Chapter 120

It might have looked like she was sleeping, but Kotetsu still had her eyes open as she curled up around the mirror on top of a Sakura Lumina post. I made sure to leave a dog bowl of food (dried berries and meat) and water (with a little soul healing water and mana potion diluted into it) next to her. Oh, and give her a nose to nose boop of appreciation.

While I did that, everyone got a little food and water of their own and generally did their best to recover from what was already a nasty boss fight, before we jumped in for round two.

"Empress!" Someone called out, making me smile behind a handful of my own dried berries as Raphtalia bristled a little at the title.

Sadeena couldn't help but tease the poor girl, but we could use a little cheer, "Oh, it's not so bad, they actually want to help."

"And they can actually help." Raphtalia mumbled, "I'll go talk to them." And she went to greet the little collection of samurai and archers who were running towards us from the village.

"Hey Boss!" Just as I turned to watch, SITA seemed to appear in front of me, her arms wrapping around my middle. Unlike everyone else, she didn't complain about my armour being no fun to hug. "We needed a little bit of time, but the village is more or less siege worthy..." She looked up at me, smiled just like Delly would when I gave her ears attention, then looked to the side through the toxic fug that the hydra was in.

"Won't hold against that though, huh?"

"If we had time, and a few more of me around..." SITA sighed, still clinging to my middle (though maybe because I was still playing with her ears), "Mirri loves the idea by the way. If we get her a ship more impressive than the one she has, she'll join."

"Speaking of. How many can we get here if we need to?"

"Everyone, though..." She did that total body paralysis thing for a moment, "I can't guarantee they'd be on target just yet. Now... If Kotetsu wasn't busy..."

"Hello!" Kotetsu chirped, "Yes very busy... so broken... breaking more... sigh..."

Atla came to stand beside me and SITA, with Fohl standing behind his sister. "Yes, the caverns underground felt... Like they were made to heal themselves? But now they are corroding slowly... I feel if they are left too long, we'll have more monsters like this breaking free."

"That sounds like an architecture problem!" SITA let me go and took hold of Atla's hands cheerfully, "I love those... Even if it might cause the total collapse of an ancient mechanism to suppress horrible death monsters..."

"From her description, it sounds like what I do when I make suppression loops. Any effort you put into breaking the seal feeds it power." I mused, "Motoyasu, Ren, Itsuki." I looked over the cheerful automation and tiger siblings. "What's that look for?"

"It's been on my mind for a while now." Ren started, "But how the hell do you know so much?" He raised a hand to stall my reply, "Not complaining, just... I'm so curious it's making me itchy."

And it was here that Solitaire (the butler) appeared behind Ren, and started carefully scratching the top of his head. "Let me."

Suppose turnabout was fair play. Maybe that didn't happen to me as often was because everyone was so short?

So while I (and everyone else, including Ren) diplomatically ignored Solitaire giving him a headpat, I replied, "I'm more of a programmer, than a gamer. Except instead of machine code-"

"She's not too bad at that, but HIDA had to teach her!" SITA said, letting Atla practise her ear scratching technique (so Fohl would stop complaining to her secretly).

"I work more with metaphysics, actual physics, and magic." I lifted my forearm and swayed it back and forth, showing off the circuitry styled magic patterns I had etched into it, (I had so many thank you cards to send when I got back...) "I also don't need yellow paint to look at things that should be noticed."

He considered that, "Huh... Trying to clip through the terrain." He smiled, then leaned a little (partially to get his head out from under Solitaire's attention) to look behind me. "Ah, they're coming over."

Raphtalia and the little collection of reinforcements marched over. "They will help us up here, to keep it distracted. It's not very tough, but even with eight heads we've proven it is easily distracted."

"I..." I looked in my inventory, "I don't have enough water breathing amulets for them." I looked at everyone looking at me, "What? Its a magic air supply, why wouldn't it work on toxic gas?"

Raphtalia recovered from the now familiar 'of course she planned ahead' moment, "They'll have archers moving from hill to hill around this barrier space, keeping as many of the heads distracted as they can. Ah... Gaelion? What will happen when you succeed?"

I smiled at her positive outlook, "If things go well, that-" Tetsu pointed at the hydra, "Will simply vanish, since it is the power of the main body sustaining it. If nothing else, it will be unable to recover as it had been before."

She nodded, "Very well. You, you, you. Protect that post there with your lives." She pointed to the Lumina tree Kotetsu was perched on, "If she fails to hold this back before we cut off the source, the fog will corrupt everything from here to the shoreline."

Without a hint of hesitation, the three samurai stood guard around Kotetsu, though one did break the near total professionalism I'd seen so far, and gave her a little wave.

"Archer teams, signal when you're ready. Teams of three." She commanded, three teams of two archers and one samurai dashing away. "That will keep them out of that." She waved at the mist, "And make our job a little easier."

"Right." I nodded, "As soon as you engage, my side will sneak-" I emphasized this, since I didn't want anyone to distract the hydra, and thus make it harder to get under it, "to the spot Kotetsu and Atla marked for us. Then..." I looked to Tetsu.

"We go down." Gaelion said.

(oh yay... combat... sigh... ahem!)

With a sudden sparking glow, a bright white firework exploded in the sky north of the burial mound barrier. While this did get the still lethargic hydra's attention, the heads slowly swaying in that direction, a moment later two more bursts of light exploded into the sky.

"Oh! It's like Kizuna's place! With all the sparkly explosions!" Tetsu said, big dragon hind legs hopping back and forth almost daintily with excitement. "Oh, that's the signal, isn't it? Not as exciting..."

"That's waking it up. Clive? When ever you're ready, get its... he's already gone." Raphtalia sighed. "Going to put little bells on that man..."

They all looked at her expectantly, and she drew the Vassal Katana, "We will run left along its flank, then strike."

"We'll go right then." Kodori replied.

Then, even through the fog, they all spotted Clive and Itsuki's opening shot, coming in from the west. Like a glowing ball of phosphor, it slammed into one of the heads and simply consumed it as if it were never there. Predictably, as the long neck flopped to the ground like a grotesque vine cut from a tree, the rest of the heads focused in that direction, and the main body started to move.

"Go!"

And both teams started running.

(Clive, Itsuki and Rishia)

Itsuki watched with a mix of fascination and jealousy as Clive slowly pulled back the string on that ridiculous war bow. Instead of a solid arrow however, was a shaft of crystalline manufacture that he'd produced from the centre 'eye' of the handle. Finally, as his hand reached just behind one of his conical eyes, he clicked his beak a couple of times.

"Sir Itsuki, let me help." Rishia said, "The barrier will weaken your Weapon..."

"A moment." He said. "So... Like this?"

Back, before he'd come here, he was part of the school's archery club. So long as he could draw the bow, he would never miss. Of all the skills he might have had, it was... showy, but not very useful. But his talent had prevented him from developing real skill. And now, thanks to some hard lessons, a harsh teacher, and a good friend, he knew the difference.

So, despite the magic bow in his hand that needed no effort to draw, that needed no arrows to actually work, he mimicked the strange alien looking man. Slowly pulling back the thin glowing string of the Bow, bringing his hand back to his ear, and looking forward. Overall, it was no different than before, when he would just 'point and click'. But it felt real. "If you please, Miss Rishia?"

She put one hand on his back and took a deep breath of her own, and as one, the two glowing arrows started to glow with incandescent purpose.

"Let's begin." Itsuki said, getting a positive sounding click from Clive. "Go!"

(Raphtalia's team)

Raphtalia ran ahead of them all, even compared to Motoyasu riding on Kuro's back, she was fast. Behind her, the Spear hero was doing a quick sort through his inventory, the Spear not actually in his hand, but on his back, "Just say when." He called ahead as they quickly reached the mid way point along the hydra's body. In one hand, he suddenly had a pineapple sized jar, produced from an inventory pendant disguised as a cloak pin.

"Ready..." Raphtalia said, hand on the hilt of the Katana as she drifted a little to the left, "Start!"

And as if he were juggling, Motoyasu started throwing, producing, and handing off jars from the inventory gem. He had the third one in the air before the first exploded in a blast of black powder and flint shrapnel against the back of one of the serpent heads.

By the time he had six and seven in the air, they were just reaching the end of the hydra's 'foot' and running in front of it as the beast started to dart one of its heads down at Raphtalia. This is where Motoyasu took the Spear from his back, and jumped off Kuro's back, letting the high velocity bird slam a kick into the darting serpent head.

Then Raphtalia threw a signal stone into the air, did a little hop, spun a neat 180, and decapitated the stunned head.

And then the archers, in and out of the Lumina tree's barrier started firing, and the three 'forwards' began a 'fighting retreat'.

(Kodori's team)

They started running just a little after Raphtalia had. With Tetsu carrying the tiger siblings, Kodori carrying Sadeena and Usa, and Solitaire with Ren and SITA, they were by far a more mobile team. Running in a bit of a semicircle around to the right, once the black powder grenades started to leave bloody blast marks over the hydra's necks, they were both surprised and thankful they had guessed correctly at the beast's temperament.

"Why would it chase after her so..." Usa asked, one hand gripping a ridge of Kodori's fox armour, the other wrapped around the metal clad topaz on the end of the whip on his hip.

"It was her ancestors that put the monsters here in the first place." Sadeena replied, "That spear guy is pretty flashy! Where did he learn that?"

Ren replied with, "Page forty eight of the alchemy book Kodori gave us."

Kodori rumbled with something that might have been a laugh, then growled a little deeper, turning inward towards the beast just a little.

"I see it." Solitaire said, "Gr, it smells like dung and sea water! I'm not going to like this."

"That's okay!" Tetsu laughed, "Boss makes amazing soap! Even I like using it!" Then a pause, and a deeper voice spoke, "It is down there, certainly. Be ready, little Atla, we will need your skills for certain."

And as the massive bulk of the hydra went to pursue all the things hurting it, with arrows, fire, explosions and blades, they all ran into a mangled but still recognizable stone staircase leading down, and a shattered stone door at the bottom that was still billowing with purple fog.

(Kodori)

There was no way I would fit through that door as I was, so as soon as we got onto the staircase, the partially caved in stone walls making it a bit precarious but still reasonable shelter from the hydra's tail, I let the others get off my back and changed forms.

It was a bit comical as the three 'beasts' shed people, then bumped and jostled around to find space to change as well. But once we had, Sadeena and Tetsu pushed the door open a bit more, and we all descended into the tomb.

"Wow." SITA commented, "Kinda wish I had a carbon dating device... but that isn't part of my database..."

The stone here was old, and certainly not the same blue/green of the natural caverns we'd come in through under the barrier. "I can feel it more keenly now." Atla said as we quick-stepped down the stairs.

Despite her constant nagging on her brother, she was holding his hand as we went, the rumble of battle overhead growing more distant quickly, "Maybe the extra Sakura stone upset some kind of power balance?" Fohl guessed.

Gradually, the stonework (solid brown granite I think), faded into that familiar blue/green, much like changing floors in the Dungeon would shift wall colours between floors. "Kodori?" Usa started to slow down, but I waved him to keep up.

"The air here... It's much the same as Mirso. What ever your ancestors did Raphtalia, they did it well. But this is cursed dragon energy." As we got closer, the air was getting more foul, but so was the energy. "Gaelion's old body was worse, sure, but..." I had to slow down a little, but just for a moment so I could harden my inner self against the corruption.

"At least we can breathe." Ren said, "Maybe there is such a thing as fate, if I'm here to stop it happening again?"

"I like this new sword guy!" Tetsu said, "Pleasure to be working with you this time." Gaelion added.

For another minute or so, we practically jogged down the steps. More and more brown stone was being replaced by the natural blue/green, until we got to one last archway that led into a vast purple gloom of an open room. But it was here that SITA noticed something strange.

"Oh! Hey hey! Look!"

We almost had a moment of 'running into each other's backs' as her voice cut through our focus. But we managed to keep our feet and turn towards her. Tetsu commented next. "Oh! Word squiggles!"

Yup. There, etched into the wall in coded magic script (on the last of the old brown stone, was another message from a previous generation. "Ren? Just like Cal-Mira, right?" I made sure though.

"Well... I can't read it." Usa said, with Fohl shaking his head beside him.

"Yeah. Urg, hurts to look at but..." I glanced over to Ren and watched him cross his eyes, then slowly refocus them, "Shield Holy Weapon power up method."

We looked at each other, then back, "Huh, it's just telling us what we already know. But... heh. The irony is kinda funny." I commented, "This place is supposed to stop us heroes from taking over the world, yet they had at least one of us here to help them build it." I did notice however, that the HELP icon started blinking on the status screen. "We'll bring the other two down here after."

"Agreed." Ren nodded, "Ah... Tetsu? How far?"

"About there?" She replied as we took the last dozen steps and stopped just past the archway. "See?"

It was a large basin, easily big enough to be some kind of lair for a sleeping beast the size of the hydra. But, aside from a billowing fountain of nasty glowing purple smoke in the middle of the room, that seemed to be originating from an actual pit of the stuff. It reminded me of the little crater the Tyrant had made for itself to sleep in, its presence creating an area of cursed ground. But aside from that, nothing else was in the room.

"It's body has long since rotted away. But with the outside interference, it has connected to the dragon veins to rebuild a new body." Gaelion said through Tetsu, her body expanding into dragon form again, "We must-"

Of course, just as we got to the 'goal', things had to go sideways. There was an ominous 'crack' of stone, and suddenly, the toxic fog was replaced by a burst of seawater coming in from below. And it wasn't a little bit either. "Why does it have to be water?" Solitaire growled, "Master?"

"It's only water. Though, Usa?" I gave him a pat on the shoulder.

He nodded, "I'll assist until your job is done." And he started sloshing his way back up the steps as fast as possible. It made me smile behind my mask seeing he no longer cared about being useful 'right now', and instead finding the best place to be of use in a timely manner.

"Let's finish this before it revives completely." I said, the huge gush of water getting up to our hips now, a distinct current trying to force us back towards the steps. "Sadeena! Tetsu! Solitaire! Act as anchors!"

I slammed the two bracing spikes of the Shield of Marius into the stone, and pulled Atla behind it with me. With the water breathing amulets, we had no problem breathing, but the current was really rough! It also took the glowing purple fog with it, but as we all clung to each other, with claws, steel or a giant harpoon braced into the stone, the darkness was lit up by a...

Sword?

Seemingly ignoring the upward spiral of current, a sword made of chipped crystal hovered point down over the widening pit in the floor. Seeing it, I felt the Shield try and change, the cursed dragon shield reacting to a fellow cursed Core. The sword shaped dragon core pulsed with angry purple light, a sound like a bass drum assaulting my ears even through the thin air barrier of the amulet.

Then, the torrent of crazy cross currents and pressure from the ocean filling the room stopped...

And a ghostly serpent the size of a bus spat out of the vibrating crystal sword, and tried to eat Sadeena! At the same time, I saw my stats starting to drop, as a pink glow, set into the pommel of the crystal sword, started to pulse with weak light.

"It's trying to grow a new body!" Gaelion's voice warbled through the water, "Atla!" He called across the room as Sadeena, in her killer whale form had no issue spearing the serpent head under the chin and performing some kind of death roll that pinned it to a wall.

Tucked behind the Shield of Marius, Atla and I had stood our ground without real issue. "Hold one of my tails. Tight as you can." I said, then louder, "By my authority!" I commanded, the Shield's face glowing pink.

Brighter than the cursed light from the sword, my stat drain stopped, but the sword spat out more single serpent bodies, each aiming at the other party members, myself included. "No!" Fohl jumped/glided towards me and Atla, "YA!" and with a crescent kick to the chin, he redirected the incoming snake. "I don't need fire for you!"

Our plan was rapidly devolving into a set of single combats that were all pulling our attention away from the main problem in the middle of the room. Ren and Solitaire were trying to kill three serpents as Tetsu tried to make her way to the glowing sword. Sadeena had the first (most of it anyhow) and a second chasing her through the water. Fohl was jumping and dancing between two serpents...

Oh, and SITA had used her Anvil of Self Defence to just pin a serpent head to the floor.

"Atla." I said, throwing Air Strike Shields out to give each of the little teams a moment to breathe, "Say something nice to your brother."

She was about to protest, but this was combat. And I didn't ask. Of course, the pain setting on the slave mark was set to 'meaningful poke' levels of pain, so it didn't even hurt her. "Very well." She frowned, sighed, and yelled out to Fohl. "I'm counting on you, big brother!"

And by Hestia's blue ribbon bound bountiful bazongas... she even added sparkles!

Fohl of course saw this, and with a sudden ripping of clothes, his entire body expanded. In the space of a breath, he went from a half-tiger demi-human to a full on white tiger beast man. "A little gift from your supporters in Siltvelt." I said, just for Atla as we watched her brother instantly adapt to his new size and just pull the head from the neck of an attacking serpent. "Now jump a little and curl up."

"This is AMAZING!" Fohl roared, creating an opening for me to use a blast of air behind Atla to propel her like a cannon ball towards Tetsu. "Eh?" Again, he looked between me and his sister, but I nodded, and he ran after her, his newly grown clawed fingertips leaving a chin-to-tail slash down another serpent as it went for me.

"Just in time!" Ren said as he and Solitaire finished creating a gap for Atla to zip through, the two of them falling into formation with Fohl as he arrived to add to Tetsu's protection. "Why is that shaped like a sword!?"

Sadeena, her killer whale form more graceful in the water than her 'human' body was on land, left a pair of evaporating serpent bodies behind her as she joined the 'protect Tetsu (and now Atla)' initiative, "How should we know? But you might not wanna touch it!"

This left me and SITA near the back of the room, while they fended off more singular serpent heads. But with me casting defence spells and the like, the battle was ours. SITA however, since she was just sitting on an anvil and unable to attack (even more so than I was usually), chimed in with, "Why not use hazardous materials as a weapon? Right?"

"Great! I want even less to do with it now!" Ren growled as he pinned a serpent to the stone floor, and Solitaire clawed its throat open with a (most un-butler-like) howl.

"Lemme borrow it later!" I called out, encasing an incoming serpent inside a Shield Prison, and letting it kill itself as I transformed the inner wall into 'quill shields'. "I'll polish it up nice and shiny for you!" And strip the insane soul out of it... for science...

"Almost done!" Gaelion growled, "Atla? Like you did the first time?"

Without a word, the little tiger sibling put her palm to the floor, and I felt that same 'jumping into the air' feeling of the dragon vein being pushed away, redirected far below and out of reach from both me, and more importantly, the insane, cursed, sword shaped dragon core.

"SITA. Grab it!" And with the same blast of compressed air, I pushed her towards the sword.

The Anvil vanished as she stopped sitting on it, and she too zipped through the water like a little dart. The serpent she had under it was... well, not dead, but certainly not interested in moving much, so I ignored it.

And then Tetsu reached for the sword...

(Raphtalia)

Once she saw Kodori and the others vanish under the false hydra's body, she gave the signal to the others.

"Fighting retreat!"

It was odd, even in the middle of weaving and ducking and slashing at the huge many headed monster, that she recalled one of Kodori's first lessons. Animals acted like animals. It took an act of conscience, willpower to overcome instinct. If an animal was prey, its first reaction to danger was to evade. This would vary from creature to creature, but survival came first.

But if an animal were a predator, it would chase.

So, Raphtalia ran from the beast. It wasn't a blind run, but an evasive weave between rocks, over small streams, under a fallen tree... And each time one of the beasts heads moved into a position to strike, one of the others would attack. And if the hydra started to turn towards them? She stopped, turned, and attacked.

It would have been fun if she didn't have everyone's hopes resting on her.

Part way through, a few dozen severed heads and a lot of broken terrain later, the horrible glowing fog blasted out of the hidden burial mound. It didn't bother anyone already inside the miasma, but the hydra reacted to it and started the go into a frenzy. Much like it had when the Sakura Stone on its back was threatened the first time, it seemed to redouble its efforts to attack Raphtalia.

"Are they in trouble?" Kuro asked as she kicked away a darting serpent head, before jumping away and letting a lightning bolt from Motoyasu obliterate another.

"Not sure!" Raphtalia yelled back, limiting her words.

"Empress!" Ravula's son, most opposed to the 'run away' plan, yet perfectly adept at leaping from behind a rock in ambush, "I see your rabbit companion!" He finished his ambush by severing another hydra head, then getting out of sight for another opportunity.

Without replying, she tossed a signal stone into the air. It was the same colour as the first one, the 'fighting retreat' signal. But it took less time and effort to do that, than say, yell across a battlefield to someone she couldn't see.

And a moment later, a pair of heads vanished in a blast of lightning as they finished regrowing and focused on Raphtalia. Moments after that, Usa called out, "Tunnel flooded! Shifted position! Team is fine!"

Raphtalia grinned despite her situation, slid to a halt under the chin of a head that tried to bite her, and twisted while almost parallel to the ground. The Katana let out a razor slash of wind as she did, and the offending head vanished into dust, the neck snapping away in pain. "ATTACK!"

Since she was busy, it was Motoyasu who threw the signal stone. As her second, it was his job if she were occupied when the order came. And all at once, the hydra who had been circling the area around its burial mound chasing the little raccoon with the pointy stick, was hit with focused attacks.

The archers fired as fast as they could, with Clive and Itsuki (supported by Rishia) directing them with glowing arrows to focus fire. Kuro and Motoyasu switched from 'what ever was attacking Raphtalia' to 'different heads in different directions'. Usa did the same, his chain whip lashing out to bind a head, wait for it to turn at him, then let it go to confuse it and make it easy prey for someone else. Like Raphtalia, who started to punish every moment of distraction the hydra had.

Quickly, it became clear the hydra was healing slower, then not at all, until finally, it just flopped over and dissolved to ash, its body fading away as the purple miasma evaporated into the air safely, the only evidence it had been there at all a wrecked field of churned terrain and a small pool of sea water in the middle.

(Kodori)

I watched as the glowing sword froze in place with Tetsu not quite touching it, the living will of the dragon core in conflict with the two wills inside a single dragon. Then, SITA reached it, the burst of compressed air I'd use propelling her towards it, then her own adjustments with little flicks of her wings putting her exactly where she needed to be to just... reach out and grip the glowing purple crystal of the sword shaped core.

Pulled from its spot in the middle of the room, the constant spawning of serpents stopped, the ones currently in the water around us thrashed once and vanished into inky particles, and with a little tug, SITA pulled the glowing pink pommel off the crystal sword, and ate it with a cute little 'ahh om'.

With nothing to fight, we all kind of looked at her, and she finished the mission by making the sword vanish into her own inventory. Of course, the sword and all the energy it was giving out was also the only source of light in the room.

"Heehee. Won't work on me. I'm not that kind of life form." She said in the near total darkness someplace. "Oh, lumen levels is under safe threshold..." And she became the light in the room, just like Delly would when she smiled.

NOTES!

Okay, done with this stupid hydra thing. Bleh. :)

So, I do have to admit, I am skipping a lot of stuff. It's not what you think, it's not 'content' I'm skipping, just an absolutely ludicrous amount of 'special attack calling'. In the books, this fight had an average of like... three or so 'attack calls' per PAGE of fighting. And it takes up like 3 chapters? Also, I'll admit to a bit of creative license for things. Like the sword. It's an actual sword (all nice and shiny) with a dragon core in the pommel.

But that's boring. So it's a dragon core that has been driven insane by someone chipping away at it to make it into a sword. More on that in the next chapter, but yeah. I will readily discard frivolous attack calls and replace it with shiny items instead... or something. Yeah.

Thank you for reading! And if you want to see any full colour art, join the discord!

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And my actual book, Were Too? is on Inkitt.

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