Author's Note: Okay not a lot to say here, as usual, so here's hoping I'll be back to work soon. In the mean time please Read, Review, Favourite, Enjoy and Please remember to book your vaccine shots so that the nightmare of the past two years doesn't repeat itself kay?
Chapter 10: Spear Hero's Guide to Grinding
Before the Spear would be on her way to Shieldfreeden she would be spending some time levelling in this forest, in order to prevent the traitor from leaving the Church of the Three Heroes had sent a group of assassins out to eliminate her. It shouldn't be hard, for all of the potential power of the legendary spear she was after all but a child and thus easy prey. To their fortune they learned that she was even nice enough to post a sign for their convenience, or more likely the traitorous Haven woman.
'Warning. Spear Hero grinding area, high quantity of dangerous monsters and materials. No guarantee of safety beyond this point in time.'
Perfect. After they kill her they'll use the monsters to dispose of the body. The forest felt strangely empty as the group of assassins wandered through, but they none the less discovered the one who was responsible.
"This was a good idea!" Katarina stated as Rino finished hoisting the unconscious caterpilland, a huge caterpillar monster, by it's tail end up a tree.
"Very clever of you young Hero." Hyoga stated observing the creature going up the tree. "The distressed caterpilland will attract more of it's kind, they will in turn attract the creatures that prey upon them. Then we'll be able to use area of effect magic to bait them in and wipe them out."
"Don't be ridiculous Hyoga!" Katarina snapped having suddenly turned very serious. "If we burn the monsters to a crisp then how can we cook them for food!" After eating the rabbit Katarina fed the left over bone to her spear and got a crafting bonus, which as the spear explained to her would increase the quality of items that she crafts by hand. She has no real interest in hand crafting however she then experimentally fed meat to the Spear and in the process discovered a bonus to all the food that she cooks by hand. So for the sake of her gourmet fantasy's Katarina was now in the process of acquiring vast amounts of raw material.
"Is that really your priority here?" Hyoga asked brow cocked in a manner that conveyed his disbelief.
"If it's for the sake of food I will hunt all of the monsters in this forest into extinction!" Katarina declared finger into the air.
"If you do that then the Kingdom will get mad at us." Elena stated causing Katarina to have a chunk of her enthusiasm killed. "A kingdom's army is only as strong as the monsters living in it."
This wasn't a video game, monsters do not just materialise out of thin air, even the monsters of the waves fall into the world from the portals in the sky. In that way the cycle of accelerated maturation from levels was probably very convenient.
"Do monsters have parties too?" Katarina asked looking at Elena with her head tilted off to the side.
"It's hard to know how levelling works for wild monsters." Rino stated bluntly. "It's not like we can just ask them."
"There have been studies conducted. Monsters were hatched without being imprinted with a slave seal and continuously made to kill other monsters and slowly level up, but it turns out that they suffer from the level cap too." Elena explained once again demonstrating her knowledge.
"Level cap?" Katarina asked looking confused.
"Nothing you have to worry about." Elena stated bluntly. "But for the rest of us, we can only level until Forty, after wards we need to pay for a class upgrade and then we can go to one hundred."
Katarina nodded her head in understanding.
"Are wild monsters only up to 40?" Katarina asked looking at the woman who was playing tutor to her questioningly.
"No. That's something we still haven't been able to figure out." Elena stated. "My father was part of one of the expeditions into monster territory to try and figure out how they do the level break, he got out alive but that's mostly because the healers prioritised him over the others." What a terrifying sounding expedition.
"Then how do you guys do the class up?" Katarina asked looking confused.
"The Dragon's Hourglasses." Elena stated bluntly.
"I thought those were just for calling the waves over?" Katarina stated recalling the explanation about the waves.
"Why else would we keep such a dangerous thing?" Elena asked making a face like she was dealing with someone stupid.
"You've got a point there." Katarina ignored the look of 'why is this person so stupid' that by now she was use to and instead focused on the situation at hand. "Wait a second. Does that mean that there's another dragon hourglass in the monster's territory?"
"I hope not." Elena stated letting out a sigh. "Firstly that means that we're going to have to go through that horrible place looking for it, and then that means that there's a extra wave we have to fight on top of all of the monsters already in the area."
"Y-you're right..."
The gavel banged indicating that the Council of Katarina's had started to convene.
"Today's topic will be about dealing with the waves." Chairman Katarina stated calling the meeting to order.
"When you think about it the King was actually pretty vague on the important parts." Intellectual Katarina took the liberty of making up a chart listing things they do and do not know.
"What we do know. The waves appear one at a time in each of the countries, the hourglasses counts down to when each of the waves will hit a country roughly one month in advance and appears in each country once a month. It is impossible to know where the waves will appear." Intellectual Katarina stated shoving her glasses up on her face.
"Um is that true?" Timid Katarina stated hand in the air. "I mean all the nations have their own hourglasses right? If any hour glass can count down to any wave than why is there more than one."
"True. Then each Hourglass predicts a wave that will occur within a certain radius."
"Um Elena, a thoughr occurs, do you have a map, and one of those thingies that make circles and measures distance on maps?" Katarina asked knowing full well that she has absolutely no clue as to what she was actually talking about.
"Do you mean a compass?" Elena asked brow raised in the air suspiciously.
"Maybe. I wasn't ever very good at math." Katarina admitted while scratching her chin.
"Huu. You're such a handful." Elena stated while she noticed that the Caterpilland had woken up, and noticed it's situation and hence started to loose the panicked cries while uselessly flailing about trying to get back down. "Let's talk about your sudden interest in maps later."
More of the caterpillars emerged first, and Katarina went after them. Lucky for her they are slow and big so landing blows right between the eyes and dancing around their pathetic attacks was stupidly easy. Ballroom dance lessons back in her previous world made dancing around the caterpillars easy, not to mention Hyoga's training especially the part about looking out for surprise attacks. Elena's crossbow was spitting out bolt after bolt while Rino was making with her sword and board routine baiting attacks and rewarding the caterpillar's efforts with a blade in their side. Then three dried out husks were dropped out of the air and crushed one of the caterpillars that she was about to stab.
"Hey Spear Hero!" A child sized figure dressed in a cloak and hood combination called down from above causing the members of the Spear's party to look up at them. "What's your type?"
Rino moved to defend the party with her shield while Hyoga checked the bodies.
"Three Heroes church members." Hyoga stated as he used his spear to prod open the body and uncovered the rosario hidden beneath armour.
"Spies?" Elena asked arming her cross bow.
"Assassins." Hyoga slammed the butt of his spear down on a vial releasing body destroying acid all over the corpse he had been examining. "The next time you wish to meet with foreign dignitaries young lady try to do so away from where the Church can hear you."
The hooded lad jumped down from the tree, bat like wings suddenly appearing from beneath his cloak to break his fall before they disappeared just as quickly.
"A vampire?" Elena asked looking at the demi-human lad suspiciously.
"A vampire!?" Katarina went wide eyed with a weird sort of sparkling glee in her eyes.
"Oh so I see the Spear Hero has good tastes! Muahahahaha!" The Vampire started cackling like a B movie villain.
"Katarina, at a peak of curiosity how do you know what a vampire is?" Elena asked looking at Katarina suspiciously.
"In my world they're the stars of Romance and horror novels everywhere!" Elena had a look on her face that screamed 'what kind of messed up books have you been reading back in your world?' "They're super human immortal fighters that feed off of human blood for sustenance and can make more like themselves just by biting you!"
The bat boy started cackling even louder now then what he was before.
"Okay we are thinking about completely different things now." Elena stated and for the first time since he asked for their type the vampire boy stopped laughing. "For one thing, they're scrawny. That kid is all skin and bones over there." The boy looked like he was struck with an invisible arrow. "For another I know that he's scrawny because his digestive system is so weak all of his meals have to be in purely liquid form just to get anything out of them." Another arrow strike. "As a result of being so scrawny he's basically useless in a straight up fight. He does have a Therianthrope form that allows him to fly and use echo location, except that they're six other species of Demi-humans that can do that too and all of them aren't so frail that a light breeze will push them over." Speaking of which the latest blow seemed to have floored the embodiment of Katarina's vampire fantasies.
"This is bullying isn't it?" Katarina was feeling sorry for the kid now.
"You have no right to ask that." Elena stated pointing up at the tree where the Caterpilland they captured and had officially given up hope of escape.
"Is there something we can help you with kid?" Hyoga asked steering the conversation back on topic. The kid slammed his foot down and righted himself into a seated position.
"I am a shadow of Siltvelt sent here to watch the Spear Hero to ensure that she keeps to the promises she made for aide to my homeland." The kid stated crossing his arms and trying to project a heir of dignity that wasn't going to be there without a awful lot of work.
"We agreed that the spear would have the chance to level and train first." Hyoga stated spear resting on his shoulder. "Has something happened to complicate the situation?"
"Only that your Three Heroes Church..." The boy spat to the side in a expression of his displeasure. "...has decided that they'd rather you were dead then helping out another country."
"My my now that is not a acceptable thing for them to be doing." Hyoga stated spear twirling in his grasp.
"Ah guys a thought occurs." Rino stated hand in the air. "If in the very likely and entirely predictable event that the Church's assassins failed to kill us, would they have a plan in place to do us in instead?" Rino's statement caused a chill to go up the spines of the Spear Hero's party as they figured out what was happening around the same time that they saw the beam of light form in the sky to come down on them.
"Leave it to me Milady!" The Vampire boy shouted opening up his mouth wide as no noise came out, at least none that Katarina could hear. Their potion bottles on the other hand suddenly all simultaneously cracked open.
"High pitch noise?" Suddenly a barrier formed around them, wavy like a mirage, didn't look too strong but when the Beam of Judgement hit it it suddenly broke off into a hundred different directions and scattered it's payload all over the forest. "Spectacular!" Hyoga's opinion of the lad had skyrocketed. Ultra high frequency magic casting. Combines the additional power of casting magic out loud with the stealthy surprise of silent casting. Not to mention the fact that he had managed to single handily fend of a ritual class magic with that little stunt. The rest of them needed to start pulling their weight if they want to not be shown up. "Hahahaha! Add the boy to your party Miss Claes, afterwards you girls and he need to get on the road to Shieldfreeden. I will dispose of the last of these interlopers."
It was never part of the plan for Hyoga to join them in Shieldfreeden, something about bad blood from their army. So merrily twirling his spear as he went along Hyoga went to track down the Church agents in the area while Katarina and the others started to be led to safety. Or they would be.
"Mr. Vampire?" Big smile on his face, the vampire boy had none the less fallen unconscious from the strain of the magic that he had cast just a few moments ago. "Mr. Vampire this is no time to be sleeping!" Nor trying to shake the unconscious boy awake and yet here she was.
"Detestable Demi!" The group of Church agents had already exhausted themselves on that last round of judgement magic, and it would be some time before they could spit out another ritual class.
"Hahahahahaha...!" The sound of distant laughter filled the air along with the sound of something twirling in the air.
"What is that sound?" The leader of the unit of magicians asked looking around, before his eyes landed on the one who did the laughing. "It can't be...!" Then they saw the sight of the man who had done the laughing, spinning his spear in one had as he approached them. "Laughing Coffin Hyoga!"
"Huu..." A sharp inhale marked the end of Hyoga's laughter, his smile all malice and blood lust. "I must admit I was disappointed to meet the spear hero, don't get me wrong she's enthusiastic but lacks talent and stats." Hyoga pointed his spear challengingly. "You on the other hand managed to get my blood all riled up, so I am going to have you all accompany me until I become bored." It was several hours before the church agents stopped screaming.
In the mean time Elena walked Katarina through using healing magic in order to wake the vampire boy back up so that he could lead them to whatever secret way through the border he had found. The sound of a gavel banging resumed the meeting of the council of Katarina's.
"We can assume that the Village of Seatto where the first wave to hit Melromarc took place represents the minimal distance to the hourglass that a wave can take place." Intellectual Katarina explained as they looked at the map. "We then make a circle centred around the Castle town with Seatto as the outer perimeter and the end result is the minimal area of effect for the waves to hit Melromarc." The circle in question was made around Melromarc on the map that the five of them had been looking at. "We then make the same sized circle to cover the territory of all the other countries with a hourglass in it too." Several more circles were made over the areas where Elena had drawn a simple hourglass symbol across the map. "There now we take into account the gaps between the territory..."
Elena found it strange how Katarina just randomly stares off into space at times, under normal circumstances she would think the spear hero to be a deep thinker but dismissed that possibility for how stupid she seems at times. Whatever, until she snaps out of her latest stupor they can't teach her magic so they might as well finish her idea. After tracing the circumference of their estimated area of effect for the Melromarc waves and pasting that over the other countries Elena then went about the process of fitting another circle in between the gaps between those countries in the vague hope of tripping over some random hourglass no one's heard of before.
"Eugh..." Both Rino and Elena both made faces of sheer displeasure as they came to the realisation of where Katarina's theory was leading them.
"There that's where we need to look!" Katarina stated pointing at roughly the middle of where the circle Elena had put down indicated. Then she looked at the faces her two allies were making and the thought occurred to ask. "What's wrong?"
"Filolial territory." Rino stated face cringing.
"What's a filolial?" Katarina asked looking confused.
"It's that bird that has been pulling the carriage for the past two hours." Rino stated pointing up at the front of the wagon which featured a yellow bird. "They come in a lot of different species, with the exception of the ones that they take for breeding most of the time ranchers just let them run wild."
"So they're like horses right?" Katarina asked looking at the others confused.
"Well yes but they tend to be a lot more bred for battle, especially the ones in their own territory." Elena stated as Rino followed up.
"It might look cute and fluffy but these things are omnivores, meaning they'll eat anything that looks edible, and that can include people if they're good and hungry." Rino explained crossing her arms. "Well they tend not to turn their sights on children, which is weird to say the least." Rino stated holding her chin in her hand. "Wild monsters usually try to pick off the weakest members of a group first, and that includes children."
"Well they do say that there is a Filolial Queen that was raised by the first heroes. But we're getting off track..." Elena had a look out the window. "We're almost at the border crossing. Wake him up." The three girls sat outside of the carriage on the side of the road while seated around the so called prince of darkness that saved them from the church.
"Allow me the pleasure of introducing myself as I did not have the opportunity last time." The vampire stated giving the three lovely ladies a bow of his head. "I am Kyuri Byurd of the Vampire tribe of Shieldfreeden."
"Katarina Claes." The Spear Hero next indicated her companions.
"Elena Haven." Elena replied simply.
"Rino." The group's resident shield bearer stated bluntly.
Point of interest Kyurie didn't actually have a way of crossing the border safely, not one that didn't rely on illusion magic that he couldn't cast on all of them without hurting himself again.
"Well they're probably going to be waiting for us at the border." Katarina stated having climbed a tree and was now looking at the shifting guard down at the border. "I don't have any intention of getting myself killed do you guys?"
"So we need to find another way around the border, or we need to figure out a way of disguising ourselves so that they can't tell we're the spear Hero and her companions." Elena stated putting her hand on her chin.
"Do we disguise ourselves as farmers?" Rino stated as she indicated Katarina's spear, who had currently gone off by herself to find something to help them. "We brought rough clothes with us for casual wear."
"You and that brat over there might be able to pass as farmers. But you will notice that the life style of a merchant and a nobleman's daughter means that brawn is not my strongest suit." Elena stated forming a L shape with her extremely skinny and not muscled arm. "If they have a close look at us then we're never going to get through alive."
"Hey Elena do they have a farm outside of Melromarc's borders?" Katarina stated having found what she was looking for, namely food.
"A prison farm. But yes." Elena stated not following what Katarina was planning now.
"Then all we need to do is wait a few hours." Katarina stated as she began feeding the Filolial an excessive amount of meat and vegetables from her spear.
"Wait for what?" Elena asked still having not figured out what horrible fate awaited them now.
Elena, Katarina, Kyurie and Rino successfully disguised themselves as farmers off to make a delivery to Melromarc's prison farm through clever use of a fake moustache, a hoe weapon transformation, and a giant pile of Filolial dung mixed in with dirt for extra volume. They all smelled so bad none of the guards wanted to get anywhere near them and so shooed them on through before the stench was allowed to permeate the area.
"We will never speak of this again." Elena stated fake moustache across her face. "And we are bathing the first chance we get, with soap and hot water! And after everything it has been through that wagon needs to be burned!" Elena simply hoped that she didn't run into anyone that she knows before they clean up, she'll never be able to show her face in polite company again.
Malty might not be the companion of a hero anymore but she was still a princess, when she tells a company of soldiers to grab their weapons and follow her then you better believe that they will follow her. Likewise if she says that they are going to wait out on the road for the Spear Hero on the way to Shieldfreeden then that is what they are going to do.
"So much for being able to show my face in court again." Elena stated in a tone of voice the positively bled exhaustion as she glared contemptuously at Malty while their wagon was made to come to a halt.
"Turn around and go back to Melromarc girl." Malty's tone of voice was positively murderous, the only command that she carried was laced with the threat of violence to come with it.
"We've already promised Shieldfreeden our aid Malty." Elena stated tearing off the fake moustache.
"Malty?" Katarina mouthed confused not understanding why this person who had introduced herself to her as Mein before was suddenly being called Malty now.
"That's your majesty to you, Plebian." Malty stated making her displeasure abundantly clear. "And Shieldfreeden is a country of crossbred mongrels and traitors to the human race. So turn the wagon around!"
Shieldfreeden. It isn't hard to figure out who their favourite Hero is, and now here we have someone with the influence and resources to hire a few disposable thugs to send a hero into such a scared frenzy that they destroy half a town and kill half a dozen people in the process.
"Mein." Katarina turned to face the princess with surprised and horrified look on her face. "No your real name is Malty isn't it? Were you the one who put a hit out on Maple?"
"Maple?" Anger at having been talked down to turned into twisted in a smile that was nothing less than pure unadulterated malice. "Do you mean that stupid little brat who spent the whole introduction quivering her lip like a scared little lamb?" A snort of derision left the nose of the Princess as he let out a noblewoman's laugh while Katarina's small hands tightened her grip around the legendary weapon turned farming implement. "What about it?"
Author's Note:
Guest: Not to mention the Dirge and the Cestus. People have been attaching sharp things onto shields for hundreds if not thousands of years.
RonaldM40196867: True. She's a very logic driven but socially inept creature, I think of myself as the same so I relate to her.
drmcgraw186: To be fair Tanya has decided to kill a guy based mostly on circumstantial evidence, which is part of the reason why she's so scary.
RedBurningDragon: True.
Xenvic: Primarily to Redo of Healer with Red princess as secondary. And Aultcray was the one who killed the previous Shield Hero.