Granberia flies, surveying the forestry. With her eyes alone, she has little hope to sense anything out of place- just greenery as far as the eye can see, as far as the above view from this stretch of Noah is concerned.
However, while wind is hardly her strongest affinity, her meager skill is enough for her to be able to pick up on disturbances, should the need arise. And with Erubetie busy with cleansing the spring of a group of heroes' latest attempt at pollution, she is on the lookout for any signs of additional hostilities. Furthermore, while Plansect Village's civil war is none of her concerns, an observing eye must be kept to ensure things do not go too far. Tamamo is far too busy with handling the rest of the world to care about their petty squabbles; and besides, once Lord Alipheese the XVIth takes up the throne, the way she handles the conflict will be a good gauge of how future conflicts will be handled.
The wind tickles at Granberia's ears, speaking of humans; with a burst of speed, she is headed to an area of the forest several kilometers away.
As her ears begin picking up on the dwindling sound of steel clashing against chitin and groaning men, she can pick up on the fact that the humans are losing already.
As she reaches the scene of obscenity, it's plenty clear what happened; a group of heroes decided to pass through Plansect Village and got into a fight with an Alraune and an insect girl.
The humans predictably lost.
As Granberia is treated to the unpleasant scene of a moaning soldier being dissolved inside the Alraune's pitcher with the remains of several of his compatriots, she turns towards the other. The centipede girl, with a satisfied slurp, finishes draining the boy she's forcing herself on, leaving him alive, if barely. Probably to be kept for later feedings.
"You've had your fill, haven't you?" Granberia asks the Centipede rhetorically. As the massive insect turns to fully regard her, she gasps.
"Oh, sorry, dragon miss! If I knew you were watching, I would have left someone for you to eat." She waves the insensate boy around for emphasis, before clutching him close. "Not this one, though! He's delicious."
"I can imagine." The swordswoman replies, eyes narrowed. The boy still has his shirt on, but his clothes are ripped away, and he's been drained of most of his bodily fluids. Between the lack of musculature and armor, the tear stains on his face, and the delicious smell that marked him as being unbaptized by Ilias, however, one thing was clear.
"I thought the Monster Lord's orders were clear, to only attack humans in self-defense?" Granberia asked.
"The Monster Lord isn't here right now, is she?" The Centipede girl replied.
"And besides, we were attacked by this group of men. We just so happened to dispose of them." The Alraune informed blithely.
Who knew what the actual rate of combatants to civilians there was? Right now, however, there was an unarmed man left alive, who showed no signs of having participated in the struggle. "You've had your fill now. On my authority as one of the Four Heavenly Knights, leave the human alone." Granberia ordered.
The unintelligent centipede girl, upon hearing that, understood only that Granberia wanted her to drop her new snack. "Nooo! You can't have him, I found him first!"
And with that, she began running away. Granberia growled. "What pathetic behavior."
After a considerably underpowered Bloody Fissure Thunder Thrust, the centipede lay out cold. Granberia turned back towards the Alraune, but to her surprise, the other began clapping in delight. "Oh, goodie. I was not sure how exactly to go about getting this brute to lower her guard so I could eat her. Glad you could help." Vines coiled around the body of the Centipede and slowly began dragging her toward the Pitcher Plant Girl. "I believe the typical punishment for disobeying the Monster Lord's orders is death, no? Don't mind me, I'll do this nice and easy for you."
As Granberia stared in disgust as the Pitcher Plant Girl snapped the neck of someone she'd fought back to back with naught but a minute ago, she turned back towards the boy.
Blonde, probably a merchant or noble of some kind, if the lack of signs of labor on his body indicated. But also... the signs pointed to the idea that he was raped multiple times, probably over several days. As she glanced at the discarded armor and weapons, she pondered to herself whether the group of heroes had engaged the two monsters in a rescue attempt.
...well, nothing to do about it now; both the perpetrator and the assaulting heroes were dead now, and if the lack of acid burns were anything to go by, the Pitcher Plant Girl most likely had not participated.
Well, this was troublesome. If she just let him go, he would most likely go on to hate Monsterkind, and possibly seek revenge; no matter that his kidnapper was dead. Many humans fought monsters for less than that; one with an actual reason would be even more determined.
On the other hand, bringing him to the Monster Lord's castle to become one of the servants seemed like an unjust fate, just to spare the world from the repercussions of a victim seeking justice.
Briefly, she pondered bringing him to Yamatai before shaking her head. He could most likely be reformed there, but Tamamo absolutely did not need more on her plate.
Ultimately, with a sigh, she decided that it was best to let him live his own life. Forget about all this like a bad dream. This boy was hardly the only victim; he just happened to be unlucky enough to not grow to like his captor, if the tears staining his face were anything to go by.
After picking him up, one teleport later saw them in Port Natalia. Granberia waited, hidden, for about a minute for a human woman to notice the condition of the boy; as soon as she did and began walking over to help, Granberia teleported back to the forests of Plansect Village.
Waking up with a shout, Noah was quick to survey his surroundings. His mind was on fire, running a mile a second; still, as he scanned his surroundings they were the exact same as they have been for the better past of last year.
...he still was in this place. Everytime he awoke, it was with a deep sense of dread as he realized that he would most likely not ever see home.
See, the truth was that Noah had only recently become a denizen of this world. Today, despite the fact that he did not quite know about this himself, marked the boy's one year anniversary of having crossed the world threshold. One year of having entered the world of attractive monster girls that would jump your bones at the nearest occasion to have sex.
...too bad the boy was hardly interested in the way they went about it. He still could feel pleasure, he was not blessed with immunity to that- but it did mean that he had no real interest in sex with the Monster Girls, or in general given current events, and in his heart there was only horror to be found at the concept of rape.
Sliding out of the queen-sized bed, he rubbed the sleep out of his eyes. Out of the entirety of this mansion that housed him, he used maybe four rooms in total. To be honest, it felt like a waste, but it wasn't like he could give the building away; he only had permission to live here.
Still, the massive house suited him just fine, in a way; what Lazarus had failed to mention was that apparently, having slain the Monster Lord in addition to being a cripple had effectively granted him and Marcellus a pension for life. Thus, so long as he lived here, he was effectively fed and had everything one might need to survive.
Shame that there was, strictly speaking, no way to ensure this would go on to be the case. Besides the... non-certain, but non-zero possibility that Luka would not follow his journey to the end, there was still the issue that even canon saw San Ilia being put in quite a bit of danger; first a ghost invasion, then a pixie invasion, then an angel invasion.
And even assuming that Noah survived all of this, which was... doubtful, then he would still be stuck in a world with an imperfect peace. So, how did he ensure his own survival?
Well... two ways, really. First things first, he needed to get back home as soon as possible, or at the very least ingratiate himself with powerful people who could make that dream happen. As he left his room and walked down the stairs to the kitchen, he grimaced at the thought.
The first, and sadly most likely... "Promestein," he mumbled to himself. Morally bankrupt the woman may be, but there was a great chance that if there was anyone who was both science savvy enough and persuadable enough to send him back home, it would be her.
"Tamamo..." Would probably be more inclined to kill him, ignoring the fact that while more tech-savvy than most, the woman ate CDs to read them. The woman wasn't as… well-intentioned as she wanted to make it look like, and nowhere near as good a person as Granberia.
A trickle of sweat ran down his back at the reminder of his brief interaction with the dragon warrior. Even standing in her presence would have had him quiver in his boots if he even had the strength to.
And the possibility of surrendering his otherwordly knowledge to Ilias of all people was too terrifying to consider. Promestein was in a similar can of worms, but she was somehow the lesser of the two evils. Three, if you counted Black Alice.
So, what was stopping Noah from just... allying with the bad guys, sacrificing an entire world, in order to get home?
Well, for starters, his moral compass. The power of that, however, had steadily decreased over time as desperation overtook him and his contempt for this world increased.
That other thing's name, however, was a boy named Nero Fateburn.
Well, that was a bit of an exaggeration; strictly speaking, the guy himself wasn't it and possibly didn't even exist. However, the simple possibility of Nero's existence as a dimensional traveler meant that, at least in some cases, Luka discovered dimensional travel.
Now, as far as Noah could tell, this was not the Paradox timeline- it really only took one look at a map of the world to establish that fact, from what little Noah could even remember of the weird, maybe canonical AU. As the map that proudly hung in the corridor that led to the kitchen informed, this world was not littered with holes.
Thus, with no real way to even know how to contact Promestein, not desperate enough yet to draw Ilias' attention, and with Luka simply having not yet begun his heroic journey, Noah was stuck.
That led him to his second way of trying to ensure his survival; simply trying to increase his chances of surviving a monster attack.
On that end, he'd pretty much hit the jackpot as far as equipment was concerned with Lazarus'... inheritance?
However, there wasn't much of a way for him to learn actual swordsmanship or something to that effect; and besides, without the genius capabilities and enhanced physique of a half-human half-something-else hero, there was really no point. It wasn't like Noah had monster nor angel blood in him, and the only noteworthy bladesmen he could think of were of Heinrich's line, the king of Sabasa, or fully monstrous themselves.
And with the recent addition of the powerful storms that brewed in the sea that connected Port Natalia and the Ilias Continent, the end of which Noah was sorta keeping his ear to the ground to learn of, it was only a matter of time till Luka and Alice showed up on Sentora and kicked off the plot in earnest. Could be years, could be months, could even be days- Noah had no idea for how long Alma Elma prevented trade to and from the Ilias continent.
So, with the avenue of traditional fighting cut due to Noah being... well, a pathetic human currently struggling to look through his pantry for something to eat because the delivery boy hadn't come in a week and he was too socially anxious to go around, what was left? The answer, here as well, was twofold.
The first, perhaps more obvious one, was technology. Technology was the great equalizer; it didn't matter if your opponent was immune to a blade or an arrow if you could drop a thermonuclear bomb on them. Slight exaggeration, but the point was there.
Now, there was the issue that technology in Monster Girl Quest was... wishy-washy at best. Due to this not being the Paradox world, there were no guns to be found; despite this, printed books were rather common, jewelry was practically modern in its creation, and perhaps more importantly, Lazarus blew up a school with a bomb.
Noah still had no clue how to feel about that.
Still, apparently Lazarus' affinity for mechanical mayhem was not a one-off thing with the bomb; after having explored the mansion for signs of monsters anywhere and having located the four adventurers' rooms, he'd found that Lazarus' seemed to be a machinist of some sort. Most of the things in his room were junk... but he did find a (nonfunctional) crossbow with what looked like an attempt at an automatic reload mechanism, as well as a few explosives.
It was better than nothing. But it was definitely less than something. Back home, Noah was an art student whose greatest care in the world regarding how weapons functioned was to make the ones he drew realistic enough that they wouldn't trigger gun fanboys' sensibilities. At the very least, however, Noah really had nothing but time, especially on particularly bad days when he couldn't so much as stand the thought of seeing a monster without a panic attack.
He reached for the prototype, hands caressing the smooth, lacquered wood that he'd familiarised himself with wielding by his point. He could almost physically feel the tension in it- after realizing that these things were enchanted to not lose shape while loaded, he felt that the possibility of accidentally shooting himself was a better deal than getting caught unwise.
The weapon was a work in progress. He knew, from a logical standpoint, that the monsters had the capacity for good and that there were... decent ones. He wasn't sure that there were "good" ones. The only monster you could meet in the game that Noah could remember and did not pose on some level the threat of raping you was the Unfortunate Lamia, and that seemed to be less of upstanding morality on her part and more a lack of standing up at all. He didn't see how people could walk side to side with creatures that, even untrained in battle, could easily overpower hundreds of men and were whimsical enough to do so. Even the children like the small kitsune or the mermaid queen's daughter weren't exempt.
So, on days where he felt like he well and truly wanted protection, he'd work on the repeating crossbow and the grenades. So far he'd managed to simply "downgrade" the crossbow into a repeating crossbow with a manual crank to pull back the string and severely cut down on the amount of force that Noah needed to exert to pull it. Thankfully, Lazarus had more than one prototype, so Noah got to dismantle and work on the least-promising ones.
Well, technically speaking, Noah had two functional ones. The second one was one of his more "artistic" attempts; it was a beast of a heavy crossbow... okay, that was a lie, even the other crossbow was a heavy beast; however, that one used a system of pulleys and a crank to minimize the force that Noah had to put into the draw, this one was "stupidly simple"; it was the exact same type of crossbow, but built like a pump action shotgun. In theory, not having to work the entire system meant that the crossbow would be easier to carry, easier to load, and have fewer failure points and ways to break; that last part, in particular, was important considering that Noah was doing all of this on an item that he had to carry around and maintain for who knows how long.
Of course, he still used the one with the crank and only the one with the crank. Why was that the case, with all the issues that were presented with it?
Simple. This particular type of crossbow had a ridiculous two-thousand-five-hundred pound draw to it. Noah would not even pretend to understand how that may come to be, and he only knew the fact because it was part of Lazarus' schematics, but apparently, the magically imbued materials made things like that possible.
Alas, Noah did not have the strength to pull back 2500 pounds by strength alone. He was surprised after learning about it that he could even do it on the crank crossbow, but presumably, the bulk of the work was being done by the pulleys, similar to a composite bow.
The fact that despite all that the weapon's bolts did not crack the sound barrier or go more than three-quarters of the way through a wooden stopping post was still sign that it wouldn't be as useful as the large number had made him imagine into his head, however. And if he so much as tried using it against... say, a ghost, a slime, a doll, a golem, a-
Nevermind. He'd spent little more than a few sleepless nights on the damned item, but he knew that it would hardly do a thing. But at least, it would interact nicely with the second item on his list.
As always, not being in the Paradox world put a damper on his potential; from what he remembered, magic was easier to perform there than here. But that wasn't to say that magic wasn't possible, even in lack of monster blood... just a hundred times more difficult.
"Shit… I might skip breakfast, here. Did the delivery boy not get the list?" he grimaced at the thought of venturing outside. That, however, did not stop Noah's excitement at what he was going to do next as he went to return to his room. Somehow, in the eight months here, the excitement had diminished only slightly.
Because he was doing Magic! Capital M Magic! It was like a dream come true! And again, the only reason he had any headstart in the matter was thanks to Lazarus coming in clutch to save him from giving himself a high-pitched voice.
While Karen's items contained... not much that could be of use to him, though there was a ring that Noah wanted to have appraised at the nearest convenience, Merlin's room was a whole other thing. It was an entire study with crystal balls, arcane foci, and spellbooks detailing magic.
It was a nightmare to sort through. But between the opportunity for something that was completely impossible back in his world and the sheer will to just... detach and dissociate from both the trauma of being raped and the despair of being shunted into a dangerous world away from all of his loved ones, it was easy to see how he would become a shut-in who spent his every waking hour toiling away at the work that was magic. The only times he would spend away from it were for sleeping, eating, and after a few weeks' realization, working out so that he'd be strong enough to break free of a weaker monster's bind.
He'd completely locked himself away from any type of human interaction that did not involve talking to the people who delivered food and water to Lazarus' house, and even that was mostly just to keep himself updated on current events.
Over the months, he consumed pretty much the entirety of the wealth of notes the old wizard had written about the topic of magic and the way he cast his spells. And where did that get him…?
Well, Noah could now say that on a good day, he could attack people with electric shocks!… with about the strength of a joy buzzer. The same thing went for fire, which he could use to ignite things. He could heal paper-cut wounds. And at least in theory, he could enhance himself in various ways… to no discernible effect.
It wasn't that the magic wasn't happening, but more it was… extremely small. As far as he could tell, he was doing everything correctly, but he just felt stifled, as though he was trying to suck honey through a straw. Still, compared to not being able to do magic at all, it was a huge leap, and he could tell that he was ever so slowly getting better.
"Stupid delivery boy… where are you-" the noise of a ringing bell, this world's equivalent of a ringing doorbell, interrupted him. "Oh. Never mind then."
And so, on the one-year anniversary of his stay in this world, he left the house once again to pick up his groceries. However, at the mansion's gates, rather than the usual errand boy waiting for him or a box of goodies, there were guards. Guards who were staring at him as he came out, crossbow in hand and in his pajamas.
They remained remarkably composed about it.
"Noah Romero!" one of the guards called out to him. "You have been summoned for a meeting with the King of San Ilia! Come with us!"
Noah's eyes narrowed slightly. They knew his full name, something he'd told absolutely nobody. He had been summoned for a meeting with the king. And no one was waving spears or swords threateningly in front of his face.
Conclusion: that divine bitch finally decided to take action, and for some reason, it was not hostile. It did not explain, however, why Ilias had not decided to visit him in a dream.
Noah stared at the two guards for a moment, before turning back around and walking into the mansion.
"Wha- hey! Come out, we said!" one of the guards shouted.
Steeling himself for a moment from the brief bout of social anxiety that overtook him, he peeked his head outside. "I am in no condition right now to be meeting with the king. Had I known, I'd have gotten ready. Please wait." he said monotonously and slammed the door behind him again for good measure.
Noah had been living more or less like a shut-in for the past months; his old clothes- the first ones he got in Port Natalia, he'd tossed the ones he came with in the ocean- barely fit him between the fact that he'd lost weight and gained muscle from the sheer lack of sugary content from the world change. If he wanted something sweet like a cookie back home, he'd need to buy an expensive pastry or cake. Being that he lived on Lazarus' pension, he absolutely did not have the funds.
Thus, in an emergency attempt to look somewhat presentable, he began raiding the armor and clothes that the adventurers had stored in their mansion base.
Half an hour later, he came back out, with an… interesting look. He'd taken a glance at himself in the mirror, and he didn't look bad, but he definitely looked memorable. That was honestly fine with him. Being an average Joe in a fantasy world sounded like the saddest thing.
First things first was a wide-brimmed hat pointy hat, the fantasy standard for any self-respecting mage. Other than that bit of fun, however, he opted for a more sensible look. He wore a cape made of some creature's scales that he grudgingly accepted to be better at protecting him than strangling him if the fact that it could take crossbow bolts and not be pierced was anything to go by, a brown gambeson, fingerless gloves, travel boots, and guards on his shins, shoulders, and right forearm. His hair had lengthened considerably as well, now falling well past his shoulders, with care only really given to making sure that it did not get in his eyes and trimming the split hairs. However, if the fact that in his first appearance, he had an unkempt beard and in the second his face was clean but with red marks left behind by healing magic, he'd at least brought a razor to himself.
Hidden beneath his cape was the repeating crossbow as well as two grenades he'd managed to put together. His first impression of himself, as he looked in a mirror, was that he looked like a Dark Souls character that was trying really hard to skirt the line between squeezing in those extra defense points while still getting maximum I-frames from rolling.
"Gentlemen." Noah nodded to the annoyed guards, as this process had taken more than forty minutes to put together. "I'm ready."
Noah training montage! Or not really, but he is now slightly more capable of defending himself than a civilian. And finally, he gets noticed by the world.
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