Author's Note: No time to talk. The game I've been waiting my whole life for has come out. Read, Review, Favourite and Enjoy!
Chapter 110: What the Shield Hero has Been Doing
Gol, Tanya, Katarina, Kuro, Sakura, Myne and Jade all returned to Sickle.
"Spread out. We have a lot of ground to cover. Without us the waves-" Tanya looked up to the sky that had taken on normal colouration and had no holes raining down monsters. "What happened to the waves?"
"They stopped a while ago." L'Arc stated sulkily as he scooped another freshly grown hunk of gold ore that was taller than he was into his scythe. "Maybe Naofumi's stupid dragon finally felt like doing her job and decided just to cough up the barrier already." L'Arc's complaints was then followed by dumping the processed contents of that nugget into Rishia's weapon.
"If the waves are over is it really necessary for us to keep doing this?" Rishia asked looking concerned, then her weapon zapped her. "I'm sorry I'm sorry!"
L'Arc just let out a sigh. Having been given an explanation as to how the Beast King weapon works L'Arc had naively agreed to help Rishia sort out the mess inside of her weapon and then use the worship points he had accumulated already to help defend the country from the waves. Hours later the waves were over and Rishia still hadn't managed to finish unlocking the full contents of that thing's countless projectile transformations. All that they really seemed to accomplish was that the bloody thing had grown even more vindictive.
"The bloody Dragon stole all our levels too." L'Arc stated his eyes twitching madly.
A moment later Trash, Kyurie, Midori, Blitz, Rat, Fohl and Atla appeared in the light of a portal skill, the two Hakuko siblings having gone through something of a reversal. Atla had benefited greatly from being remade on a cellular level into a pure Hakuto, standing tall with a medium sized build with her silver, black and gold hair hanging behind her in a series of braids, the Vivienne and the Morgan hanging at her waist in the sheaths Kuro had made for her. Fohl on the other hand had been a victim of the Demon Dragon's level drain through the use of the Demon Dragon weapon and thus was reduced to the form of a twelve year old boy.
"Not one word." Kuro just stared ahead, her features locked into a smile while the tip of her tongue peaked out of her lips and licked the corner, that was vastly too many words. "Especially from you!"
"We're going back to the other world. We have to pick up Kaede, and we're bringing these four with us." Tanya explained while she thumbed the four Legendary Heroes behind her. "What's the reincarnated situation?"
"Kyurie should've gotten most of them." Rishia pointed out recalling the field of bloody stakes from before.
"Indeed." Kyurie, Romanian accent thick as ever, made a effort to stand taller and prouder, even though he had no idea what it was that he did.
"Where did the accent come from?" Katarina asked confused prompting Kyurie to cringe with his whole body.
"It probably came with the body." Kuro stated even though this probably wasn't the time to bring this up.
"If there are Reincarnated remaining here, they will either expose themselves and be dealt with soon enough or if they're smart lay low and never allow themselves to be exposed." Trash stated his can leaning against his shoulder. "Either way the enemy is dealt with for now." For now.
"I'm more concerned about the monster country that has suddenly re-appeared." L'Arc stated as he stood up and stretched.
"""Monster Country?""" Tanya, Katarina and Kuro simultaneously asked confusion clear in all their features.
""""Monster Country!?"""" Opposite of the three other worlders the four heroes of this world who were filled with fear at the news.
"I'll explain later." Rishia stated as he turned the heroes around so that they could find a place to set up the rainbow bridge.
The vassals would be going to their own locations to take care of business, Rishia included, The sooner that she gets home the sooner she can start farming gold and fix her weapon before her virtue turns into a curse. Kuro took the liberty of releasing the Sword of the Rainbow Bridge and cut a path across to the other world again, all the while the three heroes were looking nervous.
"Easy girls." Tanya stated while she was rubbing her temples. "She's never done anything before that we couldn't manage."
"You have low expectations." Kuro snapped as she glared at Tanya. "You were the one who left her alone again."
"It can't be that bad right? I mean she has Raphtalia and Sadeena to stop her right?" Katarina looked like she was trying harder to convince herself than anyone else.
"You say that like they've been able to stop her before." Kuro replied spitefully.
"Um... What are you guys talking about?" Jade and the other heroes looked to be very concerned about whatever it was that they were talking about.
"""Maple.""" The three heroes who had been having a conversation about a topic that clearly disturbed about something.
"What did she do when she was in your world?" Tanya asked glaring at the other group of heroes suspiciously.
"Well, there was the whole turning into a dinosaur in a power suit thing." Sakura stated as if she was talking about something perfectly normal.
"And that's normal to you?" Kuro asked looking at the group with disbelief.
"Well after Kyo stuffed himself full of demon Chi and turned into a giant monster I was already desensitised." Jade stated shrugging her shoulders.
"It seems like turning into giant monsters is a common ability now." Beast transformations was common enough in the world they were summoned to, thanks to Kuro spreading the Weapons of the Beast King around even the enhanced beast transformation was a thing, there was also the blessing of the Heavenly Emperor as well and all the monsters they fought because of it. Tanya, Katarina, and Kuro simultaneously went wide eyed with fear. "Oh gods." Katarina stated having made a disturbing realisation.
"Giant monsters are common sense now." Kuro followed up fearfully.
"And that person is beyond common sense." Tanya summarised their collective realisation.
"I don't get IIIITTT!" Suddenly the Three heroes grabbed the other four and booked it across the rainbow bridge. Kuro set the coordinates for the Rainbow Bridge directly at the village, it was either there or Q'Ten Lo, or failing one of those two locations somewhere that they couldn't think of immediately.
But if she wasn't there then they will be able to find someone who does know where she is. The seven of them arrived in the Village, three people dragging four along with them, the village looked darker today like it was night time or the sky was covered in clouds.
"Split up, between the three of us we should probably-what are you looking at?" The four Heroes of the other world were looking straight up into the air and collectively pointed up.
"Ten bucks say she's up there."
Now we turn our attention back weeks in time, to when three heroes made the decision to travel between worlds leaving one of them behind. Maple had just whipped out her full arsenal of shields in an effort to see what kinds of formations she could whip out, and the result was...
"Shield Formation: Palace of the Heavenly Ruler!"
The entire mountain shook, the power of the Prydwyn was to turn into a ship, combine that with enough elemental magic to fill the mold of spirit energy and you get a real ship. Similarly the power of the Lord Camelot was to turn into a castle, and like the Prydwyn if you fill it with the power of the elements then you get a real castle. What happens when you stick a castle on a floating ship? How about a floating palace? What about when you combine a hundred together?
"Whaow!" Filo was staring up in the sky at the giant floating palace that used to be a mountain that Maple just conjured.
"Maybe I've gone too far this time..." Even Kaede thought her antics went too far this time. Alas it was too late, Filo had already jumped up to the Palace of the Heavenly Ruler and stepped foot onto it. Immediately Filo's carriage had a reaction, and so transformed into a copy of the massive floating palace. "Oh no." Not only that, But Filo also got all of Maple's shields too, of course all of them were turned into carriages.
A couple of hours later Maple was sitting down in front of Raphtalia and Sadeena, course they weren't looking at her with dead faces drained of emotion, that honour went to the Filolial outside flaunting her flying 'carriage.'
"Kaede. Why do you do these things to us?" Raphtalia asked in a quiet voice.
"I was experimenting with my shields when this just... happened!" Kaede replied all flustered as she indicated the floating city outside.
"What kind of experiment were you conducting?" Sadena asked as she looked down at the kneeling shield hero, who only got more flustered as she felt the weight of guilt increase on her shoulders.
"There's a meeting with the Queen still." Raphtalia stated bluntly as she let out a sigh. "We need to go."
Mirelia was looking directly out her window at the giant floating city that Filo felt compelled to drag all the way to Q'Ten Lo and back, before it disappeared into the form of the Vassal Chariot. With some gentle prodding from one of her advisers the meeting was able to begin in time for Maple, Raphtalia, Sadeena and Filo to arrive in the meeting room. Maple was sitting in a corner in the seiza position holding up a sign that said 'I will think about my actions before I do them.' Filo was in the opposite corner of the room in a similar position, her sign saying 'I will not copy weird things into my weapon' based on the fact that she was holding her sign upside down she wasn't taking her repenting very seriously it was safe to say she failed to understand why she was being punished, or for that matter that she was.
"For now. Let us review what we know and what we should do going forward." Mirelia stated as she elegantly sipped her tea.
"For now we no longer have to worry about the Waves so we can focus our attention on internal matters." A greasy looking adviser handed his Queen a folder, the minutes of the meeting to come. "Counting Syrup and the Dragon Quartet, we have two Directional Beasts, and I'm given to understand that we need four to make a complete set."
"The easy solution is to use material from the Phoenixes and Cian to make Shikigami's of them." Raphtalia stated as she turned her attention to Maple and sighed. "Sadly, if we want to bring out their full potential we're going to have to leave raising them to this one."
"Yes... that would seem to be the case. The issue here is the remaining reincarnated. They'll go out of their way to destroy any information about the directional beasts for the next Era, even if we are able to eliminate them all now we should expect more to appear." Mirellia held her chin with her hand as she pondered the implications. And then Maple raised her hand. "Kaede, you may speak."
"What if I just use divine magic to make a temple full of information for the next era?" Maple asked holding her hand up. The more this one talks the quicker the sanity in this room would deteriorate.
"Explain please." Mirelia stated as she let out a sigh. "Well, I'll make up something like the spatial labyrinth in the other world. It'll be a place no one can enter unless they have a legendary weapon. Even if the documents or records inside are destroyed or something I can use time magic to set up an automated repair or respawn location. We can work out more ideas as we work on it." A surprisingly restrained idea for her, all things considered.
"Yes that could work." Mirelia stated as she held her chin in her hand.
"The directional Beasts need measures put in place for them too." Sadeena stated tapping her harpoon against her shoulder. "Syrup's still a new born, so are the Quartet, the other two haven't even been reborn yet. We don't know how they'll be after our Heroes leave or are no longer with us, we need to have protector's in place until they're strong enough to fend for themselves." Maple raised her hand again. "Yes Kaede?" Mirelia asked letting out a sigh again. The last one was a surprisingly restrained suggestion, maybe this one would be within reason too.
"Can't we just make up some decoys for the Directional Beasts?" Kaede asked innocently.
"I've been working on some designs in my free time." The Three Adults and eleven year old who looked like an adult all let out a collective sigh. It was too much to ask that she suggested something reasonable, well they should give her credit for running it by them first.
"You're going to have to show us what you mean." Mirelia instructed and so Maple stood up and walked over to the table.
"I've been working on some drawings in my spare time." Maple took a scroll out of her shield and rolled it out on the table. "Have past Heroes ever talked about something called Kamen Rider before?"
There was some time later that Maple had returned to the village, where Wyndia was waiting for her with some news.
"Rat thinks there's a problem with Syrup?" Rat of course was stranded in the other world, her apprentice Wyndia on the other hand was going through her notes and came across some information concerning the turtle.
"Problem, I'm not sure that's the right word, it's more like..." Wyndia was in a spare lab coat as she looked at a chart. "Some incompatible power was pushed inside of her. If that makes any sense. Can you tell me about everything you've done to your turtle since she was born?" Maple as it turned out didn't have to talk for very long, the root of the problem was actually discovered very quickly. "'Lord of Earth?'" Wyndia asked just to be certain that was what Maple had said.
"That's what the dragon lady said." Maple explained while shrugging her shoulders.
"According to this chart on the five elements Rat had in her lab Earth and Wood elements are incompatible. Even though it's called a blessing the Earth element is basically just taking up space inside of Syrup and refusing to cooperate." Wyndia explained indicating a chart of Syrup Rat had made.
"So how do we fix this?" Maple asked looking at the Chart, she could try to bridge earth to wood but that would require shoving metal and water in there somehow which she didn't think would work as well as simply bridging wood to earth. "There was some material I picked up in the other world, what was it? 'Bird of Paradise?'" Which was a fancy way of saying a bird shaped flower that was strong in the fire element and also a directional beast of the wood element.
Maple went over to Syrup, using Metamorphosis magic together with her Bio-plant shields she was able to combine the bird-like flower into the tree on Syrup's back. The tree glowed as it transformed, the leaves changed colour into Sera Lumina like blossoms while the tree itself changed shape into the form of a pink fluffy bird that was sitting on a simple perch. Then Syrup's own body transformed, veins of the fire element trailed down the shell and entered her core, where they interacted with a new power, and Syrup underwent a transformation too, her skin tanning with the Earth element while the jade like shell developed volcano like veins of the fire element.
"How're you feeling Syrup?" Maple asked while she backed away from her turtle. "KAME!" Syrup cheered while she reared on her back legs and swung around her front legs, the bird-like bonsai tree on her back seemed to flap it's wings in time with Syrup. "Can you understand me too?" Syrup tilted her head to Maple's question, and the tree tilted its 'head' at the exact same time. "Well that's interesting." Maple stated as she scratched the side of her head.
"Huu. I'll go run some more tests." Wyndia stated as she walked away.
For now, that was Syrup taken care of, but that just left the Dragon Quartet to deal with too. The Aototsu chief was of the water element, the symbiotic armour Bio-plant Rat graphed onto their bodies was of the wood element however...
"That stupid turtle got stronger again eh?" Kaida stated bitterly.
"I'm not sure that's a good reaction to have in this case." Maple stated as she looked at the rest of the Quartet. "All the monsters know who your favourite is!" Eragon snapped tightening her fist. Well, even if the situation was awkward the four of them were technically her kids, sort of. Maybe she should do something nice for them.
"Do any of you want to spend the day together?" Maple asked prompting an immediate quartet of 'Aye!' Later in the week, reports would flood the Queen's office of five dragons in Biomechanical armour who were rampaging through the countryside.
"Kaida, Eragon, Bertha, Payne, dinner time!" The four dragons wrestling around were doing so in full Savage form, luckily they were in one of the few remaining chunks of Zeltoble that was still a desert. Five dragon's on a rampage had the effect of racking up the monster body count, so food for the five of them didn't turn out to be a major problem.
"So I'm going to have business in the town that we're going to be arriving at in a couple of days. So I'm going to give you guys a heads up. Firstly we're going to be using their dragon hourglass to create some more Sacred Beast Shikigami's." Maple stated making her opinion on the matter known.
"You want to make more of that blasted Turtle!?" Eragon growled clenching her fist hard enough to bend her eating utensil.
"No I'm going to make up ones for the Phoenix and the Tiger." Maple corrected as she let out a sigh. "Four sacred beasts are needed to maintain balance in this world, Syrup is one, you four are one, there needs to be two more." Maple stated as she held up two of her fingers.
"Fine..." Eragon seemed to glare at her spoon and it bent back into shape of it's own will.
"...how'd you do that?" Maple asked looking at the implement in question.
"I willed it, and it was done." Eragon asked and Maple looked to the rest of her 'daughters.'
"Can the rest of you manipulate metal objects like that?" Maple asked looking at the rest of the group.
"Yeah?" Kaida didn't know where Maple was going with this.
"So you four all have metal roots maybe? And Water. And Wood from your armour?" Maple held her chin in thought at the implications. Another triple element Sacred Beast. At that moment her Legendary weapon piped up.
'It is ill advised that the Hero makes shikigami of the remaining two beasts.'
"Why?" Maple asked in confusion.
'The current generation sacred beast 'Syrup' has been directly connected to the Legendary weapon, and by extension, the sacred gear. Power is flowing from the Legendary Hero to the Beast and is fuelling and controlling their growth, controlling the same for two more beasts would reduce the resources by two thirds.'
"So I should wait until Tanya and Katarina come back then?"
'Affirmative. Also when the chance arrives a connection should be established between the four dragon's and the Sword Hero.' Maple let out a sigh.
"While we're there if any of you reach forty you can get your class upgrades." The four dragons made a sour face.
"Levelling use to be so much easier." Bertha complained letting out a sigh. These four spoiled children were born in the era where monster levels were at their absolute peak, in the absence of the XP that was being used to fuel the barrier they were stuck hunting low level mobs.
"I also need to speak to the leader of the community over there too." Maple explained while she slurped her soup. "I have to think about what I'm going to do with Syrup in the future, even though she's small now eventually she's going to be so big that she can carry a mountain on her back. One of the candidates for that is going to be the Elves living in what used to be Zeltoble. Another is going to be the Genmu from the village." Maple wasn't entirely sure what the Elves were calling the territory right now. The Queen was having a hard time translating the documents the Elves were sending over to establish trade, another reason why Maple had to go over to that side. "I'm also going to have to think about what I'm going to do with the four of you eventually too."
"Are you going to leave us so soon mother?" Payne asked looking upset.
"Eventually yes." There was so much about the System that enables travel between worlds that Maple didn't know about. 'Will I go back to my original world if I die?' 'Is time moving in my original world?' 'Is it possible to flutter between the two worlds freely?' Instead she shared what wisdom she did have to share. "You four all have the memories of much older dragons inside of you so I won't baby you. I am going to die, and so will the four of you, one day. I don't know how and I don't know when, but if I'm as old and wrinkly as Granny and surrounded by all of the kids I have raised and all the kids that I will raise then that will make me very happy." Maple smiled warmly, the four dragons had tears come to their eyes and Maple opened her arms up to bring them into a hug, which they graciously accepted.
Zeltoble had undergone a transformation, a rather massive one, the desert was rapidly giving way to a lush jungle, trenches had been carved out to the ocean and were now drawing water into the environment resulting in great rivers. Elves have an extremely high proficiency with the wood element, allowing them to freely manipulate plant life, which also makes them the ones to draw out the full potential of the Bio-plants. Trees the size of sky-scrapers had been grown, and various species of giant arthropods had been introduced to the area, the massive leaves of the giant bio-plant had been folded into pods and the insides glued with Spider's silk to create homes, the water filtered by giant roots and then extracted using a species resembling giant aphids, honey bees had been set up inside of the various pods to produce honey.
"It seems to be cosy anyway." Maple looked around at the plant pod before her, each pod seemed to be big enough for a one story room, nets of spider silk and the occasional plank acting as furniture such as chairs or tables. To Maple's left a stained glass window was sitting there, and Maple wasn't quite sure what it was made out of. She didn't see a furnace on her way over here.
"Apologies for having only this much." The Elven Chief nimbly climbed up a ladder made out of woven Spider Silk carrying a trey with two cups on it, which he then put down on a crude table suspended between four strands of woven silk and filled both of the glasses with a concoction of warm tea pored from a canteen. "We weren't expecting company."
"Well, there's an issue with the trade documents with Melromarc you understand." Maple stated as she sipped some of the, actually quite good, tea.
"What's the problem?" The Elf chief asked looking concerned.
"They can't read them." Maple stated letting out a contented sigh.
"I understand that learning a new language can be tough an all that but you are living in this world right now." Maple explained bluntly.
"We have been learning, but we were given to understand that the Royal Family has a Hero." The Elf Chief explained gesturing with his hand. "Who has other duties that he must attend to at the moment. More importantly our weapons auto-translation function doesn't apply to the written word." Maple explained as she let out a sigh and took several documents out of her shield, and a fountain pen. "Can't be helped, I'll just have to transcribe the contents of the proposal for you." Suddenly the entire room shook. "What was that? The Wind? We are in kind of a rickety construction."
"There are twenty different strands connecting this pod in every direction, what wind could possibly shake this place?" The Elf chief asked confused.
"I was afraid you were going to say that." Letting out a resigned sigh Maple climbed up to the door of the pod and looked outside to see a trail of smoke going off into the air. Putting her writing implements away Maple took out a familiar children's book from her shield and handed it to the Elven Chief.
"Here you go, this'll help you with practising the local language." Saying that Maple left to deal with whatever trouble had just occurred so that she could go back to the meeting with the Elven Chief where she would eventually bring up the subject of Syrup with him.
Author's Note:
RonaldM40196867: There's plenty of places worse than hell. Much like beauty hell is in the eye of the beholder.
MrSadLad: Do you have even the slightest idea of how much trouble these stories have given me? Well probably but that's not the point I'm making.
xerad: Which is why he tries to minimise his involvement, and is failing both in not getting involved and when he does get involved.
Nightshadegirl and Captain Imaginat: Put her in front of Kaede and she'll be right as rain.
Galeon82: Only a little.