Chapter 97
It was no surprise that my instant coffee pill did not go well with my first dose of strengthening potion. However, if the numbers weren't lying to me, it was worth the upset stomach. In both worlds, even with all the Shields I'd unlocked, my attack power had been a grand total of 10. Yup. My natural strength aside, my numbers in in the System were lower than a literal child with a good knife.
Yes, I'd given Keel a dagger, and she'd had an attack power of 20, at level five. While here I was, level 80 in both worlds now, with a Legendary Weapon that I'd fed the GDP of Melromarc in materials to, and I was at 10 attack. Now, this counted for nothing when it came to me getting my hands on someone, changing my attack from 'my numbers vs their numbers', to a 'my actual strength vs their actual strength'.
My only actual 'attack' was with the trick the old lady had taught me, the 'defence rating attack', that added their defence to my attack, and counted their actual defence at zero. So my 10, plus their defence, vs zero defence.
Now though... Yes... My attack had gone up to 40!
But now... Yes... Now, I could actually gain some kind of benefit from an attack power accessory. The system treated them as 'multipliers' to your base attack, where as weapons were 'flat numbers' added to your base stat. And now that my 'base attack' was at 40 with the 'strengthening powder potion' I had something to multiply!
Yes... I was going to crack this stupid system... I was going to pounce it, kill it, and eat it... oh wait... An instant coffee pill wasn't food.
Speaking of food, or things that reminded me of Tetsu, and her nearly unending hunger...
I looked at the dragon core Alto had brought. To the five naked senses... It was a head sized lump of clear quartz with a deep crimson blob in the middle that looked eerily like a heart. The surface was almost perfectly smooth, with only the smallest of ripples and a faint inner heat. It smelled faintly of embers from a recently extinguished cooking fire (reminding me again I hadn't eaten). And a tap with my fingernail made it sound a little like a full glass jug of water, as if my tap were being reflected back at me ever so slightly.
Oh, I wasn't going to taste it. So only four senses.
But I knew better. I already knew what was in a dragon core, seen one restored to reason, and nearly destroyed by madness. So I put my hand on it, and let my spiritual sense touch it gently. "My name is Kodori Haruhime. What's yours?"
The reply lashed against my mind, like a dagger of ice trying to dig into my brain. But that was as far as it got, my horns tingling with the failed attempt to curse me, while my palm burned with forge-hot heat.
"I suppose I'll have to talk to you later then." I took my hand off the crystal, "Maybe after I chip off bits of your core, you'll listen a little better. But for now..."
I took the Shield off my back, and pulled in the dragon core, as well as the other materials (scales, some bones, a couple of teeth, that kind of thing). It seemed almost reluctant to do so, but after a moment I got the usual 'ping' from the Status screen.
Demon Dragon Shield conditions met!
Demon Dragon Shield
abilities locked: equip bonus: skill: "Attack support"
Special effect: Dragon Scale (large), C Demon Bullet,
all resistances (medium), magic power consumption reduction (weak)
SP consumption reduction (weak)
Huh... The stats, before the Shield of Marius's (the best shield I had because no plank of cheatyface magic metal would ever outdo me!) special abilities, was... almost as good in every way. It was a nice wide kite shield that went from shoulder to knee. Defence was just a tiny bit lower, but its resistances were all higher. Like any 'monster item' Shield, it had special effects stuck to it...
It looks ominous though. The gem in the middle of the Shield, normally a calm blue or green, was a blood red...
So, I switched the Shield back to the nice Hagane Red little shield, "Yeah, tell me you're cursed without telling me you're cursed... The instant I get some time? I'm taking you to bits and making something that won't yell and scream at me for trying to be polite."
To my surprise, I felt the Shield change on my back without my will behind it. Taking it off my back, I saw it was once again the black and red veined kite shield.
"Ara-ara..." I pulled a couple bits of Ofuda paper from a pouch, "Someone needs to be punished."
It was no surprise that Yomogi was waiting with the others when I got back to the castle. I was surprised to see all the women we'd... salvaged from the encounter yesterday. Some leaned on each other to even stand, while Tsugumi, still looking a bit like an wrinkled old lady, did her best to stand alone, with only a pair of crutches holding her upright.
It did bring me a little satisfaction that I surprised all of them, since I'd arrived as an armoured fox, spending a little of the travel time to have breakfast. With the upcoming showdown with Kyo, I had no doubt what so ever it would end up in a fight, so, I was ready.
"Boss!" Tetsu ran over to me, her little dragon wings flapping, "Eeeee hug! SO FLUFFY!"
I accepted my tribute of a giant hug, tilting my head down so I could make Tetsu mostly vanish between the Shield on my chest and the fur under my chin.
"You really are a monster." Tsugumi said.
"No she's not." Kizuna said, coming over to me and scrubbing a hand over my cheek, "And I would know, isn't that right, Kodori-sama?"
I punished Kizuna with a cold wet poke with my nose, and shuffled my feet to detach Tetsu. Then, I was Kodori of two legs again. I still pulled Tetsu back in for a hug though. "Are you sure you want to come along? I won't lie, I expect this to end in violence."
"We want answers." Said one of them. "You don't need to worry about us."
L'arc gave me a look, shrugged helplessly, then looked over to Ethnobalt, "Ready to fly?"
"Of course." He was in human form at the moment, that almost sad relaxed look on his face. He rose up into the air on that little platform he liked to stand on, then with a glow and a puff of smoke and sparkles, the big flying galleon appeared. A moment after that, a bunch of ladders rolled over the sides.
"Something is bothering me." I said as we finished helping the weakened women up the ladders and got them places to sit and rest. "Didn't I beat up more than just you eight?"
Almost everyone, friend and enemy, gave me a frown for saying that. Raphtalia even sighed, "It's not nice to rub it in." She said.
"I'm not. Thinking on it, there were more, and the ones missing are Spirits." I gave Tsugumi a look, "If they captured whats-his-name's soul, and brought it to Kyo, but didn't join you to fight us?"
There was an uncomfortable silence, the eight women realizing something, while mine and Kizuna's party thought of something else. "Kyo has already learned how to use and transform the Soul energy he stole, and... Spirits are similar in... composition." Ost said.
"We do believe there is more to death than just an end." Glass said. "We Spirits are just as close to the living, as the dead."
"And Ghosts do exist here!" Kizuna said with a little shiver, "I told you about the Ghost Ship right?"
I thought about something else, "It wouldn't have happened to have some kind of nautilus one one end, a skeleton captian, and Soul Eaters inside, would it?"
"Eh? Why do you ask?" Kizuna sounded puzzled, until I put my nice Captain's hat on. "No way..."
We two gamer girls gave each other a nod, but kept our ideas to ourselves.
Instead of putting the hat away though, I carefully put it on Ethnobalt's head, making sure to tilt it just so so he could see properly and still keep the morning sun from his eyes. "Perfect."
L'arc was about to say something, but stopped when I glared at him. "No teasing him, L'arc." Therese said for me.
I gave Ethnobalt's shoulder a light pat, "At your command, Captain."
Our route was a little... weird. He said his ship travelled by way of Dragon Veins. As I knew them, that meant he couldn't just 'appear' where ever he wanted, whenever he pleased. Some of our trip happened super fast. A sudden blur of motion, a gentle lurch when we stopped. But bits of it happened at a more... realistic pace. Before we once again blurred through the air, and returned to normal speeds.
Past that, and what little sight seeing we could do between 'jumps' along the dragon veins... It wasn't really that interesting. At least, until we got closer to our destination.
"There!" Yomogi called out from her spot at the bow of the ship, one foot on the rail, the other on the deck, hair fluttering behind her dramatically in the wind, "The fog cloud on the ground there!"
The weird jump-stop-go motion of the Vassal Boat slowed to something my inner ear recognized, and we stopped a kilometre or two from a vast patch of forest with an unnatural blob of thick white fog in the middle. It wasn't my area of expertise in six of six worlds, but I could tell it was illusion magic.
"I might be able to get past it with this." Yomogi said, taking a small bell from around her neck. "But... Kyo isn't careless. It might not work."
I gave the bell a little tilt of my head, "What's on your mind, Fox?" L'arc asked.
"Oddly traditional. Back home, this was a common charm to prevent getting lost." I said, thinking, and wishing she were here, of Delly. "But I think you're right Yomogi. If I were a paranoid jerk who knew we were coming eventually but not exactly when, I'd change a key like that into an alarm instead. He knows we captured you, and the others."
"Then..."
"My turn?" Raphtalia asked.
"Indeed." I nodded, turning to give Raphtalia a pat on the back, "Looks good by the way." Because yes, the upgraded/new version of the combat Miko outfit looked just as good as before. "Ethnobalt?"
He smiled slightly from behind the wheel, tilted his new hat just a tiny bit, and nodded, "Miss Raphtalia? When ever you are ready. I will move slowly.
It felt like the fog itself had hands. Little baby hands that plucked and gripped and pinched as we slowly drifted through it at Raphtalia's direction.
"Left!" She said suddenly, the ship stopping on a proverbial dime, then moving again. "Ahead!" Another stop/start, the fog slipping over my armour like thin cloth. "Right!" another lurch.
"I suppose the Compass is somewhat useless now?" Ost said quietly, Kotetsu curled up in her hand, her little dragon eyes fixated on the sparkly crystal cube in the middle of the Compass.
"I didn't know we'd have a... convert... just show up to point the way." I said quietly, "We could have used it here, I think, to get through this. Kuro?"
Even with my usual 'anti-fog' enchantment on the eyes of my mask it took me a moment to spot Kuro and call her over. She was quiet, as if she didn't want to draw attention to herself, but she hugged one of my tails when it got close enough to grab. Comfort attained, her eyes went to the Compass.
"Here." I said, "I have no idea what kind of shape Motoyasu will be in. But if you see him, and can get to him, I want you to pour this on his head."
She accepted the bag, "More earth crystals?"
"Yes. Like us, his level will have been reset when he got here. Unlike us, he's been stuck in Kyo's 'care'. This will raise his level, and maybe help him fight." My others tails wrapped around her back, "You have all the potions?"
She gave her chest a pat, a little clicking coming from under her dress. Her outfit didn't have pockets when she changed into a bird, so I'd gotten a few special lids for some potion vials, and hung them on a string. If nothing else, she could land, change, and drink one. Or someone could pull one from her neck to give to her when she was a bird. It was the best I could do really. Tetsu could just eat a potion vial, be it glass, metal or clay. Her dragon stomach was... robust.
"Ost? What about your stolen power? How close do you need to be?" I asked.
She looked thoughtful for a moment, "If..." She gave Kotetsu's head a pat, the feathery noggin of the dragon-noodle pushing up into her palm happily. "If he has any protection whatsoever on what ever he is using to store the power, I may need to touch it directly with this." She lifted Kotetsu to eye level, the two of them touching noses, "Otherwise? Perhaps the length of this ship at most?"
I nodded, "Okay. Stick close to Raphtalia, and if she says hide, you hide. Kotetsu? Keep her safe."
"Yes mom!"
"What about the other two heroes?" Kuro asked.
"Did you want to carry two more bags of crystals?" I offered after a moment of thinking.
"If I don't see them, I'll give them all to my stupid master." Kuro suggested.
"Very well." I went into the Shield and took out two more little bags of gems. These she tied to the belt of her nice frilly dress.
"I can hold them in my beak if I need to change." She assured me.
"Down!" Raphtalia called out, a little louder than before, "We're there!"
The ship did another little stop/go, and we descended slowly. Bit by bit, the air lost that living grasping feeling, the fog becoming 'normal' albeit still unnaturally dense. Moments after that, a long abandoned village came into view, the rooftops and walls collapsed or falling in. But along the still recognizable main street of the little village, there was a large Victorian manor. It looked abandoned, with ivy growing over the walls, cracks in the plaster, bits of shingling missing. But it was still standing, the windows were all there still, and the door was closed. Thinking of it, it also looked really out of place among the ruins of the otherwise bamboo and clay houses, not to mention the rest of this country.
The Compass in Kotetsu's claws wobbled once, then both the little etched arrow and chip of onyx pointed at the manor. "We are here." Yomogi stated, looking determined.
Everyone peered over the side of the ship's rail to the manor, then both my party and Kizuna's looked at each other, nodding. "Equipment check!" I called out.
We all disembarked, guards up, on edge, expecting the surrounding ruins to sprout monsters. "Yomogi? Any idea what to expect?" Kizuna asked, tightening down her bracers.
"Aside from the fog, we haven't seen anything..." Therese commented with a little shiver, "What about the others you were with?" She looked to Tsugumi.
"Maybe they've been sent on other errands." She said, the look on her face hopeful that she was right.
"Kyo didn't really like visitors. If he brought you here, he trusted you." Yomogi said, "I... don't really know if he had defences here past the fog..."
"Well." L'arc said, "If he's not here, we'll trash the place, and burn it down." He did a little hop away from Yomogi when she glared at him, "What? Our two countries are at war, and since we're here..."
"Politics aside." I said, making sure my mask was settled on my face properly. "We know the stolen souls are here." I looked at the still wounded collection of women, "We will do our best, but if we start fighting, try to stay out of the way, and protect yourselves."
They glared, but I ignored them, changing the Shield into the Shield of Marius, "All set Kodori-sama?" Kizuna teased.
"I will tickle you." I warned. "But yes."
It started as soon as we got within sight of the front door. Much like Kizuna's home, this manor had a modest, if somewhat neglected perimeter wall. The instant I crossed the threshold of the big rusty gate, the howling started.
Tiger clones came first, shouldering the ivy covered double door open hard enough to pop a hinge off the corner. From above the door, with a shimmer of breaking stained glass, was what my status screen called a 'Vermilion Bird Clone'. Then, ignoring the poor door, a disfigured tortoise with a serpent tail just monster-trucked through the wall beside it. A 'Black Tortoise Clone'.
We started to line up, to pick our spots in the formation, when the real horror show started.
Spilling out from around the snarling beasts (who were just doing the usual monster 'thing' of trying to intimidate you off their property), humanoid/beast hybrids started to shamble out of the manor. Unlike Tsugumi and her 'team' when they had started to let their beast sides take over, this bunch looked like lost causes already.
"Oh no..." Yomogi's grip on her borrowed katana faultered, "Kyo... you didn't..." She looked to Kizuna, "Can you... Can you help them?"
Kizuna looked to me, "If you want to try, my team will hold back the critters." I said, "GO!"
I rushed forward, heading towards the pack of tigers. I would do the most good in this fight, the more I could distract the enemy, so I dove in, a little black fox auto-casting defensive buffs safely from a bush, while Kuro started singing her little heart out from Ost's shoulder.
I saw the brightly coloured Vermilion Bird start to get ideas about ignoring me, so I slapped an Air Strike Shield in front of it (yes, amusing bird vs window moment) then roared out a challenge of my own, activating 'Hate Reaction'. The taunt had a limited range, and only really worked when something was looking in my direction, but a monster's mind was a simple thing, and a verbal challenge for territory was almost as good as some stupid skill from a silly plank of metal on my arm.
Raphtalia hit the flank of a tiger with an instantly lethal slash, a snarling head coming of muscular shoulders. The distracted bird started to swoop down at me, but was sideswiped by Tetsu as she yelled "Dinner!" leaving behind a burst of glittering feathers as she went by.
"Raphtalia!" I heard Therese call out, making the Racoon Girl back off after she killed a second tiger. "Comet Fall!"
Raphtalia jumped away from me as a roiling mass of fire appeared from the fog over my head.
(Ost)
Ost looked at Kotetsu, then to the clone of this world's Tortoise Guardian. "She might be right you know."
"Mom smart." Kotetsu said, "What do?"
"Go help L'arc. There's a darling." And with a motion that was near instantaneous, Kotetsu was gone from her hand, the slightly wobbling Emerald Compass the only sign Kotetsu had been there at all.
(L'arc)
He dashed towards the only thing on the field that wasn't suddenly running towards Kodori. The crazy Fox had jumped into the teeth of the oncoming hoard, and seemed to be right at home there. Though, she had said she'd jumped into the teeth of an actual dragon... So maybe this was nothing new either.
The Black Tortoise Clone was the biggest single beast on the field, and his weapon was the best suited (aside from Kizuna's) to cracking high defence monsters. He dashed around the edge of the battle, maimed a tiger since it wasn't looking, the Vassal Scythe cutting both its legs off as he ran past, and with a howl of elation, he jumped into the air the shaft of his weapon extending, both hands gripping it for the most leverage, and the curved inner edge aiming for a spot just under the chin of the tortoise's head.
He almost didn't see the long serpent tail darting towards him, but by the time he did, he'd committed to the swing. He was just about to abort the attack entirely, but was surprised when a cone of ice just appeared from someplace near the tortoise's foot, trapping the venomous tail before it could strike him. "Bad snake!" L'arc just barely heard the voice, but laughed all the same as Kotetsu jumped at the now frozen body of the serpent tail and started fighting it.
His swing fell across the side of the tortoise's throat, leaving a horrific gash, but it wasn't deep enough to finish the job.
"Just you and me then little buddy!"
"Little Iron!" Kotetsu replied, her and the tortoise's tail getting into their own epic duel while the Scythe Champion fought on the other end of the beast.
(Kizuna)
As Kodori rushed in, Kizuna, Glass and Yomogi dashed towards snarling madness that walked on two legs, yet looked more animal than human. Behind them, Tsugumi and the other girls used what magic they could to keep their flanks clear.
As before, Kizuna used her 'Scale Removal' skill, Glass and Yomogi clashing with some of them just to line a few of them up at once. As before, she started the attack, flowed through a straight line of enemies, and appeared on the other side of them, weapon and body in the perfect follow through pose.
And they all died. Horrifically.
Blood and fur exploded from them, tatters of clothing and flesh flew apart.
"No... It's not working!" Kizuna exclaimed, her eyes flickering as she glanced at her Status screen, "They've changed so much, my weapon just sees them as beasts!"
Yomogi and Glass had to harden their resolve, scrub half formed tears from their eyes, and reluctantly change tactics. "Ost?!" Glass shouted over her shoulder, glancing her way after buying a little space with a blast of ice from one of her fans.
Ost stood there, the Compass in her hand and outstretched towards them, but she shook her head.
Kizuna cut down another one, a rasping gasp of a half formed 'thank you' on the lips of the monster hybrid. "Maybe these were early experiments?" She guessed, "Yomogi! Focus!" before jumping towards Yomogi to keep her from getting flanked.
"If this is what it takes to save them..." Yomogi snapped back from her thoughts, fighting through the anger. "Kyo has even more to answer for now!"
Then Therese's Comet slammed into the ground directly where Kodori was standing. "Back! Back!" Kizuna called out, "DUCK AND COVER!" And threw a glowing blue stone into the air over the still expanding blast of fire where Kodori was standing.
(Ethnobalt)
He was not a fighter. His race, before any sort of elevation from the...
He shook his head to stop himself from thinking too hard on it for the moment. He had been trusted with a duty by Kizuna, and now Kodori, two heroes who respected him without a second thought, despite his race, despite his lack of immediate combat power.
He had kept the flying ship a little distant from Kyo's manor. It was to ensure a retreat if needed, an early warning if something tried to come from the village...
But as he saw the bright red comet hit the ground, then the sparkling blue stone arc upwards over the impact zone, he tapped his staff to the deck of his airship. Beneath his feet, along one side of the ship, a dozen little square holes opened up on the side of the ship. He waited for a moment longer, his eyes spotting a glowing dome of blue light appearing in the middle of the roiling flame, and a trio of spectral Shields appearing near that.
"All Cannons. Fire!"
(Kodori)
There was nothing left around the front of the manor.
Except me. But that was the point. As the Starlight Shield barrier faded, and my Air Strike Shields went into cool-down, I put an empty potion bottle into the Inventory and looked for my next target. For Kizuna to have called on Ethnobalt, it meant she'd failed...
So I looked to L'arc, who was giving a very tiny high-five to Kotetsu next to a double decapitated Black Tortoise and its serpent tail.
I looked towards the Manor, and Tetsu's big dragon head popped out of what was left of a window frame, a bunch of bloody feathers around her mouth.
I looked towards Kizuna, a litter of Frankenstein animal-humanoid remains all around them.
I looked towards Ost, Therese and the collection of women around her, smiling behind my mask at their shocked expressions.
And then I looked to Raphtalia, giving me a glare for being reckless. "Let's move on then." I said.
Behind me, I heard Tsugumi ask no one in particular, "She's crazy."
And everyone reply, "Yup."
It didn't surprise me that the inside of the manor was just another layer of deception. What was left of the 'front' of the house looked normal enough. The dining room had been the site of Tetsu's fight with the Vermillion bird, but it had a big table and chairs. The 'mud room' past the front door had what was left of a shoe rack and a couple coat racks.
Past the living room, over carpets ruined by monster feet, and past what might have been a kitchen was a massive door. Totally out of place with the rest of the construction, it was magically sealed, locked with a key, and sounded really thick. Thinking on what I had seen outside, I guessed this door led into the hillside. Looking at the mess on the floor, we could all see 'monster evidence', of what we had just fought outside.
"Emptying the labs to slow us down?" I looked to Kizuna.
"Probably... Yomogi?"
Yomogi was a mess of emotions. When we'd first met, she was a determined fighter. With Ost telling her what had happened, she was a hopeful girl who didn't want to believe she'd been betrayed. Now? Anger. Just anger. She was going to get her answers even if it killed her.
"He did give me a key." She said, taking an elaborately shaped key from someplace.
It didn't work, but even Yomogi's reaction was just a defeated sigh at this point. "Well, who wants to take the first swing at it?" I asked.
"You think we can get through it?" Yomogi asked.
"Oh oh! I wanna!" Tetsu said, changing back into her full dragon form and then pausing, "Big sister? Did you wanna?"
Raphtalia looked up at her, gave the dragon's snoot a pat, "After you."
"Headpats make me all powerful!" Tetsu giggled (doubly amusing since she still had a child's voice in the dragon body).
I motioned for everyone to back up, and once we were all clear (eager to please, yet observing at least some basic safety measures) Tetsu started to dig her claws into the edges of the door frame. From behind her, it looked kind of like a cat getting ready to pounce something. Shifting of weight, butt wiggles to get her hind legs just so for a pounce, changing positions of her front 'paws' slightly to get her claws ready...
But like a chain, a door was only as strong as its weakest point, and a door frame set into a granite wall was only inconvenient for a someone as strong as Tetsu. With Kotetsu standing on Ost's head and cheering, the rest of us looked on as Tetsu pulled what amounted to bank vault door out of the wall.
"Phew! Um, where do I put it?" She asked, the door still technically in our way, but only until someone answered her.
"Lean it over there, if we have time, maybe we can pull it apart for the metal." I said, "Well done." And once she'd dragged the massive door to the side, she got her headpats. "Clever girl, yes you are."
"Shall we continue?" Glass asked, a little impatient sounding, but also sounding a little awed by Tetsu's strength.
"What's it like in there?" Kizuna asked, turning to Yomogi, Tsugumi and the girls.
"It's not long before it starts going underground. Huge cave systems with lots of rooms. I wasn't allowed into many of them, but there are lots of doors." Yomogi said.
She was right. The initial hallway was nice stone brick, typical 'dungeon wall' type stuff. But after a corner and a couple of short wide descending steps, it became 'cleaned up cave'. Looking a bit like an old lava tunnel, wide and smooth walled, the floor had been bricked to provide a flat floor.
We encountered monsters, but nothing even close to the levels of the monsters outside. Some even looked like 'natural spawns'. Cave bat, Cave lizard, so said the status screen. Yes, there were other monstrosities, but they were monster chimeras, not humanoid hybrids. Early experiments?
There were traps too. Arrow traps that shot magic darts. Pitfalls that dropped into a darkness far FAR below, or into actual spiked pits (with dead monsters in them). A couple of honest to Hestia Indiana Jones boulder traps! And yes, there was also a 'misdirection' spell over the entire area.
But we were already on guard, and while manufactured traps weren't a thing in the Dungeon, I still felt right at home. We also had Kizuna, who had a ten foot (fishing) pole to tap ahead of us as we made our way through suspiciously clear hallways.
And that was only the 'upper level'.
We finally came to the end of the cave tunnels, and once again encountered 'worked stone' hallways. Descending a nice wide staircase that ended with another metal door (smaller, but more 'wide cell door' instead of 'bank vault').
It was open though, so with a shrug, we filed in.
"Wait! You've made it this far?! Oh no!" Across a nice big ten metre by ten metre room with various tables and chairs and even an unfinished card game on one of them, were more of the humanoid animal hybrids.
They didn't look nearly as far gone, but they also weren't merged with Guardian Beasts. However, each of them had the beginnings of a 'parasite weapon' (Kizuna had a better naming sense than Welf at least) on their arms.
"Wait!" Yomogi stepped ahead of the rest of us, holding up her hands, "We aren't here to fight! Kyo is tricking you! We're going to stop these experiments!"
"No! If we don't stop you here, Mr. Albert will die!" One of them said.
I stepped ahead of Yomogi and parried a blast of magic. Unlike the other parasite weapons, these weren't nearly as strong.
"Mr. Albert? Wasn't that the name of the Vassal Mirror Holder?" L'arc asked, stepping up beside me.
"I believe so." Glass said, standing on my other side.
"Those weapons were also made with my energy." Ost said, "But you'll have to weaken them for me to recover it."
"Kizuna?" Raphtalia got next to Glass.
"Let's go!"
The fight was hardly worth mentioning compared to the 'Holy Weapon' parasite weapons. Yomogi had been super strong with the Sword, Tsugumi too with the spear. But this group wasn't nearly as skilled, had much weaker weapons, and were facing two 'holy weapon' holders, two 'vassal weapon' holders, a very powerful Spirit, a pair of dragons, one of the most talented Jewel people (Romina's words about Therese) and an angry Humming Falcon.
In a small room.
Two minutes later, we had the group of them (five in all, meaning that the sixth would have been this Albert person if they were a normal 'optimal' party of six) in one corner, a pile of dissolving weapons that Ost was pulling energy from, and a single door to go through.
"Ug... You better not go through there..." The defeated woman sounded desperate. One of them had tried to attack after we'd beaten them, but was going to have a Tetsu sized bruise when they woke up.
"Well, now I'm going to do it, just to make you mad." I said, turning to look at everyone in our parties to get a nod. Once everyone had taken a moment for a bit of water, maybe a sip from a potion, I got my nod, then pulled the door open.
What greeted me was a long hallway with both sides lined with liquid filled glass tubes. Like some kind of science fiction cryogenic sleep chamber.
Or cloning facility...
NOTES!
Well, the end of what would be 'book 9' is next chapter!
Thank you for reading! And if you want to see any full colour art, join the discord!
aKAQg4bnYu for the discord! As well as ways to support me!
And my actual book, Were Too? is on Inkitt.
And! I'm looking into getting some story themed merchandise made. Join the Discord to find out more!