Author's Note: Okay so I've got some ideas for a new fic to try working on in a couple of months when I'm finished with Legendary Heroes. Read, Review, Favourite and Enjoy!
Amended Author's Note: Since everyone is asking, Goll is one of the Valkyries of Record of Ragnarok, the youngest if memory serves.
Chapter 58: Escape from the Spatial Labyrinth
Trash had received a notice from Tanya about the dungeon in Melromarc, and the Squatters living inside of it. Understandably, given the fact that the dungeon wouldn't open unless you have all the other divine magics conquering the dungeon itself was at the bottom of the priority list. Finishing off the three heroes church on the other hand, that was another matter. They had other bases than the dungeon and Trash was going through them one by one, which was convenient in another manner all things considered, Trash had started level grinding again, that wasn't saying much since he had only gone from ninety to a hundred but at the same time the weapon he unlocked was simply spectacular. Had he this monstrosity when he went to war with Siltvelt, would things have been different? No. No time to think about could've been, should've been. It was a giant crooked golden staff at least seven feet tall, topped by a brazier of seven golden serpents each of them holding a different coloured jewel in their mouth, ruby red, sapphire blue, emerald green, amethyst purple, golden amber, silvery diamond and obsidian black. Trash had looked through the skills of 'The Staff of Ainz Ooal Gown' and he was quite confident that not even a hero would be able to beat this thing. Speaking of which.
"Summon Primordial Water Elemental." The creature that emerged from the pool of water Trash had created in front of him resembled a nubile woman, albeit one with fins for hands, feet and hair, and one who was composed completely of water. "Drown as many of them as you want." The Queen had discovered another reason to raid this damned place, through the slave seals to be more specific. "But we require this one alive." Trash produced a crystal ball recorder and produced a illusion of Malty.
They still haven't finished extracting all of the information that his daughter has sold off for her own safety and pleasantries as of yet, not to mention the fact that the Queen, nor any of her peers in the international community, wouldn't be satisfied until her daughter has suffered a fate worst than death.
"Understood." The water elemental made a piranha like impression she spoke. "Then all but one will drown."
Part of the nature of the Elementals is that they, unlike his other skills, have their own will and desires to work with. They're basically monsters, and like most monsters they like to eat. Trash wondered how it worked for them, he heard of the spirit people on the other side of the wave whose physical form, energy reserve and level are all composed entirely of Spirit energy, he theorised that the Elementals might have a similar relationship with magical energy. Tanya's reports did mention that the church had been conducting brainwashing experiments on slaves, who were likely going to be massacred with the rest, sadly though mercy was the domain of people of high power and high character, and he lacked both. Instead the elemental went down into the tunnel leading to the dungeon, and Trash received a steady stream of notifications flat out telling him the sheer size of his body count that he rapidly accumulated. Malty was spat out a few moments later, once more soaking wet. Having fulfilled it's objective the primordial disappeared back into the staff and Malty coughed as Trash kicked her to face up and pinned her down with his foot.
"This is child abuse!" Malty snapped glaring hatefully.
"You are not a child." Trash snapped coldly. "Your choice: Are you going to walk on your own or do I have to carry you back to the castle town?" Trash snapped tapping his staff with his finger.
"Hmph. A last dose of luxury?" Malty snapped clearly dismissive of her father. "Fine, carry me."
"Summon Primordial Fire Elemental!" Trash rolled his eyes as a new monster resembling a legless, floating orange lizard like monster composed entirely of fire appeared next.
"Wait! WAIT!" Malty's latest arrival back to the castle town was dryer than her last one, though sadly much more painful and occasionally interspersed with healing magic. Needless to say, the interrogation continued all the way back home.
The look on Goll's face was that of someone who was having a difficult time coming to terms with reality. After navigating through the castle Maple, Herself and Sadeena came upon the boss in the form of a large suit of knight armour. Maple declared 'leave it to me' and so Goll was treated to the sight of Maple depriving the thing first of it's weapons then the armour that made up it's body one piece at a time until it was completely gone, sucked inside of Maple's shield.
"You are a demon." Goll stated as a magic circle activated beneath their feet.
"True." Sadeena stated having simply watched the 'battle' with a great deal of amusement.
As the two of them were having a conversation like that the floor activated beneath their feet and a hologram appeared of a hero of the past. She looked like a child with blonde hair and red eyes and wearing a dress shirt skirt combination.
"I am Yuu Hagumo, Hero of the Jewel." The girl's voice was pleasant to the ear but at the same time made her sound as old as she looked. "I once lived in a world where it's inhabitants were reduced to little more than a chessboard for the gods." The girl called Yuu stated bluntly. "There we were able to steal their secrets. Secrets you will soon need. There is a disaster that is about to strike your world borne from the clashing of the gods. If you are to stop it then you will need their power, a piece of which is here in this castle. But that same power is the cause of all of this, which is why the power was divided and guardians were prepared." A light shot out and hit both Goll's and Maple's respective weapons giving them access to the magic of space. "Go now. Leave this place and collect the other magics, and know that when you do you will only be half way through your task." The Hologram disappeared, and the trio were soon able to leave the castle.
"Alright let's get out of this horrible place!" Goll wanted to celebrate finally being free of this place and wanting to go get back to her friends.
"Aren't you forgetting something?" Maple asked tapping her foot in displeasure.
"What?" Goll asked looking confused.
"The massive number of mostly innocent people that were thrown in here that you were talking about before?" Maple asked looking at Goll with blatant suspicion.
"But... But..." Goll was put on the back pedal by Maple's statement.
"After that speech you really wanna jump straight into a spot of reality warping magic this close to getting free of this place." Sadeena stated emphasising her point with her finger and thumb.
"But... Oh fine!" Defeated, Goll went back to her beach house to sulk and practice magic.
"Can you make sure she doesn't hurt herself?" Maple asked looking over to Sadeena.
"Sure but what are you going to be doing?" Sadeena asked brow in the air.
"Abusing my invulnerability to perform some impromptu diplomacy with the other group of people in here." Maple stated as she switched over to a new unlock. "I hit Sixty again after that fight, which means the Shield of the Beast King is back in my life." Maple stated as she switched over to her shield armour.
"You're not wearing your Kigurumi." Sadeena pointed out as Maple took out a set of Chain mail armour.
"Don't worry, I found another one."
The community inside of the spatial dungeon was suffice to say, not the best. The current 'Mayor' got his office by shanking the last guy in his ribs, and that guy got the job by putting mandrake into his predecessor's wine. It was worst for the ones like him, the ones without the taste for violence needed to keep power in this horrible and unpleasant place. Leaning over the barrel full of dirty water for a drink, he saw it ripple, in time with a dull repetitive thud from off in the distance. Emerging from the treeline, a huge metal hand leaned for support against the nearby mountain as a giant knight emerged from the other side and looked down at the shanty town where the prisoners had made their home. Looking over it a couple of times the knight eventually found the man who had gone out for a drink and promptly slammed it's hand down on the ground with the man at the barrel left standing and staring at the metal giant as it used the hand to support itself as it leaned over and hovered mere feet above the man. Like a Child trying to get a close look at an ant hill.
"Excuse me." A child like voice with a heavy metallic echo that non-the-less was not remotely appropriate for such a massive figure sounded out from the giant's helmet. "Could you direct me to the Mayor's office?" Silently, the man raised his arm and pointed to one of the larger looking buildings of the shanty town. "Thank you." The being that looked like a metal giant but sounded like a little girl said before she adjusted her position to continue her operation.
As for the man who had given her directions, he proceeded to push over the clearly contaminated water barrel and went to sleep off his high.
Having circled around the Town in metal giant form Maple reached over and peeled off the roof of the 'mayor's office' before looking down inside at the people there in.
"Which one of you is the mayor?" Maple asked as she had a look around inside. Naturally, everyone reacted in an orderly, reasonable manner. Which is to say that they simultaneously froze up in mind numbing horror as their minds ground to a halt. "Is it this one?" Maple prepared to reach inside to grab one of the people in question which they took as a Que to immediately 'nope' that entire situation.
"Fire everything!" And that is precisely what they did, making using of cannons, catapults, magic and arrows to unleash a wave of attacks against Maple. The only thing was that they weren't very effective given Maple's already ludicrous defences stacked on top of her latest monster form. "Would you people quit it? I'm trying to have a conversation here!?"
They did not 'quit it' and in fact stepped up their assault concentrating ritual class magic into the stones for the catapult and tossed what amounted to a WMD. That in turn left Maple with two scenarios that she doesn't like, the first being getting hit by that, the second being deflecting it into the shanty town which while tempting would also defeat the purpose of coming there in the first place. So instead Maple turned back into human form and dropped into the city, thus leading to the projectile to harmlessly sail over her head and into the horizon behind her. Brushing herself off Maple spotted the town turn to face her, arming themselves with a variety of different weapons to attack her with.
"As I believe I was trying to say earlier..." Maple was interrupted by a hail of projectiles coming at her prompting her to throw up her defences to counter. "Huu. Shield Prison." The ball of shields appeared around Maple, though that did nothing to stop the Enemies attack which was rather unfortunate for them because... "Change Shield: Nue Adder Shield!" The ball of shields transformed and snakes emerged from it to spray it's payload against Maple's attackers, Paralysing poison. The yellow cloud covered the entire area and the people were soon flat out on the the ground as a direct consequence. "As I was trying to say earlier...!" Maple's ball of shields disappeared, at which point in time she was pelted by arrows. "Huu. This is just like the castle town all over again."
The archers were out of range of Maple's skill, hence why they were able to keep shooting at her, so it was either move closer to them or use a skill with a longer range to counter.
"Well, maybe I can use one of the divine magics to help myself out." Creation. Time. Gravity and most recently, Space. There was also healing and support magic but Maple kind of doubted it's ability to go the distance as it were, well maybe Aura. But for now she'll use a little gravity to fly over that building. "I the Hero of Sheeld..." Maple's speech slurred at the end, for reasons she didn't know, so she tried again. "I the Hero of the Sh-ouch!" Now she bit her tongue. What was with tonight?
Raphtalia was playing a flute and using the music that it produced to successfully create a illusion of herself. In this world the primary way of casting magic was through the use of music, there was magic cast with the assistance of Therese's people the gems but that was also invoked using music even though back on her world everything used words instead. The relevance of the matter though was irrelevant as the next part of her daily routine was put through.
"Are you done?" Answering Raphtalia's question the woman who identified herself as the Hero of the Katanna threw her a wooden single stick which Raphtalia caught. "Time for training."
Raphtalia was being made to go through a cycle of gorging herself, training, and levelling. The food she was eating was packed full of Stat raising nutrients, or so the Mirror Hero claimed, but also spec'd for weight management and digestion. In training she was made to perform a series of Isometric and yoga exercises in order to limber and loosen up her muscles and guarantee her flexibility, engage in mock battles against the Hero of the Katana, after Raphtalia had been buffed with magic that near as she could tell made the Ki in her body flare up, The Katana hero instructed her to watch her movements, spot any flaws, and then copy her movements while eliminating the flaws. There was also the familiar strikes of the Hengen Musou Style point attack that the other woman was using against her, which she was steadily getting the hang of. Then she would be made to kill monsters to level up at a steady pace. Like this Raphtalia simulated years of dedicated hard warrior training in mere days, at level twenty between the growth bonuses and the food bonus she achieved the kind of specs that would make the members of Takt's harem fume with envy. There was one minor issue that she had though.
"Why are my breasts so big?" Raphtalia asked looking down at herself and being unable to see her own feet for the masses of cloth covered flesh in the way.
"I'm sure it's not that bad." The Mirror Hero insisted as he continued working on one of his accessories.
"She doesn't even fit into the armour she came in here in." The Katanna Hero pointed out, vein throbbing in the side of her head at the strong suspicion that her boyfriend added something to the girl's food that made them grow bigger.
"She's also been eating more than she was before." To his credit, he did say that he spec'd the food for weight management, which was a good thing because Raphtalia suspected that if not for that and all of the hard exercise she had been doing she would be wider than she was tall, he didn't say where the weight would be going though. She supposed that she should be grateful it didn't all go to her waist because even with the robe she was wearing she had a stunning hourglass figure.
"You're the one that's been cooking her meals for her though."
The Mirror Hero only rolled his eyes in response.
"Um excuse me." Raphtalia asked raising her hand in the air to interrupt the bickering couple. "Some friends of mine are lost and missing in this world. Can I go now?" The two vassal Heroes looked at each other once.
""You're free to go, and take them with you."" The two Heroes indicated the prison where Raphtalia and the others were dropped into this world. Raphtalia had been given new armour, since her old set neither fit her anymore nor was compatible with this world's stats. She was outfitted with a steel single breasted-breastplate along with metal arm guard's and greaves finally there was a chain-mail skirt on top of a cotton one.
"Now that you are out of prison and I've been levelled back up, here's a relevant question." Raphtalia asked turning her attention to face her newly released partners in crimes. "Does anyone have any idea how to find Maple?" The three former prisoners all looked at each other as if silently confirming something with each other and then facing Raphtalia.
"There's one. How fast we can implement it is going to depend on how much your new mentor's are willing to cooperate with us." L'Arc stated already not liking where this was going.
"A Shikigami?" Raphtalia asked not familiar with the term. After going to the Mirror Hero, and after he punched L'Arc in the face, the group was led to the local dragon's hourglass where they were giving her a explanation of what a Shikigami is and why it's what they need at the moment.
"A shikigami is a monster created using bits and pieces from different monsters and the flesh and blood of the owner. They have a built in function to be able to track down their owners, the one who contributed the blood." Glass explained directing the conversation to the multi-layered magic array on the ground.
"Somewhat pointless, unless for some reason you're carrying her blood around with you." The Mirror hero cynically pointed out but Raphtalia ignored him.
"Where do I put in the material to make the monster?" Raphtalia took off her chest plate and unbuttoned her gambeson revealing large breasts with the symbol of slavery printed on said large mounds of flesh. Using her sword Raphtalia sliced off a piece of slave printed flesh the size of a gold coin and put it into the unit for making Shikigami's. The entire formation glowed for a few moments before something started to magically emerge from within the magic formation, then with a puff of smoke the new borne entity emerged.
"Well aren't you a cutie." The Mirror hero gave a amused chuckle.
"Oh not this again...!" The Katanna hero stated as she put her face into her palm. What had emerged from the circle was a familiar raccoon like creature. It was familiar because it was identical to Raphtalia's own Therianthrope transformation.
"Rafu~!" The raccoon like creature jumped into Raphtalia's arms before looking around confused.
"You're looking for your master right?" The raccoon nodded to Raphtalia's statement. "But it's not me is it?" The creature shook it's head. "Good. Now take me to her."
"Rafu!"
Goll had spent the better part of the night practising Space magic, which as it turned out was a fairly good idea as her rather unfortunate test subject, a fish she got from the lake, had since then been reduced to a pile of ground fish burger meat. Sadeena had gone out a short while ago to look for Maple and was now coming back with her findings. As in Plural, multiple.
"So little Maple Chan..." Sadeena stated looking at the person in question, and the several thousand people that were behind her. "I can see that you have been quite busy today."
"Um... basically I went to talk to them." Maple stated awkwardly starting her explanation. "I might've scared them a little bit when I showed up in the giant knight form." Sadeena noted that if these people were only frightened to the point of 'a little bit' that they had to be pretty high spec. "I defended myself while I tried to look for the one in charge." Which Sadeena noted meant Maple had probably sprayed poison all over the town, tanked an absurd amount of attacks, and probably fed someone to her shield accidentally. "And suddenly they all started calling me boss." That was how Maple accidentally recruited a army.
"PwaHahahaha!" Sadeena suddenly started letting out a belly full of laughter, which was a mildly better reaction than what Goll was having as her jaw hung in the air.
"So how's the spatial magic coming?" Maple wisely choose to change the topic before a bad situation got any worst.
"Not very good." Goll stated indicating the pile of mush that was going to be their meal for the evening.
"Well it shouldn't matter anyway." Goll stated as she let out a sigh.
"Why you say that?" Maple asked looking at Goll confused.
"What do you mean 'why I say that?' You crossed 20 miles of rough terrain in 5 hours. Twice. I can believe that you had a skill to help you the first time but on your return trip you brought all of this along with you." Kizuna stated indicating the horde of people like some giant mass of baggage. "So you must've used spatial magic to help cross the distance."
"I'm not sure if you're aware of this but I just figured out how how to cast magic in this world like ten hours ago." Maple pointed out bluntly.
"In my world you have to speak an incantation, in this one you have to play it on a musical instrument." Maple stated as she swung a imaginary stick at her shield liked she was striking a gong, which led to her next point.
"This is the skill I used to bring everyone here." The shield was rectangle shaped, in it's centre, above and below the weapon's jewel, was the two bulbs of a hourglass filled with red sand while the entire shield was decorated with a golden lung dragon insignia. If Goll didn't know better...
"Please tell me you didn't feed a dragon's hourglass to your weapon." The look on Goll's face was that of someone questioning the girl's sanity.
"Well not all of one." Maple countered while Goll's eye just twitched in return. "It was only some of the sand."
"We'll circle back around later." Goll stated as she let out a sigh. "For now we need to come up with a idea of how we're going to get out of here." One of the downsides of being a hero was the inability to wield magic implements for battle, so for now Maple settled for getting some of the people she recruited to help her make a gong which was then made into a shield for her to copy. Armed with a musical instrument a thought occurred to Maple.
"Goll. Based on your reaction from earlier you guys never thought to feed Dragon Hourglass sand into your weapon, right?" Maple asked as she looked down at the item in question.
"Yeah. So?" Goll asked still not quite believing Maple had done something like that.
"So you never unlocked the skill that will return you to the room you were first summoned into this world through correct?" Maple asked as she slowly led Goll to the correct answer in this situation.
"The skill that does what?" Goll asked as Maple took out the last of her supply of Dragon Hourglass sand.
Patrolling the castle interior was dull and boring a job as ever, mind you the guards didn't want a attack to occur, but even if it did the area that they would be attacking was the outside, or the Dragon Hourglass chamber. This entire wing of the castle existed for no other reason than summoning heroes, in the off season it was only used as storage. Or so they thought. Looking at the very room where this purpose was upheld a bright pink light was being let out followed by the crash of someone or something making a undignified landing. The two guards nodded to each other. One put his hand on the door getting ready to open it while the other held up three fingers, then two...
"HELLO HOME SWEET HOME!" Goll shouted as she kicked the door open, which was rather unfortunate for the people who just got a face full of door. "Goll's back in town!"
Needless to say, it took some convincing before things settled down.
"Puah!" Goll let out a sigh of pure joy as she drank celebratory alcohol in the process of denoting the end of almost half a decade spent inside of the spatial labyrinth. Around that moment Maple reappeared through the use of the portal skill, with another group of people from the labyrinth.
"Do we have any idea where our friends are?" Maple asked directing the question to Sadeena who wasn't actually drinking at the moment surprisingly. Instead she was accompanied by a familiar floating rabbit man.
"According to Chris Glass is in Mirror Territory." The rabbit stated as he let a small penguin creature go and whom joyfully ran into Goll's arms.
"Mirror territory PATOO!" Goll seemed to have a poor opinion about the subject if the size of the wad of flem she left on the ground was any indication. "I hope the bastard is rotting in hell!"
"What's wrong with Mirror Territory?" Maple asked looking confused.
"It's where the Hero of the Mirror Lives." Ethanobolt stated in a obvious tone.
"The Hero of the Mirror is the one who shoved me into the Labyrinth!" Goll snapped slamming down her glass.
"Weren't we working together back then?" Ethanobolt asked looking confused.
"He told me that he got tired of saving me all the time!" Goll snapped back in the negative.
"Weren't you kidnapped like... twenty times?" Ethanobolt asked sounding like he was agreeing with the Mirror Hero.
"I did not get kidnapped all the time!" Goll snapped angrily.
"Why did you add a qualifier?" Maple asked looking concerned all of a sudden.
"A what?" Goll asked not familiar with the term.
"Goll getting kidnapped all the time besides the point, according to Chris Glass along with quite possibly the rest of the group of people that you are looking for is in that very same difficult person's back yard." Suddenly the hair on Chris's head stood up straight and he turned off to another direction. "And now they're in a completely different direction. Oh boy it looks like it's gonna be one of those days." The Mirror Hero's extensive network of mirrors that can be used to travel world wide was well known to Goll's group, if the others had somehow gotten that stubborn person's help then skipping all over the world should be relatively easy. For now though there was another subject that needed addressing.
"How does that penguin know where Glass is?" Maple asked pointing down at Chris confused.
"He's a Shikigami me and Glass made. Since I can't fight nor defend myself against other people me and Glass made him to be my body guard of sorts." Goll explained, which led Maple to note that the little guy wasn't a very good body guard considering that her mistress just spent the lesser half of a decade inside of the spatial labyrinth. However he did give her an idea.
"Can you show me how to make one of those?" Maple asked as she decided it was time for something that was long overdue.
Review Section:
RonaldM40196867: I thought so. Not in the least. I think that the term 'adventuring' is a giant lump of different professions that have been lumped together with little rhyme nor reason, therefore it can range from anything as mundane and unimportant as finding a lost cat to killing a dragon. No more dangerous than any other weapon whether its in the hands of someone who does or doesn't know how to wield one.
Captain Imaginat: So long as everyone is on the same page. Don't worry Elena will be getting her much deserved time off from the front lines.
Nightshadegirl: It was based on the same concept, that of the Poison jar, but I based the urn of poison off of one of the side missions Maple did in the Bofuri Web Novel.
Kitsune Obsessed Freak: Greetings fellow Canadian. Sadly I lack a discord account and have no intention of getting one.