"What do you mean by you couldn't get into Bow hero's party? " Pope Balmus demanded of the large muscular knight and a strange individual whose face was hidden under a cloak, standing in front of him as he sat in his prayer room.
"Forgive us your holiness, as it turns out, hero of the bow is a paranoid nutcase and prefers working alone . He is also extremely good at fighting, If only I didn't underestimate him during the battle..." The muscular knight spoke through gritted teeth. His face full of aged lines and scars showing nothing but contempt and fury as he clenched his sword very tightly.
"As expected from a true legendary hero, he also appears to have some intimate knowledge about the holy weapons , something which other champions do not possess at present. It must be the only way he managed to beat us."
Pope held in a curse. This had been a setback, he never expected to deal with in the first place. Without any of his spies planted in the bow hero's inner circle, the church had no way of controlling the flow of information around him. He also received information through his spy network that bow hero was also very much aware about the church's existence and even briefly studied their doctrine . Indicating that not only he was quite powerful, he was smarter than the others as well. If a cautious individual like that managed to amass great power and influence, he might prove to be a great threat to the plans he had for the Queendom of Melromarc and Shield hero in general.
However, Balmus was a meticulous man. He wasn't going to let this minor setback affect years of planning and plotting. Besides this was a game he had been playing for a long time. Successfully using his deep connections in the nation to do away with any opposing authority in the kingdom. Despite facing a lot of resistance from queen, the church had managed to gain a lot of loyal following in the upper echelon of the society. Also finding a valuable piece for him in this game of thrones, none other than Princess Malty Melromarc. The first born of his arch nemesis, Mirelia.
Even though the princess acted all sweet and innocent in front of her father, He knew her for the wolf in sheep's clothing she was. Cold, calculating, ruthless and never afraid to make ruthless decisions as long as she could benefit from it. A woman after his own heart.
Unfortunately, her mother was aware of the princess' true facade even though the king remained blissfully unaware about that. However as the queen was the one to decide the heir apparent, someone who would be next in line for the throne, she chose her younger daughter Melty. Which was an obvious choice, considered the fact that Mirelia groomed her to be an "ideal" ruler from her very childhood.
Malty wasn't someone who liked giving up her birthright, even for her own flesh and blood. She was the first princess of Melromarc afterall, she grew up thinking she was going to rule the kingdom one day. Needless to say she absolutely hated her mother and towards a greater extent, her sister as well. He approached her with the idea of summoning all heroes in their country while the queen was away dealing with an international conference where every country was represented by their king or queen. Of course, there were countries that were on bad terms with each other, Melromarc and Siltvelt for example. There was a prophecy that stated the world was facing its end, so their hostilities were put on hold until the wave were dealt with.
Each country was supposed to have one and Melromarc wasn't even supposed to be the first to start the summoning ritual.
Melromarc summoning all four heroes was going to come to light sooner or later, the delegations from other nations were no doubt going to express their outrage at the queen. She will be accused of scheming together with her husband, making an attempt at powerplay. Which was more than enough to tie her in the conference, and the church will be able to act as the way they fit in the nation of Melromarc. Which was a good thing as Mirelia was a very accomplished and intimidating player on the political arena. Even if they managed to take out Lord Escanor Seatto, Mirelia's right hand just a few weeks ago, significantly reducing the influence of her beast sympathizing heretics, he still didn't want to take her head on until he was absolutely sure about his victory.
He wasn't half expecting Malty's plan to work but it seemed that he greatly underestimated staff hero's hatred towards demihumans for what they did to his sister back in those day and his fondness for his daughter. The church agreed to set up Shield hero to be known throughout the land as a villain by framing him for her rape. Accusations of this kind, especially if they were made by poor little princess weren't going to be taken lightly. It seemed like a perfect story in her head. She extended the hand of kindness towards someone that most of the citizen's believed to be a demon only to be heinously raped by him at the last moment. She would run off to shoulder of the hero of her choosing, the most gullible one of them all, Motoyasu. From what their agents witnessed he seemed completely trusting of what a woman has to say and gobble up her story in a heartbeat.
Malty had a one track mind and she was blinded by her greed and ambition. She thought getting hitched by one of the three heroes was all that mattered. The stature that came with the title and the power of the legendary weapon was more than enough to ensure her place on the throne after Mirelia. While Balmus did promise to make her the queen, he had no intention to trade one sly vixen for another.
He wasn't that stupid!
While Aultocray wasn't foolish enough to execute the shield demon himself, he'd do everything in his power to make an example out of the man who hurt his precious daughter. The church had already started spreading the rumours about that particular event since a very long time. He wouldn't have anyone to work for him except the worst scum who would rather stab him in the back in the name of working for him. And he'd trust no one to help him out. By the time wave next wave about to hit Melromarc, He'd have been so weak that the chances of his survival would be minimal.
Which would galvanize the shield worshipping heretics and demihumans into an open conflict. However sealing the borders of Melromarc would be more than enough to stop him from receiving any backing from the enemies, especially the beast fanatics of the shield in Siltvelt and Shieldfreeden. It would please him even more if they united together and declared a crusade on Melromarc to avenge their fallen saviour. And the tyrant of Faubly, who didn't care much about his younger brother anyways would only help the winning side.
He truly despised the shield demon and the filthy beastfolk who worshipped him just like most people but he was a necessary evil in order for other three to survive. In order to beat the waves four heroes needed to work together. With him gone, other heroes won't be able to survive much longer on their own as well. Joining their former fallen comrade in purgatory anyways. At the end of the day, that was what he truly intended to do. He was tired of constantly relying on pathetic otherworlders. It was time to wipe the plate clean.
To be honest, unlike his faithful followers, Balmus had no love lost for three heroes , despite them being the only individuals closest to God besides himself. For heroes of legend who were supposed to be protecting them, they never took their plight seriously. Acted like complete fools despite taking away their hard earned money to their heart's content and marrying the daughters of their most ancient and noble houses like common concubines. They needed the strength of their legendary weapons something which he was really close to get his hands on.
Once people became desperate and scared after death of their beloved heroes...desperate for some sort of help and scared for their families. That's when he would have made his true power known to people. It would have been too late to summon the new heroes by then, He will then promise the people that he will put an end to the waves once and for all, using the sacred replica in his possession. In their fear and desperation, the human kingdoms around the world would have no choice but to elect him in full power, allowing him to reshape the world as he saw fit.
Like a true God.
He wasn't going to let a pathetic otherworlder take that away from him, even if that person happened to be one of the three legendary heroes.
"We don't know the true extent of Bow hero's strength and his knowledge about legendary weapons in general, however possibility of a fighter of that calibre befriending shield demon under his wing doesn't bode well for our plans." Pope responded after a thoughtful pause, "If we are not careful, this friendship between them might very well destroy the religion of three heroes itself. "
"You think he will keep supporting shield hero even after learning about his deeds?" The shadow asked in shock, unable to believe that one of three heroes she worshipped more than anything in the world might join forces with the shield demon.
"I can't tell you for sure but a warrior like that won't be that easy to manipulate. From what our spies heard during the first conversation among heroes, the man doesn't trust anyone so I don't see him accepting everything at a face value." Pope let out a sigh, "For now we can only hope that he believes in the poor little princess' sob story and stops associating with the shield demon."
"What if he doesn't?" The shadow raised an eyebrow
"Well, in that case we would have no choice to take matters in our own hands and purge our lord and saviour from his crimes."
The muscular knight pondered to himself for few seconds, and then a vicious grin spread across his face, "Understood, Your holiness! I will send our agents to spread the news throughout all the land right away."
Though he was still fuming , idea of extracting some revenge on the man who humiliated him in front of everyone was just what he needed to cool off.
...xxxxxx...xxxxxx...
Walking through the town, Ben stopped by a a merchant who was counting his coins after being sold some materials.
"Welcome! How may I be of service, Sir Bow?" The merchant responded in jovial tone, turning around with a smile, "Are you interested in buying any minerals, Lord Bow?"
"That's not what I am here for." Ben replied in a casual tone, and pulled out three shiny taedanite crystal, the size of feather quills and headgear feathers "I am here to sell these."
The merchant quickly went inside to bring some sort of a monocle like lenses with him and started looking in concentration at the crystals. Suddenly his eyes grew to the size of dinner plates and stuttered before calming himself, "H-H-How did you get these? These are the unbreakable wind crystals from Monster valley, Only found in the Q'ten lo, an isolationist country located in the east! H-H-H?" The merchant began to hyperventilate once again, before Ben grabbed his shoulders, attempting to calm him down. The other onlookers gave the pair odd looks , before walking ahead.
Q'ten Lo? That's strange. Does that mean Petrosapiens exist in this plane of reality?
"Calm down Sir! You are causing a scene." Ben let out a sigh, firmly squeezing his shoulders reassuringly which brought the merchant back to the reality.
"S-sorry! The items from Q'ten lo sells for a lot. I know a few nobles who wouldn't bother giving up half of their fortune just for these crystals! H-how much? I-I can give you 300 silver for each!" Ben shook his head, he could clearly see the dollar sign in the merchant's eyes. Even though Ben never studied economics, he spent a lot of time chasing after master criminals and swindlers to know when someone was trying to rip him off.
"60 gold each. No negotiations. Deal?" Ben offered. Which was a good deal. After all, back at his home, highly refined petropian crystals sold for a lot and they were much harder to produce compared with the ones he normally used in a fight. It was only a bad deal for the merchant since Ben had raised the offer prize by more than eight times. Though surprisingly the merchant didn't seem that much upset while handing him over the bag full of gold coins. Smiling jovially for all the time, he might got ripped off a bit for three crystals but he could easily rip any other nobles using that.
"Right, next stop." Ben told himself, arriving at the blacksmith. He quickly entered inside the building which had a sword and anvil crossed together. As he passed through the large wooden door, he noticed a lot of different sets of weapons and armors. Behind the counter stood a bald bearded man, who wore a leather apron and greeted him with a smile
"Hey there kid! looking for a good weapon?" His gruff tone welcomed him in. Ben smiled a bit. There was something different about this individual, not only he seemed like a honest sales person compared to the merchant he encountered before, he didn't pay much attention to the legendary bow he had been carrying on his back, looking at him like a normal human being instead of some sort of deity who descended upon the heavens to save them from the monsters.
"Yeah, I am looking for some fine crossbows ." Ben asked, curious about what this man had to offer. That got the blacksmith's attention.
"Of course! Take a look!" He said, his arms presenting all sorts of crossbows and armors. "Oh, this is nice." Ben muttered, enjoying the sight of all those nice and shiny weapons ready to be scanned and added. Once he picked up a medium sized wooden compound crossbow.
And the moment he did so, a small bluish window popped up in front of his eyes.
[Weapon Copy- Complete : Blackguard Bow (0/1)- Quality: Medium Quality- Base Power: 35- Equip Bonus: [Multi Shot+++++](unmastered) [Aimed Shot+++++] (unmastered)- Proficiency: 0%- Level requirement:10]
With a bright glow the legendary bow transformed into an exact replica of the crossbow he had just been holding , only with a small yellow stone which was placed in the middle of the legendary weapon still present on it.
"H-H-ey ! What are you...?"
"Don't worry, I am the Bow hero. I will pay you now if you wish." Ben promised, pulling out a couple of gold coin and placing them on the counter. The Blacksmith only growled in response slamming his fists on the counter enough to make the entire place tremble. Ben momentarily wondered if the man was part tetramand or not. That was some strength.
"Those thieving little bastards! Spear hero and sword hero both came to my shop. Tried out every weapon I had of their type and left without buying a single thing! Don't they care about an artist's suffering?"
"Feh, some heroes." Ben agreed. While the young plumber had a tendency to abuse his abilities every now and then, especially during his childhood days and teenage rebellious phase, only feeling a little bit guilty after causing a mess, he had never been a thief. This kinda felt a bit amoral for someone who was supposed to be a hero. Robbing someone of their hard work wasn't cool. It wasn't cool at all.
The Blacksmith took a deep breath and greeted him with a smile, "Thanks for the heads up. Glad to see one of the fancy heroes that got summoned is an honest customer. Pleasure meeting ya' kid, name's Elhart. So any other business for me?"
Ben pondered for a moment before responding further, "Do you make any custom armors and crossbows?"
The blacksmith responded with a bright grin, his voice adding a bit of challenge, " I will offer you some free service but even then this could be expensive."
"The king is footing the bill and besides as you can see, I have deep pockets myself as well. "
"Glad to hear it." The scarred blacksmith chuckled, slamming a piece of parchment on the surface. "Let's talk the details."
"Good, I am always up for some Brainstorm-ing." Ben replied with a smile, bringing his wrists together while slightly tapping on his forehead. Elhart was surprised to see a sparkle of lightning coming from his arms followed by a bright green flash but decided not to pay much heed to it.
An hour of debating, bickering and passing ideas back and forth went by in what felt like the blink of an eye. The armor Ben decided to go for was a lightweight chain mail, about to be made from Reinforced boiled leather. This one would not only cause his defense stats to rise astronomically but massively increase his stamina and agility as well. It would take a few days to make and would chip over eight hundred silvers from Ben's treasury.
The crossbow however caused Elhart go a bit wide eyed. Featuring a smooth flowing lines of a one-piece crossbow with all the advantages of a 3-piece take-down. Not only that, combined the actions of spanning the bow, placing the bolt, and shooting into a one-handed movement, thus allowing for a much higher rate of fire than a normal crossbow. It's bent limbs had a longer draw length than an equivalent straight-limbed bow, giving more acceleration to the projectile and less hand shock. The design seemed to be well adjusted for optimal grip ergonomics, neutral hand torque, and maximum limb dynamics to deliver an unparalleled combination of balance, speed, and accuracy . There were two variants for the said crossbow, the smaller one had a double string with a pocket for the projectile, and the larger one had a barrel with a slot for the string.
The blacksmith threw him a curious gaze, he certainly knew these designs weren't something of this world, or at least something he hadn't seen outside of extremely advanced prototypes from Faubley.
"Interesting. I haven't seen or heard about anything advanced like those designs in my entire life but I can grasp the basic concept. I must say Bow brat! You are nothing like the spear boy , sword boy and even the shield brat who showed up earlier." He knew that he could make a lot of profit by working for this young man so he decided he should be a bit more familiar with him than everyone else. Besides there was something different about this young man compared to the other three who showed up at his shop earlier. He had eyes of a true warrior. He knew bow hero will only go far from here on.
Ben's eyebrows twitched in irritation upon hearing the nickname given to him by the Blacksmith. However, to be fair, he was yet to introduce himself, "You can call me...Ben. Ben Tennyson." The young plumber grumbled a bit at first. This man reminded him of Magister Hulka. He was a good man and a great soldier who taught him many things, however there were times when he really got on his nerves, "It's a' bit less advanced version of a basic weapon I was taught to use during my training. It was called Predator's crossbow. I find it to be easier to use compared to anything else. Rest assured you will be fully paid for your time and efforts."
Though what Ben didn't tell him was that the " basic " weapon back home was equipped with an auto-loading, detachable box magazine; could deploy a variety of compact, extending laser or plasma arrows, had 3 variable draw weights, that could be quickly switched between, could collapse into a more compact size for easy storage.
The man seemed like a good blacksmith but even he wouldn't be able to make something like that for him, but now that he had toned it down by a lot, the man should be able to at least make that one for him
"About the armor, I can add an enchanted cloak, with a decent magical resistance buff and bracers to protect the inside of your forearm against injury by the fletching of the arrow ." Elhart explained, "It's used more by Nobles and archers more then the common folk. However that might prove to be quite useful in a real battle. I can put both of them in a couple days with one hundred silver each. I also sell a lot of field equipments and camping gears, though it might cost you a pretty penny."
Ben's excitement went flat, "You just want to push the whole thing to another gold coin, right?"
Elhart was unrepentant, "Ah, don't be like that Bow-brat. I assure you it will be worth it."
Ben shoved over four other gold coins with an equal amount of harmless grumbling. While Elhart just rubbed his shaved head and grinned at the younger man. letting out a friendly laugh, he spoke out once again.
"Now is there anything I can do for you, dear customer?"
"You are determined to bleed me for as much coin as you can, aren't you?" The sarcasm in Ben's voice was thicker than the plate mail he sold. Elhart was sure about that.
The bald man let out another laughter at that before making a waving motion, "Yeah, you are right. about that. So, going to an inn? The sun has already set afterall. I know about all the quality inns and best apothecaries in this town"
"Nah, I am heading out to the fields. I gotta learn how this thing actually works. I'd still appreciate the info though."
"Not a great idea. A lot of monsters become active and ferocious in the night. Beside you are yet to field test that legendary bow of yours." He stated while putting a small map on the table, "There is a beginner's dungeon heading past Lute village. Drops won't be anything worthwhile but with your current equipment, you should be able to easily gain experience and increase your levels. This map isn't the most recent out but you won't get lost following it."
"Thanks for your assistance." Ben nodded with a friendly smile, before his expressions turned serious all of a sudden as he put another gold coin on the counter, " I guess it shows you are a decent guy, and the only one I consider putting my faith in."
"Why can't you trust anyone, Bow-brat?" Erhart asked and straightened a bit at the confidence put on him. He didn't make any gesture to gather or return his money though.
"That's for me to know and you to find out, old man!" Ben let out a chuckle.
"Hey, I am not that old." Elhart grunted.
"You said Spear and sword heroes passed by? Did either of them put in any special orders like me?" The species shifter asked in a casual tone
Elhart raised an eyebrow before replying with a nod, gritting his teeth in frustration upon being reminded of the so called "heroes" " Sword boy wanted an armor and picked up light leather to begin with. Spear one didn't really buy anything except a standard adventurer set, Shield brat tried his luck with "feeding" his shield various minerals. As you already know by this point, these weapons are magical and they become stronger after absorbing different materials. Apart from that he brought a chainmail and spent almost half of his money on buying a fancy sword for his partner." He concluded with a deep frown.
"As I suspected, that woman has him whipped." Ben let out a sigh. The bald blacksmith shrugged at hearing this.
"Ah, you tell me Bow-brat! She barely paid any attention to lack of weapon and inability to wield one at all. She was much more interested in using his allotted funds to shop for herself."
"Desperation attract vultures, I guess. " Ben rolled his eyes in annoyance, "I hope you don't mind creating the best duelling shield anyone can find in this nation. That naive friend of mine is going to need all the help he could get at this point, perhaps even more."
Elhart flashed a greedy grin which would have sent a devil packing as he went in to bring a blue print and list of materials required.
...xxxxxxxx...xxxxxxxxxxx...xxxxxxxxxx...
Unlike any other rookie adventurer who would carefully test the water with their toes, Ben immediately strode past the two guards and onto the fields. And he couldn't help but feel a bit bored. He didn't feel any different. There were no dangerous monsters ready to devour him like he had been initially warned by a lot of people. Once he paid for his new gear, Elhart decided to throw in a long black hooded cloak. Insisting that not only it went with his ability, it also made him look cool, setting him apart from other adventurers. A small part of his brain did find that rather funny, that had been a trope in a lot of anime and wuxia shows Kevin used to watch all the time, whenever a character wearing cloak showed up, you can easily tell he/she was most likely going to be a bad-ass.
Although, since Gwen went with the whole lucky girl route , he didn't feel like stealing her thunder. Still he totally believed nobody can pull out a cool look while wearing a cloak look like he could.
Beyond the gates he saw farms with farmers out, children playing around, the very fact that a lot of civilians were out there indicated that the monsters around this area might not be as threatening as he initially imagined them to be. Feeling more confident than ever, he began dashing onto the trek beyond the farmlands, into the small hills which made most of the beautiful night scenery in front of him. Eyes scanning for anything unnatural and dangerous, it was only after skipping through his fifth hill, he finally found anything even "remotely" threatening, several red flashing icons covering his field of vision.
And just like that his enemies appeared in front of him, which happened to be orange pumpkin shaped balloons which seemed ready to maul him to his death.
Ben narrowed his eyes in anticipation as he brought forth his divine bow. Of all the legendary weapons he had to be the one to end with bow. Probably the hardest one to master and at least near impossible to use right of the bat. He had been a pretty decent shot back at his home world and like all high ranking plumber officials he was quite proficient in using his proto tool. However using a ranged weapon with any mastery would take years, even if he had talent for marksmanship. That was something he had to figure out on the way, it was the only thing he could think of as far as his weapon was concerned.
It was indeed quite a bit troublesome to use the bow itself, while he didn't have much issue with taking an aim and firing shots at his enemies, he still needed to get used to accounting for the trajectory and range as well as the wind and how far he needed to shoot.
Followed by several echoing popping sounds the creatures started bursting into small weightless orange remains , giving him 1 exp point per kill. But, he couldn't exactly stop and celebrate as there were at least six others ready to take their place. He only grinned as he took aim and fired multiple arrows in quick succession. Of course a few of them missed but so far the Ultimatrix bearer was getting the hang of it.
Thunk...Thunk...Thunk...
Arrows constructed by the magic of legendary bow and hit directly into mouth of those creatures , then out on the other side of the ground as the balloons burst into several pieces, causing Ben to sigh in relief and satisfaction.
Ha! It's been five and half years since my first boot camp , I guess I still got it, I bet Kevin would be proud
Moving towards the mortal remains of the pumpkin shaped monsters. Which looked more like Jack o lantern , rather than an actual balloon. He picked one up as he attempted to investigate it's thin rubbery texture. Wondering how the hell these things operated in the name of biology. Then again he had seen weirder stuff throughout his many years of adventures.
The moment he accidently brought the piece closer to the jewel on his bow. It began to shine in a bright yellow light be and Ben felt the air being sucked like a vacuum before the orange piece on the ground disappeared into it.
A familiar window suddenly popped up in front of him, displaying a colossal skill tree, with far too many icons indicating all the bows he had already unlocked and he was yet to gain, probably containing hundred if not thousands of them, the window zoomed out of focus and started scrolling both horizontally and vertically before stopping on a glowing icon, displaying the newly unlocked Orange bow.
While the stats were lower than the bow he was using, he saw a +1 DEF and +2 agility on equipment bonus tab. It hadn't been unlocked yet. The requirement showing that he needed to "feed" at least two more remains before the bow can be unlocked. Feeling a bit curious he looked into the equipment bonus once again, from what he could gather the holy weapon possessed a mastery bar every time it transformed into different variants of bows, which increased with bow's usage depending on it's level. If he were to fully master it, he would have permanent access to those bonus attributes even while wielding other bows.
That's...quite interesting.
Ben thought for a moment. Back at his home, he only focused on buying most expensive equipments he could find while playing various RPGs and MMORPGs. Needless to say it sounded pretty cool in the beginning, such weapons had amazing bonus and wielding a lvl 100 weapon at level 1 was quite OP. However eventually the level of monsters would rise in the late game and after that he had really hard time keeping up. If he thought about it now, in this case, instead of getting a weapon with +300 battle power, he went for one hundred weapons which increased his battle power by three, that'd be better for him in the long run. Cause the attributes would be a part of him no matter what sort of equipment he used.
In any case, he shouldn't be ignoring any boosts he can get, no matter how small that sounded for the time being. Mastering all the bows he could get his hands on seemed like the smart way of moving forward.
Hunting balloons was an easy affair and considering his kineceleran speed alongside loboan reflexes, none of them couldn't even dream of coming closer to him. He had made quite the progress, with multiple kills under his belt. He also came to know that balloons came in different colors, their behavioural and attack patterns remaining mostly the same. He couldn't be sure about that though, considered that he barely gave them a chance to react in the first place. Their drops consequently unlocked bows of their different color, however the equipment bonus, something he had been clearly aiming for this time around, wasn't that different from the orange one.
It took him awhile to get the mastery bar on his bow going on. The progress was related to the bow's usage , though Ben did wonder if it was based on number of kills or hits, as most of his enemies died in one shot. He quickly realized that shooting arrows at some random trees didn't work and he had to hit a living breathing target in order to make any progress. It would have been pretty nice to unlock a fuck ton of bows (Something which he already did at that point) and spend a couple of hours at some archery range for mastery progress.
I guess the divine weapon won't be exploited that easily.
Rest of the grind come, and gone in a flash. Slowly but steadily his level kept growing. It took him fifty kills each, but he finally managed to master entire balloon series. Once he did so, a special bow, perhaps some sort of bonus given to him by the divine weapon to reward his efforts, became unlocked. This one was simply called Balloon emperor bow, which surprisingly worked in a crossbow form as well. The stats on it were quite decent, even on par with some of his mid tier "alien" bows. Alongside offering +10 to all of his attributes as equip bonus. However as he already suspected, the system wasn't going to make it that easy for him. The requirement for obtaining the bow were quite steep. Not only did it require one hundred remains of each balloon , but it also came with a level eighteen restriction . On other hand it offered a special skill, World map. As a diehard fan of video games, the Omnitrix bearer certainly know what that meant. He certainly wanted to unlock that later down the road.
Before he could even think about going further inside the forest and look for more dangerous monsters, his stomach rumbled in protest, reminding him about his need to consume food for living. He had spent most of the day reading books, running around and finally last but not the least, hunting. His last meal being the lunch he had at the castle.
He brought up his highly advanced plumber's badge in which he "stored" all the maps he found so far by scanning them, a holographic image of the town showed up, displaying various routes he could take to fast travel back to capitol.
Ben suddenly heard a sound of rustling behind the woods, a sound he was all too familiar with due to being the victim of the so called predator Khyber's constant assaults for many years.
"You better show yourself before I come up there and kick your ass!" He shouted before launching several arrows towards the tree at break neck speed using the heightened agility of his hybrid loboan-kineceleran alter ego Xlr-Wolf. He was still not good enough to accurately snipe someone that far using a simple bow, however that wasn't what he was intending to do in the first place. He just wanted his opponent to show herself.
"My my, I didn't know Yumi no Yuusha was so much mindful of his own surroundings."
A female voice spoke out in an amused tone from within the trees. As she landed on the ground in front of him Ben got a good look at the woman. Said woman was wearing a white mask and her overall outfit made her seem like someone coming straight out of a masquerade ball or a person who entertained some very interesting fetishes.
"Occupational hazard for someone in my profession." Ben retorted in a dry tone, levelling his glare at her, "Who are you, Miss?" He clenched his fists, ready to take on the unknown threat within a millisecond.
"You don't know me but I know you, Sir Ben Tennyson Yumi no Yuusha! I am an agent of the true ruler of this nation" The woman took a step forward, Ben's eyes sharply narrowed down upon hearing this.
"I see, you work for her highness, Lady Mirelia Q Melromarc." He replied in a thoughtful tone while still maintaining his aggressive stance from before.
"Very observant of you, Sir Tennyson. " The woman who referred herself as shadow praised, " Her highness wishes to speak with you, Are you amenable with having a conversation with her?"
"..."
Ben considered it for a brief moment before nodding slowly.
Might as well see what she has to say.
"Fine, Let's get over with it."
He shrugged nonchalantly.
...xxxxxxx...xxxxx...