Fran was having a good day.
It started off on the right foot when she woke up to find that the limbless slavers they had locked in the closet and forgotten about had died and turned into zombies without the use of any [Necromancy Magic], meaning that they developed their own Magic Stones. She wasn't entirely sure as to the process, but hey, free Magic Stones.
After that was a large breakfast, with fresh bacon made from one of the Kipines they killed in the dungeon, which had one of the most interesting tastes. It was kind of like chicken, but also kind of porky as well, and has just the right amount of crispy fat clinging to it to enrich the flavor without messing up the texture.
Then they got to the Adventurer's Guild to find three material gathering missions on the board that they just so happened to have already completed, as well as a scouting mission that gave them a good excuse to fly a lap around a nearby clearing, letting them coast over the landscape on top of Archer as they casually snacked on rice balls.
The mission resulted in them running into a group of bandits who were kind of strong, or at least above average, with one of them having a Unique Skill called 'Locate Valuables'. Fran stored their bodies away, planning on seeing if she could turn them into undead as well, in order to steal their skills.
They had lunch right after the battle was over, a large number of sandwiches that Archer had prepared for them, before 'convincing' one of the surviving bandits to lead them back to their hideout. Lots of goodies there, and more bandits to fight. Fran and Art picked out an unmarked crate of spices and a box of jewels that they thought no one would miss to keep as their prize, but left the rest for the City Knights. A secret apology to their Commander, who seemed to be a friend of Amanda's, for having turned their headquarters into a swamp earlier in the week.
After reporting back in, Fran and Art met with Amanda and she taught them a game. It was like volleyball, only using [Wind Magic] instead of your hands and with a bolder instead of a small leather ball. It was great practice and great fun, though it ate away at their Mana receives quickly. It was supposed to teach the girls how to use [Wind Magic] to effectively immobilize large targets, something that [Wind Magic] did best. The game resulted in Fran's personal [Wind Magic] ranking up to level 6, quickly followed by her [Lightning Magic].
Then came their second lunch, ramen with Kipine meat and broth made from a dragon's bones, as much as they could eat.
Yep, Fran was having a very good day.
"So, what do you want to do for the rest of the day?" Art asked as she leaned back in her seat, patting her stomach and giving a loud belch.
"Nn… don't know." Fran admitted. They had already done the only mission for the day that looked interesting and ate all she felt her stomach could comfortably accept. She didn't really feel like going shopping, since it wouldn't be the same without Amanda, who had to go in order to help manage the orphanage.
The orphanage wasn't exactly one of Fran's favorite places.
It wasn't that it was a bad place or anything. It was just that the people who helped Amanda run it kept staring at her, which made Fran feel uncomfortable. She was also coming to understand that she couldn't exactly play with the other children very well. Her strength and reflexes made her different than them. Her raw stats were nearly a hundred times what theirs were. If she wasn't careful, she could accidently hurt them just by shaking their hands.
Six hundred pounds of pressure was apparently a lot. Enough to crush a level 1 human's skull. She even had to be careful when dealing with full grown adults who were less than level 10. Archer had to make her and Art extra strength silverware so that they wouldn't break it.
Amanda admitted to having the same problem. Something that the older Adventurer enjoyed about being around Fran and Art was that they were children that she didn't have to worry about snapping in two while giving them a hug.
If Fran wanted to play with other children her age, she would need to learn how to rein in her strength, something that was harder than it sounded. An unfortunate consequence of her rapid growth, as most people would have taken 20 years to reach the level she was after just three and a half weeks with Archer.
That said, she didn't want to slow down.
"More training?" Fran suggested.
"Yeah, I guess there really isn't anything else to do, but what kind of training do you want to do?" Art asked.
Fran considered the question, as there were so many different kinds of training, each with their own benefits. Since they just had a large meal, they should probably start with a few energy flow exercises, or some reflex training. Something that would act as a good warm up. Or maybe they could practice using [Structural Analysis]. It was kind of hard, as there wasn't a Skill that supported it, but it was usually good fun.
But before she could respond, the two of them were interrupted. "Milady, could I have a word?"
"Nn?" Fran said, tilting her head as she looked over at the blond haired man. Fran was pretty sure that he was that swordsman guy from the dungeon dive question. His name was… Steve? Maybe? Being a lower tier C-rank Adventurer, he hadn't really left a strong impression on her. He had been fast enough, but his attack patterns, footwork and control were all lacking and he didn't have any magic, either offensive or defensive, to increase his kit. But he had actually tried to train with them and had lasted an entire hour, until Fran and Art's turn at watch ended and they stopped training in order to get a full night's sleep. After all, exhaustion was the enemy. "Need something?"
The man kneed down in front of her, taking his sword, still sheathed, from his belt and presenting it to her. "Please Milady, take me as your disciple."
"...Disciple?" Fran repeated, not sure she had heard him right.
She wasn't the only one confused. Most of the people in the Adventurer's Guild who could hear him looked at the man as if he had suddenly grown a second head.
"As the son of a noble family, it has always been my duty in life to become strong enough to protect my country and its people, but no matter how hard I trained, I am still no match for you. It isn't just your strength, your skill with a sword is leagues above mine." Steve said, keeping his head low.
{Obviously.} Art said, rolling her eyes. {His style is an absolute mess. He banks way too much on his speed.}
It was true. The greatest shortcoming of Steve's fighting style was that he focused too much on speed. As a Flash Swordsman, AGL was the man's highest stat by a large margin. And his exercises probably centered around quick draw routines. It was the old strategy of 'he who attacks first wins'.
Problem was that he used a long sword rather than a weapon meant for those speeds. So if he swings his sword at high speeds, it becomes difficult to make course and stance corrections. Whenever he swung his sword, his body was locked into the movement because he lacked the STR to stop his swing. This fatal flaw in his technique was likely why he was stuck at [Sword Art] Lv7, and couldn't even use that to its maximum effectiveness. It caused him to leave openings and made him easy to 'play like a fiddle'.
It was a method of fighting that would work perfectly well against any low skill fighter, but against anyone with a lot of combat experience, or who could afford to tank the hit, it would be worse than useless, it would simply get you killed.
"And it isn't just your combat prouse. When you were transported without your weapon along with the members of the Dragon's Roar party, you protected them, at great personal risk."
"Not big deal. Little risk." Fran said.
"You even surpass me in humility. In all aspects of Chivalry, I can not help but feel inspired by you." The man said. "Please, take me on as your disciple."
{Maybe some new missions have shown up since this morning. Would probably be worth the check.} Art said, trying to change the subject away from the graveling C-rank Adventurer. But Fran didn't respond. {...Wait, you aren't seriously considering this, are you? We can't have this guy following us around.}
{I know… but interesting.} Fran admitted. She'd never been a teacher before, and wondered if it might not be fun.
{Fran, you don't even know this guy's name.}
{...Isn't it Steve?}
{...Wasn't Steve the guy with the spear?}
{...Maybe?} Fran honestly couldn't remember. She hadn't really been paying attention when they had been introducing themselves. Fran only really remembered the summaries that Archer gave her about their stats and skills. This man had [Malice Detection] at a high level, which suggested that he had a lot of people who wanted to hurt him for some reason.
It felt kind of wrong to leave him as weak as he was when so many people wanted to hurt him. But at the same time, they were planning on leaving in just a few days. Not enough time for her to be taking on an apprentice.
{What do you think, Archer?} Fran tried to ask her sword, only to get no response. {Archer?} It was unusual for him not to be paying attention to them. Fran wondered if something interesting had happened.
No sooner did she wonder this than the answer came as the door to the Guild Hall burst open and a dwarf came stumbling, collapsing to the ground. "Please… help. Someone help!" The dwarf shouted, holding his side as he panted for breath.
"What is it? What's wrong?" Nell asked the dwarf as every single Adventurer in the guild stood up and reached for their weapons at the call to arms.
"It's Celldio… he's… he's targeting Merlin." The dwarf begged.
A collective swearing came from the surrounding Adventurers as they plopped back down in their seats, looks of disgust on their faces.
{Celldio?} Fran said. She wasn't particularly worried. Even if his false body was killed, it wouldn't affect Archer in the slightest. Not that it was likely that anyone could kill Archer.
{Don't ask me.} Art replied. {I'm still trying to wrap my mind around someone being dumb enough to target mom. They must have a death wish or something.}
Fran looked to Steve for answers. "Celldio: who is he?"
"Celldio is an A-rank Adventurer and Viscount with the worst of reputations. He is a black mark on both the Guild and the Country. A man with no sense of chivalry at all." Steve said, with the same unhappy look as everyone else. "A few years ago, he was caught up in a scandal as he commented several dozen crimes that were each worthy of the death penalty, however, he was allowed to get away with them because of his father's influence as a Marquis as well as the assistance of several Guild Masters who were his backers. Well, I say he got away with it. No court ever punished him for the crimes he committed, but his father performed a sort of justice of his own. The story goes that in order to stop Celldio from bringing further shame to the family name, the Marquis drugged his son into a state of permanent brain damage, so that he would be easier to keep in check. While he is arguable better than who he once was, he is completely insane and is fueled by a desire to own all the most powerful weapons he can find. I would suggest that milady stay far away from him, lest he try to take your magic weapon as well."
"..." Fran's tail went rigid at the suggestion that someone might try to take Archer away from her. If they wanted Archer, the only way they were getting him was with his blade pushed through their throats.
Still, Archer having to fight someone on Amanda's level while his own strength was reduced by the limitations of the [Body Split] and [Transformation] skills, was more than a little worrying.
Even with Kuroko and Shiroko's stat boosts, Archer's stats would only be around 40~50 a piece, only 20% of the amount he had when fighting Amanda to a standstill. If it was someone of similar strength to the Mother of Demon Children, who could us Skills to boost her STR up to around 500 and her SPD well into the thousands, Archer would be fighting against an individual who functionally had over ten times his strength and speed. Amanda had also told them that Orichalcum based weaponry and armor, like the kind she and Art had, weren't actually uncommon among A-rankers.
Archer was good, no, incredible, but between high stats, the best quality weapons and high level skills, could he beat an A-rank opponent when he only had around 2% of his true strength?
Fran got up from her seat and started to move. "Huh, where are you going?" Steve asked, completely puzzled.
"Going to help." Fran answered simply as Art made to follow her.
Steve… Cruz was momentarily shocked as the girls left, before he started to shake. "Milady truly is the embodiment of the Adventuring Ideals!" He half shouted to himself, before following out after her.
"Are you sure you wish to do this?" Baron Urs Bendoro, the Commander of the City Knights, asked Archer as he looked over the official Dueling contract.
In accordance with the law, it had already been signed by both parties involved in the duel, as well as the local Lord and High Priest. Now it was only the Commander of the City Knights who had to recognize the duel before it would be permitted to get underway.
Archer couldn't exactly blame him, most people would have to be insane to not only challenge an A-rank Adventurer to a duel, but challenge his entire party at once. Nearly everyone had tried to talk him out of it, or offered to fight at his side.
Archer had tried to be gentle in letting such people down. There was no need for anyone other than him to get involved in this. Both the Priest and Lord had to be threatened by the 'Adventurers' in order to comply. The fools seemed to think they actually had a chance, even after the 'spoon incident', and Celldio was so desperate to obtain Lumiose that he was nearly going feral.
"I am well aware of what I am getting myself into, both the risks and long term consequences. I'm not as foolish as I seem." Archer said with a shrug. "Don't act like it is something that can't be done. From what I can tell, you could beat him yourself if you tried."
"...Maybe against Celldio alone, I might be able to hold my own. But the entire party..." Commander Bendoro said with a frown.
The Commander of the City Knights wasn't a weakling. While his skills had started to degrade in his old age, his STR and END were still higher than Celldio's, and his battle sense was still sharp. With his shield and spear style of fighting, he would probably win against Celldio's sword, even if he lacked the 'Divine' level of weapon arts.
Archer even had his doubts about the Skills that Celldio did have. While it might be the pot calling the kettle black, something about his Skill's levels didn't add up. Such as how high his [Elemental Weapon] skill was, when he didn't have any skills that would allow him to use or train it effectively.
[Elemental Weapon] was a Skill that allowed the user to infuse their elemental mana into their weapon. However, Celldio only knows [Purification Magic] and only at lv2. While [Holy Magic] infused into the blade might have a pronounced effect against the unholy, [Purification Magic] could just about make the blade look shiny and clean blood and poison off of it.
And yet the man had [Elemental Weapon] at lv7?
It was likely the result of Skill Raising Potions. A type of potion that could be used to raise one's Skills. The catch being that how many of which Skills are raised is entirely random.
The idiot must have been chugging the potions down one after another in order to raise his [Sword Arts] level, so that he could unlock [Divine Sword Arts]. Probably because having one higher tier Skill was considered to be the bare minimum requirement for being considered for being made an A-rank Adventurer. They must have spent billions to raise his Skills, and some more to raise his other stats.
But while his stats page said he had these skills, he swords' histories told Archer otherwise. Celldio was no divine level swordsman. Likely because of his serious brain damage, he didn't have the necessary reflexes to pull that off. He was [Sword Arts] lv7 at best.
His lv5 [Mental Damage Resistance] was evidence of the fact that he was subjected to brain damage on multiple occasions.
So much time, money and effort spent in order to create a simple puppet.
"Stop dallying. You are wasting our Lord's time." One of the Adventurers said, earning a glare from the old wardog.
"That's quite the mouth you've got on you for a mere house knight." The man said in a low tone. "Perhaps a few days in the slammer for disrupting public order would teach your group to respect authority. Or maybe I could make it a mouth or two."
"Wh… you wouldn't dare."
"I'm already close to retirement, and there's no guarantee you would even be alive by the time anyone started to make a stink about it. So just try me." Bendoro said with a toothy grin, blatantly threatening the man's life.
While he was technically below a Viscount in socal status, his position as Commander of a Knightly Order boosted his effective rank to that of a Count, it just wasn't an inherited status. Meaning he outranked not just the idiot knights, but also the Viscount himself.
"You threaten the son of a Maquis? Do you think his household would stand for this?"
"He's a bastard son and unlikely to inherit anything. Actually, I would probably win points with his half brothers by removing him for them." Bendoro said, seeming confident, even though what he said was a huge lie. If he did arrest them, the Marquis Family would hold it against him and his on principle.
"As nice as that sounds, I'd rather get this over with now, rather than having these fools chasing after me a month from now." Archer said, before the Adventurers could respond. He looked the knight in the eyes, showing him eyes that made the Knight Commander stop. "This is something long overdue as it is."
"...I see. Fine then. Kill each other for all I care." Bendoro said as he took out a fountain pen and signed off on the papers.
"Great, and now that the legal bullshit required to make a duel official is done, how about we go somewhere where we can get this out of the way." Archer said as he stored his copy in his dimensional storage.
"Yes. Lets." Celldio said, his eyes practically bulging out of his head as he stored his own copy in his dimensional ring.
"I can't believe you are actually doing this." Caroline said as she walked behind him, Lumiose held in her arms. Part if the conditions for the fight was that Archer would not make use of Lumiose, and that Caroline would hold onto it until the duel was over.
An obnoxious condition, but ultimately meaningless. Archer wasn't fighting against anything strong enough to warrant the blade.
Celldio's stats were around four times his own. He'd been up against steeper gaps and against vastly more skilled enemies than these clowns.
"It's fine. This won't take long." Archer said as he walked.
The Knight Commander was kind enough to allow them to do their business in the Order's training ground, a large empty space with flat ground and nothing to hide behind. It worked perfectly.
"If both parties are ready, I will signal the start of the match."
"We are ready." "I'm ready."
"Then begin!" The Knight Commander shouted, dropping his hand.
In an instant, Archer had his black bow out and an arrow on the string. He had to use [Support Magic] and [Herculean Strength] in order to boost himself to the point where he could quickly draw the bow.
The party might not have been good, but they weren't fresh faced rookies. The knight immediately moved into the way of the arrow with shield raised as it flew towards their mage.
Too bad for him the mage wasn't the target of that first arrow.
One down.
The moment the "Lightning Arrow" made contact with the man's shield, it stuck to it and gave off a powerful electric shock. His metal armor conducted the electricity well and the man's entire body was fried. Unequipped to deal with such a shock, the man seized up, unable to even drop the shield. His body went rigid and started to fall over, just in time for the second arrow to fly past.
The mage had barely started to mutter the second line to their first spell when Archer's "Cursed Arrow" penetrated her cloth armor's mystic protections and lodged itself in her stomach.
Two down.
"Anna!" The hunter screamed in panic, fitting her own arrow to the string and firing it at Archer at high velocity.
Not that it made a difference, as the moment the arrow came within ten feet of Archer, he opened up his [Dimensional Storage] and just pocketed it.
Archer third arrow went for the hunter, who immediately tried to dodge out of the way in order to avoid the attack. Archer would have been impressed at the minimalist style of her dodge as she judged the arrow's trajectory exactly. Only he had been expecting that.
The arrow blew up the moment it passed her.
Three down.
Uncaring about his companions, Celldio had immediately started to charge forward the moment battle commenced, drawing his Basilisk Sword as he did so, and was nearly upon the bowman. So Archer abandoned his bow, tossing it forward so that it would get in the way of the charging Celldio's feet.
Predictably, the man was unable to lose his forward momentum and jumped over the tossed bow in order to avoid being tripped, leaving him airborne as he came into range of Archer.
It didn't matter how much stronger than Archer Celldio was. With zero footing, his [Heavy Strike] was so simple to block that Archer did so with his eyes closed. Kuroko's minor reflecting property made it easy, as Celldio's own force worked against him. Celldio's blade was parried, leaving him completely exposed to Archer's counter attack.
Kuroko slashed his right arm, cutting it clean off, while Shiroko passed over the man's throat, though he made sure not to cut so deep as to instantly kill the man.
Four down.
Archer looked up and saw the rogue scaling over the far wall of the training grounds.
...Five down?
Well, didn't really matter. Archer turned his attention back to Celldio who was weakly clawing at his ruined throat.
"You know, I don't really care about the swords." Archer said, startling the now dying man. "You were a thief and a bastard, but I didn't really care about that. I didn't care who you robbed or extorted from. I didn't care that you were an embarrassment of a noble, or that you were unworthy of being called an A-rank Adventurer. If those were your only crimes, I probably would have just ignored you.
"However, those were not your only crimes, and I cannot and will not let someone who raped and murdered innocent women to simply get away with it." Archer growled. "Celldio Lesspus, this is your long overdue judgment."
The man hardly put up a fight as Archer drove his blade through the man's heart.
Job done, Archer stood up and cleaned his blades. Then he walked over to the mage, 'Anna'. Dismissing the arrow, he cast [Greater Heal] on the woman. "The duel is over. I'll leave your companions to you." Archer told the shocked woman.
Archer then started to walk away before remembering something. "Right, I need to claim my prize." Using [Telekinesis], he grabbed onto Celldio's severed arm. He took the sword out of it, and then tossed the blade to the side. What he was after was the man's Dimensional Ring, and the treasure trove of equipment inside of it.
There was a magic lock on it, but that wouldn't take Archer too long to crack.
"You… you actually did it." Caroline said as Archer reached her. She was as shocked as everyone else there. "You beat them. No, you dismantled them! You DISMANTLED an A-rank party!"
"They weren't an A-rank party. They were C-rank at best. Besides, I had to win. You would have killed me if I allowed someone to get another one of my sword's for free." Archer said with a cheeky smile as he retrieved Lumiose and returned it to his [Dimensional Storage]. "Now, let's get back to the Guild Hall. I still need to place my orders."
But as they exited the building, with the army of dwarves all asking Archer 'What the fuck?' a familiar pair of girls showed up.
"Heard you were going to fight A-rank. Here to help." Fran said as she and Art stopped in front of Archer.
It wasn't until then that Archer realized he had been tunnel visioning and hadn't been paying attention to what was happening around the girls. "Thanks for the thought, but it is already over."
"Huh! Already!" Art shouted, her shoulders slumping. "And we just got here too… This sucks."
"Nn..." Fran agreed. It seemed that the two of them had been looking forward to an excuse to fight against an A-rank Adventurer.
Archer couldn't help but chuckle to himself… until Cruz showed up, trying to beg for his 'sensei' to be careful.
...Archer swears that he will never let Fran go unobserved ever again.