Raphtalia

"Last equipment checks everyone," said Mr Adrian, "we have about half an hour, so make sure you have everything you need."

Raphtalia took in a deep breath as double-checked her equipment. It didn't take very long. Armour, Stamina, Health and healing potions around her belt and her Sword and Short Sword. The back-ups were going to be Mr Adrian's responsibility so they were not her concern. She did take a moment to study Isis and Trystan, they were ready as well. And then turned her gaze upon Mr Adrian who was sitting on top of one of the many trees he had planted around the Hourglass that Fitoria had led them to.

Once she was done she turned to Rifana who was looking at her nervously. Raphtalia hoped that she wasn't looking as scared as the girl in front of her. The teenager looked really spooked but Raphtalia knew that it was simply because she was being forced, once again, to watch as other went into battle. Mr Adrian had agreed to help Rifana out, just as she had expected, but he had made it clear that she had absolutely no combat skill right now and her level was simply too low at the moment to fight in a Wave when she had no skills nor practice working with team members. Raphtalia had seen the logic in his statement and she could tell that Rifana did as well, but that didn't stop Rifana from feeling bad about it.

"We'll be fine," she promised her friend. It was a genuine promise that she was certain that she could keep. Raphtalia was scared but she was fighting with Mr Adrian, Trystan and Isis. She didn't think that anyone could beat the three of them.

Rifana nodded, "I know," she said, but her voice wavered.

"Don't be scared!" both of them heard, and turned to see that Trystan, in his human form for once, had snuck up on them, "I'll protect her and Big Bro will protect us all and kill all the monsters."

Raphtalia had to smile at that, especially since she had seen how powerful both Trystan and his sister were since their Class Up.

"Thank you," she said, patting his head, "I'll do my best to help as well."

He smiled and then started chatting with Rifana, who slowly responded to the energetic filolial. Raphtalia turned to see Isis looking at them, who quickly turned away, once she saw Raphtalia looking, and walked up to her father, who was speaking to Fitoria. Raphtalia felt a small smile emerge when she realized that Isis must have noticed their tension and sent Trystan over to help.

That girl was a lot like her father. Kind but preferring to act from a distance.

Raphtalia took another deep breath and joined in the conversation with Trystan and Rifana. Reassuring her friend and mustering her resolve. They were why she fought. Her friend and her new family.

It didn't take long for Mr Adrian to declare, "Five minutes until the Wave Begins. Make absolutely sure that everything is ready."

But he didn't stop at that and made sure to speak to every member of his party. When it was her turn, she was surprised to find that she was really scared. Not of him but she knew that in less than two minutes they would be fighting underneath that red sky. A part of her still found it ridiculous that she was heading towards the monsters.

"Take a deep breath and relax," he said, hand on her shoulder, "we'll survive this. Between our power and Fitoria's aid, there is no real chance that we'll be harmed."

She nodded, "I know," she replied, looking at her feet, slightly ashamed of telling him that she was still scared despite all the help he had given her, "It's just...I can't believe that I'm about to fight a Wave."

"Then let this battle be the evidence you need." he said with a smile, "we'll be fine and once this is done we shall start looking into the survivors from your village."

Her head snapped towards him, "What?" she said and she could see Rifana turning towards him as well.

"You heard me," he said, his tone a little amused but quite serious, "consider that to be incentive Raphtalia. So please do your best and-It's time."

He cut himself off and then quickly drew upon a Disc. All of them, except Rifana, got on it after, while Rifana walked towards Fitoria and sat on one of the nearby Filolials after wishing them luck and a quick hug. They would all be teleported near the Wave but Rifana would be protected by what Mr Adrian had described as the most powerful being on the planet.

Then the world around them shattered and she was underneath a cracked red sky again. She had seen this place in her nightmares but witnessing it again for real made her realize just how dull her memories were.

They were in some sort of forest, she could see the mountains in the distance but she couldn't tell where she was, it didn't seem familiar at all.

"Curious…" muttered Mr Adrian as he drew them up into the sky and towards the rifts from which she could see monsters pouring out.

She turned towards him, wondering what he found curious, even as she drew her sword and held onto it, feeling a sense of comfort at the reminder that she could fight back.

He didn't explain, just kept moving and then said, "Isis, combination time, Lightning and Fire with Ten thousand Swords,"

The white-haired filolial nodded, and then both of them began to chant, the magical energy was palpable and it made the hair along her arms stand on end. She swallowed as she was reminded of the sheer power that both of her party members held.

Even as they chanted Mr Adrian created four swords and set them to float around them, he didn't bother using them to attack but Raphtalia found herself growing more and more tense as they neared the rifts. She could see the monsters now.

"Blade Storm," they intoned, their voices speaking in perfect unison and instantly hundreds of blades covered in fire or lightning began to manifest and start flying towards the monster. She thought it looked impressive as it travelled, streaks of blue or yellow moving at incredible speeds that she could barely see, but it was only when approached their targets that the corona of fire or lightning around them expanded and she realized just how insanely destructive the attack truly was.

Mr Adrian - no, this was the Sword Hero - vanished from her sight and she managed to find him again because he created another set of swords, wreathed in lightning and fire, around him at his new position and launched them as well.

Again she heard the screams and screeches from all around her as he kept on doing this again and again and again. He didn't take very long but by the time he was done and had returned she couldn't see any monsters but the impact of their attacks was obvious. The whole area around them looked like hell. The fires had gone out once the attack was over, a sign of how much control that casters had over them, but the damage was incredible. The entire area had been flattened as if a giant had stomped it and she could see hundreds- no, thousands - of bodies all around her, each and every one of them killed horrifically by either fire, lightning, both or a sword.

Mr Adrian casually surveyed the destruction and noted, "that was fairly successful. Plus we all leveled up. Isis, make sure to save enough power to do that at least once more."

Raphtalia felt herself relax a little at his matter-of-fact tone and checked her status magic.

Raphtalia Lv 48
Adrian Black Lv 54
Isis Lv 48
Trystan Lv 48
Rifana Lv 43

She blinked at the realization that she had leveled up twice while Rifana had gotten three levels. It had barely been two minutes since the Wave had started. Just how many monsters had Isis and Adrian killed?!

"I'm going to drop you three off over there," he said, pointing towards an area East from their location, "two of the rifts are closeby so you should have a reasonable number of monsters come into play and it's central so I can reach you swiftly in case of an emergency. Remember your tactics and don't hesitate to simply run if need be. Understood?"

His tone of voice convinced them all to answer instantly.

"Good." he said and then moved the Disc to the position they were meant to hold, "the monsters will start flooding in within about a minute, Good luck."

Then he vanished, leaving behind the disc and a small collection of potions, weapons and other objects. Most likely a precaution.

Both Raphtalia and Trystan turned to Isis, who immediately turned towards the Rift and noted, "The monsters will be here in about two minutes," she said, "I'll set up some barricades. Please take the front lines, I'll stay here at the back."

Raphtalia nodded and then felt a little awe as the filolial casually reshaped the earth, felled some trees and then had Trystan create some barriers to create some terrain that could protect them. Once she was done, the whole area was far easier to defend, she hoped that it wouldn't be needed but Mr Adrian had insisted that they practice making fortifications like this. It would be useful for when they needed to protect vulnerable targets.

She felt a surge of grief as she realized that had Mr Adrian been summoned just a few weeks early her village would have been safe.

Then, there was no time for thought as the monsters arrived.

The first four that she fought were wolves that had glowing red eyes and were as large enough that their heads were on level with her head. Raphtalia found herself gripping her sword tightly and preparing herself to chant, she only had two magics but both Zuerst Light and Hide would help here.

Isis didn't share her fear. The filolial barely looked at them before a lightning bolt emerged from her body and struck the first wolf which howled him pain before collapsing, twitching from the massive current running through its muscles. The other Wolves stopped, wary, but ended up dead as the lightning jumped from wolf to wolf killing them all.

Raphtalia smiled at their success but found her focus sharpening as more monsters emerged. Some of them were wolves, but it didn't stop there, she could see wolf-bird chimaera's, some flying insects, and several other types of monsters.

"Trystan, Raphtalia," said Isis, her tone cold, "Please work together to stop them. I'll support you from the back. Trystan, buffs, now."

The bird nodded and Raphtalia felt her body lighten as he cast enhancement after enhancement on her, but the time he was done she felt invincible. She did her best to dismiss the emotion, she knew that it was only a 30% increase in her attack, defence and speed. She couldn't get arrogant about that.

The first target she attacked was one of the Wolves, a single slash cut through its snout, skull and a portion of its body, but its packmates took advantage of her being busy and tried to attack her.

Trystan landed on top of him and then bounced off the crushed body without a backward glance.

Raphtalia felt her thoughts fade away as she simply hacked away at monster after monster. On occasion, she felt the heat from a massive blast of fire or her hair standing up thanks to lightning near her thanks to Isis but she ignored those. Her friend wouldn't hit her.

The demi-human took in a deep breath as she faced off against a bear whose body was at least three times as large as she was. Four powerful limbs tipped with Claws and saliva that seemed to be quite acidic. A moment of thought and she blitzed towards it, and in another second she had cut through its' limbs on the right side, while it was roaring in pain, a sound that made her ears ache. Then, she executed the bear, ignored the blood splatter on her and looked towards her party.

The monsters had been removed from the area. She could still see them at a distance but she knew that it would take them at least two or three minutes to reach them here. Raphtalia turned her focus towards her teammates and found that Trystan, like her, was covered in blood and other monster remains. It wasn't easy to see over his black feathers but she could tell that he was positively covered in them.

Isis was pristine. Her equipment was clean, as if she had just been taking a walk, rather than fighting for her life and she was simply sitting down on a raised platform of earth, while a massive orb of fire floated above her.

Raphtalia knew that Isis had been fighting as well but it was hard to believe when she saw the girl as relaxed as she was.

"Drink your stamina potions," said Isis, "we have another large batch coming in soon."

Raphtalia nodded, while Trystan answered with a cheerful 'got it, sis'.

She took a deep breath, drank the potion, wiped her sweat with the small cloth attached to her belt and then prepared herself. The fight had been both easier and more difficult than expected. None of the monsters had been a threat but their numbers were a concern. If it hadn't been for Isis, she and Trystan would have been forced to retreat and fight a running battle, probably exhausting themselves for almost no reason.

Raphtalia noted that the monsters were coming in close, and got herself ready, she could already identify some of the monsters but others were new. A glance at her sword and the feel of it in her hands let her calm down even as she felt a sort of thrill rise.

Then a thin beam of golden light cut through most of them in an instant, the following glowing swords which proceeded to explode simply finished off the rare survivors that could live despite being cut into two pieces.

She knew it had to be Mr Adrian and his sudden appearance in front of them proved it, but it was still jarring to see him casually slaughter a group of monsters than would have taken them a couple of minutes to kill. She felt herself relax and winced as her fatigue hit her, stamina potion or not that had been tiring.

His eyes strayed to the numerous corpses littering the area and he smiled before he said, "Well done. Any concerns?"

"Nothing father," said Isis, answering for them all, "the monsters have been weak and their numbers manageable."

He smiled, "Good. Please get on the disc, there's another high-density region, I'll deal with this area."

Raphtalia almost winced at the thought but she moved onto the disc, "Mr Adrian," she asked, as they moved into the sky, Mr Adrian still occasionally shooting off blasts of energy "has the boss monster emerged yet?"

What she was really asking was if he was having trouble with it? It should have come out by now.

"It has," he admitted, "I've crippled it but it's still alive."

She frowned, feeling alarmed as she wondered what sort of monster could survive Mr Adrian, "Do you need our help fighting it?"

He laughed, "I can kill it at any time. I'm keeping the poor beast alive so that I can continue to study the Wave and gather some experience-." he cut himself off, frowned and then created a couple of dozen swords and sent them flying.

The subsequent screeches and explosions were expected.

"Right," he said, "As I was saying, this is a unique chance to study a wave in a controlled environment. I was planning to end it as soon as possible but the Wave is more manageable than I had anticipated."

"Mr Adrian," she said feeling both angry and worried at his casual behaviour, "you can't just do…" she didn't even know what to say. She hadn't ever imagined the incredibly cautious man she had come to know do something so stupid.

The Sword Hero looked amused, but he sobered up quickly, "Raphtalia take a look at your level."

Raphtalia Lv 55
Adrian Black Lv 58
Isis Lv 55
Trystan Lv 55
Rifana Lv 50

Her eyes widened at the numbers. Adrian was quick to notice her surprise.

"We have only been fighting for about 25 minutes." he said, his voice serious, "we've gained more experience in the last twenty minutes than we have in the last week."

"But-"

"It'll help us in future Waves if we're higher leveled and know about the patterns of monster release-" he cut himself off, "we don't have time for this. Another large batch is being released. Isis help me out with a combo we'll talk later Raphtalia."

Raphtalia nodded. Unhappy but willing to play along for now. They needed to fight right now. Even if it was frustrating to see Mr Adrian extend a Wave for some experience.

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Adrian

Adrian had Isis in his arms, chanting in preparation for their combination spell, prior to her Class Up and Fitoria's blessing this would have been impractical, a technique that simply cost Isis too much to be used, but, here and now, Blade Storm was incredibly useful.

Isis' power combined with his coursed through him. Every inch of his body felt like it was on fire but despite the novel sensation, everything felt amazing, his senses were operating at their maximum, he didn't need to think, to try to do anything. Instead, he was simply aware of everything around him, there was no need to activate any of his skills deliberately, it was like they knew what he wanted before he knew that he needed it.

So, when they shaped their spell, Adrian casually held it back, delivered Isis and his party to their new location. A place where they would face a reasonably large horde of monsters and then returned to his standby position. A location nearly a kilometre up in the air in the middle of the rifts.

Then he slowly unravelled the spell. It was like he had ten thousand swords stored inside of himself and he had to release them and then choose if he wanted them surrounded in Fire or Lightning. He drew on five hundred, split evenly between Fire and Lightning, and then directed them at his foes.

He didn't bother to observe the aftermath, instead, he simply made sure to compare the corpses to his experience gains and then moved on. On occasion, he would have a survivor, but a single, momentary Sword Beam or Explosive sword removed them from the game and allowed him to continue.

He kept on moving. His attention shifting to and from multiple concerns. One was the Wave Boss, a massive crocodile-like beast that was nearly 40 meters long, that he had pinned down, enslaved and then electrocuted continuously to keep it in line after all that Boss was the reason he could harvest experience so easily.

The other of course was the rest of the Wave which had proven to be quite underwhelming.

Adrian had received information on the Wave from many sources, all of them biased, but he had assumed some truth from each of them. Fitoria had called these early Waves to be annoying but easy and he had taken her words with a healthy dose of scepticism. Easy for the strongest being on the planet didn't mean easy for anyone else. Most humans he has spoken to had spoken about it in tones of fear. So he had assumed millions of monsters flooding out of a portal. And of course, he'd had the light novel, which had provided almost no real information, focusing on Naofumi's struggles and rarely on the Wave as a whole.
The truth was different.

At first, after the Wave opened up around 15,000 or so monsters had been unleashed. Significant in number and nothing else. His combination technique with Isis had crushed nearly 13,000 of them and he had annihilated the remainder over the next two or three minutes. Frankly, the fact that they were clustered near each other after they came out of the rifts was insanely useful. It let him kill them in droves with ease.

Still, he had continued his slaughter even as the number of monsters dropped and only a slow trickle continued. He had placed his party where the largest number of monsters were emerging from and taken care of the other ten rifts with ease. Sure while he'd take care of one rift, the others would continue spitting out more monsters, but that just meant having a larger target for bombardment when he decided to kill them.

Even the Wave Boss had been underwhelming and easy to cripple. His biggest limitations in dealing with the Waves were his cooldowns, skill limits and stat limits. The monsters themselves had absolutely no tactics, no strategy or skill. Their only advantage, numbers, was squandered since it meant that they were simply throwing living bags of experience at him.

Adrian loved this. Loved simply spamming his skills while directed with a little bit of logic and reaping a disproportionate harvest of experience.

It was nearly an hour after the Wave had started that he realized that the rifts were closing. He frowned, realizing that this was one of those cases where the rifts closed on their own. Adrian shrugged it off and decided to end this.

A moment of thought detonated the swords embedded within the Boss. Another moment and he had summoned up his Ten Thousand Sword Skill again to crush several widely distributed targets. He used Dash to reposition himself rapidly to crush as large a fraction of the remnants as possible and then used Sword Beams, a series of massive ones for once, to clear the skies. He created the beam using a dozen projected swords at once and the massive golden beam that resulted was one that he rotated all around himself in four different locations.

Everything in the sky, except for him, died, annihilated in an instant.

As the sky turned back to blue and he crushed the last remnants of the monsters that his party were facing he found himself smiling and planning.

Adrian Black Lv 62
Raphtalia Lv 57
Isis Lv 60
Trystan Lv 57
Rifana Lv 54

Adrian looked all around the area he had just been slaughtering in. Tens of thousands of corpses, hundreds of different types of monsters and more experience than he had gained since his entry into this world. It didn't take a genius to realize one simple fact.

He needed to fight more Waves.

However, before he did that he needed to boost the power of his party members or get more of them.

Adrian used Dash to arrive at their location and wondered how to increase their power. As it stood Trystan and Raptalia had been of very limited use. It had been Isis and himself who had crushed the Wave. Sure Trystan's buffs were useful and both of them had fought valiantly...but that wasn't really needed. Their lack of area of effect attacks and limited mobility ensured that they had only killed around 2000-3000 monsters and most of that was only due to Isis' area of effect strikes and the fact that he had been herding monsters towards them.

He would need another 15 party members or so to perfectly suppress the Wave and he needed a way to boost their mobility. It was time to focus on recruitment and versatility of techniques rather than individual power gain.

"Mr Adrian," said Raphtalia, her tone rather...displeased. He turned to look at her and found her completely covered in monster blood, guts and sweat.

Adrian kept a polite smile on his face but winced internally. He had been enjoying himself a little too much it seemed. He had paid attention to whether or not his party was injured, he hadn't been concerned about much else. He quickly looked into Isis and Trystan and felt a burst of relief that they were alright, hell, Isis looked pristine. Much like himself she simply looked like she had gone for a run, rather than having fought a massive horde of monsters.

He geared himself up for an annoying conversation. It would not be easy to convince someone who had lost everything to the Waves that it was wise to keep it open for some experience.

Still, he found himself rather happy, he couldn't imagine the Raphtalia of last week openly challenging him about anything. Perhaps this day would be good for more reasons than one.

The most annoying part of dealing with the Wave had been the cleanup and harvesting process. Adrian had thought he had been freed from the burden of butchering monsters for hours after fighting them for minutes and he was. But it turns out absorbing the corpses of over 60,000 monsters takes a hell of a lot of time.

In the end, Fitoria's filolials ended up eating a lot of it, though he made sure to ensure that he got enough samples to master a form, and it still took him nearly eight hours to fully absorb everything, kill some rare survivors that showed up and then put out all the fires and absorb the trees, soils and such that had been damaged by his attack.

Looking at the situation now, after the combat high had passed, he realized that he had been way too destructive. If the Wave opened up above a city or a town most of his attacks would have left horrific amounts of collateral damage. Essentially, he was ready to fight a Wave if it ended up in a relatively remote region but in any populated region, he'd up ruining the place without even trying.

The small celebration they had held afterwards had been nice. He'd made enough food for Fitoria and her filolials and it had been rather entertaining watching everyone relax. Even Rifana had participated though he was pretty sure it was just because she was so relieved overseeing her friend return to her unharmed.

"Sword Hero," said Fitoria, while he cleaned up the place, absorbing the mess that had been left behind. He'd reuse it later for something else, "there is something...odd I have to speak to you about."

He frowned at her serious tone. It was a contrast from her happy expressions earlier on this day.

"Of course," he said, turning his full attention towards her, "What is it about?"

"It's the Bow," she said, her face scrunching up a little, "it is behaving weirdly. It's not helping the barrier properly."

"The Legendary Bow and not the Bow Hero?" he asked, finding it a little odd that the two were treated separately.

She nodded rapidly and he found himself frowning as he realized that she was genuinely worried about this. He really didn't want to think about what could worry her.

"I see. Can you track him down?" he asked, "I can speak to him if you don't want to bother and we can see if there's something wrong."

He wasn't sure how accommodating Itsuki would be or even if the boy would realize that there was something wrong but it was worth a try...and it would reveal just how Fitoria had tracked him down if he was lucky.

She shook her head, "I can't find him. I tracked down the other heroes, and they're fine, but I can't find the Bow Hero."

"Is he dead?" asked Adrian, feeling a chill run down his spine as he realized that Fitoria might just have a better reason to kill him than before but she just shook her head again before pausing.

"I'm not sure," she admitted, "the Bow is helping but it's not consistent. It stops and starts."

"Is that why you can't track him?" he asked, wondering how he should go about finding Itsuki. The easiest option might be the Adventurer's Guild. He had noticed that there were a bunch of adventurers in the man's party and if his memory served him right, it was the Guild that had given him missions to do.

Then again, he didn't even know if they even knew about his disappearance. He sighed as he realized that he would have to get back to civilization again and deal with politics. Adrian choosing to abandon his party was going to bite him back right about now.

"Yes," she said, "Sword Hero, please find the Bow Hero and bring him to me, if he is not dead, I can check the Legendary Bow to ensure its' function. If he is captured please free him."

Adrian nodded. A little annoyed at the situation but more worried. He felt a surge of guilt come into play as well. He had basically ditched the other three heroes. He hadn't even bothered looking back while leaving them in the lion's den and now it seemed that Itsuki had suffered for it. Motoyasu was probably fine but Naofumi was likely to be in a great deal of trouble. He needed to check on them and fast. Fitoria may have said that they were okay but he doubted she'd give a damn about them unless they were dead or in Itsuki's case not fueling the barrier around the world.

Then felt surprised at his thoughts and how different they were from before. It was odd to realize just how warped his thinking had been after he had been summoned here. Even if Itsuki, Motoyasu and Naofumi were annoying it didn't justify him leaving them there without even trying to help. His actions had served him well and he could say that Rifana and Raphtalia had received a few benefits from it but it was important that he acknowledged that it had hurt others as well.

"Alright," he said, accepting the job, "but I'll need your help for the start. Can you tell me where the Shield and Spear Heroes are? I can check in on their situations and see if they have any information about the Bow Hero."

Fitoria was quite apathetic and merely shrugged before saying "Okay. Please resolve this quickly and make sure that they'll fight the Waves as well."

He nodded and she quickly gave him the locations after he pulled out his Cartographers Sword. Adrian decided that he'd have to check in on Naofumi first soon, just to make sure that he was alright, then go to the Capital and hit two birds with one stone. The Slave Trader would be a useful source of information and allies. All he needed was a place to house them and the resources to keep them alive and equip them. And now he had all of those things.

It would be satisfying to have that man dead and his slaves freed. They might not agree to help him but the Trader did have monsters. Adrian could be certain that he'd at least receive some allies even if none of the Demi-humans agreed to help him. Plus, he could get some information on the people from Raphtalia's village.