Author's Note: Okay so Here's the actual chapter as I intended it to be published. Read, Review, Favourite, Enjoy Happy New Year. STAY THE HELL INDOORS!
Chapter 40: Vacation Time, However Fleeting
Rat never paid much mind to the stories about the Legendary Heroes and the church's claims that they were the personification of the gods. Though far from a atheist, the desire to dissect gods would seem hypocritical otherwise, she also had no interest in them. Course seeing Kuro appear before her and manifest a ancient leather shield for her to study did lend credit to the concept of the Heroes as being physical gods, given the whole manufacturing matter out of thin air thing. As a scientist then it was interesting to explore the limitations of that god like ability to make objects appear for thin air. For instance according to Kuro's claims if she separates herself from her constructs by a certain distance then it will dissolve back into magical energy on her. Secondly after attempting to take a sample to study, to be more accurate after getting Katarina to hack off a chunk of it to examine, she also learned that the same result would occur if she broke the shield as well, which also eliminated the possibility of trying to clone the creature that the shield had come from. So instead she partially dismantled her microscope and used that to give the shield a in depth analysis instead.
"The hair on it is similar to a Hakuko's." Rat concluded after a few moments to study the shield. "That together with the black on white pattern and I can only conclude that this creature is something very similar to Hakuko." But not a Hakuko. They have a tendency to revert back to human form after they've died like most other Therianthropes so that eliminates someone making a shield out of them, unless they were still alive when their flesh was carved off and made into a shield. Even then, assuming that Kuro's story about this being based on a actual shield that was apparently older than most civilisations on this world was true, then it certainly was not from something as mortal as a Hakuko. "Sorry that I couldn't help."
Rat's tone was not remotely apologetic as she instead returned to her previous research project. While mass slaughtering monsters to earn experience points had it's charms there was such a thing as a limit: the population was already suffering do to their actions over the first two days and so it was deemed necessary to break for the third. Kuro and Katarina were enjoying the benefits of a ridiculously high level, the ability to manufacture and copy high level Noble Phantasms, unlocking those weapons while they had the time. Course Maple and Tanya were sharing in the boons too but there was only so much that Kuro had to go around.
"Kuro, a question." Tanya asked having thrown another bow off to the side. "The arrows of the EMIYA are a heavily modified version of one of the spears that you traced for Katarina correct?" Technically the Caladbolg was suppose to be a sword but honestly no sane mind would look at the overgrown drill bit and think 'sword.'
"Yes." Kuro replied not entirely sure about where Tanya had been going with this.
"How?" Tanya replied as she began approaching a semblance of a point.
"The original Emiya tweaked them." Kuro stated shrugging her shoulders. "The end result is weaker than the original Caladbolg and making the originals was a time consuming process but a successful one."
"So what you're saying is that it's possible to significantly expand the number of Noble Phantasms that we can each copy and that there's a good chance that they're weak enough we can actually use them?" Tanya asked a questioning look on her face and a horrified one one Kuro's.
'The Legendary Weapon can copy weapons held by the Hero.'
"Oh quiet you!" Kuro snapped angrily shaking the blade through the air. "I'm on a exotic island resort out in the middle of no where and I'm the only one who can't enjoy it!" Kuro had plans for her stay here. Wet, sticky, kinky plans with a cute girl with cat ears!
"I'm sorry I asked." Tanya stated as she saw yet another argument breaking out between Kuro and her sword.
"Well we do have time until the islands are populated enough that we can go hunting again." Maple stated as she began looking through her list of weapons she had unlocked. Unlike Kuro who damn near every heroic figure throughout history swung around a sword of some kind there were very few shield type Phantasms that she could unlock. There was beaches, there were hot springs, there were four over worked children and over two dozen people between them that desperately needed a vacation.
"Right." Tanya seemed to have completely different ideas though. "We should focus on upgrading our weapon transformations. If I'm not mistaken there should be a mine that we can harvest ores from, we should've already acquired a plethora of raw material that we can extract enchantments from. Using the mech armours Kuro and Katarina can build proficiency at an accelerated rate..." While Tanya proceeded to ramble away on strategies for how to use their time for the next couple of days Maple, Kuro and Katarina all looked at each other and nodded their heads in agreement. Katarina sneaked behind Tanya, Iron spear in hand, and proceeded to slam the stun effect directly into the back of Tanya's neck.
"This is sexual harassment you know." Tanya, wearing a school swimsuit that had her name written across the chest, which she was not wearing when she was knocked out, stated eyes twitching in unadulterated rage, she could do little else having been dropped onto the beach with instructions to the more traitorous elements of her party not to let her go less she overwork herself into a early grave.
Maple and Katarina on the other hand were enjoying a volleyball game with their party members, having donned a orange two piece and blue one piece respectively. The weapons seemed to interpret the throwing the ball at one another as a throwing attack, which caused each strike by the heroes to be accompanied by a spark of thunder that sent the ball sailing over the heads of their opponents. Needless to say the range of the Volleyball game had expanded significantly though the participants had managed to keep up by virtue of their massive stats.
Kuro on the other hand had booked an appointment with the hotsprings for herself and Atla.
"Ah-ha! Kuro! Haaa!" Atla pressed her hands down against her private parts at Kuro continuously chewed on her ear. They weren't even in the water yet and Kuro was already extracting her fill from the other girl in the change room. As Kuro sensed Atla was about to peak she stopped, smiling lewdly as saliva trailed from Atla's ear to Kuro's mouth. "Kuro. You really shouldn't tease me so much." The tiger girl was still sensitive from the rings that Kuro had put on her. "What would we do if my brother saw us like this?"
"Then you need do to better at stifling your cute screams." Of course Kuro enjoyed the sound of those far too much to ever let her do that, but being the sadist that she was she did enjoy the sound of Atla's pointless struggles far too much. "We'll wash each other before we go into the hot springs." As was proper etiquette of course.
Fohl was not happy. It wasn't enough that Kuro had been doing weird things to his sister's body with her plethora of Noble Phantasms. Course Kuro's party was mostly male including her loyal lap dog Chem who kept intercepting his attempts to figure out what they had been doing and throwing him back into the water. He'll have to count on Farrie and Tersia to keep their behaviour somewhat reasonable.
"Oh my gosh!" The mage woman screeched flaring red flags in Fohl's mind. "Where did those come from?"
"I made them." Kuro stated sounding quite proud even though she should have little to be proud about in this situation.
"Why are they so..." The fact that Fohl didn't know what they were talking about only caused his concern to grow dramatically.
"I used reinforcement magic on them." Kuro stated again sounding quite proud about something that she probably shouldn't. "Mind you I had to keep them at a reasonably size or else the centre of gravity would be thrown off." What exactly was she using reinforcement magic on? "Instead I've been increasing the sense of touch as well." By this point Chem had to physically restrain Fohl, snake like tail wrapped around his neck and put him into a sleeper hold.
"How is that a reasonable size for a ten year old?" Tersia asked tone blatantly suspicious.
"Can you do that with..."
"You two? I have to keep the distribution of fat in mind for Tersia to maintain her flexibility and balance, Farrie is a different matter though considering that she mostly just casts magic and so has different requirements to be effective." Welt and Berka just looked at the wall that was dividing the two bath's and then at the struggling Fohl. It would be worth it if they could actually do it and get away with it, but with Chem guarding them that would be impossible.
"Why are you rubbing yourself on me?" Atla asked sounding mildly pleased by the close contact.
"This is how lovers do it." Kuro replied as she continued with her perversion.
"Can I do that too?" Atla asked while the guys opted to get out of the bath.
They might not be actively trying to peep but with Kuro around it was hard to feel like you weren't.
Trash had spent a good chunk of the day in his office. Hero he might be but his days as a front-line fighter were long gone, for now his objective had been to track down the implications behind a certain piece of information that Maple and Tanya brought back with them. There hadn't actually been a lot of deep diving in the waters of Cal Mira over the years much to his astonishment. It made more sense after you take into consideration the sea monsters but still. Luckily he had people with him who could adequately dispose of such creatures, and so after a few rounds of fishing, the fruits of which he was now keeping in his cane, the area below was now adequately cleared of fish monsters to investigate in depth.
"What have you found?" A Sakamata, a Kushtaka, and some kind of water breathing hybrid though he wasn't available at the moment. Aquatic type Demi-humans were ridiculously rare so he should count himself blessed that most of the Heroes were able to find one.
"There's some buildings below the surface." Sadeena stated looking down at the water next to her. "What happened here? It's like a entire chunk of one of the islands slid off into the middle of the ocean?" Say for example from someone forcibly reactivating a dormant volcano? Moving on. "We can't get inside of it either way." Probably another one of those 'Only the Heroes can access' kind of thing which if what they thought was inside of it made perfect sense.
"Most of the Heroes should be on the beach, go get one of them." The King stated looking directly at Otto.
When Otto did arrive he was treated to the sight of a war zone. The Shield and Spear Heroes, their parties, and the ball they had been passing back and forth had been a blur at this point, between the speeds they were moving at and all the sand they had been kicking up. He ended up having to go around and thankfully found his commanding officer a few moments later, and a tourist shop where he could find her some souvenir slightly more masculine clothing that she'd prefer over that swim suit.
"What's the situation?" Tanya asked after she finished putting on a Hawaiian styled shirt and pair of oversized swim trunks.
"Found something at the bottom. Might be related to the wave." Otto stated prompting Tanya to hold her chin in thought.
"You brought the Kigurumi?" Tanya sharply preferred the otter costume over the uncomfortable swimsuit Maple and the others stuffed her into. Otto in turn quickly produced his twin and a short while later Tanya was joining them on the trek down below.
"I wonder." Sadeena stated as she looked directly at Tanya in the otter costume.
"About?" Tanya asked buttoned eyes only barely paying attention to the whale woman.
"That if Little Maple Chan can do Savagery with only the Tyrant Dragon Costume, or if it'll work with any Kigurumi." They found a couple on the islands so It wouldn't be hard to figure out, if they were right about this then they would soon be finding out, as Maple would likely be switching over to either the Penguin or the Otter Kigurumi's. For now though there was the matter of a exploration to settle.
"There's the Temple." The antlered abomination Kuro had nicknamed Chem whom at some point seemed to have run away from the hotspring stated indicating the temple with a antler, why did a aquatic amphibian even have antlers?
Course this time when they approached the temple a familiar light hit Tanya's bow confirming her status as the bow Hero before opening up and sucking the group of four inside. Water shortly there after was drained from the temple as the group's feet settled on the ground and another light beam emanated from the local dragon's hourglass and entered Tanya's weapon registering her for the wave.
"Well that confirms that theory." Otto stated before looking at his CO.
"Less than a week." Tanya stated glaring at the Hourglass. "Vacation time is over, bring me back to the surface." Tanya ordered as she put the hood of her Kigurumi back on her head and dived back into the water.
Tanya greatly enjoyed ruining Maple and Katarina's more out of control by the second game of volleyball, as it was a great deal of revenge that she would now be getting for being stuffed into a uncomfortable swim suit.
"A wave is going to hit us. Strategy time has come now." And so someone was sent to fetch Kuro. Tanya looked at the dark skinned girl suspicious at the way she was literally glowing indicating what she had been up to. "Our first objective is to try and get more experience points out of the event so that we can get stronger in time for the wave to hit us." Tanya stated while the King took the liberty of checking on her with his hand.
"It seems that you retain skill points when you level down." A point that Tanya had already realised.
"Well maxing out magic is a decent way to go about our efforts." Tanya admitted letting out a sigh.
"Um this doesn't have anything to do with your guys but my shield says that 'Therianthrope transformation' can be enhanced too." Course it didn't tell what her transformation was, it was likely that while she had the ability from some far off demi-human ancestor a hero of the past brought back with them she didn't have any demi-human traits to work with. The fact that there was now a X by the abilities name only made it all the nastier a piece of work. "Um. Can this work on other Demi-humans as well?"
Trash never made the attempt himself on account of the mutual hatred that he and Demi-humans had for each other during the war with Siltvelt. It was a hit to his reputation he'd never really recover from, even after the realisation sank in that little Fohl and Atla were his nephew and niece, mind you to his knowledge he was the only one who made the connection.
"If its Maple offering they'll probably take it in a heart beat." Katarina pointed out and the others nodded in approval.
"We'll leave it to you then Maple." Tanya stated as she held her chin in her hand. "We'll need personnel if we want to fight on the water, and ships." Tanya stated holding her chin in her hand.
"In that case should I portal Maple over to Siltvelt so that she can make a party with their army?" Kuro asked hand being raised in the air.
"Do it." The King stated looking to Kuro. "Siltvelt's navy with a plethora of aquatic Demi-humans is stronger than ours, and potentially more powerful still if we include the Shield of the Beast King." An entire army of 'Savages' like the Tyrant Dragon transformation that Maple was so fond of, only built for fighting in the ocean, Trash would like to see what the wave has to say about that.
"If Maple is going to use that on a large scale she needs to increase her magic." Tanya stated glaring at Maple as she saw this coming. "More experience requires that we increase the food production on the islands for the monsters." Even though the activation event increased growth rate and reproduction it didn't increase the rate by which plants grew, which in turn dictated to the rest of the island the amount by which the monsters would be growing.
"Well there's the Bio-plants." Maple pointed out and Tanya could only let out a sigh.
"Do it. Discuss the matter with the count." Tanya stated and Eli was given a sack full of Bio-plant seeds to go see someone about planting them.
"XP is richest in the water." Otto pointed out. "Monsters are coming in from all over thanks to the Event. We reached the eighties three times just making our way down to that blasted Temple." Otto explained and Tanya nodded her head.
"It seems that we'll be fighting in the water for now, which is good because that will also give us practice for when the wave hits." The others nodded their heads in agreement. With that there was just one topic left for discussion.
"Penguin or Otter?" Tanya stated illustrating her point by holding up both of the Kigurumi's in question.
It wasn't long before they were back to work, thanks to a few tweaks the Bio-plants were soon unleashed producing vast amounts of edible fruit for the vegetarians of the islands, which in turn began producing a vast amount of vegetarians. That said the girls interest was already drawn to the water where fish was being prepared to be gathered in mass. But for now there was a different matter to attend to.
"Pick your preference." The girls, dressed up in cute noble girl's clothes, were currently lined up on a platform putting their reinforcement method to work, thus far only the one belonging to Trash was being utilised, Magic Point which would be used to enhance their spell casting capabilities.
Raphtalia looked on in mild disinterest as she stared at the water. Mana goes in, and the puzzle appears, she picks the wrong pieces and it falls apart, she was repeating that process over and over again, as many times as it would take before she found the right solution.
"Are you sure that you're doing it right?" Sadeena asked looking at Raphtalia smugly.
"If you have any advice..." Sadeena held up a potion bottle for Raphtalia to look at, the Tanuki girl recognised it instantly: Holy Water.
"Light and water combined into one." Sadeena stated shrugging her shoulders. "Perhaps before you try learning how to combine your magic through the Dragon pulse, it might be easier to start with the books."
It was possible to 'cross over' expertise in magics, mixing whatever affinities for magic that you had with ones that you didn't to produce a new end result. Maple for instance habitually combines attack and healing magic, Rot the spell was called, to help her with fermenting certain foods like Natto and Soy Sauce. Just because you don't have a talent for something doesn't mean that you can't learn how to do it through practice. Water need not be Raphtalia's only magic either, fire, lightning, earth, all of these things carry a nasty surprise if you want them to.
"When you think about it isn't that staff kind of wasteful?" Sadeena asked indicating the group of people who were currently lined up and getting their magic boosted. "Most people never bother to learn any more than three spells." For Raphtalia that would be the three tiers of illusion magic, which she was admittedly using to great effect. "So really even with all that potential power lying around, there isn't a lot that they really can do with it isn't there." Raphtalia was being the more wasteful of the two she was fully aware.
So the best option was to learn different kinds of magic aside from those that she can get from her base two affinities. So Raphtalia went ahead and bought the complete magic book detailing every possible light and shadow magic and she began to do what she should've started to do month's ago and learn.
"You think this will help?" Raphtalia asked as she looked at the Chapter that details water+light and water+shadow combinations.
"When one is trying to assemble a puzzle, one starts by figuring out what the pieces look like." Sadeena intoned helpfully. Eventually the tide had settled down and so they could go back to what they came here for: levels.
"Why does this smell so funny?" Maple asked as she pulled the Otter Kigumi over her head.
"Who knows." Tanya replied before she pushed Maple off of the docks and into the water.
It wasn't long until the form of a giant mutant otter appeared diving in and out of the water taking mouthfuls of fish monsters as she went.
"She's going to try and get us to eat those later isn't she?" Katarina asked as Kuro pushed her and Tanya into the water. Kuro has water magic, Tanya the harpoon gun and Katarina the fishing spear so between the three of them they should be pretty well off. Mind you they had to split up and limit themselves to a select few areas less they cancel themselves out again, even with Maple dropping the water level.
A scythe tapped on a floating black orb and watched it ripple, producing a pulse of magic that led to the Golden Beetle they killed being revived before skittering off again.
"So this world has them too: the dungeons." L'Arc stated as he came to understand the implications, and unlike them the heroes of this world could enter this dungeon and reap it's rewards, even worst than that though was the fact that they came here looking for it, meaning that they've already raided at least one other dungeon. When you combine that with what Glass already told them and what they've been able to dig up on their own...
"They're getting stronger." Therise stated looking at the otter like creature that had sunk it's jaws into some hapless giant squid a few moments ago. "We won't be able to beat them if they get much stronger."
The Legendaries growth is supposed to be more explosive than the vassals, they understood this with Kizuna, but not all Legendaries take getting stronger seriously, quite contrary the majority of them happen to be quite stupid. Then again some compromises have to be made, save their best for when the world is in danger, provide a steady stream of disposable units to maintain information for when it actually matters. Their world was running out of time and they were running out of time to save it.
Review Sections: Okay so firstly in regard's to the reviews from last week's accident, I will be ignoring those.
RonaldM40196867: True. It is something that appears in the series Arifureta: Commonplace to World's Strongest. An Isekai where the main character's, Hajime whom we already met as a Bow Hero of the past, chief goal is to find a way back to his world which he accomplishes by searching out the magic of the gods. They are Creation: manipulation of inorganic matter, Metamorphosis: manipulation of organic matter, Soul: manipulation of the immaterial or spirit, Time: Self Explanatory, Space: also self Explanatory, Gravity: again self explanatory and Evolution: Which allows to to combine, divide and alter different kinds of magic. I've got no complaints about it.
Kisame Hoshigaki: Not Quite no. Granddaughters might be a better term.
Captain Imaginat: Thank you, I pride myself on my fight choreography. Change is a messy and time consuming process, the longer it takes the less messy it becomes but still.
Nightshadegirl: Glad you like my stories. Kearu was the main character of the controversial Redo of Healer Anime, I don't recommend watching it myself but a quick google search should tell you everything you need to know if you really insist. Tao Ren was the rival character of the Anime Shaman King, they should've spat out a remake a little while ago look it up some time. As for Ernesti Echevalier he's the main character of Knight's and Magic, a fantasy Isekai that also just so happens to feature two story tall robots beating the dung out of each other.