Author's Note: Okay so another week down. Hopefully this slow dying out of Covid will progress and this going onto three year long nightmare will have ended. Read, Review, Favourite and Enjoy!
Chapter 46: The Great Devourer
Tanya mentally concluded that the Three Heroes church Scriptures about the Shield Hero was either complete bull, as oppose to the partial bull of the belief that Maple would be a demon, or that Maple was just so abnormal that the normal rules just don't apply to her. Because currently the creature which vaguely resembled Otto but was covered in Maple's armour had destroyed three boats, smashed apart a ice berg, inhaled most of the alcohol that the queen had dumped into the water and ate five of the biggest swords Kuro could manifest trying to slow her down. As a precaution Tanya wisely shot up the remaining wave monsters and used the rope shot to gather them together into nice edible bundles to feed to the damned creature so that it didn't eat them all. They had yet to resort to sacrificing the Whale Corpse, not until their weapons finished processing the materials into weapons anyway. "I guess it isn't called the Shield of Gluttony for nothing." Katarina stated watching Maple's otter jaws crushing monsters into easily consumed paste to swallow.
"She's eaten enough meat to feed a army and drunk her weight in alcohol and salt." Tanya stated amazed face twitching. "There's a limit to being Gluttonous!"
"How exactly are we going to beat her though?" Kuro asked watching as Maple finished the latest batch of wave monsters and was now turning her attention back to the fleet.
"Her stats are through the roof." Atla stated swords at the ready as the Familiar sight of the old lady limbering up appeared next to her. "Chances are good we can take advantage of that if we can get closer to her."
"Which also means that the rest of us have to keep her busy until such time that you can get to her." Tanya stated sighing in a 'this is gonna suck' kind of way. "Kuro..."
"Tanya, tell me seriously. Is there any legend in your world that covers 'giant demonic otter monster with a ridiculously hard body?'" Kuro asked indicating the creature in question.
"I was afraid you were going to say something like that." There goes 'use the three army's mana reserves to manufacture a weapon specifically suited to defeat Maple without killing her.' Time for plan B. "Deploy range units." Tanya ordered switching over to the Bow of Charity as she distributed bows while mages got into position. "Mages deploy barrier magic on these two individuals and archers provide them with cover fire!" Tanya instructed through her slave seals that had been deployed through the armies. "The Heroes will escort them to the Shield Hero so that she can be non-lethally incapacitated and returned to normal!" Tanya instructed as so her will was done.
"""We, the army of Melromarc/Siltvelt/Shieldfreeden have read and understood the origin of power!"""
The creature formerly known as Maple was not idle during this time, diving head first into the water as she went to her next meal.
"""Decipher the laws of nature and build a pathway for our targets of ice and snow! Ritual Class Magic Water Bridge X!"""
The sea parted and froze forming a covered bridge of ice that The heroes and two martial artists were now running across, and one massive otter monster was swimming under.
"Katarina!" Tanya snapped aware that they had no time to be careful with this one.
"I know!" Katarina grit her teeth and whipped out the spear of Sloth/Greed as she summoned a familiar mass of tentacles to jump into the water to maul Maple's otter face. Then a hammer came flying through the air and smacked Maple in her face as she was poking her head out of the water. Midori came in floating on one of his hammers in a way that ironically enough Maple herself had shown him carrying Raphtalia, Keel, Rifana and Filo on the other four.
"What's the situation?" Raphtalia asked as she and the rest of Maple's party jumped off of their hammers and onto the ice bridge, thereby freeing up the hammers in question to continue beating on Maple's otter face.
"Maple's lost her marbles and we need to calm her down. Katarina's familiar is fighting her at the moment but as long as she has to move around by herself it's not going to be able to fight at full strength. So Filo carry her." Tanya stated and Filo soon turned into her full Filolial form to take Katarina on her back. As soon as Katarina stopped moving her squid suddenly increased in cursed power as it continued to dig into otter fur. "We need Atla and The granny to sneak towards that thing, so we'll need Raptalia and at least two hammers to carry them." The raccoon woman in question nodded her head as she silently cast some magic to make the three individuals in question turn invisible. "The rest of you." Tanya drew the string on her bow. "Light her up."
Tanya with the Bow of Charity, Kuro with her infamous Rail Gun combo, Rifana with her own rail Cross bows and Keel with six floating Axes all lined up and launched their attacks. Between that bombardment and the Squid destroying the Otter material that had made up Maple's face via the Curse of Greed and the Shield Hero soon returned to her proper size, albeit now in the water and locked in mortal combat with the cursed squid.
"Did that do it?" Kuro asked and was soon answered when another iceberg had appeared in the water, with Katarina's squid inside of it.
"When... How...?" Keel began but Rifana just held him by the shoulder and shook her head in the negative. Nothing good would come out of asking too many questions at this point and instead the Heroes requisitioned a life boat and Filo pulled them over. Maple had yet to calm down, and after eating one of Midori's hammers with her shield he was understandably reluctant to press the mass of black with orange glowing eyes that was a possessed Maple.
"Maple..." The possessed Hero turned her attention to Tanya as she spoke up to catch the other girl's attention. "You have to calm down! No one here is trying to hurt you."
"Shield Prison." Maple seemed to disagree on this point as with a wave of her hand she cast the skill and a ball of shields appeared around the boated heroes. Before the girl could follow up on that potential ball of death one of Atla's blades slammed into her. Maple's blood squirted out of her helmet, but given how the entire front half of Atla's sword wasn't there anymore it hadn't been a bloodless victory. The possessed hero turned to glare at Atla and raised her gauntlet as it changed into the familiar baboon head with tiger strips of the Nue. "Paralyzing Shout." The skill produced a electric shock wave that floored everyone instantly, which would have been bad enough if the hero wasn't moving to use her other gauntlet to absorb the person who just attacked her.
"Get the hell away from her!" A cannon thrown through the air and detonating on top of the girl's head however distracted the Hero. Fohl was already prepared with more heavy objects to chuck while Keel's axe hooked Atla and carried her off to safety.
"Well that complicates matters." No point in attacking her if they're just going to get eaten in the process. It was bad enough when Maple could only do that with one tiny inch of her shield but with the Shield of Gluttony it seems that all you have to do is come into contact with her armour and suddenly you're missing bits of yourself. Wisely Tanya detected a ally still on the iceberg that she could give one of her stronger bows to, in that it wasn't a bow at all but rather one of Faubrey's numerous guns. Now all they needed do is wait for the paralyzing shout skill to wear off.
"Change Shield: Bee Needle Shield." Tanya and Kuro only barely moved out of the way in time to avoid having their vitals skewered, Kuro however now had a rather inconvenient hole in her arm. "Foolish Sinners!" Maple's voice had gone from possessed to outright demonic. "Within this virgin of cold ore, who shall swallow even your screams with her embrace, suffer in anguish as your entire body is stabbed and skewered! I CAST THE IRON MAIDEN!"
"That doesn't sound good." Kuro noted as the ball of shields and spikes they had been trapped inside of started to rise into the air. Outside a gong was made manifest as a huge ironmaiden composed of spirit energy appeared in the air, that the shield prison was moving towards. "Okay I'm done with all of this." Kuro changed the Legendary Sword into the Soul Eater and stabbed her way out of the Shield Prison with Tanya soon following her as they slipped out and landed back on the boat. Just as the two girls were getting ready to go on the offensive again Maple suddenly collapse and fell onto her side, Raphtalia soon revealing herself with a empty potion bottle in hand along with the confused old lady who was holding the Hydra Bow.
"She has trouble sleeping." Raphtalia explained as she put away the empty bottle of sleeping potion that Maple was known to take when she couldn't get to bed. The shield changed, not only disposing of it's demonic appearance but also changing from armour into the default legendary shield form, as a by product exposing the battered unconscious hero wearing what was now little more than a rotting mass of once fine silk and Kushtaka fur.
"Get her onto the boat." At Tanya's instruction Raphtalia picked up her party leader and dropped her into the boat as the group rowed back to one of the ships and the Ship began making it's way back to Cal Mira where hopefully they could get answers.
"Her level went down?" Tanya asked looking at Raphtalia as she tended to Maple's bedside as a older sister might to a younger.
"According to the party menu she's in the twenties right now."
That was inconvenient, Cal Mira's activation event was nearly over which meant a short period of time to take advantage of it's easy XP gains, failing that Raphtalia and the others will have to be deployed to a high level area to grind back up the difference. Perhaps even more astounding was that aside from the damaged Kigurumi that had been rotted away by Katarina's curse Maple was still completely physically fine, even at low levels she had reached the point where she can take a pounding like that and shrug it off either because she's just that plain tanky or because her ability to heal herself was just that potent. Some insight into the matter was gleaned when a healer came by to fix Kuro's arm she also tried to use that same magic to help wake Maple up her body seemed to reject the magic.
"Is this a side effect from using the curse series?" Tanya asked and as a experiment Katarina tried to cast the same magic on herself and Tanya, which then proceeded to heal the minor scrapes on their bodies, which still told them next to nothing given what they believed to be their unique relationship with the curse series.
"Excuse me I'm going to go down spirit healing potions until I have to pee now." Katarina stated leaving the room where Maple had been sleeping in.
"We'll bring her to the curse curing hot springs where hopefully something can be done about fixing the curse on her." Tanya stated and the others still present nodded their heads in agreement. "There could be other issues at play here that is keeping her from waking up. Chief among them I would like a idea of what hijacked her body and tried to kill us." Tanya stated turning a glare towards Kuro.
"What did I do?" Kuro asked recoiling in surprise. Aside from the distinct possibility that she got Maple to copy something into her shield that caused or contributed to this situation? Tanya put the thought aside for the time being and picked up the still rotted Kigurumi.
"Can you read the history on this?" Tanya asked and a look of enlightenment crossed Kuro's features.
"Huh. Good idea." Kuro picked up the rotted cloth as she proceeded to deep dive in the battle they just went through from Maple's point of view.
"Meteor Shield!" Using Meteor shield at this size unfortunately required that Maple stop sending support through beast transformation, but at least she could still maintain Compassion so that no one would be dying from this.
'Current Shields insufficient to block incoming fire.'
'Suggestions?'
'Shield of Gluttony.'
'No.'
The notifications flew by Maple's face like a chatroom server having a flame war leaving the girl confused. The Legendary Shield was talking to itself now?
"Are you feeling okay?" Maple asked her weapon genuinely concerned.
'The Hero won't be unless those attacks stop.'
'Gluttony is not a option.'
'The Lord Camelot has no say in this.'
Maple's screen opened up and to her mild horror she saw that the Shield of Gluttony had been selected, only for the window to close.
'The Prydwyn should not be doing things on it's own.'
Like that the two shields went back and forth between opening different windows in Maple's field of vision.
"Can you two focus! If none of you have any better ideas then use the damned shield!" And with that Maple uttered a line that she would regret saying for quite some time.
First she saw a notification of Proficiency being drawn from other shields as Gluttony was mastered. Secondly a trail of notifications about raising the quality of the damned thing all the way up to legendary. Finally the blasted shield ate the souls of all the monsters that Maple had been feeding to it at Cal Mira and some how used them to make the embodiment of Gluttony even hungrier.
'Shield of Gluttony II Unlocked'
'Shield of Gluttony III Unlocked'
'Shield of Gluttony IV Unlocked'
And it all went down hill from there.
"Oh no." Kuro stated the rotted fur slipping through her fingers and hitting the floor as she processed the revelations that were just had.
"What is it?" Tanya asked notably displeased.
Not that Kuro was paying attention to her as she instead brought out a wooden badge shield painted with the blue symbol of a dragon on it as she dived into it's history.
As expected from King Arthur's shield, it proved adept with blocking King Arthur's sword. On the grassy plains of Camelot two women nearly identical in appearance were doing their best to end one another, one of the blonde haired women was dressed mostly in a blue dress with silver plate. The other blonde with the same pretty face mostly in heavy white plate with red accents wielding a red on white sword and a large wooden shield, it's blue paint heavily contrasting against the red of the armour. The two women cursed and swore at each other, the blue one using the sword to chop down on the red one who blocked it with the shield and stabbed with the sword. The Red one put the sword through the blue ones abdomen, but in that moment the blue one summoned a white lance and put it through the younger woman's head. Only one walked away from that fight, and she did not take the stolen shield with her having already been fatally wounded.
"This might just be my fault." Kuro stated as Tanya tapped her fingers and glared angrily. "You know how we can copy the consciousnesses of Heroic Spirits into our weapons through their Noble Phantasms?"
"Vaguely." Tanya stated before glaring at the wooden Shield. "So who does that belong to?"
"This is called the Prydwen, a Shield that is most well known for belonging to King Arthur, or Artoria as her name actually was..."
"You're Stalling." Tanya stated less amused by the moment.
"But apparently it was stolen from her by her bastardised offspring Mordred. A humunculus created in her image by the King's sister Morgan Le Fey and was borne with a powerful curse attached to her that drove her to kill her father." Yep, bad days are ahead. "Given this is Mordred we're talking about I would expect Wrath or Pride, she actually kind of reminds of..."
"Finish that sentence at your peril." Tanya sternly warned accent starting to come through. "How exactly did you not know that you were feeding a power hungry lunatic to that thing?" Tanya asked brow in the air with blatant suspicion.
"Well the nature of what I am means that I can sort of skip the laws of cause and effect. For instance Effect: door lock." Kuro gestured to the door and suddenly it started locking and unlocking on its own. "Cause Key. But I can skip the cause and go straight for effect, locking and unlocking at will."
"Which is what you do with your magic." Tanya stated as her brow started twitching and her accent only got thicker. "As a result of which Maple and quite possibly all four of us now has a unstable lunatic wandering inside of our weapons."
"That would seem to be the case." Kuro stated, and the really bad part about this was that she was so hesitant to give the others weapons because of this exact scenario so she can't even say that she didn't see it coming. Also did nothing to keep Tanya from shooting at her either.
The Queen was currently sat across Oroko and a woman who was best summarised as looking like a cross between a dog and a cat, crutch leaning against the table. She wasn't concerned about Shieldfreeden's representative, not until she got back to her masters with the bluff notes of the meeting, which was a wholly different can of worms that needed dealing with. That just left Oroko to deal with.
"The Sword hero believes that it was one of her weapons that led to the Shield Hero's rampage?" The Queen confirmed with the other two individuals.
"If my understanding of how these 'Noble Phantasms' work is correct, then yes."
It was a interesting thing to learn, that one of the Heroes worlds also practices hero summoning, if not vastly different in execution and purpose. They made a mental note of asking Kuro if it was remotely possible to do something like this in their world as well, as bringing out another dozen or so legendary and Seven Star Heroes might be just the thing to deal with the waves and a lot of political headaches concerning distribution of heroes. First though was the more immediate concern of the cursed series. All four of them got their own nasty brands of awful going for them, and at least one of them was sentient now with the possibility that others would be following suit. The minor buzz of a slave seal on the Shieldfreeden representative went off indicating that the diplomat had just gotten orders from their many masters back home.
"It has been advised that holy water be used to reinforce the cursed weapons to suppress their negative effects, as well as removing as many of the reinforcements of the Shield of Gluttony as possible." The dog cat person stated leaning back into their seat so that the people who was watching the meeting through the crystal ball camera on his badge pin could have a better view of the next page. It was the first time they spoke in twenty minutes, which indicated that was how long it took his masters to come up with that one. Remarkably fast all things considered.
"We'll inform the Heroes of Shieldfreeden's proposal." Oroko stated diplomatically as he looked through more of the information brought to them. "For now we'll attempt to see if the Shield's companions can garner some XP to replace what she lost to the curse, aside from the other three they've been rattled for the past several hours and some time off should be warranted." Mirellia nodded her head in agreement before looking to the dog cat.
"The people are still deliberating, and are questioning the current progress on allocating the Heroes to deal with the waves." The Cat Dog demi-human stated simply. By which they meant the Shield Hero Maple.
"Until Miss Honjou is awake and in fit state to function well enough to attend her duties again no plans will be made involving her." The Queen stated and observed the sparking of the seal indicating that he had received the answers.
"The people are in agreement. That leaves three Heroes left to between the three of us. Should we ask them to separate to aide our countries more efficiently?" The representative asked brow raised.
"The use of the Portal skill means that all they need to react to a wave is a preset location." Oroko stated fat fingers tapping against the wooden table.
"Asking them to divide is pointless, and counterproductive considering how well they work against the wave as a unit." A spark of a slave seal indicated a answer.
"The people will have to debate this matter." The representative stated bluntly. "Concerns have been raised that the Sword Hero is sleeping around with one who is simultaneously a princess of Siltvelt and Faubrey."
"And a Shieldfreeden Spy is courting the Spear Hero." The Queen replied shrugging her shoulders. Mind you not very well, as her shadows reports have stated that Katarina's barely seemed to have noticed.
"If memory serves Miss Atla has not been formally acknowledged as the daughter of House Fayon." Oroko stated shrugging his shoulders. "Mind you it is a subject we intend to talk to her about when available, mostly so that the appropriate testing can be done to confirm that she and her brother are who we think they are."
"I'll have my husband retrieve genetic material from his sister's corpse." The Queen stated shrugging her shoulders.
"The People have no further questions at this time." The representative stated nodding their head as he went back to letting their masters read the contents of the reports.
"Oroko?" The Queen asked looking at the turtle brow cocked.
"No further questions." Oroko stated leaning his head in acknowledgement. "Then for the time being the meeting is adjourned." The Queen stood up and gave a graceful bow to her associates before she and the old turtle left the meeting room to attend to other business.
The Queen in particular had a pointed matter brought to her attention by Shieldfreeden's muted hoard. Melty was around the age of the four girls, and so opted to send her to meet the four of them and get to know them better. Who knows maybe her niece in law wouldn't be the only one getting lucky. Mutually assured safety had the girls all sleep together when possible. Maple wouldn't be joining them, a sad reminder for everyone involved that the young girl was still in a coma. Tanya was dressed lightly, masculine boxers and undershirt and was currently seated in the small ship bound room reading a book on magic. Katarina was wearing one of the penguin kigurumi's that they got from the island bosses. Kuro was dressed in a Hakuko Kigurumi, her real sleep wear underneath and would soon be shedding the outer layer when she and Atla started their nightly routine, for now though she was picking out what soaps and shampoo she'd be using in the bath with her lover. Then came the knocking at the door. Tanya closed her book as she switched her bow over to a one handed cross bow and went to the door. Kuro just took one look and raised one finger in the air to indicate numbers, then held out her hand palm down to indicate a person a little taller than them.
"Who is it?" Tanya asked brow cocked suspiciously.
"Melty Q Melromarc." Melromarc? The Bitch's sister? Tanya opened the door a crack and saw a blue haired child in frilly blue clothes on the other side, who gave the bow hero a curtsy. "We've had occasion to meet before, though sadly not for very long."
Tanya assessed her own and her associate's state of dress and concluded they were decent enough to receive company and so opened the door to let the girl in.
"Is there some reason why you're in here?" Tanya asked as she put her bow away.
"Two, the first is expressing my gratitude to the Heroes for their role in rescuing myself and my mother in Faubrey." Melty stated though the strain on her features indicated that the thought of the Pig King or Takt nearly getting their hands on them crossed her mind. "The second is news of a more unpleasant nature: it appears that my sister has managed to declare herself heir apparent to Faubrey." The three girls all let out simultaneous groans.
Author's Notes:
Captain Imaginat: Glad you like the chapter. I don't know if you've received the memo from the author yet, but Tanya is not now nor was she ever a Nazi, her world was created as a parody of WWI but that does not mean that her country is the same as them, even if it was the Nazi's weren't a thing until the second world war.
RonaldM0196867: She's had it for a while. Happy February, Maple I would say.
Nightshadegirl: More like she's possessed at the moment. If live action TV or Sci Fi isn't your thing then don't watch it, otherwise I highly recommend it.
ShadoWARmaDaN: Probably, but I didn't know about Kaleidoscope at the time of writing.