Author's Note: My dad had COVID last week, my mom has it this week. I might get into work on Monday as long as I haven't gotten it as well. Read, Review, Favourite, Enjoy, STAY INSSSSIIIIDE!
Chapter 102: The Shield Hero's Duty
Faubrey's capital was a ghost town by now, the revelation that there's a directional beast underneath their feet was the final straw that convinced even the most stubborn holdouts to leave before they got themselves killed. Is what Tanya told Maple. There was a variety of Noble houses claiming descent from this hero or that bringing with them a variety of different artefacts and weapons from their native worlds, which were usually put on display in their homes. After wiping out the few remaining nobles in the country into whose home most of these artefacts were gather Tanya came to the conclusion that Heroes like to hold onto a lot of junk from their worlds.
"We can't even weapon copy most of this crap." Tanya stated looking at the variety of odd items before her. Just to prove her point Tanya arbitrarily picked up a random yellow bracelet. "I mean just-"
'Weapon Copy activated. Ember Celicia acquired.'
Tanya blinked stupidly for a moment. Tanya changed her weapon over and a pair of yellow bracelets appeared around her wrists. Tanya formed a fist and one of the Bracelets expanded into a arm guard, feeling something underneath her finger tips Tanya clinched her fist and a ball of fire was shot out of the knuckle of the weapon and into the roof. Tanya ran her hands over all of the items they gathered but other than what suspiciously looked like Hajime's revolvers she didn't get any other weapons out of the experience.
"Whatever. Let's just give this crap to the others and they can copy it too. At the very least I can let Fohl Copy my weapon with this."
For now they had bigger priorities to worry about, the count down resumed in the corner of Tanya's vision, not only that but it also shrunk down significantly as if something had taken out a chunk of the barrier. Instead of having days to prepare for the tiger to awaken they had hours. When Tanya tried to contact Trash she couldn't get a response, the same for the other half of the heroes they left over there, and by now Maple and the others have tried the same.
"What do you think about that?" Eli asked while Tanya crossed her arms.
"Nothing good." Tanya stated letting out a sigh before she stood up to leave. "We know where the Tiger is, gather the others." The meeting room was inside of one of the stores closest to where the barren forest used to be, Tanya was fairly certain that it was the restaurant she had gotten into a fight inside of the last time that she was here. The army wasn't anywhere in sight either. In response Tanya pulled out a crow bar from inside of her weapon and pried open one of the Tranzdorkis cockpits and was greeted by the strong scent of alcohol. "Booze!? Before a mission!? I thought I trained you punks-"
"Run!" The man inside of the suit struggled to speak but by that point it was already too late.
"Paralysing Shout!" Tanya's entire body tingled as she was knocked on the ground paralysed.
Kaede walked up to her a few moments later, a dead hollow look on her features. She opened Tanya's mouth and pored a sleeping potion down her throat knocking her unconscious, then she did the same to the rest of her party too. After that Kaede used the Whip power up method to reduce Tanya's level down to one, then she lowered the rest of her party down as low as possible too without hurting them. Then she brought out the Edelecumber and carried them inside of the Restaurant where Kaede's own party was waiting unconscious as well. Kaede went out into what was left of the woods, the undead amalgam that she had been warned of attacked her and she sucked it inside of her shield. Once she was deep enough in, Kaede pressed her shield into the ground and bore a hole into the chamber where the tiger had been sleeping.
Several massive blades had been lodged in the creature's side, its paws were ragged and bloody, and its muzzle had been bolted through the jaw. If this is how Faubry has been treating her then Kaede doesn't blame her for keeping a guard dog. Assuming her savage form Maple gingerly removed the blades from the Tiger's side and then sprayed Yggdrasil over the wounds. The Tiger noticed the disturbance and looked up half awake to see a dragon-like creature that was treating her injuries. The surreal sight continued as the giant monster turned into a little girl that tore out her muzzle, healed her, then did the same with the cuffs that were around her ankles before sitting down in front of her in a seiza position. Then, most bizarre of all, Kaede's level dropped like a rock as she expelled all of her XP and allowed the Tiger to absorb it all. The tiger stared for a few moments before rising, assuming a position similar to the Sphinx of Egypt giving her a dignified and regal appearance. From out of the Tiger a human like form appeared, she reminded Kaede of Fohl, tall, muscled, round tiger like ears, black and white hair, if Kaede was told that this was his big sister she would totally believe her.
"Who are you?" Kaede asked looking at the woman in surprise.
"Cian, one time companion to the Hero who wore that." Cian stated indicating the shield on Maples arm. "You on the other hand..." Cian looked Kaede over, initially unimpressed, then confused, and finally horrified. "What are you? Did that lunatic finally lose his mind?"
Kaede's response was just to sigh.
"No. We think 'That lunatic' is actually my dad if you're talking about who I think you're talking about." Cian blinked a couple of times before eventually collapsed into the seiza position as well.
"That would explain so much." Cian stated as she let out a sigh. "Are you here to try and plead for the lives of this world, somehow convince me that-"
"No I'm here to help you." Kaede stated as Cian blinked stupidly for a few moments.
"'Help me?' As in-"
"My level is one." Kaede stated before she pointed above her. "So's theirs. A massive amount of XP has been injected right here waiting for you to absorb."
Cian looked above her and then back down to Kaede.
"And why would you do that?" Cian indeed confirmed, the area she had previously sucked dry of XP was now filled to the brim again as if a massive number of beings had just all died off at once. What was this little girl's gambit?
"Because I'm the Shield Hero, and I protect people." Kaede stated the look on her features that of... peace. Cian is going to say peace. Like someone who had been struggling with what they should do for the longest period of time had now reached enlightenment.
"And how are you going to help me with your level one scrubs?" Cian asked looking severely doubtful with Kaede's claims. Toward this end Maple held up her shield and shifted it to the form of the Dragon's Hourglass shield.
Tanya was going to kill her, as soon as she got her hands on Maple Tanya was going to beat her until she was dead. Drugged and low level as she was Tanya was forced to resort to crawling across the ground as she made her way across the floor of the restaurant. Arriving at the door she looked up to see a heavily armoured man looking over her, every inch of his body covered in a futuristic Carbon Fibre-esque polymer while he was holding a gun that was longer than Tanya's admittedly unimpressive tall.
"Well you're not much good to anyone." That pretty much threw all his plans out the window. As quickly as the XP had started surging into this area it was vanishing again, being sucked away by the directional beast that was buried underneath the capital. "Well this is a rather severe delay." The man turned invisible as he started walking towards where the directional Beast should be.
Kill Kaede later, save her first. Having decided on that course of action Tanya looked through her inventory, she needed something to counteract paralysis and sleeping potion right now. Rolling onto her back Tanya held her bow over her face, opened wide, and piping hot coffee was sprayed directly into her mouth. That woke her up in a hurry. At once Tanya had sprung her to feet and as she started pacing around hand on her chin.
"Problem. Level one? Solutions." Tanya started tapping her foot rapidly as if she was waiting for the Answers to the universe to drop into her lap.
'Is the Hero feeling okay?'
"Fine, fine. Need to avert end of the world." Apparently having lost her patience Tanya started to look through her list of weapons for the ones that she can use. Her training with her sacred gear had bore fruits, but not nearly as many as she would've liked. Two of her most recent editions were added to the list though, Donner and Schlag, a pair of revolvers of the metal element created by Hajime, and the Ember Celicia which spat fire. Time to experiment. "Max-proficiency-on-bracelet-fire-ball-thing!" It took the weapon a minute to process what she said, and then the equip bonus on the Shot Gauntlet pair, Dual Wielder, went into effect.
"Max-proficiency-with-lightning-guns!" At Tanya's command the weapons also had their proficiency maxed as well, their equip bonus going from Dual Wielder to Quad Wielder.
Tanya's bow split into four parts a pair of arm guards and two pistols. It made no sense that she could use guns at her low level but a thought occurred, if these things are from another world then they haven't been forged with any of the stats that are normally equipped on weapons, similar to how Kaede explained that the stats on armour from one world stopped working when she went to another. If anything they were next to useless.
"Elemental-proficiency's!?"
'The Ember Celicia is a fire type weapon and the Donner & Schlag are metal type weapons.'
Tanya resumed wearing a trench through the floor as she thought through this new development. Her own natural Earth root, plus the fire element and the metal element. Good. Not good enough.
"I-need-water-element-and-wood-element."
To Tanya's latest rapid fire command two of the weapons changed form, now mounted to Tanya's right wrist with the Donner was a squirt gun, and in her left hand was a simple wooden bow. It seemed ridiculous but Tanya can hold her weapon in any form so long as it was in contact with her skin.
"Can-I-still-grind-down-level-requirements-with-cultivation?" The weapon seemed to take a moment to check.
'No. That weapon has been locked out.'
Tanya circulated the energy through her body and weapons as she nourished her earth root. Tanya's foot was trembling so much she could cause an earthquake. She needed an absurd amount of XP and she needed it right now.
"No-time-need-to-find-Maple-right-now!" Still circulating energy Tanya suddenly took off running. However another fact had come to her mind while she was perusing the weapons list. "What-happened-to-the-weapons-Kuro-reinforced?"
All of the weapons Kuro had traced and Tanya had copied had all of their level requirements and stats drop like a rock, all the Noble Phantasms she had given them were still there, just a lot weaker than what they were before.
'Theory, the Sword Hero is no longer connected to this world, so the Sword Hero's magic is no longer in effect.'
Tanya screeched to a halt as she took off running in another direction. Luckily she was able to find a car someone abandoned and was now driving it out of the bonus field.
'Coronacht. Level Locked 87.'
As soon as Tanya was out of the Bonus field she was going to portal back over to Q'Ten Lo and get her level back up until she could use the Sacred Gear again, and then she was going to find some danger. Lots of danger. The Bow feared for its hero's life.
Byakko, or rather Cian, dug her way out from underground and Kaede was sitting on her head, also sitting on Cian's head was Cian or rather her avatar.
"So you, Ost, and Ho oh..."
"Filolia." Cian corrected bluntly. "Ho oh and Byakko are just names heroes like you gave us."
"Sorry. You three were all the Shield Hero of your era's companions?" Kaede asked looking deeply confused. Ost emerged next to her in spirit form.
"Correct." Ost explained smiling at the younger girl.
"Ost. Still a looker as always." Cian looked a little upset by Ost's appearance.
"Still a snot nosed spoiled brat I see Cian." Ost replied smoothly.
"You two don't exactly get along do you?" Maple asked looking at the two of them suspiciously.
"Ost here convinced me to participate in a super soldier program that Mamoru was running, splicing our DNA with that of the four directional beasts." Cian stated as she let out a sigh.
"That sounds like some of the things the Reincarnated has tried." Kaede let out an ominous feeling.
"In reality he was trying to bring his dead girl friend back to life after she died fighting our time's phoenix, only her soul was so badly damaged that she split into two." Cian explained holding up two of her fingers.
"The three of us ended up getting the short end of the stick. The world needed it's dead monsters back, and it found the three perfect hosts for the job." Ost explained as she let out a sigh.
"That must have been rough getting chosen to become directional beasts." Maple stated as she let out a sigh however Cian corrected her.
"I volunteered." Cian stated simply. "It was either me or my daughter."
"You gave yourself up to protect someone you care about." Kaede smiled bitterly as she was reminded of a certain brown skinned man she's heard nothing but good things about. "When this is over you should consider becoming Tanya's sacred gear. I mean it must be better than..."
"Dying?" Cian asked looking at Kaede brow raised. "Sweetie, I've been waiting to die for thousands of years."
"That's not a good way to live your life." Cian let out a sigh to this statement.
"Neither is this." The tiger had almost finished absorbing all the XP in Faubrey. "I'm ready to go now. Fullfill your promise."
Maple portalled away to the first of several area's that she had planned out on a route.
"I only have five locations that I can portal to, we'll have to do a fair bit of walking to get to them all." Maple stated as she let out a sigh.
And then the tiger got hit by a magic attack, naturally because dedicated affection was active the attack got transferred to Kaede instead and ended up shaving off a hundred levels from her weapons but other than that it didn't even scratch her.
"What was that?" Cian asked looking at Kaede in confusion.
"No idea." Kaede just shrugged her shoulders in response and activated her skill to portal her away.
The shooter de-cloaked and lowered his weapon.
"Huu." The man in the armour pushed a button on his helmet and spoke into it. "I lost the tiger." A few moments of listening to someone on the other side. "Your daughter has made a party with it and portalled away with it. That's how!" The sound of a exhausted sigh. "You think you're tired, she levelled down the Bow hero, I can't even grind her up anymore." More tired sighs echoed out. "I know. I'm going to try and look for them." The man in armour let go of the button on his helmet. "I hate this job."
The hunting grounds inside of Q'Ten Lo's borders had just gone from safe to apocalyptic in a hurry. A monster appeared out of seemingly nowhere and was now dumping attacks with every element of the rainbow down on the area tearing through monsters and even a few unlucky adventurers, slowly moving over the sky and releasing stronger and stronger attacks as it's level rose up and then after a hour of this hellish situation the thing disappeared as quickly as it had appeared.
Kaede and company appeared outside of a forest near the ocean, one of the bonus fields that had been prepared to act as a place for Cian to suck up XP. Cian herself wasted next to zero time as she started sucking up XP like crazy.
"You're going to have to leave my party when the fighting starts." Cian explained bluntly. Cian didn't want to share any of her XP with Kaede, and Kaede didn't want to take any away from her.
"When that happens I'll just level myself down again and give it all to you." Kaede stated bluntly. "I don't want to leave you alone when people are taking shots at you with mystery attacks." Well, Cian had nothing she could say to counter that.
Deep inside the mountains a great beast had been sleeping, a massive mastodon like creature, the king of this area, rudely awakened, some kind of magic lifting it out of the cave that it was in and tossing it down the mountain.
"Who dares!?" The creature half roared and half growled when suddenly Six guns all took aim at him at the same time. The Elephant went wide eyed, and then died. Tanya began pacing back and forth as she held her chin in thought.
'Has the Hero burned through some of the coffee in the Hero's system yet?' The weapon asked sounding genuinely concerned.
"Need-more-danger-to-increase-power-of-sacred-gear!" Tanya rapidly blurted out that line to wit end the weapon let out a sigh. "Need-to-trigger-a-tribulation!"
'The Legendary Bow is never letting the Hero have coffee again.'
A wise conclusion. To be fair it wasn't just coffee, it was grade A top of the line 'Kaede had too much free time and way too many potion bonuses' coffee.
Tanya had her bow prepare a tenth level crafting minigame and a tenth level cooking minigame, which she then attached to a gun she took out of her inventory, a Sitera Stone gun she had commissioned from the Black Smith priest, then she applied gravity and Creation magic to the weapon in order to augment and amplify it's power to control and manipulate earth, Sacred Materials, Sacred Techniques and and Sacred magic, divinity achieved. She also reinforced the Wood element bow, her Spirit Turtle Bow, with metamorphosis and time magic in order to augment it's healing power to it's peak. With six weapons Tanya had more than enough for a high tier weapon of every element and the Coronacht, so for extra effect she threw in Reflect Bow too, so now she had a Fire/Earth Weapon, a Earth/Metal Weapon, a Metal/Water weapon, a Water/Wood Weapon and finally a Wood/fire weapon.
"Fire-Away!"
The five weapons continuously fired into each other, one shot being taken into and recycled into the next while they continued to build up power at over twice the rate of what they were doing before and pumped that energy directly into Tanya. More raw power than Tanya ever knew possible was flooding every inch of her being, burning Miridian channels through her body. The unnecessary channels were healed, the important ones were strengthened and reinforced, the pain helped Tanya to sober up real quick and the thought finally occurred to her that maybe this wasn't such a good idea after all. The mountain erupted, stone, metal, fire, water, and wood rushed down the sides of the mountain in a avalanche before gathering together around Tanya in an egg. Tanya's bones were ripping themselves apart, breaking, having new material shoved into the gaps, then healed. Earth and water was being pooled from around Tanya, broken down, and pumped into her body turning into raw organic material and rapidly building up muscle.
In a far away world a 'god' sensed changes being made to someone who had been given a small amount of their power and influence. As if severing a relationship that they've had for a long time, that connection was broken and when it was attempted to re-establish itself the god in question felt a great wall being built. At the centre of Tanya's tribulation, a stone egg had formed, from inside of which several bullets shot their way out as a dirty figure dug their way outside.
"I am so not ready for coffee." Tanya stated as she brushed herself off, and then her clothes ripped. "And now I need to get new clothes. Perfect." Not the way that Tanya wanted her growth spurt, nor was this the time for her to go shopping either.
'At least the hero is alright.'
Tanya made a show out of cracking her neck and her knuckles as she stretched. Pulling a couple of years of growth in a couple of hours had a way of making you a little stiff.
"How do we find Maple?"
'The Hammer Hero should have a Shikigami that can track down the Shield Hero.'
"Perfect. Let's go get her." And then Tanya portalled away.
The armoured man was having a hard time trying to track down the directional beast. Of all the possibilities that he had taken into consideration, he never thought that one of the Heroes would form a party with a directional beast and portal around the world. As soon as he figured out where she went and flew there she had already went away to another location and in all honesty it was a little annoying. He genuinely found himself wondering what she would do when she ran out of places that she could just suck dry. As he was lamenting this someone appeared back in Q'Ten Lo via the use of portal skill and so he went to investigate.
Raphtalia awoke to a slap in the face.
"Are you awake yet?" Raphtalia had been feeling a little groggy as she opened her bleary eyes, in time to get slapped again. "How about now?"
"Would you stop already!?" Raphtalia pushed her assailant off of her and shook herself awake. When Raphtalia could see again she saw a dirty blonde boy wearing a some of the clothes she saw in the 'Outfits from another world' she saw in the display on her way here, a suit she understood was the common uniform of students from Maple's home land, it took her a few moments to figure out that the person she was looking at wasn't a boy at all. "Tanya!?" Raphtalia looked shocked. "What happened to you!?"
"Tribulation." Tanya stated as she let out another crack of her neck, she hoped these kinks weren't permanent. "I need your shikigami. Maple made off with the tiger." Tanya stated in no uncertain terms.
"Maple did what?" Raphtalia asked as she looked deeply confused.
"Maple knocked us all out, drained our levels, and stole the bleeding tiger!" Raphtalia brought up her UI and saw that she, Sadeena, Yuki and Filo had been reduced to level 20, everyone else hadn't drop below 40 but that must've been because of the class upgrade.
"Maple said she wanted to try and convince the tiger to cooperate with us. Are you telling us that she succeeded!?" Raphtalia had a look of disbelief on her features.
"The Shikigami." Tanya stated impatiently tapping her fingers.
"C'mere Raph." Raphtalia stated the name of the skill and in a puff of smoke the familiar form of a cute little Racoon creature appeared in front of her. "We need you to find Maple for us."
"Rafu." Giving that short reply Raph-Chan walked over to a window and made a pose resembling a pointer dog as she indicated the direction Maple had disappeared off to. "Grab the others, we're going to have to pull out all the-" As Tanya was saying that Raph-chan made a confused face, walked to another part of the room, and made the same pose again. "stops..." And then Raph-chan walked to another direction and made the same pose for a third time.
"That shield is a menace." Cian stated looking down at Maple pale faced as she climbed back aboard the tiger's back.
Remembering what Fitoria said about her power up method the next thought Maple had was 'what's the best material that I can find to increase the effectiveness of my portal skills' and the answer she reached? Dragon's Hourglass sand. And so that's exactly what she took from one of the Dragon's Hourglasses that she visited, completely emptying it out in the process. Normally even with this it would be impossible to bring something as big as Cian or the Ships during Cal Mira's wave with her. However right now the barrier around the world was at it's absolute weakest, there's no telling what it might let through now, couple that with Maple upgrading her dragon hour glass shield and the cool down on it's skill was reduced to it's lowest possible. Because of this Maple was fearlessly skipping around the world XP for Cian and no one could catch her and no one could stop her, eventually she had the idea to check on the battle ground with the Phoenixes and found the two bird's corpses, but none of the other heroes were here.
"Did someone interfere with the fight with the Phoenixes?" Kaede asked as she looked around the fighting grounds. Instead she simply absorbed the remaining Phoenix corpse into her weapon. "I mean someone had to make off with the other body, there's supposed to be two of them Right?"
"...Yes. That seems like the most logical explanation. Did they go to the other world for some reason?" While Cian agreed with Maple she was still just as confused as she was. "Do you want to keep absorbing XP? I'm pretty sure I can convince Siltvelt to give it up without a fight." Kaede explained as she looked around the area. There were still so many things that were unbelievable about this girl that Cian was having a hard time trying to wrap her head around it. "I mean... you need two thirds of the XP in the world right? I can't imagine that we got it all just by doing this much."
"No." Cian closed her eyes and let out a sigh. "This much is enough. Go find your friends."
Tanya had brought up a map containing various XP harvesting grounds, using a combination of the Return Dragon Vein and communication crystals she was sending people all over the world to the various prepared XP harvesting grounds in a effort to pin point where Maple and the Tiger were going and get there before she and the tiger did.
"Sir Hero."
"Unless Maple is on the other side of that door I don't want to hear it Eli!"
"Hi Tanya." Tanya paused, her eyes began twitching, and the various weapons that were on her person activated. Inside of the war room Tanya had turned the former church into, various crashes and screams were being let out as Tanya unloaded six of her strongest weapon against Maple. "Are they really friends?" Cian asked looking at the fighting that had ensued inside of the church building.
"Maple's very sturdy." Raphtalia stated as she let out a sigh. "You have to do this much just to give her a love tap." As Maple would soon observe many, many times over tonight.
The Man in the armour could only let out a sigh, it was too late to stop the tiger from building up more XP, and the shielder already had her Sacred Gear as strong as she was gonna get it. He could just attack the other heroes but honestly? There wasn't any point in cutting in here now. Not when there is more benefit to debuting later anyway. So with that the man in the armour opted to leave.
Reveiw Section:
ReinDank: Why not? Probably.
RonaldM40196867: I didn't come up with it. Probably. Most likely. *Shrugs*
Dakota Bruder: Naofumi got his head cut off before and he's fine. Desperado's are just built different.
xerad: He's not wrong, if Medea doesn't get a real shot at what she's after then she'll just leave.
Nightshadegirl: *Laughs evily*
Captain Imaginat: I think I recall Ikki mentioning that Kuro already knows how.