Author's Note: Okay, so after Next week I'll be moving this story to the Saturday slot, in the mean time Read, Review, Favourite and Enjoy!
Chapter 69: When Heroes Are Bored
Katarina was bored. Tanya had gone off to Faubrey, Kuro was somewhere in Q'Ten Lo, Maple was off politicking in Siltvelt and she was here after she just finished her latest lesson with the Hengen Musou Style and dragon pulse magic. So in addition to being bored she was also mentally exhausted.
"I've decided everyone!" Katarina sprung to her feet as she made this declaration. "We are going on a adventure!"
"Where to?" Kyurie asked as he worked to keep his hidden daggers sharp.
"I do not know! We will begin at the adventurers guild!" Saying that Katarina proceeded to gather her party. Aside from Kyurie Midori was running deliveries with the Filolials, Rino was training with the old lady, and Elena shot her crossbow at her when she asked so she naturally went looking for another party member among the refugees. "What about a phoenix person, they can fly!" Katarina stated looking at the girl with red feathers.
"Milady, death from above is what I do!" Kyurie pointed out looking offended at the idea of being replaced.
"Good point. Let's go with one of the Genmu then!" Katarina stated looking at the Turtle like boy.
"Midori is Katarina's tank!" The large octoplet hammer wielding Filolial King pointed banging at heavy armour plating on his chest.
"Good point." Katarina sunk some more thought into the situation.
They needed someone to fill the niche of non-magical long range sniper that was left open by Elena's transfer into the bureaucratic department.
"Does anyone know how to shoot a bow or a cross bow!?" One of the slaves Tanya had bought raised her hand.
She was a dog type, a Wanui she believes they are called, by all appearances she had been brought in to act as a assistant to Rat in Dragon Rearing.
"Wyndia, my dad had me learn how to shoot a bow." Before they left, one of the dragon eggs was already ready to be put into the incubator and Katarina was the one here so she got volunteered. "This harness will let you carry the egg and fight at the same time." Wyndia stated as she finished the assignment process and helped Katarina into a baby carrier styled harness. "Now you just gotta finish the settings for your incubator."
For gender Katarina selected Female, partly because of Rat's recommendation, but mostly because she wanted someone to read romance novels with her. Elena use to do that, but now whenever Katarina got close to her office cross bow bolts were shot at her. As for the other settings, too much tampering probably wasn't really necessary, the chick would have all the growth bonuses from what Heroes they have already so she would already grow up to be big and strong without them having to do much. As for names...
"How about... Kaida!" Katarina stated her logic looking infallible.
"What about Galleon?" Wyndia suggested inside of the carriage they were taking to the next town over.
"Galleon?" Katarina asked looking confused.
"It was my father's name." Wyndia too looked like her logic was infallible.
"But it's a girl Dragon." Katarina allowed a pause to let the statement sink in.
"Good point." Wyndia's ears fell flat. Well she'll just name the first male Galleon.
"Now to the adventurers guild!" Katarina stated thrusting her arm triumphantly.
A gavel banging indicated a long awaited meeting of the council of Katarina's.
"The first matter of discussion is a matter of parties." Elena had opted to transfer over to the administrative department, which sadly left their group short on non-magical range attackers to run interference while the rest of them are busy with jobs on the battlefield. "We have taken a temporary party member from the slaves Tanya has gathered in the form of a nice girl named Wyndia, and we have one of the dragon eggs whom we've named Kaida. Thoughts?"
"We should wait until after we're done with the quest before we make any final judgements!" Intellectual Katarina stated adjusting her glasses. "For one thing we don't know if she really knows how to use that bow, her level isn't that high."
"It would also be good if we can find someone to introduce us to new romance novels without shooting at us!" Excitable Katarina stated fist in the air.
"It be good if we have a little sister with the dragon egg." Hotblooded Katarina stated nodding her head.
"Um. Except... isn't she just going to turn out the same way Midori and Tanya's griffin did?" The image of Maple's head with dragon horns on a busty super model's body appeared in their mind. "Let's change the subject!" Timid Katarina used her arms to shatter the thought bubble. "What kind of request are we going to take when we get there?"
"The Adventurer's guild gives out three kinds of quests, Escort usually merchants or immigrants travelling through monster or bandit infested territory. Harvesting of rare or hard to get materials. Or monster subjugation." Intellectual Katarina stated reading from a imaginary clipboard.
"Escort Quests are the worst!" Excitable Katarina immediately shot down the idea. "If it's subjugation we'll get a chance for a powerful weapon and XP though."
"'Harvesting of Rare Materials' is also pretty tempting." Hotblooded Katarina stated fist pumping in the air. "Then let's pick up some quests for harvesting and subjugation."
The Clerk for the Adventurer's guild was a little surprised to see the monstrously ripped demi-human with green wings approach the counter, and also a little stunned, and maybe a few other things as well based on her blush. It took her longer than what was strictly professional to see the spear waving in front of her face.
"Excuse me! Excuse me!" The clerk looked down at the small child trying to get her attention. "We've come to kill monsters!" Rino smacked herself in her face muttering something about how Elena was the only normal one among them.
"Yes. Well, that is rather common but you do understand that there is a age limit young lady." The Clerk stated tearing her attention away from glistening muscles.
"Don't be like that I'm the Spear Hero!" Katarina stated prompting the clerk to blink her eyes stupidly. She turned her attention to Rino who could only smack herself in the face as Katarina changed her weapon's form. The entire guild hall stared stupidly at her for a prolong period of time.
"Just... just go over to the bulletin board and take whatever quest that you want." The clerk looked like she wanted to add 'just leave me to my migraine.' Wyndia was the first to arrive at the board, her eyes locked onto one request in particular and her fists started to tremble in rage.
"This one." Wyndia stated with her finger on one of the posters.
A village off to the east was suffering from a plague, and Katarina noted there was a additional request that had been stapled onto the sheet about a hoard of mutated monsters as well. It seems that the Kingdom was having a hard time in that area, Tanya's army had even been deployed to try and subjugate the monsters living there.
"It looks like it's a little far away." Katarina noted that this wouldn't exactly be a one and done field trip.
"If the problem has gotten serious enough that those battle crazed lunatics have been deployed then things are serious." Kyurie sagely noted prompting the others to nod their heads in agreement.
"Well... alright. What ever is happening there is clearly bothering you." Katarina smiled brightly at the Demi-human girl. "Are you from that village?"
Wyndia looked at Katarina directly in her eyes like she just asked some violently taboo subject and said in a voice drained of all enthusiasm. "Yes."
Wyndia was shockingly quiet on the way over, her enthusiasm for coming all the way out here had taken a severe hit at some point in time regarding matters that she apparently wasn't willing to talk about. Katarina could've compelled her via the slave seal, but didn't want to violate the other girl's privacy so blatantly. The village they arrived at looked like a war zone. The buildings had been torn apart, a mass grave had been dug and was currently set on fire with new bodies being added on the regular, and the only thing left of the living was the wounded and dying.
"Let's start by providing the soldiers with some medical care." Katarina stated though what she saw next concerned her, not the ravaged soldiers or the monsters responsible for this, but the look of satisfaction on Wyndia's face. "Wyndia are you okay?" Katarina asked looking at the other girl concerned.
"Better than you can possibly imagine." A shadow appeared above her head from one of Midori's hammers getting ready to crush the girl, Rino got her sword ready to rip the Wanui girl's throat out and Kyurie looked like he had his magic ready to blast her. "We've tolerated your secrets long enough brat." Kyurie stated in a threatening tone.
"Make her tell us what happened here."
"Huu." Katarina wanted to argue with them but someone seeing the butchered aftermath of Tanya's group and letting out a smile in response made her more than a little concerned. "Answer our questions truthfully." The Slave seal began to spark, nothing but a sting in comparison to the promised violence. "What happened at this village, and how is it related to the monsters that are attacking it?"
"What happened is a bunch of greedy psychopath's hired a thug with a axe to murder my father and now they've gotten their just deserts!" And it couldn't happen to a nicer bunch of people either.
"You're father? Why did they want to kill him?" Katarina asked looking confused.
"Sir Hero!" One of the soldiers called them over.
"Medical treatment now, explanations later." The other's nodded their heads to Katarina's flawless reasoning prowess. The soldiers explained what happened as Katarina applied treatment to the soldiers, in part because Katarina needed to know what the disease was if she wanted to treat it. "A Dragon?" Katarina asked looking at the soldier confused.
"Aye. Some irresponsible fool killed it and left it out to rot, the bacteria from it's rotting corpse blew down on the winds and hit the town." The Soldier explained wiping away his sweat. Luckily this world had some crude approximation of Penicillin that Maple was able to make out of sugar, then mass produce it to create a potent anti-biotic enhanced by weapon skills. Soldiers were stacked into convenient bunks and quickly cured in bundles thanks to the widen effect skill.
"Didn't any one think to deal with the body after he was killed? Did the guy who did it not tell anyone or..."
"Apparently, the dragon made a not too inconsiderable tourist attraction." A loud snapping sound indicated the trey Wyndia broke.
"Well that's just stupid." Katarina stated and Wyndia nodded her head in agreement. "They could get much more out of it by hacking the corpse apart and selling off it's preserved bits. If they wanted a tourist attraction they could've just taken it's skull and mounted it in the town hall or turn it into a taxidermy head like what they do with deer." Wyndia was twitching with visible horror at what Katarina was saying.
"Yes well no crying over spilt milk. The local monsters have adapted to the plague better than the humans. Ever since the level spike all the monsters life cycles have shortened up and they're breeding at a dramatically accelerated rate which also means that they can adjust to the changes faster." Monsters that can't survive the plague die off, the survivors reproduce, adapt further, the culmination of that effort was learning how to weaponize the plague using their bodies to distil it into a deadly poison.
"With the anti-biotic the ones who got treated already should be immune, all that we have to do is use A.O.E. magic to wipe out-"
"Ah missy." The soldier interrupted Katarina's musings to give her information he thought to be rather important. "We were trained by the Bow Hero, we can handle the monsters. It's the damned dragon that's giving us a hard time."
Katarina blinked stupidly for a few moments.
"I thought the dragon was dead though." Katarina replied recalling the source of this entire fiasco that had been this battle.
"You'd think so."
"RRRWWWAAARRR!"
"You'd really bloody well think so!"
Foul winds blew into the village making Katarina cover her mouth as much to block the smell of rotting meat as to seal the vomit she felt welling up. A shadow flew over the village before landing on a nearby cliff side causing a look of horror from Katarina's party, none more so than Wyndia. Credit where do, the dragon must have been absolute terror when it was still alive, this was on account of the fact that it was still a terror now that it was dead. Most of it's scaly skin had been removed, what was left was blackened with decay, there was no blood left in the body, and rotting flesh was sloshing off of bones in several places, which was in turn flat out missing in some cases. Also it was still moving, and flying, and he wasn't the only one. The roar from before shook inside of their skulls like the call of a king and now it's forces were coming to arms. Evidently the bodies in the fire hadn't been burning long enough, credit where do fire has to reach a huge temperature before it starts burning bone as demonstrated by the chard and in many cases on fire skeletons of soldiers and monsters that emerged from the pit.
"Oh undead." Katarina noted as she got her spear ready.
"You aren't freaked by this?" Wyndia asked looking at the monsters concerned.
"You see one undead invasion you've seen them all." Katarina shrugged her shoulders and got to work. First was dealing with the ones in the pit, and Katarina had just the magic she wanted to try out. "I, the Hero of the Spear, call upon the origin of power! Increase the Gravity beneath my targets and crush them into the ground! Zweite Gravity!" A sound of air escaping a room echoed out and suddenly all the burning undead that were in the process of trying to escape the pit in question were crushed back inside, Katarina kept them like that until she confirmed that even the bones were crushed.
"Graaaahhh!" The Dragon Zombie exhaled a breath as if it had become enraged. Katarina looked around as she assessed what they had to work with. Everyone was either panicking or moving to try and take a shot at the monster in question. Everyone that is but Wyndia, who just stared ahead at the monster with watery eyes.
"Oh damn it. That's your father isn't it?" Katarina stated an exhausted look on her features. Wyndia didn't respond only nod her head. "Well. We should at least give him a proper funeral." Katarina looked through her spear and found the 'Tyrant Dragon Fang' Spear that she got from Maple and the Equip Bonus therein: bonus damage against dragons. The Tyrant Dragon wasn't originally a dragon, rather a monster who killed a dragon and tried to eat their core. As a direct consequence it mutated into a dragon like monster. Katarina then went ahead and stacked it with the 'holy water spear' and it's bonus 'bonus damage against unholy beings: Undead, Demonic, and Cursed.' "He who strikes first strikes last!" Katarina adjusted her grip on her spear as she got ready to chuck it. "Air Strike Spear! Second Spear! Chaos Thrust! Meteor Thrust!" Spitting out that mutistep combo Katarina flung two berzerking spears and dozens of meteor shots enhanced by two stacks of anti-monster effects at the undead dragon triggering detonations all over it's body in the process each one blowing away chunks of it's flesh. "Looks like the plan to chase him off didn't work." Katarina stated as her spear returned to her hand. Indeed through the smoke you could see the wounded form of the zombie dragon walking out as it growled menacingly.
"Chase him away?" Wyndia asked looking at Katarina with confusion and hint of hostility.
"We're going to bury what's left of his body where no one can find and exploit him again. It will be a lot easier if he's already in a place we can bury him before that happens." Wyndia nodded her head in agreement. "That said this guy is showing no sign of wanted to leave here even in spite of that last attack. I sunk a lot skills into that blow." Katarina looked like she would drift back into the meeting place of her alternate personalities at any moment.
"Yeah, something like that would've worked if that was a normal monster." Rino however had other ideas. "But that thing is a undead, just like the ones who attacked Riyute and kept on coming and coming no matter how many of them we kept cutting down." If they want to lure it some where then they are going to have to employ live bait.
"Then let's stop wasting time!" Midori pulled out his eight hammers and sent them flying through the air.
Katarina saw an opportunity and grabbed hold of one of the hammers as it was flying by and started riding it like a broom stick. The first three hammers slammed into the zombie dragon's face producing loud cracks as they went, the fourth flew by as Katarina performed a hit and run attack to the face with her spear. The Dragon was about to fire off a black misty breath attack but was cut off as two more hammers caved the side of it's skull in. Officially pissed the zombie jumped up into the air and took to the sky and Katarina chased after him.
"Let's mix it up a little bit." Kyurie took to the air, and was not content to let Midori have all the credit. "I have read and understood the origin of magic! Decipher the laws of nature and Hide my targets under the cloak of night! All First Hide X!"
The hammer's turned invisible and so the dragon really started taking a beating with loud cracks echoing abound as the bones snapped like Popsicle sticks.
"Well that's what I get for relying on a big stupid lizard." A man had appeared on a nearby cliffside a sinister looking axe standing at his side. Him Wyndia recognised, and had no problem's taking a shot at either. And so she pulled back her bow and took the shot squarely landing a arrow in one of his ears in the process.
"What was that for?" Midori asked seeing the body slump over and Wyndia's bow in the air having just fired it.
"That's the bastard that killed my father!" Wyndia fired another arrow and to her surprise her victim reached up and caught it.
"Now that!" The man pulled out the other arrow that had gone through one ear and out the other and tossed both aside. "Was just plain rude!" Wyndia blinked stupidly while Midori just let out a sigh.
"Master we got another one!" The latest enemy of the week began dragging his axe along the ground as a act of intimidation, spreading a familiar rot as it went along.
"I see it!" Katarina stated though at the moment there were slightly bigger things to worry about, because again dragon. "Been a while since I tried this one." Katarina was suppose to be a fire mage after all, her preparations for Earth Magic for when she get's back home be damned. So she redistributed skill points and maxed out her Driefach fire magic.
"Here goes nothing. I, the Hero of the Spear, commands the origin of power! Decipher the laws of nature and incinerate my target in a mighty inferno! Driefach Furnace blast X!" What Katarina was expecting was a large fire ball that she could use to burn off the skin around the dragon's wings causing it to fall out of the sky and do some serious damage. What happened was a sustained 1800*F stream of fire that turned every inch of flesh on it's body into ashes, caused the bones to burst and snap into splinters before all coming down on top of the group of fighters below.
"Yah know." Rino wiped the ashes off of her face and spat out some from her mouth. "Maybe Elena has the right idea after all."
"Well that's what I get for relying on a stupid corpse." Another arrow flew through the air and went into the immortal axe wielder's eye. "Really!?"
Midori opted for something just a little more effective than just sticking the man with needles as he instead swung one of his hammer's he had in hand at the man, who blocked it with the head of the axe, he sunk some more effort into the other swing in the opposite direction so instead the axe wielder used the butt of the weapon. Caught in the awkward position of essentially hanging from a pole as crushing forces pressed against him from either end the hammer Katarina had been riding on came down from the sky like a meteor directly on top of him.
"Sever!" Splits went along the two hammer heads cutting them in half and freeing up the axe to block the strike from above. Unfortunately for him though Midori still have five other hammers, one slammed into the reincarnated from behind while he grabbed the other one to crush from the front.
"Eew!" Rino visibly recoiled as the man's soul slipped out through the two hammers with jelly paste smeared between them, still carrying the axe with him. "Okay now that? That is going to demand some pain and suffering." The Axe Wielder naturally attempted to return to his base to get a new body but found out that he couldn't.
"Sorry to disappoint you." The hammer Katarina had been sitting on rotted to dust as she dropped to the ground, cursed spear in hand. "But that isn't going to work with this around." Katarina held her hands together as if she was making a shadow puppet. "Oh and one other thing. I, the Demon of the Spear, have read and understood the laws of nature!" Chimera Shadow Garden had recently went through a nerf, after all in order to summon the creatures that it does it's reliant on the XP she got from those same creatures which she has sacrificed for the sake of higher stats. That said though there was one notable addition she recently acquired. "Zweite Summon X!" Katarina's Shadow expanded as a familiar monster emerged. Gone was the rotting flesh and exposed bone, and in it's place was a pitch black monster with only the occasional purple highlight to indicate where the skin was thinner, this wasn't some Necromancer's plaything, but rather the Dragon Emperor Galleon back in his full glory. "You brought back the monster I was controlling?" The disembodied soul started laughing. "Are you nuts? I'll just-" Galleon slammed one foot down on top of the fool in question followed up by chomping his jaws down on top of it and chewing. Something broke inside of the dragon's mouth and a glowing spirit was soon spat out and flew into the hand of Midori taking on the form of a axe in the process, and at the same time causing the hammers that he was holding onto to go flying out of his hands both real and ghostly.
"I'm the axe hero now?" Midori asked in a questioning tone of voice. "You sound disappointed." Kyurie stated tone suspicious. "Well yeah, what am I going to do with these now?" Midori asked indicating the discarded hammers and his jingling accessories.
"Nice work Midori!" Katarina shouted hoisting a thumbs up to Midori. Guess who immediately changed their tune.
"Still need to do something with those accessories." Kyurie pointed out. "A accessory that lets you use extra weapons isn't much good to someone who can only use one." Wordlessly everyone looked to Wyndia who was retrieving her arrows.
Wyndia was soon put on clean up duty, using multiple giant hammers to crush the monsters.
"How can anyone fight like this?" Not only did you have to be strong enough to lift all of the weapons you're wielding using the ghostly accessories to wield but you also had to have the actual non legendary weapon based skill to control eight weapons at once. Or you could be like Midori and solve everything using brute force.
"The axe says that it can use status points from levels to make us stronger!" Midori explained as the others watched Wyndia grind for experience points.
"Good. She might need it." Kyurie stated bluntly.
The sun was still high in the air, casting shadows down on the group, unknown to them Katarina's Shadow, for the briefest period of time, had a big purple eye that was staring at them from behind.
Review Section:
drmcgraw186: My apologies for the Mix up, thank you for spotting it so soon.
Captain Imaginat: Glad you like it.
RonaldM40196867: That implies that he's worth any trouble. Not really. Most Reincarnates are. Purely, and I do emphasise purely for scientific research, Rat has, in the past, taken unfertilised monster eggs and inject them with sperm from human men and demi-human men in order to confirm or deny the possibility of demi-humans and monsters having any sort of relation to one another. Was she successful? Classified. True.
Phoenix 7.49: She's been under a lot of stress.
Galeon82: *Shrugs.*
Halo: They don't watch a whole lot of spy movies.
Dakota Bruder: I like to think of Nasuverse Medea being a by-product of Goddess Medea erasing herself from reality accidentally.