Author's Note: It finally happened. The bug breached the confines of my home. Aw well, I have my three shots. Cross your fingers and hope I don't get infected. Read, Review, Favourite and Enjoy!
Chapter 50: The Country on the Turtle's Back
Tanya will never complain about growing up in a military dictatorship again so long as she lives. Which may not be long, considering the temptation to shoot herself in the head to escape all of this screaming back and forth. Kuro had taken the correct course of action, wearing a blindfold with pictures of her eyes sown into them while her ears were stuffed full of industrial grade ear plugs so that she could simply sleep through the 'meeting.' Katarina looked like she had somehow died from her brain being fried or the life being sucked out of her, Tanya confirmed her pulse every few minutes just to be sure. Maple politely excused herself to go to the lady's room some time ago and has yet to come back. Tanya idly went through her weapon transformations and produced one which vaguely looked like a cross between a megaphone and her bow, the Voice Gengar bow courtesy of Maple. She knows her so well.
"Ladies and Gentlemen of the court." Tanya spoke clearly as she used her weapon to make herself the loudest monkey of them all. "I understand that you value free speech above all else, so allow me to speak freely." Tanya put her bow away as the others stopped and listened. "Your country is going to be attacked, and soon, the window of opportunity to foil that attack is small and I have reason to believe that you are ill equipped to fend it off. We were brought here for the singular purpose of fighting the wave: let us fight!" It took some time to work through the details after that, they had been appalled specifically by Maple's request to take the time off to go visit the Turtle Country, but justified it as it was the only way for her to suppress the curse that it was rapidly becoming apparent was eating her from the inside out. She did however register with their wave, and in doing so proved her sincerity to fight for them for the time being, as a compromise Kyurie was also assigned to go with her.
"We're off to get the mythril that we need." Maple stated as she climbed into Filo's carriage, saying goodbye to the diplomatic people who had gone to see her off. Kyurie for the time being was riding with her. "Good luck in the mean time." And with that Maple's party was off.
They barely got out of that situation alive, the three of them recognised the presence of one of this worlds vassal weapons immediately, which wouldn't be so bad if it wasn't for the fact that it was attached to a vaguely Filo like monster that was too busy trampling wave monsters to notice them. Left with no other choice L'Arc, Therise and Glass chose to pick their battles and go elsewhere.
"How did you two convince me to come back here?" Glass asked and in response L'Arc threw her one of the Spirit potions that she had consumed before back to her.
Sadly that was destined to be her lot in life for some time yet. As a spirit Glass's physical form was composed entirely of spiritual energy, her 'meals' usually consists of what ever monster she can kill in a manner that gives her more spiritual power then she spends trying to take it down: a task that these days was more difficult than not, with the constantly increasing power of the world's monsters with each ignored wave. However more then just trying to get her hands on more of this liquefied sustenance what she wanted was the recipe so that she could pull her people out from under.
"Do we even know where to find these kids?" Glass asked as she consumed the latest of the potions in question.
"We don't know, when we last saw the Shield Hero she had tackled a dungeon with one of the other Heroes in Shieldfreeden." L'Arc explained while he crossed his arms in thought.
"A dungeon they hadn't found before." Therese corrected. "Which means that if they're working together like we believe they are then the other two should be on the way over there."
"Fantastic. Which way is Shieldfreeden? Did you think to register that location while you were over there?" Glass asked tapping her foot while she looked at her fellow hero suspiciously. The answer to that question was a simple no, so instead they had to go looking for civilisation and eventually came across a village that was sticking out of the side of a mountain.
"They aren't letting people in." Glass noted while she watched as people were being limited to their business transactions to the gate just outside of the mountain path.
"Like that'll stop us." Taking both women in his arms, L'arc cast a skill that rendered all three of them invisible before he jumped clear of the check in front of the mountain pass and landed inside of the village proper on the other side. Discreetly mind you.
"Okay we need to do two things, first is find directions to Shieldfreeden, and second is find these people's..." As they were about to discuss the second of those two facts the group were left stunned when they saw both what they were looking for that was also infinitely more important. "...hourglass?"
It was indeed that, situated in the middle of the town was a rather large object styled in the Hourglass of the Dragon's era, nearly identical to the one that was inside of the underwater temple in Cal Mira. Course the sand inside of this one was blue, and there was no beam of light that was registering with Glass's and L'Arc's weapons to bring them to the fight when the wave comes, which only made sense considering this one served a different purpose.
"Therese how much do you think is left inside of it?" L'Arc asked eyes trying to grasp what they were dealing with.
"I would say..." Therese's eyes went wide in surprise. "Years... There's years left inside, decades, and I'm going to guess that it's getting regular refills too." Damn. That changes things. That changes things a lot.
"How long until their next beast awakens?" Glass asked voice gone hard.
"It isn't." Therese wiped dust off of the Hourglass revealing the presence of a turtle on the side of the base. "This is their first Beast!"
The group's reactions were mixed. L'Arc was just staring ahead blankly while Glass started breaking down in maniacal laughter. That changes everything, which was problematic since they had botched a lot of things already. Firstly they need to find this world's heroes and explain to them their reasons properly, with luck they can restore the barrier and buy more time for both worlds, and maybe...
"What are you three doing here?" The trio turned around to face a man who was eating from a paper bag.
The other man was half wearing a large trench coat, fastened into place with a satchel with mystery vials full of rainbow coloured liquids. He had an objectively handsome face with silvery white hair and rectangle shaped glasses. Oh and there was a book at his side, bejewelled bookmark hanging out of the side and another dull coloured one in the centre of the book.
"Kyo!" L'Arc snarled glaring at the other Hero ferally. "What are you scheming now!?"
"I asked first." The man called Kyo stated as he nonchalantly let out a shrug and bit into his steamed bun. While the two of them were arguing like that a light was released from Kyo's Book and entered into the Fan and Scythe causing a new notification to appear.
'The False Hero intends to destroy this world and harvest it's energy. You must stop him!'
Kyo clicked his tongue in dissatisfaction as he tapped on his book a few times and a hole appeared beneath his feet sucking him up, and soon after that the mountain started to turn against the people who had been peacefully living on it's back.
The Maple Tree Trading company arrived outside of the trading post that led into the mountain proper.
"Hello!" Maple stated waving her hand at the guard at the trading post. "We have food that we want to trade for Mythril." The guard just looked at Maple bluntly as if she said something ridiculous. "It's very tasty." Maple held up one of the Bio-plant fruits for the man to sample.
"Shield Hero." Rather than the guard a woman that Maple was fairly certain hadn't been standing there before took the fruit, she was pretty sure that she would have noticed too on account of her being one of the most beautiful people she ever met. A tall well proportioned Chinese looking woman dressed in a jade green dress with a turtle shell pattern and pink hair accessories. Upon seeing her the guard immediately took to one knee in respect. "There is a matter that requires one of your ability to address." The woman directed the group's attention to the sky, where a cloud of some kind had emerged, and was firing laser like beams into the mountain side. "If it's Mythril you need you can accept this as a down payment." The woman held out a turquoise blue brick of metal which Maple then stored inside of the shield resulting in the confirmation of 'Mythril Ingot.'
"We'll be happy to help miss..." Maple looked up from her H.U.D. and looked at Ost only to confirm that the woman was not there anymore. "Who was that?" Maple asked looking at the guard in question.
"Ost Horai." The guard stated standing up and looking down at Maple. "I will take you into our village now." The group arrived inside of the village where the cloud was now being revealed as a massive swarm of bats with eyes in their belly's and turtle like shells on their backs.
"Ready Raphtalia Keel?" Maple gave a short plan to her team mates and they nodded their heads at the idea. So putting their hands together Raphtalia and Keel gave Maple a foot hold for her to jump/be thrown high up into the air at which point in time... "Provoke!" Which was then followed by. "Paralysing Shout!" And thus it was now raining Eye Bats.
"Does she even need a party at this point?" Keel asked scratching the back of their head.
"Someone has to clean up the mess." And that is precisely what Raphtalia proceeded to do using her sword to mop up the incapacitated monster bats, and once collected slid their contents off into Maple's shield.
'Conditions Met. -'s Eye Bat Familiar Shield.' Maple stared blankly at the new notification. '-'s Eye Bat Familiar. A Eye Bat that has been killed and raised by -.'
"What is it?" Raphtalia asked seeing Maple's genuine confusion and becoming concerned as a consequence.
"I think they're undead monsters that someone has raised but for someone reason the shield isn't telling me who." Maple stated as she scratched head, before that is Rifana started tugging on her sleeve and pointed up at the sky, where a second cloud of the bats were being dispatched, leaving the village. "Oh that isn't good is it?" Rifana was given the task of trying to eliminate the bats that were flying off away from the mountain, turning them around or turning them into ash as Maple herself put it. Maple in the mean time was dissecting the familiars with her Shield trying to figure who or what was controlling them. Eventually she unlocked a shield that gave her some idea.
'- Graft Shield.' Which according to her monster book... 'A piece of - which has been attached to her familiars to facilitate her control.' Maple turned her shield into the new mystery shield which finally gave her a semblance of a answer when a turtle shell appeared on her arm.
"Okay. So who's - suppose to be?" Maple questioned while scratching her chin.
A question to figure out later. For now there was wounded to tend to, and the bats were making a return round.
"Should we block them with dedicated affection?" Maple asked as she was already getting the shield ready.
"That would mean cutting off the XP gains that you need right now." Sadeena countered sharply. "If you want to protect the village, use Meteor Shield. We'll boost it with lightning magic." Maple nodded to Sadeena's statement and the logic behind it. Meteor shield could protect a large number of people, more depending on where they put it in the village, and the use of lightning magic would cause the bats to fry themselves on it like moth's on the zapper.
"Meteor Shield!"
""Driefach Lightning X""
"Provoke!"
Cue a small light show at the bats frying themselves on Maple's barrier. While that was happening Maple was tending to the wounded, applying healing magic when necessary.
"Hang on there's something inside of the wound." Maple picked up a pair of Tweezers to work with. Though it was rare there are occasions where the apply all medicine of healing magic would not be effective or the best choice. In those cases some actual medical work was needed to be done, such as those cases where small bits of foreign material are lodged inside of the wound and needs to be pulled out. "Well that's unusual." More of the turtle shell pieces had been gathered in a bowl at Maple's side. If that's how this works... "Hey have any of you guys been hit by those weird laser beams?" Maple shouted watching as her party mates have been dancing around the enemy attacks.
"Yeah." Keel answered sporting a nasty looking gash on their shoulder. "What about it?"
"They're shooting zombifying parasites at us." Maple replied bluntly causing a horrified look to emerge on Keel's face. "Come over here so that I can remove them." Keel did so, and after they had fended off the bats for the time being everyone was checked on, with the presence of the shell fragments being confirmed and when necessary removed.
That said Rifana had informed them that she had a little bit of help during the last round. A familiar whirlwind of blades scything through the enemy forces during the course of the battle. Looking up in the sky the group was able to see that there was no holes in the sky, which also meant that there was no wave active in this area. So ignoring how they were here, the question of why was left open instead.
"We should send someone over to talk to them." Kaede stated as she cross her arms.
"Are you nuts they tried to kill you last time!" Keel snapped looking greatly displeased by the notion.
"Context Keel." Kaede stated tone firm. "They don't want to kill me, or the other Heroes. But they have to because they believe that to do otherwise would mean that their world gets destroyed instead of this one." Which was not something that made them feel better. "But now instead of looking for us they're trying to exterminate these bat thingies right?" Kaede asked and the others gave a reluctant yes. "So. Let's ask them."
The decision was made for Eclair to be the one to approach them while Rifana pushed away all the bats with her wind magic.
"If you so much as breathe a word of magic." Eclair sneaked up on the one furthest away from the other two, the back-liner Therese, and put her blade on the woman's neck. L'Arc and Glass both put their hands in the air as they slowly turned around to face Eclair. "Maple's not too far away, waiting to use Savagery as soon as you try something. For reasons I personally cannot comprehend she's-"
"You're wasting time." L'Arc stated bluntly. "Your world is in danger, and so is any chance of us not killing each other."
"And how would you-" Eclair stated but L'arc just interrupted her.
"The shield she got from the Familiars don't say whose familiars they are does it?" L'Arc asked having hit the proverbial nail on the head. "It's just a blank where the name's suppose to be isn't it?"
"And you know who or what that is?" Rifana had to act as a inter-missionary with Maple, using wind magic to carry her voice over as Kaede in turn replied through Rifana's slave seal.
The contents of the conversation went as follows: The monster that is controlling the familiars is something called a 'spirit turtle.' It's a monster roughly the size of a mountain, releases it's familiars in order to gather XP for itself while it's sleeping, and if it wakes up it'll seek to wipe out roughly two thirds of all life on this world and if they are to have any shot of permanently ending the waves it must stay alive at all costs.
"Why is such a dangerous monster so important?" Rifana asked while she kept her crossbows trained on the bats that were up in the air. "Because it's one of three that regulates the barrier that's keeping our worlds from colliding with each other." Glass stated bluntly. "And if it wakes up and is killed then the others will start to stir as well, and won't stop their rampage until they've wiped out two thirds of all life on this world."
"And what does that have to do with the barrier?" Rifana asked not seeing the connection here.
"As you level up you're able to use progressively stronger and more powerful magic. Now think of how much XP you'd need to have to cast a spell that can affect not one world, but two." Glass stated bluntly causing a horrified realisation to cross the features of their debate opponents.
"If that is all true..." Eclair stated speaking slowly.
"Then why didn't we do that?" Glass asked brow raised in the air. "We didn't understand what it was or what it was trying to do until it was far too late."
The three monsters were just that, giant rampaging monsters that were trying to kill everything in sight that everyone got together to put down. After that a bunch of treasure hunters descended on the monster's corpses and took all the evidence they needed to figure out what was going on, it took them a lot of work to gather it back together from the various countries that took them.
"And the bats?" Eclair asked looking at the pair suspiciously.
"Huu." L'Arc had not been looking forward to this question. "One of the Vassal heroes of our world, Kyo the Book 'Hero' has sneaked his way over here, his weapon told us that he's trying to destroy this world. Why we aren't sure."
"Why were you trying to kill Maple?" Eclair asked as L'Arc's statement made for a decent segway into her own question. "In the absence of our Sacred Beasts there's only one method we can use to keep our worlds from overlapping." Destroy the other world. At that time Kaede emerged from the other-side of the cliff wall, carrying with her several pieces of armour that looked like drops from monsters.
"Strip." Kaede stated causing the others to look at her funny. "Did I stutter?"
Maple tied up the group's old armour into a bundle and gave it to Kyurie, who would in turn be flying back to Shieldfreeden to deliver the armour sets to Kuro to study their history. L'Arc and his associates were somewhat okay with the situation, in particular Glass. Apparently since their world's worked off of different systems this one inherently rejected the armour from the world on the other side of the wave. When Maple tried on Glass's kimono briefly instead of stats what she got was jumbled statistics. The next step was locating a way inside of the turtle itself.
Kuro, Tanya and Katarina were walking out of the flying dungeon together, fresh from the newest revelation that was the key to learning 'Gravity' Magic. For Tanya the trip was mostly a disappointment, the magic sharing a number of similarities to her flight based magic and projectile mass manipulating magic. But that should also mean that she can grasp the basics a lot faster and hopefully figure out some nastier uses for it down the line. As she was thinking this Kyurie suddenly landed in front of them on the balcony that was the outside portion of the castle.
"Lady's Claes, Eisenberg and Officer Degurechauff. I come with news from the Shield Hero." Kyurie stated as he untraveled the package that was Glasses kimono wrapped around L'Arc's and Therise's armour.
"Did someone take a swing at Maple again?" Tanya asked as she already began scanning the horizon for any signs of the battle.
"Not yet. Lady Honjou has stated that Lady Eisenberg would understand after looking at these." And so Kuro did so bending down and looking through the history of the items, seeing the conversation between Maple and L'Arc's group, and the conversation with Kyo.
"Oh damn-it!" Kuro stated as she realised that they were soon to be in for a world of hurt.
For the time being the bats had stopped, the sheer number of bodies that they had managed to drop presumably meant that they didn't have any more in reserve, or meant that they realised the futility of their actions. That did absolutely nothing to change the fact that they didn't know where the entrance leading inside of the thing's body went.
"You look lost young Shield Hero." At this the mystery beauty from before appeared again once more from seemingly out of no where.
"Oh it's miss Horai again." Maple stated greeting the noble looking woman. However she instead had her eyes on L'Arc's group, rainbow pimp gear from a random assortment of Loot Drops did nothing to dent the look of displeasure that Ost had against the group. "What's wrong?"
"I've had quite enough of other worlders for one life time." And that was saying something, coming from her.
"We need a lot of people if we're going to stop the turtle from waking up. And we're already leaving a lot of people outside." The bats were probably going to start flying out again so they had to leave people behind with AOE attacks to wipe them out. There was also the wrinkle that just because they could bring people along doesn't mean that they should, for instance Rifana's long distance attacks would mean bubkis inside of the narrow confines of the turtle's arteries, the same went for Keel's axe attacks that requires room to swing around. Then there was the perpetual darkness of the turtle's insides, with no reasonable reason for there to be light in there the ability to see in the dark was vital, which was why Eclair would be staying outside as well, because while Raphtalia could perpetually cast light magic that doesn't mean that was a good idea either. So with this in mind they brought Raphtalia, who excels in light and shadow magics, Sadeena, with her sonar like ability to see in the dark, Ost to act as a guide, Filo to act as transportation, Maple to provide defence and the three other worlders were all sent in just because they couldn't be trusted to act alone.
"This is a bad idea Maple." Raphtalia stated as Ost led the group through the secret passage way that led inside of the turtle.
"Unfortunately we're out of good ideas." Maple stated letting out a sigh before plunging into the depths of hell.
Review Section:
RonaldM40196867: I'm not sure if genius is the right term but they are very useful. Little bit yeah. Thank you for saying so, truthfully it hasn't been very good so far. I wouldn't say so. Everything it comes into direct contact with regardless of durability or size is immediately broken down and sucked inside. What inspiration? It was directly mentioned in the Web Novel, Light Novel and Manga with very clear explanation about what it was. Not particularly, I have my own ideas in mind.
Captain Imaginat: Yeah, Maple is definitely not Naofumi, while he might justifiable bitter and angry Maple just doesn't want to get hurt again. Trash also isn't the same as canon, though his problems are rooted in a lot more self hatred here than in canon.
Onishin Tsukitenshi: Expect to see infrequent appearances of Faubrian war machines in future chapters.
Nightshadegirl: Technically speaking Malty hasn't received her punishment yet.
Guest: That isn't what they're aiming for.