Kurose made his way down the hill, quickly scanning the surroundings. Monsters were still dropping out of the crack in the sky, but only a couple of monsters seemed to have even made it anywhere close to the village.
He continued to run as he looked around. A pair of knights stood outside the front gate, one using a bow whilst another used a spear. Both were currently in a stalemate against a monster that seemed to be attacking them, diving in for small scratches across their armor.
Once Kurose managed to get closer to the two knights and the monster attacking them, one of the knights, the one holding the bow, shouted out.
"Hey! Get away from here! Can't you see what's happening!?" He shouted out.
That proved to be just enough of a distraction for the harpy as it dived down. It dodged the arrow that was shot at it, even as it barrelled into the poorly armored guard, knocking him down.
The harpy landed on his chest, raising its claws to strike down once more, even as it let out a screech.
Kurose moved quickly, his hand already extending as he spoke the words.
"Erst Thread!"
The thread lashed out as it had many times before, wrapping around the Harpy. The harpy seemed to let out a confused squawk at that, noticing the thread wrapped around it, stopping its movements, but with a small amount of effort, the harpy broke free of the thread.
Kurose looked at it in shock. Monsters from the wave were truly on a different level compared to any of the monsters he had faced up until now
Whilst Kurose was thinking that, the Harpy flew back up, barely dodging the arrows fired at it before it screeched again, getting Kurose's attention.
The upside to the harpy breaking the thread was the fact that it had stopped focusing on the soldier beneath it. The downside of it was that it was now focused on Kurose.
Kurose's eyes widened as the Harpy flew at him, intent on knocking him down like it had to the guard but an arrow stopped it before it could start, piercing one of its wings.
The one benefit that came from it was that he finally got to see the creature's name.
Interdimensional Harpy
Kurose was quickly taken out of thinking about its name as he was called out to again.
"Do that thing again! Hold it still for a moment! If you can do it again, I can line up a shot!" The archer shouted.
"I can't yet! I'll need some time!" Kurose shouted back.
"Well, you better figure out a way to make some time then!" The archer shouted back. He nocked another arrow, preparing to shoot it at the harpy.
"Damned bird!" The archer spat out. "Get up Gerald! Stop lying around!"
The spearman slowly stood up, gripping his spear again. "How long do you need?" He asked Kurose.
Looking at the cooldown, Kurose answered. "20 seconds! Give or take!"
"I've got it, I can defend you for 20 seconds. Especially if it's against one damned bird."
Yet, even as he said that, two more of the harpies seemed to show up out of nowhere, and Kurose had to bite his tongue. He just had to raise a flag, here of all places, didn't he?
The spearman took one step back and shifted his grip on his weapon as if he were about to do something. Even as he did that, the harpies took it as a sign of weakness.
Two of them dived in at once, and the guard thrust his spear forward before they reached him.
The harpies squawked as the wind seemed to buffet them for a moment before it died down. Yet, before the pair could rush forward, the archer fired a shot, piercing one of the harpies' wings. It let out a squawk as it dropped to the floor.
The spearman stepped forward, thrusting his spear at the downed harpy, only for the remaining one who hadn't dived to make its move, moving to scratch at the knight.
Kurose made a split-second choice, placing himself between the man and the harpy. The harpy didn't stop, even as its claws scraped against his armored shoulder. The claws dug in slightly, but Kurose aimed his wrist to be facing the harpy, even as the counter activated.
The three rocks all hit the harpy, causing it to squawk, even as small droplets of blood started to pour from it. As it tried to lift itself back up into the sky, squeaking as I'd it, it was cut short as an arrow appeared between its eyes, killing it almost immediately.
All that remained was the one harpy that had dived in with the harpy that the spearman had finished off, though the harpy didn't seem bothered by losing its companions.
Kurose blinked, and as he did, the harpy dove down at him, much like it had before, but this time Kurose was prepared.
"Erst Thread! Electrify!"
Electrify was a skill that Kurose had unlocked from the Electrionite gem when he had absorbed it. From what he could tell when he tried it out beforehand, it seemed to apply electricity to whatever he targeted. In this case, it was his first skill which he applied it to. When it struck an enemy, it did a small amount of electric-based damage, as well as seeming to give them paralysis for a short moment, which left them vulnerable to other attacks.
So whilst it was good against lower-tier enemies, it would probably end up getting phased out when he fought stronger enemies. He could only hope he would come across a stronger version of the skill at a later point.
Kurose watched as the electrified thread wrapped around the harpie's wing, with it letting out a squawk as it dropped to the ground thanks to the paralysis. Before the spearman or archer could take it out, Kurose heard another shout, from a familiar voice.
"Erst Step III!" Eorna dashed in, driving her knife along its body before turning to face Kurose with a smile.
"Good job Kurose! Though, I would appreciate it if you didn't run off." She spoke easily.
"Ah, sorry about that. I just kind of moved instinctively you know? I was scared that it was Horteni being attacked at first."
"That's fair, it does look a bit like Horteni, it's just missing Bosco's store, and the Inn being at the center of the town."
The two smiled at each other, even as the two guards looked between themselves.
"Is that…" The spearman spoke, earning a nod from the archer.
"It is… that's the Dagger hero! What do we do?" He spoke. His hand tightened around his bow as he spoke louder to his companion. "We have to capture her or something, right?"
"Eh?" Eorna spoke, turning to face the two. "Are you talking about me?"
"Of course we are talking about you, idiot!" The archer shouted. "We have our orders to capture you!"
"In the middle of a wave?" She asked, tilting her head slightly. "I mean… if you really want to try it you can, but I think you would like our help dealing with all this, right?" She spoke, moving her hand between herself and Kurose.
The archer looked at the pair of them, even as the spearman put a hand on the archer's shoulder. "How about we just sort this out afterward, alright? The important thing is protecting the people here, alright?" The spearman spoke firmly, holding onto the archer's shoulder.
The archer looked between Kurose and Eorna for a moment before releasing a breath. "Fine." He spat out. "Long as you two do your job, I suppose it will be fine to let you two be free for now." He shook his head as if he couldn't believe what he was doing.
"Though don't think I'll be letting you two escape after this is all over, you hear? Perhaps if you do your job, Dagger hero, I'll think of putting in a good word for you, not like it will do much considering how much all the guards hate you right now."
Eorna simply rolled her eyes at that. "Sure, sure. Keep telling yourself that I killed the king. I know what I did and didn't do, and I know I didn't kill him. I'll find a way to prove it, you hear me?"
"Bah, keep prattling on, why do you? You'll be found guilty in the end!" The archer spat out. He kicked the floor before spinning on the spot and beginning to walk away.
Eorna simply sighed, and Kurose watched in amusement as he walked away. It was when Eorna turned to him again that she spoke.
"Hey, you alright? They didn't hurt you or anything, right?"
"Nope. I'm fine, trust me." Kurose raised his hand up, a smile on his face, only to earn a frown from Eorna. "What?"
"Then what's that on your shoulder?" she asked.
Kurose looked over to his shoulder, seeing the marks on his shoulder pad. "Ah, that's nothing. Really! It was just one of those harpies attacking me."
Kurose motioned towards one of the downed harpies, and Eorna simply nodded her head. "Well, just make sure not to get hurt, alright? I know the armor is to protect us, but we don't want it getting destroyed immediately, alright?"
"Yeah, I know. Come on, we need to catch up with them if we actually want to do our job, don't we?"
"I suppose we do. Though, I would prefer to stay far away from that archer. Just doesn't give me a good feeling when I'm near him."
"Eh…" Kurose waved his hand slightly at that. "It might just be because he did basically accuse you of killing the king like others have already. Could be that you are just sick and tired of it at this point."
"That's true…" Eorna spoke quietly.
"But anyways, where's the Jewelry tools hero? I didn't see him when we were transported here." Kurose asked curiously.
"Oh! Well… He did try to stop you from running off, but you slipped away. He said something about youngsters and basically told me to follow after you. On another note, you are really fast, you know that?" Eorna spoke with a grin.
"Ah, well, like I said. I just kind of moved on instinct." Kurose spoke with a nervous laugh.
"It's fine! Don't worry about it, it's kind of good anyway. But to answer, he basically said he was going to go off on his own. Before I could ask, he just ran off toward the monsters and all that. I'm just hoping he's doing fine…"
"Well, maybe if we can organize a push past all those monsters, we might be able to find him?" Kurose suggested.
"Yeah, we might. But the issue is actually getting people to do it, right?"
"I mean, the spearman seemed fine when he was defending me, so maybe we can get him to help gather some people?"
"Yeah… That's true. I don't want to lie to them, but…" Eorna hesitated before speaking. "We could always say we are going to make a push towards the boss and need their help to clear a path?"
"That… could work," Kurose admitted. "I don't really want to lie either, but we don't really have much of an option if they won't work with us normally. And it's not like their view is going to change on us, is it?" After a moment of it sticking in his head, Kurose nodded. "Yeah, that will definitely work…"
If it didn't, he wasn't sure what they were going to do.
Kurose stood in front of the 20 guards that had been gathered up. It was all the village could spare for the time being, and Kurose was more than thankful for it. If he was being honest, he was more shocked that the village had more than 20 guards, but taking a look over them, Kurose suspected that some of them might not have been guards, and just young men who had been tasked with defending the village, if the look of some of the rough armor they were wearing was any indication. It didn't matter to Kurose. As long as they did what was asked of them, it was all fine by him.
It was enough for a large squad, or small platoon if Kurose's late-night Wikipedia searches had taught him anything. As it was, they were evenly split between ranged weaponry and close combat weapons. Half held bows, with some seeming to have familiar round disks with writing on them, whilst 5 guards held spears, with another 5 holding swords and shields.
Looking between them, Kurose could feel a makeshift plan forming. But first, he had to get their attention.
"Hello! My name is Kurose Amiya, and I am the Accessory hero."
He watched as multiple guards all looked at each other before looking at him. Kurose could see some speaking between them, and he let it run its course before speaking again.
"Right now, me and the Dagger hero have to push towards the boss monster. The Jewelry Tools hero will be joining us on the way to the boss. But to actually ensure we get there, we are going to need your assistance, if you will give it to us!" Kurose spoke it all, waiting for a response, only to hear the same archer from before speaking up.
"Yeah, we will do it. Faster for us to get you to take out the boss then capture the pair of you." Others around him seemed to agree with him, and Kurose had to resist the urge to let a frown form on his face.
I really need to think of a way to escape once the boss is dead…
Regardless, he spoke up. "We do appreciate the help. Do you already have a formation prepared for this sort of thing?"
The archer didn't respond, and Kurose sighed. "Does anyone else want to answer?"
"No, we don't have any sort of formation. Admittedly, we didn't think this would be happening anywhere near here. We didn't even know when the wave was going to be happening until just now pretty much."
They didn't even know when the wave was set to happen? Surely someone could have communicated something like this to them right?
Kurose didn't know how the information-spreading system worked here, but he assumed it probably relied on Charmes, considering how versatile they were. But the fact that they hadn't been warned about the wave coming was slightly concerning.
From what he recalled, Amarita had told him they could roughly calculate how long it was until the waves happened, so why wasn't the information spread here?
"Alright, well, I guess I'll have to organize you lot then." Kurose looked over the group of 20 before speaking again.
"Right, I'm thinking of groups of four, two archers protected by someone holding a spear, and someone holding a sword. That should leave us with 5 groups of 4, all equally balanced. Get into your groups then." Kurose shouted.
The sound of several people moving could be heard as they quickly arranged themselves into groups of 4. Looking over them, Kurose nodded.
"What are you two going to do?" Someone called out from one of the groups.
"Me and the Dagger hero will be providing support to any group that needs it. But whilst that isn't happening, we will be on the front, making sure fewer monsters reach you. The one thing we need you to do during that time is take care of anything that may get past us, and take out any of the harpies flying overhead."
Kurose watched as the exp notification kept popping up on his screen as Eorna did her best to hold back the monsters from reaching them whilst he organized everyone, and spoke again.
"We will be leaving soon! Make sure you have everything you need prepared, then we will head out!" Kurose commanded.
The group of 20 cheered, and Kurose turned to go and assist Eorna. He let out a breath, shaking his head.
"Jeez… I really don't like standing in front of everyone like that. It felt stressful enough just telling them the plan…" He shook his head again. "It's fine now. It's all sorted. I can help out Eorna for a bit."
Even as he said that, an explosion sounded off further ahead of them, a blue light igniting the battlefield for a moment before fading away, and all Kurose could say was… "What the hell was that? Who's causing that?"
Somewhere else in the midst of the fighting, a man holding a large wire cutter with a cyan gem embedded into it sneezed. He looked around for a moment, and a snake-like monster with horns on its head attempted to take advantage of his confusion to ram into him, hissing as it did so.
The man in question simply dodged out of the way, the comically oversized wire cutters cutting through its body as if it were just a piece of paper.
"Huh… Someone said something about me… I think?" The man then shrugged, a smile on his face. "Doesn't matter! Who's next!" He shouted, a wide grin on his face as he looked at the horde of monsters that surrounded him.
He changed his weapon form to a regularly sized ball head hammer, even as he held a small gem in his hands.
"Glimmer!"
The gem seemed to glow brightly, and his grin seemed to widen even more as he chucked it into the air.
Kurose watched as Eorna cut down another harpy he had dragged down to the floor. Kurose admittedly couldn't do much whilst his skills were on cooldown. Maybe at some point, he could get something with an equip effect which would let him be helpful whenever he could.
Kurose was knocked out of his thoughts as he dodged out of the way of a snake with horns on its head, even as it turned, hissing at him.
"Stop focusing on me already! Cant you see there is others killing all your friends?" Kurose shouted. The snake, not caring about any of that, simply dashed at him again, and he held his hand out, even as his skills came off cooldown.
"Erst Thread! Electrify! Now Eorna!"
Eorna ran towards the paralyzed snake, cutting through its scales easily. She drew her dagger through the air, flicking the blood off it before letting out a small breath.
"Right… We should be fine for now. It seems like all the monsters are focused on those explosions over there."
"Yeah… but just what's causing those explosions? I mean, they happen like, every 30 seconds or-"
Another Boom could be heard coming from that area, and Kurose sighed.
"Well, maybe it's just another monster? I mean, I know you said monsters tend to fight amongst each other, so maybe it was woken up by the monsters from the wave or something?" Kurose finished.
"It could be, but if it is then I'm not sure I want to face it as we are right now, considering how it seems to be keeping everything attracted to it right now."
"But what if it is the boss? Wait, what if the explosions are the Jewelry tools hero?" Kurose asked.
"Eh? You think he's making those explosions?" She asked.
"I mean, it's not likely that a village would live this close to a deadly monster or something, right?"
"That's true… Plus, we haven't actually seen anything that might be the boss monster. Maybe he is over there fighting it or something?" Eorna spoke.
Eorna nodded her head, agreeing with Kurose. "Yeah. maybe we should just take out the boss, absorb it and just run immediately? I mean, we don't exactly want to be surrounded by those guards, do we?"
"Yeah, I've been thinking of how to escape them after. You still have that invisibility Charme, right?"
"Yeah, wh- Oh! You want us to use it after we killed the boss?"
"Yeah. I mean, I have still got that Mana Destabilisation thing that teacher spoke about, but I'm sure I have enough mana for it to last much longer now."
"Really? Well, it's gone for me, and like you said, we have more Mana now! So we should be fine to escape with it."
With their plan of escape slightly thought out, they made their way back towards the group of guards,
"Right! Are you all ready to start moving? We think we have found the potential location of the boss." Kurose announced.
"Huh? You aren't even sure where the boss is?" Someone shouted.
"Well, we are fairly certain the wave boss is over there, considering how many monsters are there. But to get through them to actually shut down this wave, we are going to need your help, like I said already."
"Fine, lead the way, hero." The same person shouted. Kurose had to resist the urge to roll his eyes.
"Come on then, let's get going."
Kurose expected his idea to work out. The idea of having 2 archers covered by a swordsman and spear wielder sounded good in his mind. But of course, no plan survived first contact, and that was especially true with his plan, as shown by the chaos around him.
One of the groups of four had been taken out by a new set of bird monsters from the wave that shot what Kurose could only describe as metallic feathers at the group. The swordsman who had been holding a shield had moved to protect the two archers whilst they lined up their shots, only for said feathers to rip through his shield as if it were just a piece of fabric.
The other groups were not faring well either, and Kurose was having issues keeping up with everything. It was all he could do to keep focused on protecting himself and Eorna however he could.
He moved in front of Eorna, even as one of the snake-like creatures from before attempted to ram its horns into her stomach, with Kurose taking the blow in her place. He let out a small gasp as he felt the air being knocked from his lungs, but from what he could see, the snake had it much worse, with chunks of its body missing thanks to his counter activating.
It let out a hiss as it seemed to rise up, But Eorna had him covered as she dashed out from behind him with a shout.
"Erst Step III!" She cut it down the side, much like she had the previous one, but she was getting tired. That much, Kurose could tell.
Kurose checked himself over. His armor wasn't faring the best, but that was to be expected, with just how many hits he had taken in the short amount of time. His MP was still high because he only had one Charme he could use, and even then, he wasn't sure how that could help in combat.
His SP, unfortunately, was not faring as well as he would have liked. Thankfully, the counter effect on his BoomBurst Bracelet didn't take any SP, so if all else failed, he would have to rely on that entirely for the rest of the fight. Which preferably, he would rather didn't happen. The rapid use of both of his available skills at this point in time had left him with a little amount of SP, and whilst he couldn't tell how much Eorna had left, she had been throwing out skills just as often as he had, so he had to assume she had just a bit more SP left than him, due to their level difference.
"Erst Thread!" Kurose shouted as another one of the new bird monsters shot its feathers down at him. The skill was strong enough to stop the feathers from piercing through it, and the birds themselves were not strong enough to break out of it, meaning he didn't have to use Electrify to drop them to the ground.
Kurose let the bird fall to the floor, moving to let one of the guards who were part of the remaining groups deal with it. Kurose looked around, seeing if there was anyone else that needed assistance.
The groups were really split up. The group of four system that Kurose had tried to set up had collapsed completely. The archers continued to fire arrow after arrow at the birds in the sky, and whilst a majority of them were dodged, they still struck the birds at times, causing them to dip lower to the ground, which allowed for the spear and sword-wielding guards to take them down.
Despite that, they were still slowly making progress into the horde of creatures. That was until something seemed to blitz through the creatures, slamming into Kurose.
The Accessory hero was sent flying back, blinking rapidly as he tried to come to terms with what had happened. Before he could move again, Eorna was next to him.
"Come on! We can't deal with that thing on our own!" Eorna shouted.
Kurose looked at her for a minute, not comprehending what she was saying, but when he turned back to the group, he saw it. At first, Kurose thought it looked like a horse, but as he looked closer to it, he could see several differences. Three horns grew from its head, one from the center of its head, and two from the sides. The three horns met, and twisted around each other, making one larger horn protruding from its forehead.
The other main difference that Kurose noticed was the size. Sure, normal horses were big, but this would tower over any horse from his own world. If Kurose had to compare it to an animal, he would have to say it was as big as an elephant.
Even as Kurose continued to focus on it, he heard the shouts of a guard. "Men! Keep attacking! We won't let it leave here alive!" He roared.
The men around him cheered and slowly began to attack the giant horse. Kurose watched in a daze as they thrust their spears at the horse-monster thing. The horse let out a whinny, raising up onto its hind legs as they continued to thrust at it, but none of their weapons seemed to be making any major impact against it.
Small amounts of smoke began to pour from the horse's mouth, and a small flicker of light could be seen in the back of its throat. A couple of the guards took notice of it and began to move back, but the majority were still unaware.
It wasn't until it opened its mouth that every guard began to run away from it. Yet, even from here, Kurose could tell they weren't going to be fast enough.
Kurose reached out his hand desperately, and with the last of his SP, he shouted.
"Erst Thread!" The thread snapped out, moving to wrap around the horse's mouth. It shut it for a single moment before the thread snapped.
And yet, before anything could happen…
"Crystal Barrier!" an unfamiliar voice called out. Before Kurose's eyes, a barrier of Hexagonal jewels formed in front of the wave boss, and its flames harmlessly spread against it.
"What's with that, you?" The same, unfamiliar voice spoke. "Think you can get past this barrier with just that? Hah, you will have to try harder than that to be killing anyone else, stubborn creature."
Kurose looked towards the unfamiliar voice and noticed the man standing there. He had slightly ruffled red hair, with a small, black band wrapped around his head. His clothing was a black shirt, covered by a white jacket that parted more as it went further down. On the jacket was a small symbol, two swords crossed, with a small crown encompassing the tips of both blades. A white cloak hung from his shoulder, attached to the black shirt by a silvery-looking clasp.
The one thing that caught his attention, however, was the hammer he was holding in his hand. A small, cyan gem sat between the two heads of the hammer, and as far as Kurose knew, that could only mean one thing. He was the Jewelry tools hero.
The man, completely unaware of Kurose's thought process, turned towards the pair, speaking up.
"So, you two are the recently chosen heroes, huh?" He spoke with a grin.
"Gleam." Kurose couldn't tell what happened, but the man simply nodded his head as he looked at him.
"Well, just leave it up to me, alright? I'll show you the power you will both be holding soon enough. Make sure to strive for this, you hear? I'll be expecting you to hold your own soon enough. But for now, just sit back and relax. I'll take it all from here."
Kurose watched as the hero turned towards the beast, a grin on his face as he stared it down, with no fear in his eyes.
"Well? What are you waiting for, you beast? Waiting for me to come to you?" he taunted, even as he slowly walked towards it.
The horse let out another whinny, before starting to charge towards him. The Jewelry tools hero met the monster halfway.
Another chapter, and the wave continues on with the appearance of the Jewelery tools hero!
Anyways, sorry for the shorter chapter, been ill recently, but should be back to normal soon.
See you next time for the 2nd part of the wave.