time to confirm if the projectile is on that planet or not, and then make a plan from there." And so they proceeded to do so taking each of the make shift 'weapon tracking probes' and chucking them between worlds with the instruction to return after a few minutes with the result of their investigation. They shouldn't have to go far, the one she got from the Four Heroes Church apparently covers the entire globe.
"In the mean time I have something I need to do." Saying that Tanya called over the real Blitz, climbed onto her back, and flew off.
As Tanya understood Filolials are mortal enemies of Griffins, as well as the mortal enemies of Dragons, so naturally when a six limbed cat with wings flew over the heart of Filolial territory one of two things would happen, either Fitoria will kill them both on the spot, or she would use her god-like space manipulating powers to get them out of her territory. Fitoria needed Tanya alive, theoretically, so she felt more inclined to believe that she would attempt the latter and when that doesn't work open a line of dialogue. It was at that point in time that the two of them managed to hit a cloud of fog, when the fog cleared Blitz was no where in sight and Tanya was sitting on a block of stone just outside of some kind of ancient ruins, and quite possibly the singularly largest bird's nest she had ever seen.
"There have been many Heroes foolish enough to seek death." Fitoria stated as she glared at Tanya, eyes letting out a glow. "But there have been vastly more reincarnated who were every bit as foolish. You would hardly be the first of either."
"I know about the eighth 'Star Weapon.'" Tanya stated crossing her arms as she glared.
"Good for you." Fitoria replied sarcastically. "Would you like a biscuit? I'm sure my followers can spare one of the training treats their humans give them."
"We need the additional power it's reinforcement method can provide if we're to survive the next directional beast popping up to try and kill us." Tanya stated as she attempted to read Fitoria's face. Sadly the girl had a life span in the four digits to master her poker face.
"And what makes you think I know where to find it?" Fitoria asked cocking a brow suspiciously. "For that matter do you even know what it is or are you just making flawed assumptions based on knowledge you've gleamed from other worlds?"
"Because you've been alive far longer anyone else on this world. The Eighth Vassal weapon didn't just up and disappear on its own, you don't just lose track of a weapon of mass destruction, if you don't know where it is then you know who took it." Tanya replied getting into the other girl's face. Legendary or no, Each of the weapons had a destructive potential equivalent to an entire army, if their assumption was right then each of them had the power to kill a god and that was the kind of fire power they were currently short on. Fitoria's face twitched.
"Clearly you know nothing." Fitoria stepped aside and indicated for Tanya to take the path opened up for her. "Go for a stroll, and maybe then you will develop some appreciation for what you are asking for." Tanya did as instructed, walking along the path Fitoria had laid out for her. At first she thought she was looking at more rubble but she began to notice a pattern of stones arranged in equal distances in straight rows. These weren't ruins: they were a graveyard.
"Who killed all of these people?" Tanya asked as she looked at some of the stones.
"Do you need to ask?" Fitoria asked as Tanya turned to face her. "Tell me something you ignorant child, do you still think I am a god? Do you think that if I were there would be so many faces I cannot remember, so many names lost to time?" Was Fitoria so high and mighty that she had forgotten the names of all the 'irrelevant little people' or was it that the memories had grown so painful that she dares not recall them?
"I never believed you to be anything of the sort." Tanya stated bluntly.
"I don't believe in gods. What I believe in is a mad man with a god complex who got his shits and giggles by plunging and entire world into war and blaming me for it." Being X had to do what he did, according to his opinion that is, because he needed a way to make non-believers like Tanya believe him in again, and Tanya was his research subject. Therefore all of the horrors the people of her new home world were facing were entirely the fault of Tanya who refuses to submit to him.
"Unfortunately we do not share beliefs." Fitoria held out her hand and the jeweled toy hanging on her hip lit up and spat something out, a large fountain like statue with two intertwined figures on it.
Tanya didn't recognised the faces on the statues but that didn't mean that she didn't see things that were familiar to her. For one thing one of the statues looked like Fitoria, but the wings were much larger, hair longer, and she had a set of familiar claws as well. The other one was a man, but a man with a shield. The one with the claws could've been Fitoria's mother, or sister, then did that make the shield hero in this statue Fitoria's father? Tanya looked over at Fitoria as she looked at the statue, sadness had welled up deep from within her core, but her eyes contained the look of ignorance. These people were important enough to them that she took a statue of their likeness and stored it inside of her magical contraption, her 'star weapon' as Tanya had come to realise, preserved from the ravages of time until such point that she wants to look at it again, and she couldn't remember who they were anymore.
"Unlike you I do believe that gods exist. Just as vividly as I believe that there is no such thing as benevolence among them, just as vividly as I know my damned immortality stems from being fed their damned blood."
"What do you mean their 'damned blood?'" Tanya liked absolutely nothing about what was happening here. "This is what I mean." Fitoria waved her hand over the toy carriage again, and this time produced a bottle of red liquid.
"Three drops. That's all it took was three lousy drops to gain an immortal body that will not die no matter what happens to it. No matter how many Heroes I watch butcher each other. No matter how much my mind rots away. No matter how hard I try to kill myself!"
"'Rots?'" Tanya liked absolutely nothing about that. Tanya put her hand on Fitoria's shoulder and she turned around to face her, eyes going wide however briefly.
"Who are you?" Fitoria asked with a face that you look at when you see a complete stranger for the first time. Oh. Oh that wasn't good.
"Tanya Degurechauff Nee Melromarc." Tanya held up her bow and let it shift several times between different forms. "Hero of the Bow." Fitoria blinked twice. "How did you get here?" Fitoria looked the other way while she tried to figure out what happened. "Did I bring you here? I had to didn't I? You wouldn't have been able to find this place without me." Tanya took the confused bird girl by the hand and led her to the nest. "Did I meet you before? I have to go check my notes." Tanya left Fitoria to the nest and laid her down in it to sleep.
"'Notes.'" Tanya continued to explore the ruins when she found what Fitoria was talking about, a length of solid stone with thin lines carved into it, as if someone had stuck their bare finger into solid stone. The lines had formed words and pictures, of faces and names Tanya didn't recognise which had been crossed out, and of faces and names and words that she did recognise. One of the names was hers, Tanya Degurechauff, the face that went with it was hers too, as was the word that had been highlighted by it: Reincarnated. How much easier would it be dealing with this stubborn creature if she just, forgot everything about her and Katarina and her notes didn't say anything about them? "Take me away from here." Tanya stated directing her attention to the birds. "If she wakes up and sees this then she's just going to get mad again." Saying so Tanya was led out of the Filolials territory, once her interface was working correctly again she called Blitz over and opened up a communication crystal with S'yne.
"This was a waste of time. I hope you were more productive than I was." Tanya wasn't angry, just disappointed.
"The Lady says 'the projectile is on world again.'" The Blitz puppet stated by way of reply, which firstly meant that they wouldn't have to go to another world to get it. That was the good news. The bad news was there was a limited number of reasons why they would step foot on this planet again after fleeing to the safety of their home-world and bringing up the weapon tracking menu Tanya immediately zeroed in on the worst case scenario.
The Shukaku territory had already been evacuated, the entire area converted into a military and research base. Fields had been paved over and a airport put up so that dragons, griffins, airships and air-planes would have a place that they could take off from when the dung hit the fan and the phoenix woke up. Inside of the laboratory local monsters and plants were being studied as the scientists attempted to divine the phoenixes affects on the local environment, the Spirit Tortoise had a method to take control of all the local monsters, they should assume the same held true for the birdies sleeping in the volcano, speaking of a crack team of archaeologists and adventurers were picking through the volcano with a fine tooth comb in search of details about the phoenixes. And then the knives started flying. Blades of Pride, Envy, and Lust were scattered throughout the allied forces with the mind manipulation curses causing everyone to loose their minds and attack each other.
"Lots of fine weapons." The young man had all the features you associate with the Reincarnated, natural good looks and a athletic body probably born more from their limitless supply of replacement bodies and the research conducted therein than anything else. He had a easy time placing the base staff under his control, and that included the pilots and the riders, now all he needed to do was take similar measures with the Phoenix and he could begin harvesting this world.
And then a group of soldiers flew out of a nearby doorway. The brainwashed men hit the ground in a cluster, the one responsible walked through the nearby doorway, carrying with them several bats. It took the man a few moments to process what he was seeing, because where he stood the person responsible was wearing griffin footie pajama's. Ignoring the matter of the strange costume that produced a humanoid figure with the lower body of a lion and the upper body of a black bird they also had spiked Kanabo clubs floating around them.
"Fueee... Officer Degure-Melromarc isn't going to like this." The person inside of the costume sounded, in all honesty, a little pathetic. And then she looked at the man with the projectile weapon. "If I at least capture you I can avoid going back to basic training."
"You do realise I'm the projectile hero right?" The man held up his hideous throwing knives combining together the worst elements of scorpion, snake, lion and penis as if they were proof of his identity.
"No you are much worst than that." Not only was he strapped with cursed weapons, but he was also a reincarnated which not only meant that he was also physically immortal unless she finds a way of destroying his soul, but he could also escape at any time too simply by ejecting himself from his body. In short she had to fight him, while not being cursed, not pressuring him enough that he just writes the situation off, and not letting him complete whatever objective he came here to complete. "Still, better than Basic training." What kind of terrifying basic training has this girl been through that she can say that with a straight face?
For now he just settled for throwing one of his daggers at her, which she then caught with a club before disappearing. As the Griffin girl rushed forward she cast a buff spell on herself increasing her speed, and that of her clubs, the Kanabo's went flying through the air in several wild swings hitting the man from multiple angles as he attempted to retaliate.
"Slothful Throw!" The man released one of his daggers and the spot where it hit the ground released a jet black field of miasma that the Girl in the griffin costume avoided by riding on one of her weapons like a skate board. "Dark Burning Curse!" Another of the throwing blades, this one carrying with it a distinct black flame, and the Girl the Reincarnated was fighting caught it, not with her hands, she created a ball of Ki in her hand and grabbed it like a catcher's mitt. The baseball metaphor continued as the griffin girl picked up the ball with cursed energy at the centre of it and threw it back where it came from. "Urg! Get over here!"
By this point the mind altering curses had spread throughout the base and it's various personnel who were now gathering at this location. Pride to forcibly acquire their loyalty, through Loyalty came desire and enhanced stats from the curse of lust, and from desire came envy that someone else was getting their master's attention and with envy even more cursed enhanced stats. From the girl's memory the minimum to be in the army is around level thirty, to be considered an elite you have to go through the class up process, if you're a veteran it can be as high as sixty. Tanya had Kuro conduct experiments with the Lust and Envy weapons, the individual stat increase without additional reinforcements can each drive up a person's stats by about twenty levels worth each on top of all of that there was fifty of them, their brainwashing was likely going to make them ignore any injuries she inflicts upon them in favour of trying to bludgeon her to death, and if enough of them get close enough they'll spread the curse to her. Now consider the possibility that they could use buffing magic and transformations to further enhance those stats. In short: At their weakest these people should have the equivalent power to level seventies and at their strongest one hundred to a hundred and ten, depending on what kind of class upgrade they managed to get, if they coordinated the buffs and healing well enough then the threat they represent could easily climb pass the one thirty mark. For someone who has been through the hell that was 'basic training' these are acceptable parameters.
To begin with the girl lined up her weapons and twirled, the clubs spinning around with her as she shattered the legs of the brainwashed and scattering them about. Course they barely gave a grunt of pain in response but it was more than enough for the girl to flee to somewhere else while riding on her club.
"Devour!" The man threw another of his knives, the Griffin girl had to sacrifice one of her clubs to block it and good thing too, as the knife produced a field of cursed miasma and everything inside of it immediately disappeared.
The girl disappeared into a corner and pulled off the head of her costume revealing, to the surprise of many certainly, Rishia beneath the costume. Getting used as a target by Tanya for the past month, Maple's recent 'learn Ki speed run,' the annoyingly ineffective growth bonuses from Tanya's bow which was only a fraction as powerful as what they should've been and extensive training in the support and attack type magic which complimented the Dragon pulse nicely. It wasn't like she was completely without power either, the Griffin Footie Pajama's gave her access to the Griffin Growth Corrections from Tanya's bow which while still only a fraction as effective as what it should be she was still stronger than before. Then she hit Eighty and suddenly all the stats she was supposed to be getting all this time came to her all at once, she had no idea why this was, only that she probably shouldn't let Tanya know.
In any case she had to do something about this annoying person first. To begin with Rishia started by casting a spell to augment her strength by as much as possible as she looked down at the man who was barking orders to the brainwashed soldiers. Luckily he was chucking his knives around so recklessly that so much rubble from the base had built up, as such there was a convenient pile of rocks waiting for Rishia, She didn't want to use the Kanabo's as range weapons, those were her precious shields against this guy's throws. So dropping the clubs in her hands she picked up the stones, and threw. Aiming for the Reincarnated's body would do her no good, for he would just regenerate, so instead she meant to incapacitate him. Throwing two stones through both of his legs and completely pulverising his knees in the process the shrieking footless man fell over and hit the ground face first.
"GAAHHH! MY LEGS! MY LEGS YOU BITCH!" Next she decided to make sure that he wouldn't be throwing anymore curses at her. The projectile weapon was a lot easier to hit when he's trying to push himself off the ground. The second round of stones destroyed his hands as he tried to pull himself off the ground, the rubble striking like meteorites under the influence of her stats, at last telling Rishia that her suffering wasn't for nothing. It was for more than she thought though, as with everything around the Projectile weapon destroyed it was now freed of the accessories that had taken it captive, and in response it flew up to the nearest projectile thrower it could find. The Kanabo's flew out of invisible ghostly hands, in their place though a bundle of knives had appeared in each of 'helping Hands' ghostly mitts.
"FFFUUUEEE!?" Rishia would pinch herself to see if she was dreaming but her hands were full of sharp pointy things. She was so shocked that the Reincarnated's body turned into black liquid and his soul evacuated the area in the time it took her to realise he had left. "Tanya is definitely going to put me through basic training again."
Author's Note:
Captain Imaginat: This is the last time I'm going to answer your questions that you should know the answer to so pay attention: 1. Issei was a Vassal Hero, the Hero of the Gauntlets to be precise. 2. Maple made her Sacred Gear using Ost the Spirit Turtoise as material. 3. Fohl got his Sacred Gear as one of the weapons of his Gauntlets, the Boosted Gear copied from Issei when he was a hero. 4. Even if that was the case, it would be spoilers.
RonaldM40196867: True. I have a couple of things planned out.
Supreme Failure: Tanya doesn't want anything to do with Being X until after she acquires the power to kill him.
Pokemonever1994: Little bit yeah. I wouldn't worry about Nazarick, Ainz was sent back over as soon as he bit the dust on this side.
Nightshadegirl: No, it looks like a big block of stone.
Victor Janus: Little bit. Glad you liked it.