Keima knew he was screwed. Royally so. After waking up in the servants room he's been given, he found a simple note giving directions.
After the rewards were given, he had handed Raphtalia a basket with a bread roll set and headed off with the note as his guide.
Following the directions, he ended up in a library near the south gate and as soon as he entered, he saw the one he hoped to avoid. Leona. She was sitting quietly in a corner table reading a book.
Unsurprisingly, the book has a magic circle inscribed on the cover that would kill anyone who tried opening it.
Leona had noticed Keima almost immediatley and invited him to a seat across from her.
Keima was tempted to ignore her, but shot down that particular train of thought. Nothing good would happen if he did.
"So how are you enjoying this world" Leona stated of with an ice breaker. "Isn't this more exciting than that dull world?"
"What's your goal" Keima had no intention of playing around. He got straight to the point. As soon as Keima had responded, he noticed that the library had gone silent. Almost as if the library had isolated them.
"Fufu. You already know I have many. But what do you think" Leona had refused to answer. She didn't need to.
"You want something. Something that doesn't exist in our world but does exist here" Keima had thought long and hard about it. It was one if the few reasonable answers he had come up with. Of course, with Leona reasonable flies out the window and into a volcano.
That said, it could also be her insanity and curiosity as well. He wouldn't put it past Leona to do so.
"And what do you think I'm looking for" Leona didn't deny it but neither did she confirm it.
"The power behind the waves" Keima had started to piece things together the minute he was kbew Leona was around. And much to his regret, somewhat understood her objectives this time.
"Behind?" Leona had a perfect poker face, but she was smiling at how much Keima had figured out. 'As expected of Keima. He's one of the few I watch for after all'
"The monster's in the wave. They're not of this world." Keima had already noticed the monsters names when he fought. 'Interdimensional skeleton' and 'Interdimensional bee'.
Although circumstancial evidence, it was far better than... Other, theories Keima had came up with.
"Hmm close, but no cigar" Leona had affirmed Keima's guess. But 'he should really ask what the waves are on the conceptual level. But that can't be helped' Leona was ecstatic at Keima's line of thought. But he never questioned if this was the end goal. 'Or perhaps he doesn't want to considering the rammifications'
"The power of the waves is indeed what I'm after. But what I really want, is the one causing it" Leona had started "or more accurately, the power of who's causing them"
"Who?" Keima had noticed the specific phrasing.
"No telling" Leona was still cheeky about it.
"Then what was my purpose" Keima knew that his previous line if questioning lead to a dead end, so he changed course.
"An experiment. I recreated the waves on an extremely small scale. And it was a success if I do say so myself" Leona fully admitted it. "Well, that and I wanted to test out this world. And you were a nice guinea pig"
"Great..." Keima was slightly worried about what she meant about being a 'guinea pig'.
Keima was seriously debating on using teleport. If only to get out of the library.
"Seeing your mind at work really is something else" Leona interjected. "Its much more interesting than talking with these animals, and the heroes are all boring or stupid"
"Well, except one. But I won't play with your party just yet" Leona promised. "Though I do wonder if I can take the weapons" Leona mused at the possibilities.
"Oh well, it was a fun chat. Think of this as a teaser for the main event!" Leona had created a magic circle beneath her and teleported out. All without people noticing her.
Keima was left stunned, and terrified. For one as insane as her, even this was something on a whole new level. If he gets home, then he'll have a hell of a time preparing.
Keima left the library when he noticed that it was already noon. He had ledt in the morning and was wondering how time flew so fast but ignored it. Anything involving Leona is bound to be chaotic, or terrifying. Sometimes both.
In the end, Keima had pulled up his map and tracked down Naofumi and Raphtalia to a weapon shop in the an alleyway not far off from the main street.
Upon entering, Keima noticed a fairly tall weapon shop uncle staring him down as soon as he entered.
"Who're you" he demanded
"Don't, worry Erhard. He's one of my party members" Naofumi assured the weapon shop uncle.
"Huh, really? Can this guy even fight?" Erhard took a cursory glance and didbt see much in terms of combat ability.
"He may not be a good fighter, but he's crafty" Naofumi admitted. To be fair Naofumi and Raphtalia had seen him fight once with some strange magic. They couldn't really guess his true strength.
"Well, you do you I guess" Erhard had let it go. He was still concerned about Keima's actual fighting ability, but considering that Raphtalia trained herself from scratch, it won't really matter much.
"Alright then, I guess your here to replace all your old gear right?" Keima had seen Raphtalia testing of a few blades. For some reason she was also carrying an egg.
"Yeah. And to see if I can find you a staff" Naofumi noted that his class was a mage and Naofumi wanted to prepare him. He already had a sword but Keima already said he could only use it for emergencies, hence the need for a staff. When Naofumi asked Erhard if there was abywhere he could buy one, Erhard recalled Atelier shop that was fairly reputable albeit expensive.
"Don't bother, they would be ruined if I used my main attack magic's" Keima had warned. To prove this he had picked up a broom sitting by the corner.
At first, a fire ball appeared at the tip "Normally, when you cast magic, a staff can act as a focus. It augments the magic power and allows you more control. This world has staffs that also runs on a similar principal" Keima started to explain.
Normally Erhard would have confiscated the broom by now and shooed him away. But this time, he was learning another worlds magic.
Keima had put the fireball out and replaced it with a vibrant aura, it looked like a rainbow was coiled around the broom. Keima had grabbed a stone from his storage "but when magic becomes to powerful" Keina had thrown the stone up in the air and promptly disintegrated it with a blast.
"The augmentation becomes to powerful and it destroys the staff entirely" Keima had showed the staff, it was burnt to the shaft and now unusable.
It was something he noticed awhile ago. He was experimenting with magic and bought a staff to see if {elemental burst} can be enhanced further. (An: {elemental burst} is the strange magic referring Keima had used during the wave and just now). What happened was the staff being turned into a charred husk.
Erhard was sweating bullets. His instincts as a former adventurer were ringing all kinds of alarms. Especially the ones about danger.
"If I use a staff, this happens" Keima said apologetically. Noafumi only nodded. Even if he wanted to augment Keima's magic, it would be pointless if he can't use a staff.
"Well then, hey blacksmith, as an apology, I'll give you this" Keima had called out Erhard to snap him out of his stupor and handed him broken eggshells. For whatever reason they were red.
"Are these eggshells from a fire-resistant monster?" Erhard could tell that these were valuable. Any forge made from the materials of fire attribute monsters are much better than those without. Doubly so from eggshells since they're loaded with the fire attribute.
"Yeah. By the way, is there a changing room. I guess I should show my actual equipment" Keima asked. However Erhard saw that he wasn't carrying anything beyond the sword on his hip.
"Where your equipment?" Erhard had scratched his head. He had waved Keina to a backrrom so he could change. But he was wondering where Keima placed it.
Keima had entered the changing room when Erhard spoke "Just what is he?" It was actually something on everyone's mind. But Erhard had spoke it out loud.
"No way Keima is a normal human. That's for sure" Naofumi had muttered to himself. "By the way, why'd Keima give you eggshells?" Naofumi was curious about them.
"Eggshells from a fire-resistant mobster improve the forge. You can get the flames hotter and have more control over the temperature" Erhard explained. He was reaching under his counter for an appraisal tool.
"This'll take me minute so excuse me" Erhard had went into his forge to appraise the eggshells.
Naofumi and Raphtalia were inspecting a set of of gear when Keima had came back.
He was wearing light leather coat ontop of his jersey. He has a pair of gloves, greaves and a sword on his hip but that was it.
"Well, I rarely fight on the front lines anyways. Beside's this is magic equipment" Keima had joked about his light equipment, but it really wasn't something to laugh about from Naofumi's perspective.
"How good is it?" Naofumi asked.
"Good enough that I'm not dead yet" Keima replied. To be fair, Keima had a few extra sets. And he wasn't exactly lying when he said they were magic equipment.
They were in fact golems! Keima can turn anything into one and reshape it on a whim. Not that he would ever reveal that little fact.
To be fair, nobody could do that as that involves complete comprehension of the magic language. Something very few are able to do.
And to nobody's surprise, the golems had a second function: Keima is able record the movements and combat styles of anyone he sees and insert the data into the golems. This allows him to mimic there ability to a certain degree.
How he records however, has to do with his nature as a dungeon master. And right now he could only record what he visually sees.
Of course, they do have a few flaws. Like the fact that they out a heavy strain on the body if your not physically fit. And Keima wasn't exactly keen on exercise.
Another flaw is that if the armor, or rather golem, gets to damaged, then it would revert back to normal armor. He could just remake it using create golem, but reapplying the combat data takes time.
Speaking of which "where did you get all that?" Naofumi was addressing the biggest elephant in the room.
"Storage magic" Keima was blunt in his answer. And to prove it, Keima had used the spell {storage} to open his inventory.
It looked like a hole was ripped in space. Inside was a space the size of a closet. Naofumi and Raphtalia had peered inside. They could see normal standard adventuring equipment such as lamps, oil and what have you, to armor sets and several swords. Barrels, crates, vials, and jars were stacked haphazardly.
Then they noticed the much stranger things. Shiny black orbs that seemed to absorb light. An open crate full of several metal ingots. At a closer look, one had stood out among them. It was a small gold ingot with a silvery sheen.
That was all they saw before Keima had grabbed out a sword and closed his storage. "Well, that's enough showing for now. Anyways, you guys are looking fir new equipment right? Well here's a magic sword" Keima was rather flippant about giving a magic sword. Something that would cost several gold coins at a minimum.
"If your worried about the cost of a magic sword, I have several of them. But they're all low tier blades" Keima had assured them, but it didn't make them feel any better. A magic sword would cost at least one gold coin after all. They could buy one if they had to, but they costed at least a fifth of what they had.
It was then Erhard came back. Or rather, burst into the room screaming like the devil.
"What the hell is wrong with you" Erhard was foaming at the mouth while grinning. His eyes were filled with a childish glee.
"Oh, did you already appraise the Phoenix eggshells?" Keima was rather nonchalant about Erhard's glee. As if he had expected this.
Of course, Naofumi and Raphtalia had heard what Keima mentioned so casually. 'Pheonix eggshells'. An item so legebdary that even Naofumi, who still didn't know much about this world, could guess it was somewhere along the lines of legend and divine myth.
"Where did you even get these?" Erhard was rather anxious about asking about them. They were legendary and yet... Erhard couldn't shake the feeling that there was a catch.
"Found the egg and kept it around... Till it hatched" Keima wasn't exactly lying. What really happened was that Keima gained the egg as a dungeon master via 'gatcha'.
There was actually two things he noticed about it: one was that the eggshells were completely fireproof. The other was that the egg regenerates or 'revives' when the egg was damaged or destroyed.
Keima abused the hell out of it and repeatedly harvested the eggshells for weeks. The only reason he stopped was because Rokuko wanted to finally hatch it with the help of their friends and neighbors Core Number 112 Ittetsu the salamander, and his wife Redra. A red dragon!
Redra had breathed a bit of dragonfire to watch out a white pheonix. Conversely, the Phoenix in question developed a fear of Keima.
In the end Keima had left it to Rokuko on what to do with it(him/her? Keima never checked)
Of course, Keima wouldn't say this out loud so he had to lie a bit. "They were a gift" Keima didn't lie about it. It just wasn't the whole truth!
It was obvious that further questioning would soon lead to nowhere. So Erhard had to switch topics. Thankfully, it was a topic that was bugging him since learning about Keima. "
So... Why did you even decide to join Naofumi's party. I could understand if it was a one off cooperation, but why did you decide on fully joining him?"
To put it bluntly, Keima had no reason to fight for this world. From what Erhard understood, given enough time, he would return to his own, and yet... He had decided to help regardless.
"Well, my first goal was to learn as much as I could about this world. I was going to leave sooner or later" Keima had flat out said he would leave them. It... Really wasn't that surprising if you consider that he wasn't of this world. Nor was he one of the heroes summoned to protect it.
Only Raphtalia was surprised by this. "Then why did you decide to make the contract?" She had demanded an answer.
While Keima could respond to expectations, he decided to be honest. "There was an ace in the hole I needed. For my sake and Naofumi's."