Author's Note: Not a lot to say today, Read, Review, Favourite and Enjoy!
Chapter 114: The Training Wheels Come Off
Naofumi arrived back on the divine palace that Maple had created, Trash and Fohl were nowhere in sight. Raphtalia and Raccoon had beaten him back. "I take it things went well on your end?" Naofumi asked looking at the pair of identical women.
"Played the village card." Raccoon stated bluntly. "I take it that things didn't work out as well on your end?"
"I can no more change their minds then I could change the mind of the woman they're bitching and whining about." Naofumi stated letting out a sigh. "And the eight of you?"
Maple and the others had been waiting for Naofumi and Raphtalia to settle their business with their fellow heroes for a little while now. They passed the time by having Kuro trace a varity of muscial instruments they could copy and then giving their Legendary weapons turned instruments to Kyurie. Originally the weapon was eager to get so many weapons at once. Then around halfway it was a little more cautious. And now it had reach the state of becoming dormant after forcibly copying the tens of septillions of weapons between all eight Legendary Heroes.
"The others have filled me in." Maple explained gesturing to the side. "But I don't get it? Even after all of this we've obtained this level of power, are you saying that this is still not enough to defeat that Medea person?" Maple asked looking very, very concerned.
"'This Level of power?'" Naofumi quoted as if he heard something ridiculous. "I will grant you that you have obtained the power necessary to kill gods. Hell if I threw you at that annoying bii-person as you are now, would you believe me that they could defeat you as easily as snapping their fingers for reasons that have nothing to do with power?"
"What are you talking about?" Tanya asked glaring suspiciously.
"Let me show you." And so, Naofumi snapped his fingers.
The scenery changed, a light grey surrounding the heroes but they couldn't process it, they would brought to their knees, as if something was taken away, as if something was inside of them ready to burst forth at the seams. 'Emergency Situation Detected: Initiating Lizard's Tail Protocol' The sound of vomiting soon faded into the silence of unconsciousness.
When Kaede did awake she felt exhausted, like she had been wrung like a wet towel, she rolled over and fell on the floor, too exhausted and too weak kneed to stand upright. As for her surroundings the only things she could determine is that she was on a cot and that she had another cot next to where she was now lying unable to move.
"You shouldn't try to move around so much." Naofumi picked the girl up and put her back on her cot. Looking around Maple was surrounded by her fellow Legendary Heroes each in their own cot.
"Whaaattt..." Even her speech was slurring, she really wasn't having a good day.
"Let's imagine for a moment a hypothetical situation shall we?" Naofumi brought out a bowl of warm honey tinted porridge and started to spoon feed it to Maple. "Aaah."
"Aaah..." Maple weakly made an identical sound to her father as she opened her mouth so that he could feed her.
"Let us imagine for a moment that one of the fundamental laws of your world was taken from you, say for instance, gravity. Aaah." Naofumi repeated the earlier noise and Maple swallowed her previous mouth full and opened to accept another. "You may think that you'll just float off into space but it's so much more than that. Gravity is the force that holds things together, without it you would literally fall apart. Something similar is happening here to you, one of the fundamental forces you rely on have been taken from you. Go ahead check for yourself." Maple looked around her vision as she continued to be spoon fed, and realised that her H.U.D. was gone.
"The H.U.D. is gone..." Maple noted liking nothing about this situation.
"Along with everything that it represents." Naofumi stated as he scraped some more of the porridge into a pile. "All of the Status that you've been painstakingly raising, and relying on, doesn't exist in this world." Kaede's eyes went wide as she struggled to lift her arm. "Don't worry. The shield's still there, mostly. However without the crutch of 'status' all of the raw Ki it was flooding your body with was only poisoning you instead, so it's had to weaken it's own connection to you so that you aren't killed by it." Naofumi spooned another glob of Porridge into Maple's mouth. "It's not impossible to fix this situation, but for now you need to heal before we do anything else." Having said that Naofumi's daughter finished off the Porridge and started look sleepy, she really had been through a lot.
"What about..."
"You rest now. We'll worry about the others." Naofumi stated and watched his daughter fall asleep, before he himself let out a sigh as he thought over the situation. This was how eight, genuine Longinus Class Sacred Gear users reacted to losing Status, he shuddered to imagine how the others were going to react.
The various vassal Heroes had gathered in the Castle meeting room, Naofumi even went as far as to pop over to the world on the other-side and pick up the remaining Vassal heroes over there, such was the seriousness of the situation.
"So you expect us to believe..." Trash was not having a good day. "That you taking the Heroes away..." Thanks to this punk he was already put into such a foul mood that the Staff of Wrath was threatening to come back with renewed vigour. "Was for their own good?"
"You'll excuse us for taking it with a grain of salt." Fohl stated narrowing a glare at Naofumi.
L'Arc just looked at this situation and shook his head, so these people two have been awoken to this ass-hole's 'charms' then.
"They come from a world without status." Naofumi stated bluntly. "They were able to adjust to this world just fine, because they have their weapons to help them with the minor adjustments and a system to change them over a period of time, and when their duties are done they'd be able to adjust back just fine, because they'll just be popped back into the same bodies as what they left with. You lot on the other hand have spent your entire lives with the crutch that is 'status' propping you up." Naofumi stated bluntly looking around the room. "If any of you, or them, were to go up against that goddess in your currents states all that she would have to do is snap her fingers and all of you would be sent to a world without status to die in a ditch."
"You look like you're doing fine." Glass stated looking at Naofumi suspiciously.
"I have cheat like powers and hundreds of years to adapt myself until I can survive both environments." Naofumi replied glaring at the opposition. "Raise your hands if you can say the same thing." To the group's surprise, Trash raised his hand.
"You have gone through a great deal of trouble to gather together a god's miracle producing machines and give them to us. If memory serves this is the kind of thing that they're supposed to help us survive." Everyone slowly started to nod their heads alongside the former king's statement.
"If those things weren't half baked pieces of garbage I would agree with you." Everyone looked surprised at Naofumi's statement. "Who here remembers how a Longinus class Sacred Gear is supposed to be made?"
"Take a monster with god like power and seal it inside of a weapon." Raphtalia stated bluntly.
"Ding! Now who can tell me how those were made?" Various people started looking through their respective transformations descriptions as they looked for that answer.
"If memory serves." Rishia answered first on account of having read the description of her weapon.
"My lightning bolts were supposed to have been forged by a cyclops to be wielded by a god."
"BZZT!" Naofumi made a sound like a wrong buzzer with his mouth.
"The Description for the Boosted Gear says that it has a dragon with god-like power sealed inside of it." Fohl answered at which point...
"BZZT!" Naofumi once again told the group exactly what he thought about that conclusion. Trash thought about it long and hard before looking down at his Staff, the Staff of Ainz Ooal Gown, but not really.
"They're copies." Trash concluded simply. "A weapon can be unlocked three different ways, the first being to feed it the correct materials, the second is to hold a weapon of the same category, the third is to use a reinforcement method to fulfil a requirement."
"DING DING DING! We have a Winner!" Naofumi's voice was dripping with sarcasm as he pointed at Trash. He still hasn't forgiven this bastard, the others were one thing, but if he wanted to get his daughter Tanya back he would have to follow along with his antics. "And you're right, these aren't the originals, they're just copies that your weapons made from memory." Naofumi explained bluntly. "In their own way each weapon can be thought of a Sacred Gear of their own, after all you seal things inside, they give you powers, of course their biggest power is 'Authority to replicate phenomena in this world.' At some point in the past each of your weapons have had a wielder who was in possession of a weapon comparable to the power of the gods, your weapons remembered that power and learned how to replicate it's effects. But outside of this world, outside of those weapons range of authority, how much power do you think they have?" A perverse silence permeated the room. "Now the question I have to ask for you guys is do you want to stay here and be losers, or are you actually going to make yourselves useful?"
"""WHAT DO YOU THINK YOU JACKASS!?""" And thus the Room that was full of Heroes was suddenly emptied out.
The Eight Legendary Heroes might have become reliant on the power of 'Status' but before that they lived years in a world where it doesn't exist, so their bodies were slowly adapting back to normal thanks to a combination of Physical rehabilitation treatments and the various things being fed to them through their food. After a month of dedicated rehabilitation, the eight Legendary Heroes had their bodies back to the point where they could stand on their own, thanks to the powerful healing magic that was being used to accelerate their bodies return to form.
"Well this is a pathetic sight." Stand on their own, but each of the girls had looks of exhaustion on their features just from trying to stand up, legs shaking as they used whatever they could to support themselves.
"Like you did any better!" Tanya snapped loudly.
"Yes actually. I've learned all the processes that my body needs to obtain super human stats that the eight of you are now going with out." The eight of them trembled in response to that statement, their bodies trembled with rage and their own weakness.
"This is taking too damn long!" Tanya let out a growl as she slammed her fist into the side of the table.
"Now, now don't say that." Naofumi had a book open as he was looking at the group with a serious expression.
"It could be taking much longer than this." The eight of them gulped. "A Sacred Gear receives the power to create a miracle from it's host being in danger, you lot, and your inability to adapt back to normal conditions, have been in a constant state of danger ever since you came here. Your Sacred Gears have in response to this have been gradually powering up and are working to create a miracle in order to fix this situation. The other thing that has been happening, is that when ever your consciousnesses have been reaching a near death state, diffusing to the surrounding area and then turning to your bodies, they have been mixing with the energy in the surrounding area and increasing your energy capacity."
"So basically you've been grinding up our base stats until we're strong enough to take on the last boss as level ones?" Jade asked looking at Naofumi suspiciously.
"No that's not quite it." Naofumi however had some bad news for them. "Thus far I've only 'grounded' up your mana capacity and recovering, which unfortunately for you lot means that if you don't start grinding up the rest of your stats to match them then you are going to pop like zits."
"But the Sacred Gears..." Katarina started fearfully.
"Can only work with what you give them to work with." Naofumi bluntly informed. "If you want to supply them with what they need I suggest you start by putting on your running shoes." The group gulped at that.
"Do you seriously expect us to go out and run with our bodies like this?" Kuro asked indicating herself.
"Don't worry." The way that Naofumi said that exponentially increased everyone's worries. "I'm quite good with healing and support type magic, even after you run until you're on the brink of death I will just be able to heal you up again." A mixture of fear and panic crossed everyone's features. "Even after your arms become so tired that they feel like they'll fall off I'll just use healing magic to fix them. Even when you've run out of energy, I'll revitalise you with magic." Thus the girls learned what 'exercise' was.
The place Naofumi had brought them to was a city, built using a futuristic brutalist style that implied advance technology, Kuro's magic eyes scanned the environment seeing materials that she never saw before and magics that she never even dreamed possible. But more importantly than that though, was the people. People who looked at them with anger. People who looked at them with Pity. People who looked at them with Jealousy. Even people who look at them with lust. Some were dressed in futuristic clothing, others in more modern clothes, and others still who were dressed in old fashion clothing. They couldn't power walk very far yet but it raised the question if the rest of the city was like this, a mixture of future, modern and old fashioned. Something even more concerning was happening. Though the connection to her shield had been weakened Maple could still feel it like it was a part of herself, ever since she got here the thing had been faintly pulsing, not with power more like someone creating ripples by tapping their fingers against the water. Stimulation, and the thing that her Sacred Gear receives stimulation from is danger. Was she in danger now? Maple had felt fear, was her body being pushed too hard that it felt like she would collapse at any moment. But she felt like that ever since she came here, her father said that he was going to be easing the eight of them back to normal, however whereas before she couldn't feel the stimulus coming form her shield now it was violently apparent. Which meant that this danger didn't have anything to do with their rehabilitation... It was the people that were watching them that were the source of danger.
A thousand possibilities flew through Tanya's mind, what if Naofumi is trying to kill them. What if there are reincarnated in the crowd? What kinds of people are these and where did they come from? If their weapons were reacting this way why wasn't the danger making itself known? Tanya didn't have answers to any of these questions.
But Kuro did. She looked at the various buildings, at the clothes and weapons the people carried and she saw history. This was Earth, but it wasn't an Earth any of them knew, if she had to describe it, it was at it's simplest 'A Earth that has been destroyed.' Every Nuclear weapon the planet had had been detonated at the same time, and that was only the start, the one responsible was the vanguard and leader of a hostile race of aliens with the power to consume others and learn their forms and abilities. How did she know this? Because these futuristic buildings were made using the ships of those aliens as a foundation. Luckily she hasn't seen any of the aliens in the crowd yet, but it was only a small comfort. The aliens didn't leave, all of their ships were here, they were wiped out, and Kuro couldn't see what did it. The People here gave her a better idea, some were from Earth's, Earth's that didn't know a drop of magical knowledge, and yet they were brought to different worlds where that knowledge did exist, sometimes it was a accident, some where brought by the gods, others were enslaved, more still had been turned into weapons of mass destruction. Others were like her, people from Earth's that were full of supernatural phenomena, but the kinds of magic that they knew were vastly different than what she was familiar with. And yet the ones who stood out from the crowd were simply the most bizarre of all: monsters, simple, unashamed monsters, Arachne, Gorgons, cyclopes, skeletons, and more it was as if some took a few dozen fantasy light novels, shoved them into a blender and dumped all of them into the middle of a sci-fi world. Just what happened here to cause something like all of this?
The weak clap of a Gavel indicated that the council of Katarina's had come to order, for all the good that it did. All five of the council members were slumped over their table with the eyes of a dead fish.
"I'm so tired right now I can't even think." The Couldn't even pretend to be Excitable Katarina stated staring off into the dark void of the ceiling.
"This is worse than the game over endings ever could be." The opposite of Hotblooded Katarina stated as she looked at the ceiling like she would ascend to heaven at any moment.
Timid Katarina didn't even say anything, just rolled over so that her head was off the table and threw up.
"Can we talk about this for a moment?" Intellectual Katarina stated, head loudly thumping as she flipped it around to face a screen the contents of which was only barely visible.
"""No!""" Three against.
"Overruled!" And one hammer swinging around the air that said otherwise because this wasn't a democracy.
"Our Spear has a pulse, like it's constantly reacting to something. It didn't even act that way when we had an army of shadows following us around." Intellectual Katarina had clear concern on her features despite her exhaustion. The weapon was letting out a slow rythmatic pulse like a heartbeat. Like it had turned into something alive.
"Is it the constant agonising feeling of death we're suffering from?" Formerly excitable Katarina asked lazily waving a hand in the air. "Because it feels like it!"
"Do I need to remind all of you that this is basically a doom flag detector?" Intellectual Katarina asked indicating the weapon on the monitor.
"So what?" A defeated sigh from Timid Katarina. "We're too tired, too weak, and all of the preparations we've been making for month's and month's have gone down the drain. At this point? If the doom flag wants us then it can have us."
Inside of Naofumi's apartment, the front door creaked open. Maple fell through the doorway and landed on her face. Katarina landed on Top of Maple. Tanya landed on top of Katarina, and finally Kuro landed on top of Tanya. Was this what death feels like? Cause it sure felt like it. This blatant abuse was supposed to be increasing proficiency with their Sacred Gears right? Then did that mean that they spent the entire day on the brink of death? Naofumi came in behind them and picked up the four girls by their collars before dragging them over and dropping them on the couch. Maple gave a thousand yard stare as she looked up in the ceiling, having had plenty of time to think about what she was lacking in comparison to before.
XP, but what was XP? Miasma, but what was Miasma and what did it do? A type of spiritual filth that warped space and creates monsters and some how raises stats using that. Thinking it through, a thought occurred. Maple looked down at her arm and traced the outline of her meridian's with her finger. Spirit, Space, Metamorphosis, in theory if she combined those three things... but to do what? The Answer was Ki, augmenting the flow of Ki inside of the body is how her Aura spell works, and according to the old lady it's the main reason why Heroes stats are so high all the time, Ki in the form of mana and spirit was also what fueled all their skills too. As an experiment Maple imbued the meridian's in her arm with the three magics, followed up by absorbing some of the Ki in the air, and felt strength returning to her arm some. Okay, so the system in place automatically processes Miasma into Levels and stats, but was that the extent of it? No, because growth Bonuses and Growth correction was both a thing, so what did they do that everyone else lacked.
"Huu..." Refinement! Normal people don't have access to spirits nor could they do the thing that they do, so they could only use half of the power that Ki represents, but she was a hero, she had both body and spirit. Blood and hair samples allows the weapon to figure out the best ways to pull the full potential out of the body, it would probably know more if they were willing to feed people's flesh and bone to their weapons too, but even though Maple had sucked people inside of her weapon, she wasn't willing to unlock weapons that related to them. Instead she looked into her weapon proper and was made to wonder, exactly what had it been doing to her all this time.
"We might have to come up with a new plan." Tanya stated as she let out a groan.
"The plan is patience." Naofumi snapped by way of reply, currently stirring a pot.
"Is that why you grabbed us when we were still kids?" Kuro asked looking at Naofumi suspiciously.
"I grabbed you because you were dying and if I waited any longer I'd have to fish you out of the holy grail system." Kuro's eyes lit up at that. "Oh please what did you think was going to happen?" Naofumi taste the pasta he had been working on. "Needs some Soy Sauce."
"I'm sorry can we back up a little bit here?" Kuro asked straightening herself in attention.
"And what exactly is there to talk about?" Naofumi asked looking at Kuro suspiciously. "You were born from the combination of the Holy Grail System and the body meant to contain it." Naofumi put the ladle he was using down as he looked straight at Kuro glaring. "Do you really think it will let you go?" Kuro looked at Naofumi with horror, and he saw that the others were too. "You died, you get brainwashed, you get yourself possessed by dark magic, do I even have to go over what happens to the other four?"
"What about her?" Tanya asked indicating Maple.
"Not who I picked, if I had to guess I'd say the version of myself in charge of those decisions picked her out." Naofumi stated as he let out a sigh. "Intellectually I can't disagree with the results emotionally." Naofumi just made a sigh, his mixed feelings towards the entire situation quite clear.
Indeed, in comparison to Kuro's vast arsenal, Tanya'a grossly high mana capacity and military training, or even Katarina's curse immunity Kaede seemed to bring very little to the table other than her ability to turn herself into monsters, a relatively common ability. And yet Kaede seemed to have progressed the fastest of the lot of them, so clearly someone has seen something that he missed.
Author's Note:
coolkid0806: Don't worry I didn't take any offence.
RonaldM40196867: Ring.
Nightshadegirl: I suppose there is something amusing about watching a grown man escape from certain death on the back of a suped up mall lobby coin ride.
xerad: He did lots of things wrong, he did so many things wrong he drove himself insane and back again. If I extended the story that far I would be having Naofumi making up for all the things he did wrong to all the people he did them to. If you had the chance to actively work towards the abolishment of slavery in your country would you do it?
Galeon82: Naofumi's relationship with his daughter is complicated because his existence is complicated, the man's basically a walking fifth dimension space wedgie at this point.