Chapter 8: The Strongest Man, The Half-Fiend and the Strongest Leg Forward Part 4

Foreword: And thus the author's master plan to string you along only to murder the protagonist in the end of the story is complete, hahaha, little did you know this author is a fan of stories where the main characters die, like Akame ga Kill!

Now let us continue to the post death suffering!

Story Start: Adlet's eyes closed. Adlet's mind was foggy and he couldn't formulate his thoughts well, all he could see were images of Fremy in is head, but even with his cloudy eyes he could recognise something. Every image of Fremy's head was of her sad, crying, looking at Adlet disappointed. Why in his last moments could he only think of how sad Fremy would be when she found out what happened? As that thought hit he realised if he could think that then why was he still laying here.

Adlet's eyes opened, he couldn't think well at this point but he knew he had to do something. He identified his main problem was his wounds, he was losing far too much blood and only had a matter of moments before blood loss took him out. Looking around one bright source gave him an idea, he grabbed his blade that was nearby and crawled towards the corpse of his fallen, burning prey.

Adlet said out loud as he gritted his teeth, "the strongest man alive can't die here!"

A loud horrible scream of anguish that continued for several minutes rang throughout the mine and echoed out into the entrance where guards were standing by. Upon hearing this one of the guards looked to his companion and said, "do you think the brave just died?" The other guard said, "I don't know, just in case, you stay here while I inform the Saint." The first guard nodded and then freaked out as he realised his companion had just left him to deal with a monster that could kill a brave if it chose to come out.

Aywen arrived at the base of the mine and sighed, "guess I need to see if the beast is still alive."

One of the guards questioned her, "ma'am isn't that too dangerous, what if the creature is still alive, the fiend will rip any of us to shreds you said yourself you couldn't beat him."

Aywen replied, "lucky for me I had already gone in a ways and learned that the beast is a talkative sort and his voice reaches far. If he lives he will make himself known, stealth is not his style from what I understand, otherwise this would be very different."

Aywen ventured into the abandoned mine and was shocked to hear after a few minutes that no voice came, realising that she picked up her pace and ran through the mine reaching the cavern in but ten minutes.

At first the Saint only saw a faint light at the back of the cavern and several broken pillars, yet as she got closer she saw it and heard a voice, weak and raspy. "Strongest man in the world."

Aywen found Adlet laying on his back; his wounds had been cauterized using his sword and the fire that was still burning from the creature's body. The amount of pain that most have taken and his ability to withstand it and stay conscious greatly impressed Aywen.

Aywen said, "shut up kid, you did good, now if you die on me I will feel some amount of sadness so we best get you to a doctor."

Aywen took Adlet and saw him to proper medical attention.

After Adlet had not returned in two days since he should have arrived at the town, Atro went to the mining town to learn of what had happened.

Atro found Adlet resting in a comfortable room in the Temple of the God of Mined Metal.

Adlet was conscious at this point and smiled as his mentor appeared, he was surprised to see that his master had a look on his face he had never seen, he couldn't tell what it was, pride, relief, happiness, all of them, none of them. It didn't matter Adlet was just glad his mentor felt something for him at all.

Atro and Adlet talked for a bit about his conflict and how he defeated Chishiki, Adlet was not in the best shape but he could talk now and was on the road to a speedy recovery, besides the missing limb of course.

Atro talked to Aywen as well, "it seems my apprentice has fulfilled your impossible task, now you most certainly owe him, I think your payment isn't near enough for the task he underwent but the boy has no complaints so I will let it slide."

Aywen replied,"I will fulfil my end of the bargain as I said and nothing more, if he wanted a better deal he should have bargained for it beforehand! Simply how business is."

Atro sighed, "greedy till the end."

With that the three set out that same day for the mountain.

Fremy and Manuela had arrived at the mountain at the same day they normally did where Fremy would stay there for that night and Manuela would take her back the next day.

They were surprised and a little worried to find that Atro was missing from the compound. Luckily they spotted Atro and the Saint on horses carrying a wagon, it looked like a silhouette was laying down covered in a blanket in the back of the wagon.

Fremy's mind raced as she thought of what that mean't, tears built up at the corners of her mind as her world started to collapse.

Then the blanket sat up, the wagon pulled up to the front of the compound and slowly getting out of the cart with help from Atro was Adlet, his left arm missing except for a portion of the upper arm.

Fremy rolled up to Adlet by herself as Manuela stood back and watched. Adlet turned to look at Fremy with a smile, Fremmy grabbed Adlet and quickly pulled him on top of her and into her arms as she cried.

Adlet expected this, he expected her to be sad for his loss and angry for getting hurt, for him almost dying, for him losing his arm, for him not telling her what may happen. Yet when he looked at her she was smiling despite the tears running down her multi-colored eyes. It was a bright smile that shocked Adlet and gave him incredible feelings of warmth in his chest.

Sobbing Fremy said, "you came back, I knew it, I had a hard time but I believed you would do it! I had dreams every night I was in the village, a storm of claws and fire would take you away from me every night, every night I was haunted by those dreams yet I never had them when I was with you, despite my dreams I knew you would do it!"

Adlet pulled her in closer so she could cry into his shoulder as he said, "I am sorry, I won't do anything like that again."

After a long moment of sobbing and embrace that seemed to go on for years, the two separated and Adlet said, "on a better note, now time to see if this was all worth it."

The group moved to the workshop where they prepared to test it,

Adlet said something that stopped everyone in their tracks, "I don't think we have everything yet."

Atro asked, "what do you mean boy, we have a Saint who can force the machine to connect to the body. Why will that not work."

Adlet replied, "I believe it is actually a two way thing, if technology alone won't do it then magic has to do the trick but magic has to be done on both the machine and person to force it to connect, without someone who can force the body to connect to the metal than we won't ever see success."

Aywen sighed, "you say that now, what was the point of me even coming here if you don't have a saint whose miracles can work on the body?"

Adlet smiled and replied, "I never said I didn't have a plan, in fact the missing piece should be here in 3...2...1."

As Adlet said that a young woman entered the room, she wore a strange cow like outfit and most of the people here recognised the women as Rolonia the Saint of Fresh Blood.

Rolonia said, "I am sorry for being late, it took me a while to get here after receiving your letter.."

Fremy nodded her head sagely, "so that was what you were doing at the post office, I thought he may have been sending letters to another woman but in the end it was just Rolonia."

Rolonia sighed a little offended but brushed it off and said, "it is good to see you again Fremy, I was sorry I couldn't do more for you before when you lost your legs so I will do my best to make amends."

Fremy smiled and said, "thank you Rolonia, I appreciate it."

Adlet said with a big smile, "well now that we have everything we need let us see if this works!"

Fremy looked Adlet in the eyes and said, "what will you do if this doesn't work?"

Adlet gave a defeated smile and said, "I don't know, I won't give up, but if it doesn't work I will be pretty stuck."

Fremy nodded her head and they began the procedure, the two Saints working their magic and Atro helping Fremy physically connect the prosthetics to her legs.

Aywen mouthed off, "ya know, peg legs would have been so much easier, wood is a very easily obtained material and doesn't require saints!"

Atro barked, "stop mouthing off if you screw this up, miracles won't save you."

Fremy screamed as she did as the nerves were forcefully connected to the body. The latest model of mechanical legs were covered so one couldn't see the mechanics underneath but everyone could hear the flesh tearing open as the metal forced itself to connect.

Blood began to fall from Fremy's legs only to be sent back due to a certain saint. After a few moments of wait Fremy stopped screaming and recovered from the experience.

Fremy put weight on both of the legs and stood up, awaiting the usual collapse of the prosthetics and the pain that followed. However to her surprise it never broke and she stood there for a whole minute in shock.

She then moved her legs which perfectly responded to her wishes and moved how she intended, she walked over to Adlet and wrapped her arms around him as everyone stood in shock.

The next moment the room exploded into cheers mainly from Adlet, Rolonia and especially Manuela.

Adlet hugged Fremy

Fremy said, "I knew you could do it."

Adlet replied, "of course I could, but I couldn't have done it if you didn't believe in me, so thank you."

Adlet smiled and looked at the two Saints and rubbed his missing arm, "selfish request, you think you Saints can stay long enough to make one more limb?"

Rolonia replied, "of course! I want to know how you lost it in the first place but I would love to help."

Aywen said, "well it is outside the terms of our arrangement so I will have to charge you for my services but I can spare it if you have the coin."

Adlet said, "thanks."

Adlet broke away from Fremy and said, "now that is over I have one more thing to do, it was difficult sneaking into the village without you knowing about this but it was worth it. I didn't want to do this until you regained your legs so you didn't feel like you were tied down by my support."

Adlet got on one knee and presented Fremy a ring.

Fremy took a hand and knocked Adlet and said, "of course, yes, the answer was always going to be the same, legs or no legs."

Fremy waited till Adlet stood up, for the first time in a long time she was near the same height as him and she pulled him close and kissed him.

The End

Afterword: First off, Thanks! I want to thank everyone who has read even a single chapter of this amatur work. I never thought anyone would like my writing and it means so much to me that people have even given my story a shot. To everyone who read up to this point I give a massive thanks, I never thought people would stick to the end and that makes me glad for anyone who did, I feel like my writing quality or the story dropped off and points and so thank anyone who stuck along for the whole ride! This was a passion project and I am very glad that others enjoyed it even if just a little.

Your Rolonia is garbage. I am sorry if I didn't manage to do the character Rolonia justice, I tried my best but I have very limited experience with the character and so I don't know their personality very well.

Should I leave a review of the series? Yes please, I would love to hear what people think, where I messed up, how I could have improved and how you liked the story as a whole, etc.

What is next? Well I spent a lot of time setting up these side characters and their relationships with Adlet and Fremy so I don't want to throw that all away yet I didn't think anything beyond this point in the story would be alot more than just filler and fanservice, things that may be fun but not really serving to progress character relationships, goals or an overarching plot. That is why I ended it here, however like I said I don't want to throw all this progress away. So the plan is to write some after stories set after this fanfiction. I don't have a thousand ideas so there may not be many but I can think of a thing or two I would like to cover. If anyone has ideas or suggestions for said side stories, feel free to leave them in a review or PM me if you prefer, I would love to hear them!

Are you only going to write Rokka No Yuusha stuff? No, I don't have much else planned for Rokka except for working on the After Stories. I did what I wanted to with the series and more, I feel like a somewhat entertaining story was told and the question of what does Fremy's and Adlet's relationship after they save the world look like is answered.

That said I do have another story I feel like I want to work on, there was an anime called Aldnoah Zero, a cool anime only mecha anime that was well animated and had great music yet the writing disappointed me and I felt like the story could have been far greater. I only like to write about things I feel somewhat passionate about and so I plan to make a rewrite of Aldnoah Zero fixing the things I felt were broken. I don't know how many of my readers here have actually seen the show, if you haven't it is decent but could be better, if you care to give my upcoming story a try, watch the show and read my rewrite in tandem to compare the two.

When will your next stories start? I will probably take a week or two hiatus before starting the first side stories, I don't know exactly when I will begin writing my Aldnoah Zero story, stay tuned to find out, I will probably also mention it in the side stories when it starts.

Anyway that is all I have to say, another thanks to everyone who read and who reviewed.

Till Next Time!