"One of you in each of our…well she calls them 'allied nations'. More like, we are simply not at war right at the moment. Her belief was that we could foster relations with them, stronger than ever before, by dividing the power of the Heroes between us," he said, trying to sound understanding, but the tone of the statement betrayed his true thoughts. She had erred, hard, in doing what she did, his opinion written plain as day over his face.
"That…is a foolish thing. I thought the Waves were centered in Melromarc, that's why Ray is here, or so she says. Doesn't that mean that all the Heroes should be here?" I asked, and he nodded.
"There is wisdom in that. However, to be fair to her Majesty, the world is rarely so simple," he said, stroking his chin.
"The summoning of a hero is not done lightly, or without cost. Summoning the four of you, just after the First Wave, would have meant bankrupting ourselves," he said, and I remembered that the deal with the northern queen apparently allowed them to do so.
"I'm going to guess that the summoning doesn't cost, like, actual money, right?" I asked, and he chuckled at that, shaking his head.
"No, but the ritual does involve mana, and a lot of it. Crystals are required for the focusing of such vast amounts, and while Melromarc had the stores for it, they would have been all but empty if we had tried at the time," he explained, and I had to wonder, idly, how long it would have taken the Queen to mine enough crystals from the mine on the beastman village's land to make up for it. Either Melromarc's Royals chose to avoid war with the queen, or the mining process took longer than just having the things in a storehouse somewhere.
"More than that, summoning you is a political move. While I'm sure you've heard, just to be clear, most monarchs of our modern world trace their lines back to one hero or another. It gives them the Mandate of Heaven, or so they claim, to rule for the good of the people," he explained, and it was my turn to nod. Made sense, not all the Heroes went home…heck most of the ones didn't that they had records of, and their kids were new stock to the world, perhaps giving them some new power from there, if some of the stories were to be believed.
"Thus, you might understand that summoning the Heroes now, in such a delicate situation as the politics of today, makes you quite the bargaining chip. Not only will you defeat the Wave within our own country, but those of you who remain once the crisis passes will be seen as the next generation of Royals. Some might even say one of you is already on his way to being that, what with taking a city and all," he said the last with another chuckle, but it wasn't exactly pleasant to be joked about like that, given I had only vaguely understood what sort of games I was getting myself into taking that particular bounty, apparently.
"But the Waves are centered here, doesn't that mean we have to end them here?" I asked, and he shook his head.
"The Waves 'center' is a matter of scale of the disaster, nothing more. It is at its worst here, but that does not mean it is not striking other nations. The Queen, in her wisdom, believed that, if we had the four of you, one in Faubrey, the King's original homeland, one in Shieldfreeden, to strengthen our relation with them, and one, even, with those of Siltvelt," he explained simply, shaking his head with that last one, and even I could see how that might not be the best idea…not just with what the Pope had spoken of, but even Ray and Lucia had called it the mirror to Melromarc, just as bad for a human as Melromarc was for Demi-Humans.
"With one in each nation, you would have four opportunities to win the fight, as defeating the 'Boss' in any kingdom would end the Wave for the time being. The records even speak of this being done in the past, dividing the heroes between nations," he took a breath there, and I realized there was a 'but' coming.
"However, the records also speak of how difficult the fights were for the heroes alone. It is true that fighting the Waves alone allows a hero to increase in power far faster. But it also tends to overwhelm them, and more than one hero has fallen to them, party members or no," which was the other shoe dropping, and leaning back in my chair, I brought up the monster log in the help menu, and began to go over the stats of the things we fought in the first Wave…the first one we fought anyway, with the Chimera.
The Locusts, Undead of various types, and the wolf things, along with the boss all had stats that we could reasonable fight at the time. Together we'd carved through them, but on our own? Even with my boosts, my crew would have taken hits. Even IF I'd thought to get Ray and Souka beforehand, it would have been a tough brawl…then something occurred to me that made me stop in my tracks, as a bit of other information seemed to bubble up from the recesses of my mind.
"How long does the ritual to summon the heroes take to set up?" I asked, and the Pope smiled again at that, as apparently his mind had been going the same way.
"Three days, minimum, and before you have to ask, she had not yet finished arranging the rituals to be done in the other nations by the time we summoned the four of you. It is likely, given it took her almost two days to respond to that event, that it would have been at least as long to even begin preparations to start the summoning rituals, and in some nations, they would likely be slower than here," he said with a grin, as he knew what he was saying.
So did I, but it bore thinking on. The Queen's plan, it would have killed whichever one of us was summoned in her nation. It sounded good on paper, summoning us in four nations, joining them in the defense of the world, but it took time, and time was one of the most limited resources in this case. Take three days away from our powering up the two weeks and some change, and even if the strongest of the parties had been joined together with the one of us here, they would have died.
To be fair, we could have fought defensively, of course. And there was the fact that, apparently, if only one of us was present, it sounded like we'd be able to earn full EXP from a Wave. But still, that was not going to cut it. Looking at the numbers, there was really only one conclusion. I didn't know how hard the other nations were being hit, but Melromarc would have been devastated, as the Hero they summoned would fall to the first boss they faced, and it wasn't guaranteed that the others would win either. My thoughts were probably plain across my face, and the Pope chuckled a bit, drawing my attention to him.
"She believed that, with only one Hero to make stronger, we would have been able to equip you more readily. I…have my doubts, and when the Queen from the North approached us with enough crystals to summon all Four of you in our nation alone, I was of the opinion that it was the best course, though it might endanger Queen Mirellia, given she would be in a foreign land, and be seen as betraying her agreements with them," that…was an admission that took me a moment to process.
"You attempted to get the Queen killed? How did the King agree to that?" I asked, as the King, for all that he was not the nicest man, had seemed to genuinely love his daughters from the way he spoke to them, and I had to assume the same was true for his wife.
"In truth? I had her agent in the court, Lord Seaetto, killed, and his daughter imprisoned when she was out in the lands, attempting to impede the mission of the northern queen. It led to many others suffering, I'll admit, more than I had feared it would," he said, sounding actually regretful for the second part, but very much sounding like he thought the first was justified.
"You killed her agent?" I asked, to get some clarity.
"Lord Seaetto was the Queen's man, through and through. Technically, she had left him in charge, something that grated at the King, as by tradition, in his wife's absence, the throne and all its powers belonged to him," began the Pope.
"He attempted to block the emissary from coming to the royal court, feeling no deal with the nation to the north was worth anything. But she offered us a way out, a way to summon all four Heroes to ourselves at once, and I advised King Aultcray to take it, with some help from his daughter who saw the wisdom in it," he continued.
"When the King agreed to the deal, simply giving up our claim to the land of the Beastmen village, and thus allowing the northern kingdom to have it, Lord Seaetto sent his daughter to…stop the transfer of crystal, so he could contact Queen Mirellia. That missive never made it past the castle grounds, and by the time Lady Eclair had taken to the field, her father had met his end, falling from his balcony in a most untimely bit of clumsiness," he sounded almost proud of that last part, as he took one last pull of his drink, before setting the empty cup down.
"Those deaths saw the way to summon the Heroes, and with no word from her highness, which we had no hand in, as much as I'll admit I would not have allowed her messages through without some careful edits," he said that so lightly, despite the damning thing it was.
"It took three days for the crystals to arrive. Even then, it was another two, with nothing from the Queen, and the danger of the Second Wave striking growing by the day, that he was pressed to do so. He even asked us to do what we could to get her to safety, called her diplomatic efforts a fool's errand, and then, you were brought here," the Pope smiled at that, and I was struck with the fact that he had not been present at the summoning…for reasons that were likely not good.
"Why summon all four of us then? You hated the Shield, why not throw him as a bone to the Demi-Humans, let them have their Hero, while you take the other three?" I asked, and he shook his head.
"It is not that simple, I'm afraid. The summoning is done with either one, two, or four. Three, was not an option. Worse, we cannot know WHICH Heroes would arrive in which nation, and the summonings must be synchronized. All four must be summoned at once, whatever their destination, and thus, the lack of information from the Queen was causing desperation to grow across the whole of not just our land, but the world entire," he explained, and it was my turn again to nod.
It made sense, we were a set, so you had to bring us in all at once, or not at all. It also made sense why it would take time, if it cost so much, to arrange the summoning. The Queen's way of doing things even made sense, to a certain degree. Why focus on one single chance, when you can have four instead? Heck, if the other nations had easier bosses, we might have seen the end of this morning's events far sooner.
But the Pope made sense too. He was evil, no doubt, but he was a self serving kind of evil. He wanted to live in his luxury, and that meant keeping the world spinning. The Queen, for all her good intentions, was endangering that, especially if they couldn't tell exactly WHEN the next Wave would hit. It would also explain why the people had been so on edge when we started, and why the Guild was so interested when I told them the exact time, it gave them an idea of when the world might end, and thus, how best to prepare for it.
"If we weren't the Heroes you wanted, if we failed to live up to your expectations, or worse, Naofumi had and we had not, you would have killed us all," I said, not a question, but a statement of fact, and he nodded.
"It would have been difficult. You Heroes are immune to certain statuses, curses, the Slave Seal, and even most poisons," he said, making me eye him. I certainly hadn't felt immune to the Hydra's stuff…but then I'd not been directly hit by the cursed water it spit either.
"But your assessment is correct. If you were failures, or worse, the Shield Hero was successful and you were not, we would have had no choice but to clear the deck and try again to maintain order," he said, trying to sound diplomatic.
"As it is, Sir Motoyasu is…problematic. The Princess has guided him poorly, and none of his party has the will to contradict her. As to the Sword Hero, he is good at slaying monsters, but he gives no hope to the people. He is trying to be stoic, but in so doing, the people learn to fear him almost as much as the monsters themselves, thinking that one day his strength might be turned on them," he said, an accurate, if blunt assessment of the other two.
"As for Sir Naofumi…I must admit, he has surprised me. The legends of the Shield actually speak of a distaste for humanity, but he has gone out of his way to save human villages in a way the rest of you have not. The people are mixed on him. I would love to say I had some hand in that, but the merchants speak highly of him, spreading the word of the 'Saviour of the Heavenly Fowl' hither and yon," he explained…which shocked me a bit, as I hadn't realized Naofumi and this Saviour were the same person.
"However, them being merchants, and rumors of his greed, leading to him bleeding villages dry when they have little enough left, or worse, taking tribute from bandits, has led to a split. I believe, were he the only one in his position, helping the common folk, then they would flock to him more than any of these rest of you," he said, crossing his fingers as he laid his hands on the table and smiled at me in a very much not warm and friendly way.
"But then you come along. No hero in the dark, no man who screws up every assignment. No, you slay a centuries old threat, bringing villages back that had been conquered by threats several lifetimes ago. Better, you are free with the wealth you gain, and even save the most downtrodden of all the people," he said, staring right at me, gesturing towards me with one hand.
"More, you have promised freedom, and that is no small thing. I have done what I can to free those slaves I can, but my resources there are limited, especially if I want to keep the nobility from my throat," he chuckled at little at that, as he rubbed his neck. The words, however, stuck in my mind for a moment, taking me a while to mull over.
"You…don't agree with the slave trade?" I asked, and he scoffed, getting a look on his face I only remember seeing a few times, and those when discussing Naofumi.
"It is a distasteful practice. The Churches…all of them, not just our own, call it something done only by the most foul of souls. There is a reason we produce a variant of Holy Water specifically to dispel such things. Not that many nobles listen to us, at least until they find their estates burning, and the seal placed on them," he said with a derisive scoff. And it was true, most of the nobility, in all the countries supported the trade, supposedly only voluntary ones in some places, like selling yourself into servitude temporarily, but it sounded from what Ray said that it often led to a far more permanent state of it.
"I see," was all I said in turn, having to take a moment to think about that. This man before me had admitted to…well a lot. But had made a very good case for why he might be the way he is…without actually using that to justify his actions, interestingly enough. He wanted me to draw that conclusion, I had little doubt, but he was willing to let me do it on my own, which showed a bit of trust on his part. Probably because he knew me thanks to our few interactions, and those observations of others.
It did still leave me with only a few options. Exposing him was one. I was certain the Queen would love to hear about his murder of her agent, and I'd seen already that 'justice' in this country wasn't quite as rigorous as in my own. That would leave a power vacuum though, and I had my doubts of the Queen and King's abilities at this point. The Queen had good intentions, and the King was easily swayed by his daughters, who would tug him in two different directions. Neither one added up to a good idea though, if what the Pope said was true, and his honesty otherwise gave them weight.
I could ignore the whole thing too, of course. This wasn't my country, much as I now owned a piece of it, I wasn't exactly going to be playing their political games. I was here to fight, and lead the charge against monsters, not do this stuff. But just by allowing myself to claim Sanctuary, and freeing the village of the Brothers, I had entered into this arena. Backing out now could have consequences.
"Very well then," I said, staring into the Pope's eyes across the table.
(Author's Note: Yeah, two in a row with this, but I did want to say, before anyone comments, the way the Waves work is NOT how they work in canon…but I feel less bad about this change because…honestly, even in canon, that stops coming up when it's inconvenient for the narrative.
In canon, the Waves are staggered, striking different nations at different times. Even the anime says this twice. Once with the Chicken-zilla(Fitoria) and once with the Queen just before the Cal Mira arc.
That said, after those two points, it never comes up again, despite the fact that it really should. As two weeks after Cal Mira in season 2, they are STILL in Melromarc, when really, they should have set out immediately for the next nation to be hit.
Of course, after that, the staggered nature never comes up again, as Gamara interferes with it, and after Naofumi comes back to the world, the Waves have changed again thanks to the Third Army.
Oh, and since the anime hasn't gotten there yet, to be clear the canon plan was to summon one hero in each of the four nations, equip them and give them a party, then have them come together in Melromarc and then swing around to each nation in turn as the Waves struck…which given Faubery alone has so many issues, not to mention Siltvelt's history with Melromarc I doubt would have worked.)