I am not entirely sure what this refers to. Letrizia's position? Hunger's authority over the temple?
While on their way back they were ambushed by a group of Knights, unusually organized and lead by an massive specimen in a tabard of green. Though badly weakened from the prior battle, Hunger and Gisena dispatched them without much fuss, the green knight fleeing as his troops disintegrated around him.
Our lack of contact with magical ghost knights is a damn shame, to be honest. Are they like Vanreir, slowly discorporating shadows of whatever they were before, under mystical effects of the Inner meddling activities? Are they suborned guardians of the tortured ring? Was there any possibility of getting them to help us? We had been slaughterning them in great quantities, their value as loot and xp bags has diminished; pity they could not approach diplomatically.
We had an option to approach the Ghost Knight commander, but man, that had some really bad probabilities tied to it, so people reasonably avoided doing that. Such a shame.
"He fears the Nullity," Hunger observed.
"A wise one," Gisena said, dramatically blowing air off her palm. "Perhaps that's why he's in charge!"
Nullity is honestly such a goddamn useful Grace, lol. Well, dispel magic always is, but conceptual dispell everything, including reality, is some shit. And she is just third Coalescence! And they progress non-linearly, offering ever-increasing buffs with every following one!
I can't imagine what sort of silly shit she'll get up to once she reaches the 5th. She is not offered as a remittance by Accursed for nothing, he does not throw companions who cannot at least somewhat keep up at his chosen cursebearers.
Hunger grunted. It rankled to let an enemy go, but he was in no fit state for pursuit. "He wasn't in charge, not directly. The way they responded to him reminded me of rabble around an agitator."
Maybe he was an outsider from the Middle Temple? Like Vanreir, perhaps, only deeper along the process of incorporation. All these knights being dead residents of the middle or inner temple would explain some things, even, including their apparently shaky loyalties if you yourself are ghost.
He was very familiar with that dynamic, having been the agitator more often than not. And the rabble... almost inevitably overrun by the Tyrant's forces after their initial momentum dissolved. The position of resistance leader was a grand and inspiring thing in dreams. Reality was not so kind.
Well, it would've been if Hidden Masters had their way. Sadly, Tyrant was not unlike Nameless Yong apparently, only less successful.
But then again, if Hidden Masters had their way Hunger would have been discarded aside like a broken toy once his purpose was fulfilled, so maybe it is a good thing they didn't manage.
He cleared his throat. "He could be assembling reinforcements. Let's go, quickly."
I wonder if their mysterious plans are progressing along nicely, now that Tyrant is dead, or there are still some blocks remaining.
"It'd be quicker if my noble mount weren't indisposed..." Gisena pouted. "Well, at least I don't have to do this in heels. You'd be shocked at some of the outfits my friends wore to the battlefield!"
Outfits of sorceress sometimes been pretty outrageous in Simple Transition Seram Edition. But I also recall at least once actually having the power to manipulate her dress, so the choices are not always simple fancy made possible via findross.
"Would I now?"
"Well, they had enough findross to make the outfits practical. It was their aesthetic sense that was lacking..." She shook her head sadly, eyes distant.
"Fashion being one's utmost priority on the battlefield."
"Exactly!" Gisena rubbed his semi-corporeal shoulder. "You get it."
A daily reminder that Gisena's land is going to get destroyed by a Destined Hero. A daily reminder that her destined hero is of particularly twisted variety; a biological killbot, born only for war, with intrinsic understanding and capability of waging war, backing up by an army of even more biological kilobits, against a politically divided country that considers them to be a pest they could annihilate at their leisure.
They made good time, and arrived at the antechamber without further interception. Strewn around its opening were a series of corpses, adventurer bodies freshly killed not more than a few hours ago.
I wonder if these have been that adventure party that has been offered to us as a choice not so long ago. They simply failed to offer some meaningful rewards for their salvation though... Isn't that sad, adventurers? And they are so weak they are unable to escape the pull of the temple, or get inside and through sheer strength get an offer of cooperation and mercenary work from Outriders. Such is fate of everyone in this giant deathtrap.
"There's an effect," Gisena said, reaching out one palm. "A perimeter around the area where the antechamber meets the grass."
He raised his ring and focused on the desire to leave. "And now?"
Lack of traps and other such obstacles really helps. We don't get any xp for overcoming environmental hazards IIRC so they would've merely slowed us down without any other benefit.
She nodded. "It's dissipating. I guess the Temple doesn't like it when the unqualified try to use this place. Looks like it would even keep out Temple denizens as well! Such a convenient ring, giving you a free pass."
Well, the giant fucking deathtrap also seems to contain the Moonciv people and prevent them from leaving, which means that even people tired of all this bullshit like Vanreir's dad and possibly Vanreir himself are trapped. Unless they are strong to break through the inner's defenses, but... It is telling that Vanreirs dad just decided to stay in the middle instead and rise his children to become an ablative layer of defense for the actual citizens. He didn't have much of a choice, it appears.
"Convenient," he repeated, as they walked towards the chamber. "...Wait. I'll give them a proper burial first."
Stuff like this, Hunger not completely losing his grip on humanity despite strong tendencies to be an underhanded elder beast of utility is probably one of the factors why Hunger got chosen to be a Cursebearer.
"Alright." She sent a wave of Nullity over the bodies.
"Just in case!"
A wise precaution in the undead-filled Temple. Despite my musings above, we really still don't know shit about wherefrom these knights come from, despite killing hundreds of them.
Even in his diminished condition, he was more than capable of moving those few bodies to an appropriate spot. Away from the entrance, atop a secluded hill ringed with trees, he dug their graves in seconds and used a large rock as headstone. It was almost alienating, this simple reminder of the strength he'd gained.
Existential agnst of not being a crippled wreck is not why Accursed chose you to be a Cursebearer, though, Hunger. Not even merely combat type, you did get offered progression powers. Eventually, time will come, you'll be the one to give awesome cosmic powers to other people, and everyone is going to look at moments like these and laugh. Laugh while resurrecting people they were burying because lol progression-type, who cares about how universe works, fuck tragedy and suffering, just fix it all.
The act of digging a grave was intended to be the somber work of minutes, perhaps hours. And yet his charted trajectory would only carry him further from the human condition. It was a small price to pay, in many way a trivial one. And yet not one that ought go unremarked-upon.
Seriously, with some luck, it is a price not to be paid at all. Accursed really doesn't care for army of eldritch abominations far beyond the mortal ken, he cares for people, comrades, and like-minded companions (although he does not
need them)
"Buried by a ghost," Gisena observed, tapping her chin. "How ironic for them."
"And slain by one too, if they fell while fleeing the ghostly knights."
Not unlikely, they'll also be ghost in time at all after this, if Temple actually does reprocess the souls of the dead as I suspect. Most of the energy probably goes toward the inner temple, everything else, the leftovers, stay here, bound forevermore.
Gisena took his arm. He gave the opening a long look before stepping across the threshold. Of course, it let them through. Casting the dead from his mind, he walked forward.
Yeah, think of Gisena. Or Letrizia. Those who are still alive.
A murderous perimeter. As if this place weren't suspicious enough. What defensive measures existed hidden around the Temple entrance? If Gisena didn't detect them, he wouldn't know, because the ring served as the pass for all of them. Why would the Temple of an rival ring be so accommodating to his own?
I wonder how fucked we would have been if not for that pick at the start. I have my misgivings about the ring of Hunger tbh; it, alongside with some mistakes made along the way, locked us into a really difficult predicament.
Well, scaling more than a couple of EFB rank and couple hundreds of the Law's Simple Transition levels in less than a week slightly assuaged the pain. I do think that we really need to pick up some sort of a scaling mechanism for our rank eventually, if Cut Through Praxis-alike does not allow it.
Was that the respect accorded to a worthy opponent, no matter how bitter their feud? Optimistic, but he genuinely felt that might be the answer. He himself would not tolerate the eternal torment of the Imprisoned Ring, be those opposed or not. Perhaps it was the purpose of the Rings to fight, to contest for primacy, and to impede that contest was antithetical to their nature.
But who made them tho.
An obvious question but seriously tho. Armaments, Rings, are there any more entire categories of absurdly powerful magical artifacts abandoned in this setting?
And all of them at least somewhat honorable or wholesome. Armaments care for their pilots, Rings have a sense of honor, tendency to give your tools at least some manner of though capabilities seems to permeate the setting.
They encountered no further oddities on the way back.
Letrizia emerged from Verschlengorge, waving happily as they came into view.
"You're always so badly hurt when you come back," she said, slightly glum.
Yet, nonetheless, we actually come back stronger pretty much every time. So much stronger than occasionally, even injuried and literally perforated with metaphysical holes, we could murder the Hunger of a hour ago with trivial ease. Man, Progression Cursebearers are some bullshit.
Imagine when we actually get our version of Thrice-Great online, tho. Progression+Thrice Great, wielded together. That might actually be a straightforward road into being a High Cursebearer.
"We've got to keep you safe from the blue swordsman. It's not like we like you or anything, stupid."
"A-ah! Yeah..."
"I'm kidding. My heedless thirst for more power is the only reason for these injuries. None of the blame is yours, understood?" He gently placed his palm on her head.
Wholesome elder tsundere bonding. If only Ber was not a murderous asshole, we really could have used him as a companion - we could have even enabled him to scale past his implied level cap, which is surely something of incalculable value to him. But he is not an elder beast of reason, he is just a stubborn murderous asshole. Oh well. Hopefully, he drops a good bag of loot.
"Hey! I'm not a kid, okay? At least s-some of the blame is mine. For bringing the blue swordsman down on us, if nothing else. And I get that there's no point beating myself up over it, because that won't help matters at all. I just wish... there was something I could do."
I am not a kid, says the person whose head is being pat. Well, she'll be able to repay us once we come back to the human sphere, and should we get involved in sort of conflict on our vacation, we did empower her to be at least somewhat meaningfully capable.
She looked up at Verschlengorge. "I'm an Armament pilot. We're not used to being helpless."
Considering what Rihaku wrote in the latest update and how he lol'ed at this setting being merely "planetary" in scale, apparently yes. This is a major understatement. Man, if there is a gap, as implied, between absurd power of Armaments and the like we'll be bound to fight eventually in our conquest of the Human Sphere and strongest of the Voyaging realm, we really need a scaling mechanism that does not depend on fighting people and monsters. We do have that Dragon of Yore thing, but it is a bit weak comparatively, we need much more than that.
"Far from it. We'll be relying on you to introduce us to your civilization. I expect the favor to be paid back with interest."
Hopefully we'll be able to actually make use of this opportunity. The Temple allows us to power up, thus allowing to power up Versch, thus allowing to move significantly faster than we could've if we simply proceeded to Human Sphere normally, but I can't help but worry that we'll come to the ruins of Letrizia's duchy.
And then there is the matter of being relevant to her conflicts. It is hard to compete with Rank 10 beings, and if she needs to extract vengeance from another Armament Pilot, there is shit all we currently could do.
"Of course!" She said determinedly. "I'll make sure you and Miss Gisena get whatever you need!"
"Good. Enough shop talk, let's eat."
The pilot of the gluttonous murderbot really knows what is good in life.
Dinner was ration bars and reconstituted soup, surprisingly delicious for so ordinary a meal. Technological advance could result in the most unusual conveniences. Letrizia sighed happily upon digging into her repast, while Hunger ate slowly and steadily. His thoughts wandered, mind unfocused after the wearying events of the day. Could the Ring of Blood be used to improve the taste of food?
Well, fantasy-side has a symmetrical answer of supernaturally delicious fishies, but... Versch apparently being stuffed with enough conveniences that it makes a pretty nice place to actually live in is amusing to me.
On unrelated note, Gisena is conspicuously absent.
On related note, Ring of Blood probably could be used to improve food. I am sure of it. Pity we got no time for that.
It seemed likely. But how to do it? Invigorate the livestock before it was butchered? Or could one augment the taste buds indirectly? That seemed like a task beneath the dignity of the ring, but if it made Letrizia feel better...
Well. Safest to test on his self first. Something to do when he had both idle time and his body of flesh again.
We just straight up forgot about it later. Alas, such ideas, buried under the abyssal waves of practical needs. Amongst piles of corpses, there is no place for bowl of soup, or fishing competitions.
"We've been traveling together all this time but haven't heard anything further about it. You mentioned three polities, and that your nation was one of the smaller ones. Is it possible that the blue swordsman's patron is connected to a rival nation?"
I still think of Ber as a bear with a blue sword to be honest. I must say, Letrizia avoided directly addressing the possibility of republic working with Astral Lords. Merely an accident, or something she did not want to talk about/contemplate too much?
"Oh, storytime!" Gisena sat up. "Yes, tell us more! What kind of society will welcome us when we deliver their cute duchess back safe and sound?"
Time to embarrass the daughter some more... Regretfully not now.
"A-ah! Well, I suppose you deserve to know. Right now the Human Sphere is at peace, but tensions have been growing between all three nations."
I wonder why exactly. Threat of mutual annihilation via thousands of Armaments is carries than a nuclear war. If they actually start fighting each other, it'll be a disaster of cosmic proportion.
She cleared her throat. "Ahem. The Sphere is divided between the Empire (that's my country), the Republic, and the Association. We control about twenty-seven hundred inhabited systems, while the Association controls seven hundred and the Republic holds the remaining eight thousand. However, we hold nearly as many Armaments as the Republic does, while the Association is far behind. There are a whole bunch of geopolitical tensions and complicated issues..."
Empire seems to be the direct continuation of the old government that was implied to fall apart, Republic the biggest rebel block, and Association are everyone who did not want to deal with their shit, I suspect, but were too weak to stand without relying on each other.
She sighed. "It's depressing to think about. That's part of why I didn't want to bring it up. Being a pilot, fighting for survival, is so simple. My family - House Artriez - has always held Verschlengorge.
Yay, lore dump. And she actually has enough awareness off her childhood not being particularly normal, or happy, which is good. It is a normal expectation, but screwed up childhood can lead to all sorts of strange convictions, especially in anime.
On unrelated note, I wonder how long is that "always" and how old this universe. Getting some sort of a history marker could be useful. Maybe it could help us eventually discover the fate of Forerunners; I doubt that this is Reapers-situation, but there still might be sort of incoming disaster we need to prepare.
Traditionally we've been its pilots as well, but my father had a weak constitution that resisted intervention. Even mages extracted from the Voyaging Realm weren't able to help him. They concluded it was some form of Astral doom and there was a huge power struggle over the Armament.
Stuff like that explains why her father sounds to be a bit of a hardass. Sending your daughter to accelerated death via piloting a thing you should have been piloting instead must have been challenging for a parent. Still, the fact that he refused pamper her properly instead speaks ill of him.
Also, lore drops. Astral Doom? Wats dis. I wonder if it could be dispelled by murdering someone, or through the light of our magical cape of Perfect Healing. Probably not, that effect could be contested, but I can dream. That would get us a lot of favour and money, too.
The Emperor wanted to seize the Armament - temporarily - and give it to someone else, while most of the nobility vigorously resisted him, afraid it would set a precedent. So... to cut the knot, I trained to pilot from a young age.
All that further explains why she latched so easily on people around her. As previously mentioned, Gisena and Hunger might be supernaturally charismatic, but Letrizia just straight up jumped into their embrace like some sort of a lemming rushing into cuddly doom.
There are other pilots my age and younger, but they all started afterwards. It's... not a big deal, but there's always been a distance between us, especially since I've been the most exposed to its Decimation." She shook her head, hair flying wildly about her shoulders.
I wonder what is her current life expectancy, and why Decimation is such a problem. Well, besides the obvious. It was told she regularly mitigates it by eating worthy opponents... Well, even a shadow of it is terribly intimidating, I guess. Can't just overcome it without major, major effort.
"Aw," Gisena gave her a hug. "Come here, you. Regardless of all that you turned out to be a wonderful and respectable young woman!"
"Thanks, Miss Gisena." Letrizia returned the hug tightly.
The relationships between Letrizia, Hunger and Gisena are always a treat... I wonder how it would've worked with other potential companions, tho. Could the Lich have turned out to be a cool uncle who spoils her with magical baubles? Was Scientific Supersoldier fated to be an elder sister-like figure?
"Anyway, a couple of weeks ago Verschlengorge was attacked by high-level Astral Beasts while undergoing maintenance, including a Sovereign-class, the strongest that can manifest physically. Of course I managed to beat them, but the Sovereign hurled me through a displacement rift before it died.
Considering that Versch actually can maintain itself by eating astral beasts, this sounds vaguely suspicious. It is told that it is normally maintained by injecting serums made from the high-level astral beings, but Versch has a vastly reduced need of such things.
On unrelated note, wow, Letrz already was in the Voyaging realm for awhile before we stumbled upon her fighting for love and justice, saving poor peasants. Navigating through it with a broken armament was probably a total pain in the ass. Damn shame Versch does not have good passive self-repair mechanisms.
The fact that none of the Armaments stationed in the Voyaging showed up at any point to support me is somewhat suspicious... it's possible the whole thing may have been a Republic plot of sorts. They're always looking to gain any kind of edge on the Empire, and they don't have any scruples about how it's done.
Drama, mecha pilot relations, political intrigue all combined with isekai. Nice. This being a republic plot of sort tho actually relies on republic being reliably capable of coordination/prediction of astral activity which... It might not be impossible, given that people like Ber can make deals with Astral lord.
After all we'd been through, I didn't think my fellow pilots would have it in them to do something like that... I guess they were just Republic scum after all," she finished, somewhat forlorn.
Poor Letrizia. You fight with people, topple the gods and their thrones, murder the gods, stomp singularities and devour their edifices, and then people whom you thought friends just kind of stop being there and you are left alone with a hangover equivalent in the middle of proverbial desert.
Well, on a positive note, it could have been anything. In a universe such a this, there could have been any sort of distractions. For example, some apocalyptic beast ate the entire republic. Nameless probably could have done something like that, and this universe most certainly scales far past rank 10.
"Well. Let's reserve judgement until we know more." He laid a hand on her shoulder. "You can rest assured that your new comrades are both more reliable, and far prettier, than any such pilots, especially if they're Republic scum."
Something that I expected to hear from Gisena. But I guess you do not make stuff like Evening Cloak without at least some taste for beauty.
Though reliability is kind of questionable. Regardless of how he feels, Apocryphal curse is instant -1000% to reliability. Damn, we need that mitigated.
Letrizia giggled. "Thanks. I've always wanted to have a supernaturally handsome bodyguard. Now I just need a pony and I'm all set!"
"A duchess of an interstellar Empire can't get a pony?"
"My father said it was frivolous... I agreed."
Nevermind that dad has weak constitution, he is also a hardass. Bleh. We need to get her a unicorn.
...And later she was dissing dogs as inferior pets. Decide your preferences already, Letrizia!
Nah, not any real use for that, given they just aren't a match for us at all.
