Sorry this chapter took a bit longer than usual. This chapter kinda connected some stuff and I had to make sure to time it right, or one of the worlds would be spoiled a pretty big event. So... enjoy ;)
"Well La Di Da! I love receiving things last second! I TOTALLY DIDN'T WANNA SLEEP TONIGHT, ELLIS!" Laura screamed from inside the room. Clara was reaching for the door, but suddenly one of the hinges snapped, and it swung open, almost hitting her in the face.
"Where is that damn brat!? Oh, hello Cla- I mean cooking hero," Laura said, looking over at Clara.
"J-just Clara is fine. I wanted to ask about the um… the dress for the meeting? I heard from Ellis that-," she began, but Laura slammed her head into the door and stomped back inside of the room.
"Yeah, I got it right here. Tell Ellis that the next time he orders things at the last second, I'll sew him to the ceiling for the next 24 hours!" she yelled, handing Clara a neatly folded dress.
"Thank you! Sorry to trouble you with this," Clara said, bowing down.
"Uh, yeah… n-no problem," Laura replied, glancing at Clara with a confused look on her face.
Clara walked back to her room and dropped onto her bed. She breathed out a sigh and thought of what else she had to do.
Ellis told me to be ready by 3, and Goron gave me a break today. We have a wave according to Ellis' words closer to the end of the day, so I should have a bit of time to take a shower, eat, and then get dressed for the occasion. I should also practice magic while I can.
Clara closed her eyes and tried to push her mana forward. Her body was still a bit sore from yesterday, but mana rushed forward with a lot less resistance, surprising Clara. She smiled and tried to push the energy in between her hands to form a little ball, but it fell apart quickly, only draining her mana.
Aw. Well, I can still practice later. I wish I had the bonuses from yesterday to recover my mana quickly.
Her eyes shifted over to her knife and she swapped it out.
Soul Eater Cleaver
abilities locked equip bonus: +5 SP, "Chain Bind"
equip effect: soul eat, sp recovery (small)
mastery: 0
I should master more fighting bonuses as well. Actually, I haven't mastered the Soul Eater Cleaver yet. What does this skill do anyways?
She pointed the knife below her feet.
"Chain Bind! AH!" Clara yelled as several chains burst out of the ground and wrapped themselves around her. She collapsed under their weight and got even more tangled up in them. Clara tried to wiggle her way out, but the chains held up way better than expected.
"WHAT HAPPENED?!" Hol screamed, suddenly ripping the door off its hinges and walking into the room. He paused as he looked at Clara and then burst into laughter.
"This isn't funny! How do I undo this!" Clara asked, wiggling harder.
"Hah, sorry. This just brings up old memories. It reminded me of when Ellis chained himself to the ceiling with a similar skill."
"So how do I undo it?!" Clara yelled, tugging at the chains.
"Pretty sure they will only last for around half a minute. Even then, you should be able to just unsummon them with your mind," he said, tapping the chain. As if on cue, the chain shattered and dissipated into the air.
"Well, I should get going. Don't try to use new skills and hurt yourself while I'm gone, ok?" Hol declared, still smiling.
"Wait, where are you doing?"
"I got a few missions from the queen, and I also have to help transport the goods from this ship to the royal island later, so I got my hands full. You should get ready as we'll be at the place in a few hours. Later."
Hol left without another word and Clara saw a bright flash of light erupt from the hallway.
Well, I really should get ready.
"Wait, what about the door?!" she realized, looking at the gaping hole that used to be a doorway.
==}—
"Hah, that was refreshing," Clara smiled, drying off her hair. She began to wander around the halls of the ship, trying to see the rooms she never got a look at before. One of the rooms caught her attention.
It looked like a gym, complete with different workout equipment as well as punching bags and two boxing rings. The bags looked like they were made out of metal, but were soft to the touch.
"Will these be able to tank a skill? I guess it can't hurt to try. Erst Slash!"
Clara sent a blade of green light at the punching bag, flinging it back. However, to her surprise, it seemed to be completely undamaged.
"Oh! I guess they are reinforced! Chain Bind!"
Clara watched the chains wrap around the bag as she looked at the ground where the chains sprung from. She tried pulling on it to figure out where the chains came from, but they disappeared again, leaving Clara with a cooldown and less SP. It recovered a bit quicker due to the soul eater cleaver, but it was still slow.
"Well, I guess I'll just hit it once and go check out the other rooms. Erst Slash!"
[Erst Slash mastery has increased]
"Eh?"
Skill Mastery
Erst Slash - 1%
Chain Bind - x
"Oh! This is the mastery method for my skills. I forgot about it until now. I guess I should use this more often so that it hits 100%!" she exclaimed with excitement, and turned back to the bag.
*BOOM*
A strong gust of wind and the sound of an explosion startled Clara. She looked to her side and saw Laura kicking and punching another bag so hard that the chains holding it up looked like they were on the verge of cracking.
"HYA!" Laura yelled, kicking the bag one last time. The chains shattered and the bag was launched to the other side of the room, hitting the wall next to Clara.
"EEP!" she yelped in surprise, jumping away from the projectile.
"Cooki- Clara! I didn't expect you to be here," Laura said, looking around nervously. "Are you hurt anywhere?"
"Huh? Ah, no, I'm ok. You're really strong though!" Clara exclaimed in amazement.
"Hah, thank you. I had some practice here and there," she admitted. "But what are you doing here?"
"I was looking around the ship since I didn't get a good look at it before," Clara replied, pulling out a map.
"Want me to give you a tour? I have been on this ship long enough to know it in and out," Laura offered, but Clara shook her head.
"Thanks, but I don't want to get in the way of your workout, and I got a map from Ellis with the layout of the ship," Clara said. "But thanks for the offer. I'm gonna see what the pool is about. Not every day I get to see a pool hundreds of kilometers in the air!"
"Alright, good luck then. Call me if you need any help around the ship," Laura replied, picking up the punching bag.
Clara dashed out of the room and continued her exploration.
==}—
*CRASH*
The large metal bridge crashed into the ground. Clara saw Hol carrying several large boxes on his back, while the people around him had only one or two.
"Damn, I sometimes forget just how large a gap between our stats are," one of the men grumbled, looking at Hol.
"That's a hero for you. They're on a whole new level with all those bonuses and such," another worker grumbled, picking up a large box together with his friend.
Will I be able to have such strength if I level up enough as well? Clara thought to herself, looking at the knife again.
"BOO!" Ellis yelled, putting his hand on Clara's shoulder.
"AAAH!" she yelled, jumping away. She crashed into a stack of boxes and paled as it began to lean onto its side.
"Ch-chain bind!" Clara sputtered out, wrapping the bottom boxes in chains, but the top boxes fell off of the pile and-
"I got it!" Hol exclaimed, catching the box last second.
"Nice catch Hol," Ellis exclaimed, giving the guy two thumbs up.
"Can you not! These are molds for the army! Elora is gonna be pissed if we break this," Hol scolded Ellis.
"Alright, sorry, sorry," he muttered, turning towards Clara. "Anyways, are you ready to meet the queen?"
"As ready as I'll ever be! I haven't ever met a queen in person, so I have no idea what I should do. Do you have any tips?"
"Just be calm, don't make outdated references, and don't try to over flatter her. She hates suck ups."
"Got it! When do we go?" Clara smiled, reading herself mentally.
"Right now! Let's go," Ellis exclaimed, leading them out of the ship.
"Wait wait wait! I'm not ready for this!" Clara exclaimed.
"You'll be fine! The queen doesn't bite, mostly."
"What do you mean mostly?!" Clara yelled, running after Ellis. He ignored her and continued walking. "Ellis! What do you mean mostly?!"
==}—
*Badum*
*Badum*
*Badum*
Clara took a deep breath to try to calm her heartbeat. She hurried behind Ellis and Hol as the two led her through the royal palace.
Why am I so nervous? I talked to her on video, and Ellis said she was nice. I'm sure this won't be that bad.
The heavy double doors were in sight and Clara was… a bit underwhelmed. The doors looked like they were decorated a bit, but it was mostly some paint and only a few glowing crystals here and there.
"The queen decided that other things required more finances and resources, so the doors aren't as flashy as some that are owned by nobles," Ellis said, as if reading her mind.
I wonder what my brother would have said if he got isekaid instead of me.
"Wow, these doors look pretty lame."
Yeah, probably something like that.
The knights in front of the doors began to open them to reveal the throne room inside. Clara's heart began to beat faster as she saw the queen on her throne looking at her as if piercing her very soul. The queen looked a bit younger up close, and her eyebags seemed to get darker since the last time Clara saw her through the crystal.
The knights left and the 4 people were left alone in the throne room. A heavy silence filled the room as the 3 heroes approached the queen.
"Greetings thy majesty," Ellis said in the most serious voice he could manage. Elora ignored her and looked at Clara.
"Greetings, Cooking Clara Hero."
An awkward silence filled the room until Ellis burst out laughing.
"I-I-I meant Cooking Hero Clara! Damn it, Ellis, shut up!" the queen yelled, her face turning bright red.
"Ha ha ha ha ha ha! I told you she'd fumble within 2 sentences!" Ellis laughed, stretching his hand out to Hol. Hol grumbled and handed him several gold coins.
"What happened?" Clara asked, confused.
"Ellis and I made a bet on which one of you two would fumble your words first. It was my fault, I put too much faith in our queen," Hol explained, letting out a heavy sigh.
"Hey!" Elora yelled, slamming her fist into the handle of the throne.
"Uh… It's really nice to meet you, your majesty," Clara squeaked out, waving over to the queen.
"Please, just call me Elora," Elora said, hiding her face with her hands.
"Alright, now with first impressions out of the way, let us do proper introductions. Clara, this is the queen of the islands, Queen Elora. Elora, this is the Holy Cooking Hero, Clara," Ellis introduced the two women to each other. Clara bowed her head respectfully.
"It's an honor to meet you, Elora," she said, still feeling a bit nervous.
"Likewise, Clara," Elora replied, lowering her hands. She was still blushing a bit. She regained her composure and stood up from her throne. "Anyhow, let us go to the hourglass. I also have a few things I would like to discuss with you."
The queen pressed something behind her throne and a wall split open, relieving a large hourglass similar to the one Clara saw before. Her knife released a beam and a second timer popped up in her field of vision.
[Royal Island - 0:00:02:09]
"TWO MINUTES?!" Clara yelled, looking at the timer.
"Yep. So we gotta speedrun the conversation."
"And you couldn't have warned us earlier?!" Elora protested, glaring at Ellis. "You said we had two hours!"
"See, we had two hours, but then we didn't," Ellis replied, shrugging.
"What is that supposed to mean?! The queen yelled again.
"We got delayed while stocking up and unpacking the goods. The main door got jammed and I wasn't allowed to blast a hole in it, so we wasted some time with that," Hol explained,
"I see," she sighed, looking at the hourglass. "Well, I can only say good luck with the wave for now."
"Don't worry, I'll teleport us back after the wave and we can chat about everything and anything," Ellis said, transforming his weapon.
"Right! There are so many questions I have to ask you about your world! Like what are cars, or memes Ellis keeps referring to?" Elora asked, turning to Clara.
"Oh, that's gonna take a while to explain," Clara mumbled. The hourglass started to glow, and the heroes began to teleport.
"Have a safe wave! I want no casualties, got it?" Elora yelled, pointing to Ellis.
"Yeah yeah. We'll be right back, in and out," Ellis replied, and the trio disappeared.
==}—
*Thud*
Clara managed to keep her balance as she looked around at the area. This time they were back on the mainland instead of an island, with another village behind them. Several knights stood behind Ellis and charged into battle.
Clara looked up ahead to get a look at their enemies. Ahead were dozens, if not hundreds of sets of armor with blue most coming out in between the cracks. It looked like a ghost possessed a full set of knights armor and used it to fight.
"Sweet! Clara, you might wanna swap to the soul eater form for the soul eat effect. Living armors usually will just put themselves back together if the soul isn't destroyed," Ellis said, running forward.
"Got it!" She did as instructed and followed him.
"Running into danger face first, huh?" Hol teased, running next to them.
"I think I can handle it! My stats rose a bit from last time and it wasn't too bad then. This shouldn't be too different, right?" Clara said optimistically and Hol nodded.
"Yeah, just make sure to stay near one of us so that we can guard you if something happens," Ellis warned. He summoned a couple of stars and his speed drastically increased, sending him forward and into the swarm of living armor. Several of them started to pile onto Ellis and stab him with their swords, but Ellis shrugged it off and raised his jar.
"Solar Blast!" he yelled, sending a ray of light at the enemies.
"Solar Strike!" Hol followed up, blasting Ellis and the armors on top of him.
"Chaos Blast!"
Several beams erupted from Ellis' jar and rained onto the armors. However, once the smoke cleared, some of the armored warriors began to put themselves together and walk once again. Ellis raised his jar and Hol hit it with all of his might. The jar began to glow and Ellis pointed it at the warriors that didn't rebuild themselves fully yet.
*SHAAAAAAAA*
The jar in his hands screeched and began to suck in the glowing blue mist. The armor stopped glowing and crashed onto the floor. Hol ran forward with a white scythe and began to chop the leftover armored warriors. The ones sliced by his weapon lost their mist and didn't reconstruct themselves.
"Erst Slash!" Clara yelled, throwing a green slash at one of the armored monsters. Despite how strong the armor looked, the monster was rather weak, and got sliced in half. Clara swung her knife at the pile of pieces and watched her sp meter quickly rise again.
"Oh, so this also gives me sp. Sweet! Chain Bind!" she said, chaining up another knight. She backed away as she waited for her skill cooldown to end, but one of the knights suddenly ran at her, swinging his sword at her neck.
"EEK!" Clara yelped, ducking under the sword. The knight seemed to stumble a bit as the blade passed Clara, so she stood up and stabbed her knife into its chest. However, it didn't seem to die from the attack, and the knife got stuck. Clara tried to stop him from swinging his sword, but Ellis grabbed the knight from behind and threw it at Hol, who slashed it to pieces.
"C'mon! Stay sharp, Clara!" Ellis called out to her, blasting another armor to pieces.
"Right, sorry," she said, sending a slash at another enemy.
Suddenly, some of the armors on the back row were thrown into the air, followed by the armors ahead of them. Something big was making its way through, so Ellis summoned some jars ahead of them to protect Clara.
A giant lizard crashed into the jars and roared at the heroes.
"Finally, the boss showed up. Lunar Blast!" Ellis yelled, blasting the beast. It dodged and started to run at Hol instead.
"Rookie mistake. Chain Bind!" he yelled, stopping the monster in its tracks.
"Now. Solar-!" Hol yelled, raising his weapon at the monster.
"Shrapnel Blast!" a voice yelled from above them. Suddenly several beams rained down onto the armored lizard, frying its body.
"Huh? Oi! Who the hell are you?" Hol yelled, looking up at the crack. In it stood a man with a bright glowing ring on his finger.
"Sorry about that. My name is Midas. I'm the ring hero from another world."
"Well, Midas, we had the boss in the bag," Hol replied, pointing his weapon at the monster and absorbing what was left of it.
"I know. But I wanted to talk to you quickly, so I decided to speed up the process."
"Well, since you did introduce yourself, I'm Ellis, the container hero," Ellis replied, lowering his weapon.
"Hol. Farmer hero," Hol grumbled, opening his status.
"Clara, holy cooking hero," Clara waved at the guy.
"Nice to meet you. Do any of you have a tank build?" he asked, pointing to the hero trio.
"Uh… I do? Why do you ask?"
"Perfect. Reverb Blast!"
A bright beam of light shot from out of the ring and slammed into Ellis' chest.
"Wha-?" was all he managed to say, before a large explosion rang out, blowing everyone away from where he stood. Clara looked at the side of her screen as a notification popped up. It took a second for it to register, as she read over the words on screen.
[Ellis (Vassal Jar Hero) has left the party]