One of the royal knights came to her and said that the king would be hosting a party in the name of the success against the wave and that she had to come to receive her reward afterwards, they were offered a ride by one of the knights
She thanked the knight and took the free ride. Doing so meant not returning to Erhard until after the rewards were handed out the following morning, which was a shame since she wanted to thank him even more for the armor he gave her. Toriel was struck pretty hard during the wave and without this armor, she might have not been in a shape where a potion would do much, so in a way the blacksmith saved her life.
This extended time to think and reflect was what Toriel needed after such a stressful event. She sat quietly staring out the window trying to relax and rest before the party. At some point Raphtalia fell asleep and leaned on her for support. The few knights in the carriage with them had ideas about their relationship being like a mother and daughter thing. They were so busy thinking about this that they didn't notice Rifana's reaction, she was incredibly jealous of what her friend was doing with the weasel girl doing the same face a kid does when they are angry but don't want to say anything. Toriel took off her cloak and draped it over her, she was out cold the rest of the ride.
Once they reached the castle, Rifana woke Raphtalia by shaking her which Toriel found rude of her to do. She was now well rested, but even sleepy she could see the nervousness that Rifana had to be in this place, something she also felt since they were both demi humans that were going to attend a high-end party at the castle of Melromarc. Both of them prepared for the worst, but what greeted them was not as terrible as they thought. They were welcomed by huge displays of food, many nobles in high-end garb, and generally a positive atmosphere to the surprise of the two demi human girls. Toriel however was worried about something else
'The party is now!? I thought we would have time to shower and put on proper attire!' Toriel screamed in her head, not only did she and her group not have the chance to fully clean themselves besides the obvious blood from the fights, but they were still in their armor, these outfits were not proper for a party
"You think they are going to mistreat us?" Raphtalia asked as she looked up to Toriel, who greeted her with gentle eyes
"It should be fine, we saved an entire village only a few hours ago. What reason could they have to be like that with us?" Toriel reassured, she knew that some people in here might not like their presence but she was sure that no obvious verbal or physical discrimination would occur as they had just done their job of helping a village and the country
"The same reason they invaded our village, the same reason we were turned slaves and the same reason that they attacked Toriel in the wave. they're the scum of the World" the Weasel girl said very bitterly and cold with Raphtalia finding herself unable to retort as she somewhat agreed with that sentiment.
Slowly the hall was filled with the heroes and some of the higher ranking Knights who assisted in the wave. More nobles showed up and with them, musicians. As the hall began to get a little nice, the musicians started playing. It started feeling like a party as Toriel recognized it.
She appreciated the atmosphere, Rifana and Raphtalia ate some of the food before the two decided that they much preferred eating something Toriel made than these appetizers, they simply did not compare with the shields hero's incredible cooking and they much rather safe room for an eventual meal at Erhard's house.
Toriel was just standing there, trying to not bother anyone, she was unsure what she should do at this party since it was a celebration but she didn't want to start a conversation with strangers that might not want to hear her for unfamiliarity's sake. She saw that Ren, Itsuki and Motoyasu were together discussing something, she decided to join in since she not only knew them but also because they had fought the wave as well
"Why do you wear that scarf? does it give it better stats or-"
"Hello, are you boys enjoying the party?" Toriel greeted them as she got closer, Motoyasu immediately perked up and turned to face her with a smile
"Oh! Toriel, how nice of... you came dressed like that?" he asked obviously disappointed, as he expected her to have come with a dress to the party, and if she didn't then it was likely her companions didn't dress up for the party as well
"Y-yes, we were taken directly to the castle after the wave, so we didn't get a chance to change, I feel very inappropriate for coming to a celebration dressed in armor" Toriel said ashamed, motoyasu's reaction was exactly why she wanted to change, she probably looked so rude and indecent by wearing a armor made of leather to a highly sophisticated party
"Yeah..." Motoyasu said, his face not hiding his disappointment as he was gripping his spear very hard with most of his strength from how mad he was
'Is he mad that he can't see her in a dress? What is wrong with him?' Itsuki questioned since the three of them were also taken to the castle immediately after the wave ended and barely had time to prepare, Itsuki couldn't believe Motoyasu expected that Toriel and her group would have "doll up" during the trip to here?
"Anyways, the wave was very easy, I'm honestly surprised it didn't have any extra challenge" Ren commented as they had not struggled with the wave one bit, even with Motoyasu having to play the role of tank when they fought the boss he actually wasn't even that hurt considering that he only needed a simple healing spell and was back to full health
"I wouldn't say that Ren, the people of the village were really struggling with the monsters there" Toriel said as she looked at him, she knew the three boys weren't there to see the deplorable state the place was left by both monsters and the royal guard but it still rubbed her the wrong way the manner of which he said that he wanted a world ending event to be more challenging
"Village?" the three heroes all asked in unison as they looked at her confused at her mentioning a village
"Yeah, the wave happened close by to Lute village, it was the place where I got those gauntlets I gave you from, didn't any of you heard or seen the flare that shot up to ask for help?" Toriel asked, the three heroes did remember hearing a sound that very much reminded them of a flare or alarm followed by a bright explosion but they chalked it up to being just some sort of thing to indicate that the boss had spawned
'... Were we supposed to go to the village and protect it while the monsters came our way, defeating rounds until the boss came, like a sort of tower defense? that actually does sound like something that should have happened' Itsuki thought it over, it did seem like the heroic thing to do but that meant making the wave last longer and there was no way to say that the monsters would actually go to the village, perhaps they could have split up into two teams, one to take care of the boss and other to secure the village
"I was able to save most of the people, but the houses took the blunt of the damage" Toriel said as she reminisced about the situation, her frown arching down saddened thinking on all the people that lost their homes in such a short and unexpected turn
"Well it was a good thing you went there then, but the royal knights were there to help the village, I'm sure they could have handled it" Ren said as it was probably something to not worry much, the knights from the capital arrived kind of quick so the villagers would have still be saved, it was just good that Toriel was there to help and save those who wouldn't last in between those moments
"They're the ones who destroyed most of the houses" Toriel looked at them with a flat expression while her tone seemed neutral with a hint of harsh judgement and disdain in it
"Huh? they had such a bad aim when casting spells or something?" Motoyasu asked, thinking that the knights were causing a bunch of collateral damage because they were bad shots or had bad vision, like grunts in movies and games
"Their approach to fighting the monsters in the town was to cast a massive ball of fire and throw it at the village" Toriel said in her annoying tone of speaking, the three other heroes found it weird coming from such a usually kind person but to consider the circumstances, it made sense
"That's... counter intuition isn't it? they are supposed to save the people and protect the village, bombing the whole place would result in the same thing as them not showing up to help" Itsuki said as that was probably one of the dumbest idea he heard that didn't come from Motoyasu, blowing up the village in flames was a way to get rid of a majority of the monsters sure but it also killed the people they were sent to protect in the process if they couldn't evacuate at time, did they at least sound a alarm or something to indicate to the survivors that the place was going to be bombed
"If it was easy to rebuild the houses then maybe it would be a good approach right? AOE damage is good for this sort of thing" Ren said as he thought about it in a logical sense, it did make sense for the knights to pull out this move if the monsters had accumulated in a big horde in a specific area, even if a few houses were bombed. He was really just wondering two things, were houses easier to repair or build in this world thanks to magic to the point a few being burned down wouldn't be a big deal, and what size was the collective mass of monsters to warrant such response: 20? 30? 10?
"Hum, if I didn't have this shield, me and my group would have been incinerated to ashes by it. Their captain didn't seem to mind if there was a possibility that there were people there" Toriel said with pout as she remembered very vividly how it felt to block that rampant of fire with her shield even after weakening it after splitting it with her magic, the exhaustion that made her feel like her heart would pop out of her chest and the searing heat was something she wouldn't forget so soon
'They bombed her?!' the three heroes all thought in shock, Ren thought that perhaps the knights had just not seen her as they might have been a very long distance away and Toriel seemed like just a blur mixed with a few dozen zombies and giant bees, Itsuki worried that the knights bombed her on purpose since she looks like a demi human and thus at the very least the captain of that squadron of knights is racist, Motoyasu was just pissed off that someone almost incinerated Toriel and her party members, but they all had to admit that her defense must have been pretty good to resist such a thing as [rain of fire] or [fiery doom] as those two were the most probable spells used in that bombing attempt
"Those assholes, where is this captain? I have to give him a piece of my mind!" Motoyasu said as he was going to give him a few good stabs, Toriel kept telling him to calm down while tapping his shoulder
"Lady Toriel we bought some food" Raphtalia said as she and Rifana came holding a plate of fancy (and too small for Raphtalia's opinion) snacks
"Hey there~" Rifana said as she approached Motoyasu, with the spear hero deciding to forget about what he was so angry about for him to speak with the weasel girl in his normal tone, while the two flirted and Itsuki talked with Raphtalia, Ren approached Toriel
"... I have to tell you something" Ren said as he looked up a bit awkwardly to the tall goat lady, while pulling her a bit away from the others
"Huh? What is it Ren?" Toriel asked as she looked at him while arching down due to their size difference as to make it easier for her to hear the boy's whispers
"Those gauntlets you gave me... Really helped in the wave, Tersia was obliterating zombies with it and she said I should compensate you for it" Ren said, those gauntlets had really helped Tersia as that bonus effect of improved senses made Tersia a freaking killing machine, and she asked Ren to give Toriel a gift back for her kindness in giving them those gauntlets, Ren was hesitant at first but the more he thought about it the more he felt required to pay her back
"There's no need, it was a gift" Toriel said as she didn't want to receive something back just because she gave him something, as that was not the reason she gave him those
"Yeah but I hate being in debt with someone so I am going to give you advice" Ren said as he despised owning favors for others, and after hearing that she was quite literally bombed a few hours prior, it seemed only fair for him to give her some help in the form of advice, she was still a grandma who didn't know the crocks and cranny of this game world so she was still probably struggling "You should get more party members, you and those two aren't going to be enough in the future, more teammates means more to manage but it can help a lot with fighting, that's my advice for you"
"... Thank you Ren, you're a nice kid" Toriel complimented him as she patted him in the head, Ren felt embarrassed as he felt like she was treating him like a child, but to consider he doesn't even know how old she is and that the fact she was a goat monster could mean her life span might be much longer than his, maybe he did look like a kid to her
"Hey miss Toriel, I'm going to grab some drinks, you want wine or-" Rifana froze in place, eyes wide and full of dread as she seemed to become a statue and fear took over her entire expression, the weasel demi human began to shake and grabbed on to her back as tears falls from her eyes
"Rifana?" Toriel and Raphtalia asked in worry as the other heroes also looked, confused for what had gotten to the weasel girl
"Rifana are you alright? Why are you shaking? what are you looking at-" Raphtalia stops her sentence as she sees what was making Rifana so fearful, the raccoon girl seemed to become as fearful as her friend, but different from Rifana, her fear vanished as a mad frown appeared on her face in the place of fear
"Raphtalia? Rifana? What is wrong with you two?" Toriel asked worriedly as she placed a hand to her companions shoulder as she looked at their expressions
"... It's him..." Raphtalia mumbled under her breath, she was emitting a feeling of anger and fear at the same time as she said that "... our previous owner..."
Toriel eyed the man and the gem of her shield turned red, for a slight moment all the candles and lit fires in the castle began to burn brighter and hotter as the center of the flames became blue, until Toriel let out a heavy sigh
"... Let's get out of here" Toriel said as she turned towards the heroes with a much gloomy expression, before disguising it with a smile "I'm sorry boys, please enjoy the party without us" the three heroes watched as the goat woman guided her teammates out of the party and were profoundly confused by what and why she did so
"What the heck happened? did she eat some of the sea food and ended up getting sick?" Motoyasu questioned innocently as maybe the weasel girl had some allergy she wasn't aware of, it wouldn't be an uncommon thing, like how some people only discover that they are allergic to bees after they get string by one
"It was very odd" Ren commented, as he expected himself to be the first to leave the party since he didn't like big social gatherings like this. Itsuki looked at the direction Rifana was looking and saw that it had in focus a particular nobleman, and it was then that the gears in his head started working
"I think I know" Itsuki said as he pulled the two into a group huddle and began to talk in a low tone "I'm going to tell you guys something but you all aren't going to like it"
"What?" The two other heroes asked in whispers as Itsuki took a deep breath since the information he was about to lay down was heavy
"...So you guys know that a lot of Isekai have slavery right?" Immediately after Itsuki said that, Ren and Motoyasu had wide eyes horrified by whatever Itsuki was about to tell them
"I don't like where this is going" Ren said as he could already guess what he was going to say and that frankly scared him
"Soooo... slavery of demi humans, people with animal features, is common here, so common that no one bats an eye..." Itsuki clarified and suddenly a lot of things started to make sense to the other two, they had hardly seen any demi-humans in this kingdom, and the ones they did only had rags on their bodies and didn't exactly have well maintained bodies considering the malnourishment in their sickly physique, but they attributed that to them being homeless but know it painted a different picture. And thinking about it, that applied to Toriel as well since she wasn't human, was that why she seemed to be the less favored by the crown and the country, just because she was a goat? Although now a question appeared in Ren's mind
"Wait, does that mean Toriel has slaves as her party members? that's messed up" Ren pointed out as he was a bit doubtful about his assumption, wondering if they were slaves as to have some protection from the law or if she had rescued them.
"No, I interrogate the slave trader and I got the confirmation that she doesn't have them as slaves, she paid to remove the curse mark that makes them a slave, yes they invented magic just to make slaving easier, and yes it is more expensive to free a slave than it is to free them" Itsuki laid it out to them what he had discovered when he interacted with that slime ball of a human being named Belouska, it took all Itsuki had to not shoot an arrow through his head, worse it seemed that the guy was very weird as when he slammed him against his desk, he seemed into it. He simply took all of the useful information he could and left "The only reason Toriel or us for that matter aren't magically branded slaves is because our weapons protect us from curses"
"Holy crap..." Ren and Motoyasu stuttered as they both think about that, they didn't want to believe it but they were in an alternative magical world based on the medieval times, it didn't seem far fetched and it actually made sense with the lore of their games as well as their knowledge of history from their worlds
"I knew this place was too good to be true, there's always that one thing that ruins everything...'" Ren commented as he hadn't really experience anything that ruined his view of the world or dampened his enjoyment from the situation but here comes Itsuki to ruin that, Ren wasn't that mad at the bow hero since it was better to know about this sort of thing sooner rather than later but it didn't lessened the impact such a revelation
"But why did those two react that way? And what does that have to do with slaves?" Motoyasu asked innocently as Ren and Itsuki looked at him dumbfounded,
"... Oh my god, you're demented or something?" Ren said while placing a hand in his forehead. Even him had figured out why those two reacted that way and he had access to the same information as the spear hero
"Motoyasu, look at who they were looking at" Itsuki said as he pointed at the guy while forcing Motoyasu's head in that direction
"The fat guy with the small mustache?" Motoyasu said as he looked at Itsuki who simply nodded, as Ren also began looking at the aforementioned noble
"Can you see that the fucker has the most evil 'I kick puppies for fun' face you can imagine? That guy was probably their previous owner!" Itsuki said as they eyed the man again, he definitely fit the bill of a stereotype of snobby noble, but he did seem to have some twisted grin on his face typical of a bad guy, plus they saw what looked like a whip of sorts in his waist hidden a bit behind his coat and cape, why in blazes was he carrying that to a party, none of them knew
"Oh... Damn, and since they are women and thus probably not used to working on farms or anything, they were either house maids, tortured for fun or violated for sexual..." Ren began to say before stopping himself, not wanting to imagine such a thing but unfortunately someone else had already imagined that scenario
"Son of a bitch!" Motoyasu screamed out but still in a whispering tone before he looked at the man and prepared to throw his spear at him
"Wow! wow! wow! what are you doing?!" Ren asked as he and Itsuki held him down to not cast whatever skill he planned on unleashing
"I'm just going to give him a piece of my mind and my spear!" Motoyasu said as the two could already guess what his so compelling argument would be, brute force and impalement
"Motoyasu you can't just kill the guy in this party full of people and the king, wait until he is all alone, specifically when he is in a carriage ride back home so then when you kill him, you can make it look like a monster or bandit attack" Itsuki said in a strangely calm way, and the fact that he seemed to be encouraging Motoyasu while laying out a plan to stage a murder as if it was a accident like in a detective show was a bit unnerving to Ren
"Itsuki, what the hell! you too?" Ren said as he pushes both of them off, and took a deep breath as he tried to be the voice of reason here "you two need to chill! killing him is not going to solve anything"
"hum! yeah right..." Motoyasu and Itsuki just scoffed at their response while looking away
"Let's just try and enjoy the party..." Ren said as he decided to go and grab a drink, this was a stressful day and he needed something to calm down a bit, may eat one of those mini sandwiches just to get his mind off from all of the information he received
"Fine! I will make sure none of my girls go to talk with that bastard" Motoyasu said while leaving in a huff to inform his companions to stay away from that man and if he approached them just to scream for help so he can impale the guy
"... You will not escape justice for long..." Itsuki said as he stared at the man rather ominously as a dark desire to turn that man into a pin cushion for his arrows
[second condition of the bow of justice(cursed) met]
"It was nice of them to offer us a room to stay the night..." Toriel said as she looked at the room, it was simple, having two beds and a sofa, with somewhat lack of decorations with the exception of the carpet and the rugs to cover the window
"You two are doing better?" She asked as she looked at her companions, Rifana was sitting in the middle of one of the beds while hugging tightly to a pillow, while Raphtalia sat by the left side of her bed, both deep in thoughts
"... I hate that he is here, I wanted to pull my sword out and kill him, I don't even care if it was in front of the king" Raphtalia said as she imagined the scene in her head over and over again
"Raphtalia, you shouldn't have such violent thoughts, I know that man hurt both of you but we cannot allow our decisions to be made through hate" Toriel said as she did not want the raccoon girl to develop into a hateful person, she knew that wouldn't help the girl emotionally and that this world already had enough hate as it was
"... Do you think he will go after us? He might decide that we are of his interest again and..." Rifana said as her voice carried a low tone of fearfulness, she remembered that man's sickening law as the cracking of the whip filled the room, the ghost pain she felt on her back was unbearable, an itch that didn't go away that she desired to get rid off. She had her face pulled up by Toriel's soft hand as it lightly pulled it up to look at her, red reassuring eyes and carrying smile help push the weasel girl's fear away
"If he tries that my dear, I will unleash unimaginable fires to burn him until there's not even bones left, I will not start a fight but if he does want to hurt you two, then I will make him regret it" Toriel affirmed as she looked at both Raphtalia and Rifana, she was a pacifist by choices, she didn't engage in fights that weren't needed but she wasn't going to let someone hurt the victims she rescued, she had a lot of compassion to give but that didn't mean everyone deserved that compassionate spirit of her
"... You two should sleep, we have to wake up early tomorrow" she suggested as she got up, willing to tuck the girls in and sleep on the armchair, it wasn't like she hadn't done that in the past before
"Can you read us a story? something to get my mind off this whole thing" Rifana asked as she looked at Toriel with begging eyes, the goat lady giggles and complies
"Sure thing"
[Author's notes]
This was sitting in my files unfinished for a while so I decided to finally get it done so you guys could read one more chapter of this fanfic. Now I will be honest here and say that I still like this story very much, but I feel that a rewrite of previous chapters are needed since my writing style has changed and I don't feel satisfied with the older ones when I read them.
Until I get around to reworking the parts I have problems with this fanfic will be on hiatus, your support is appreciated heavily