Chapter 27 - Revenge on Asfi and Hermes
Next morning, Welf was walking by when Bell and Ais left her room for breakfast. Welf smiled at them and kept walking. Later at breakfast, Welf could not contain himself any more and asked Bell what he has been doing at nights. Bell answered that he and Ais were keeping up with their synchronization.
Before practice started, the first order of business was for Wiene to try out her new armor plates. Thankfully, they fitted perfectly. Furthermore, with her huge strength, she could handle heavier weight, which allowed the armor to be much heavier and stronger. Hephaestus also tried fitting the sharp edges on her talons, and those fitted also. Wiene tried to swing with them, causing everyone to duck for cover. The sharp edges added a lot of damage to her strikes...
After that, the practice started against Ais and Bell, with uchide no kozuchi used to boost up Ais by 2 levels to improve Aerial performance. Happy with the armor results, Hephaestus and Tsubaki went off to fabricate more armor and sharp edges for Wiene.
Mikoto and Lili continued to work on their magic. Practicing with Asfi, Mikoto was improving on using futsunomitama against fast flying targets, successfully trapping Asfi twice. When Hermes suggested to squeeze a little bit to better simulate battle conditions, Asfi became furious and promised Hermes revenge. Lili was also able to use cinder ella to turn into a larger snake, but kept pushing the envelope to turn into smaller and more innocuous-looking snakes. Lili also made some progress turning into a few harmless plants typical in the dungeon. Lili had been working really hard because she is extremely frustrated with her own weakness and inability to help Bell-sama.
After getting some revenge on Asfi, Hermes went off to discuss tactical planning with Loki, Freya and Takemikazuchi. They were going through who should be boosted up 2 levels, and when double-boost should be shifted to other team members. Hermes' initial thought was Bell should receive the double boost to strength the hero's strike, though Takemikazuchi suggested Wiene may become an option especially if Bell is injured. His primary reason is that Wiene would be really tough to hit since she is strong enough to wear really thick armor. Thus, they also decided to bring several members of the defense perimeter team to the secret headquarters to train them on putting armor on Wiene. Since Mikoto knew Wiene well, she was a natural choice to help Wiene with her armor. However more help is needed to quicken the armor donning process. Thus, Filvis, Raul from the Loki familia were summoned to join Mikoto in the Wiene armor team.
After lunch, Wiene continue to practice with Ais and Bell. By the end of the day, she finally started improving against their attacks. Tomorrow's practice will add magic attacks from Riveria and Lefiya. When they returned to the headquarters, Hephaestus and Tsubaki were finished with Wiene's body armor plates, which are ready for trials in the next day's practice. Welf was also finally done with charging up all the armor for the fighters. However, when he learned of the need to charge up Wiene's armor, he fainted again.
There was a another cookout due to the popularity of the grilled food. After the cookout, there was another loud and exciting game of cards involving the same characters. Unlike the previous night, Asfi agreed to raising the stakes. Asfi won the game with the cooperation from almost everyone except Takemikazuchi and Welf. When Hermes lost, Asfi's reward was a solemn promise from Hermes that he will refrain from making naughty comments for 1 week. This may be the most serious punishment that Hermes has ever suffered, and he cried for the rest of the night...