"Just remember that we're agreed on one or two rooms, not the whole thing." My partner stares at me as though daring me to disagree. "And if we find a dungeon boss, we retreat, no questions asked."
"Wait, what? That doesn't sound like what you said." I frown; my memory is impeccable. I knew she hadn't said a word about any sort of boss.
"That's the deal, Ciel. Take it or leave it." Markus joins his stare to El's. It feels like I'm being attacked but with disapproval rather than swords and spells. Their disapproval is unnecessary, though.
I sigh deeply, forlornly, and look longingly at the swirl of mana El said was the entrance to a brand new dungeon. I couldn't believe what I was about to say. "We should go back and let the guild know it's here."
"Though if we do run across-" El's haranguing cuts off abruptly, and she stares at me with disbelief. "You, what?"
"Yeah, we should be…" ugh, it was hard to even say the word, "responsible."
My partner leans forward to put her hand on my forehead. "Are you ok? Did you hit your head harder than it looked?"
I shake my head carefully so her hand is closer to a head pat, but it doesn't help. "I'm fine."
El leans back, and Markus takes her place by patting a furry paw against my cheek. I keep the frown in my heart off my face; it seemed like I was worrying my teammates—that wasn't [Hero] behavior at all.
I force myself to smile. As I feel it flow over my face, my perfect memory pokes me, and I spring to my feet. I rush over to my shield and slide my arms through the straps.
"I leveled up. I'm a level 2 [Fighter] now," I bask in the awed stares of my teammates for a moment before continuing. "And I got a new skill. Watch."
I raise my shield and angle it perfectly to deflect a swiping bear attack. If I'd had [Basic Shield Proficiency] before that fight, I'd have shield-bashed that fire-bear right in his furry wrist instead of getting swatted into a tree.
"What are we supposed to be watching?"
"It's my new and improved shield skill."
El raises a golden eyebrow in a way that I was sure was mocking. I turn to Markus for support, but his furry head is firmly planted in his furry paws. Well, forget about them; I think it's cool.
I make a few more shield moves, to the amazement of my teammates, before returning it to my back. "So, what about you two?"
Markus raises a pair of furry fingers—or are they toes?—and shakes his head. Well, a level 2 [Rogue] wasn't bad at all. I turn to El, but she just sighs.
"You should keep your skills and levels secret, Ciel. The surprise can make all the difference."
It was my turn to raise my eyebrows. Why would I need a surprise against my teammates? I open my mouth to ask the question, but before I can, El sighs and mutters something like, 'That look's just not fair' before continuing.
"I didn't level today, but I'm a level 7 [Mage]."
Wow, I was lucky to find such a powerful [Mage] as my first teammate. If I kept this up, I'd be a [Hero] in no time. In fact, I was so pleased that I let her lack of answer about her skills go for now.
"So why didn't you want to go into a dungeon? I've never been in one before."
This wasn't even a [Calamity] secret. I'd never actually been inside a dungeon before. Not for lack of trying, though. My larger form was just too big to fit inside. That wasn't a problem now, but it seemed I'd traded it for another—overly concerned teammates.
"Dungeons are dangerous, Ciel. Unexplored ones even more so."
"Why?" I frown, feeling somehow insulted. That didn't make any sense. A wandering [Calamity] was dangerous. What did a hole in the ground have on that?
"Dungeons are… to call them sentient would be saying too much, but they have a certain base cunning." I roll my eyes at that. How was a dumb hole a threat? El reaches forward and flicks my forehead before continuing. "That's not the issue, though. The issue is that they grow by killing adventurers."
So did [Calamities], but I didn't hear my teammate singing our praises. Well, maybe if she knew her leader was a [Calamity] in disguise, she might change her mind. Unfortunately, it was way too soon for that kind of revelation.
"New things are unpredictable, and we don't exactly have the skills to navigate a dungeon safely." Markus chirps softly at that, and El looks at him with a wry smirk. "For traps, yes, but we really need another teammate to help round out our party."
I nod at that. Every [Hero]'s party I'd read about had at least four members. Some had as many as eight, but I didn't want to lead that many people. How would I be able to prove my [Hero] potential if we had enough adventurers for a whole second team?
"We can't just pick anyone, though."
A slow smirk unfolds on my partner's face. "Indeed, we need someone who can put up with your you-ness."
"What's that-" I was a [Calamity] and a soon-to-be [Hero] who wouldn't like me?
"Chirp."
My furry friend chips in his traitorous opinion, and my face falls in disappointment. "Not fair. Stop ganging up on me."
El's smirk widens, and she opens her mouth to respond, only to be cut off as I push her to the side with an [Enhanced Strength] shove. Her annoyed look vanishes as she watches an arrow of some crimson liquid knifing through the space where her head was a moment ago. I don't have time to respond, though, because my shield and sword are in my hands as I race to meet a blob of congealed blood as it oozes into our clearing.
It wiggles menacingly, but before it can shift out of its slime form and into something more dangerous, my shield bashes it in its slowly transforming face. My sword flicks out a moment later and cuts the blob in half. Turning around, I raise my sword victoriously, only to put it back down as the splashes of blood begin to reform into a singular whole.
Well, if that didn't work, I could always bash it harder. I step forward, ready to show the weird blood-slime exactly what my new [Basic Shield Proficiency] could do, only to dive to the side at a shout of '[Firebolt].'
Blood burns and sizzles as the spell carves a hole in the slime. Before it can do more than jiggle in distress, my shield falls on it, and the slime explodes with a splash of rancid blood. This time, I wait until I'm sure it won't reform before raising my sword victoriously.
"What the hell is that?"
"It's…" I pause for a moment. It looked like a [Lesser Bloodforged], a golem-something-or-other my sister Ashe created with her [Sanguine Ascendance] skill. She couldn't be here, though. She was always too busy with that dumb flying city of hers to play. "I don't know."
"I'll let that ominous pause go for the moment," my partner shoots me a stare that says she's not done with this at all. "I think we need to get back to the city. Now."
"Right-" The rest of my statement is cut off by a titanic roar and an explosion of mana. Huh, that really did sound just like Ashe.
"Onto the cart!" I shout and leap into the passenger seat of El's cart. Markus settles on my shoulder a moment later, my scarf wrapped around his furry body like one of those sneaky Ryuujin fighters.
"It's a Tollheim." My partner scowls at me, but she moves quickly to the driver's seat of her cart.
"Alright! Let's go!" If I were in my larger form, my shout would have exploded the trees around us. Unfortunately, all I could offer in this small form was a high-pitched, squeaky noise.
"Someone better pay for these manastones!"
My partner's battlecry is even less impressive than my squeaky one, but since hers is accompanied by the cart shooting off between the trees at a speed that whips my hair against my face, I decided to let it go.
"Incoming!" I shout before leaping off the careening cart.
I ignore a groan of 'Ciel' as I soar through the air and move my shield from its place on my arm to underneath my feet. Moments later, I land with the wet splash of an exploding blood-slime. I skid for a few feet on my shield and swing my sword to bisect another blood-slime before losing my balance and tumbling into a graceful heap.
I spring upright to the sound of a [Firebolt] sizzling through rancid blood and turn toward the old man I'd just rescued. "One moment, mister. Your rescue's almost done."
With that, I sprint toward the nearest slime-monster, leaving an open mouth and an incredulous stare in my wake.
My shield swings low in front of me—I'd learned after the first few encounters with the probably [Bloodforged] that it was even more effective than my sword—and I crash through another slime.
The grin on my face widens as I hear Markus chirp softly as he leads my newest fan to safety, but I can't spare the time to bask in the joy of acting like a [Hero]. The blood-slimes were wiggling in a way that I had learned meant they were about to combine into something much larger. Which was a really unfair thing to do—defeated monsters should stay defeated.
Well, my team and I could be unfair, too.
"El!" I shout at my partner as I swing the pommel of my sword down into a jiggly mass of blood and mana. "Burn it!"
"Easy for you to say!"
The shout was interspersed with the kind of panting that probably meant my partner was running low on mana, but that wasn't something we could worry about now. Not if we wanted to keep the civilians we'd rescued un-exsanguinated. Still, despite her exhaustion, my partner flings fire at the congealing mass in front of me. An instant later, my blade carves a divot through gelid, flaming slime and comes back with a burning ember on the end of it.
I grin as a brilliant idea occurs to me. "Hey, El! Set my sword on fire!"
"That's a whole different spell, you little shit!" I step to the side as a ball of fire sears through the opening I'd made in my opponent's jelly.
"Boo!" I angle my shield and use it more like a shovel than anything to rip rotten blood from the combo-jelly.
"No! Boo you!" Another sputter of fire shoots out from my partner's perch on the cart, and I grin as the monster collapses into dead-for-the-moment goo.
"Hey, mister. You still alive?" I call out to the man staring at my team with a dumbfounded look on his face.
"I- what- who are-."
"We're an adventuring group. The Little Calamities." I grin and raise my sword in a victorious pose. I'd spent the last three rescues trying to think up the perfect team name, and I'd finally come across it.
"We are not calling ourselves that!" My teammate throws a wet blanket on top of my enthusiasm.
"I- umm-."
"Hop in the second cart, mister, and we'll get you to safety."
I point at a merchant's wagon tied to the back of our cart filled with the other civilians we'd rescued.
"This has to be the last one, Ciel. We don't have space for anyone else. We have to get the ones we have to safety."
"Aww. Ok."
The land around Reitzland didn't look like it had when I'd slept outside a few nights back. Great divots had been torn into the earth and were leaking wisps of corrosive mana. Bodies and dismembered limbs were strewn in almost artful decoration amidst the wreckage of battle.
Smushed against one of the raised bridges that led into the city was a ragged line of men and women in gore-stained armor.
"El!" I shout over my shoulder. "Over there!"
"I see it!"
Her shout is accompanied by our cart tilting up onto two wheels as it turns almost perpendicular and starts to pick up speed until it feels like we're flying. I grab a handful of the railing to keep myself from falling off, and Markus latches his furry paws into my hair.
"Woohoo!"
We careen toward a squad of blood-slimes, and I stretch out over the side of the cart and angle my shield exactly the way [Basic Shield Proficiency] tells me. A moment later, I shout gleefully as my shield scythes through a blood-slime minotaur.
My face is split open in a grin, and my hair whips back against my neck as I lean out even further to prepare for my next strike. I hear Markus's alarmed chirp as he scampers down my side, but I can't pull back now. Not when there were so many targets to choose from.
Our cart wheels around a shallow crater and straight over a pair of goblin-slimes. I wait a moment for the wheels on my side to drop back down and then another moment for the angle to be just right before I flick out with the flat of my blade and bisect the hobgoblin-slime leading them.
"Woo-ack!" My shout is cut off as I'm dragged bodily back into the cart, and I look up to see El glaring down at me.
"Stop fucking around, Ciel! We've got to break through that to get these people to safety."
My partner sounds far less excited than I do, but when I turn to look at what she's pointing, I understand why. Hundreds of slime-monsters led by a single giant-slime threatened to overrun the makeshift fortification.
"Got it!" I can barely hear myself over the howling wind and the screaming of civilians. "You drive, I'll swing!"
"Ciel, what!?!"
I ignore the shouted question and clamber to the front of the cart—the cart's wheels weren't bad at smushing the slimes, but if we were going to do this right, we needed something sharper. After this was over, I'd see if we could add some spikes or blades, but for now, a soon-to-be [Hero] would have to do.
I lie on my stomach and wrap my legs around the guard rails. Then, I extend as far forward as possible without falling off. I hold out my shield in one arm, angled to shovel pieces out of any slime that got close enough. In the other, my sword is prepared to cut through anything my shield-shovel misses. I take a moment to brace myself at the sight of the ground racing past beneath me, and then it's time.
The world around me blurs into a rain of rancid blood and ooze as my sword and shield lash out ceaselessly. Goblin-slimes splatter left and right, torn apart by my sword and shield or reduced to bubbling puddles of noxious fumes. In moments, gore stains my face and drips in fat clumps down my hair.
I've never felt so alive.
Then our cart turns toward the lead slime, and I scream the loudest battle cry my tiny lungs can offer as we charge toward the hill-giant-slime. As we speed closer, I line up for a strike that would cut off one of its jelly-legs, but instead of shoveling out gore and ooze, my shield bounces off a thick knot of slime-muscle with enough force to send me flying.
My battlecry turns to a gleeful shout—I'd never learned how to fly on my own—as my body arcs up and over El and Markus huddled beside each other in the driver's seat. Far too quickly, my flying turns to falling, and I stretch out with my shield arm to grab the lip of the back of the cart before it leaves me behind in the dust.
My fingers manage to clamp down on a fancy bit of gilt and carving. For a second, I just dangle there, holding on with all the [Enhanced Strength] my body has to offer while my feet bounce against the ground.
As we pull free of the last line of slime-monsters and into a hastily opened gap in the line of defenders, wooden tires slide into ground churned into mud and muck by all the fighting. The cart shudders to an abrupt stop, and my torso slams against the rear end of the cart. I fall bonelessly to the ground.
A loud groan echoes through my bruised ribs. "Oof."
"Get the civilians to the interior and get these adventurers some potions." I hear a familiar voice through the haze of pain and breathlessness engulfing me. It was the nice guildmaster—Alis.
"Still alive, huh, Ciel?" A calloused hand pulls me effortlessly from my resting place on the wet, gory mud and sets me lightly on the ground.
"Hi, guildmaster." I grin dizzily, leaning into the steadying hand on my shoulder for support. "We managed to find the cause of the animal aggression. There's a new dungeon out that way."
I wave my hand in the general direction that we came from. At least, I think it was the way we came. I was a bit preoccupied on the trip back, to say for sure.
"Heh. You can tell me all about it later." the guildmaster smirks tiredly. "After we deal with whatever this is."
I nod in agreement but keep my mouth shut. I couldn't say that it was my sister. Not if I wanted to keep my [Calamity] secrets secret. Besides that, if no one had recognized the signature skill of a [Calamity], I wasn't sure telling them would even help all that much.
"The Council has the Mages Guild sending out [Messages], but nothing's come back so far. At least not that they're sharing with the grunts on the ground."
I nod. It was strange. Normally, Ashe was a lot more subtle than this—she was the [Calamity of Pride] after all. This was more like something I would have done—without the slime-monsters, of course.
"Here," she tosses a towel at me. "Take a minute to clean off. I'll need every hand that can hold a weapon or cast a spell on the line with me."
Minutes later, I wasn't exactly clean, but at least I was no longer coated in a thick layer of slime-gore, as I waited in a line facing out at the slowly gathering blood-slime horde.
El was behind me, and Markus was perched on my shoulder. A big red-haired man I kind of recognized was to my right, and the cat-eared girl from the guildhouse was on my left. Behind us was the group of civilians that we and some other teams had rescued. And in front of us, at the center of the line, was guildmaster Alis.
The guildmaster's eyes sweep over us, pausing momentarily on Markus and me before continuing. "I have bad news and worse news. The bad news is that the city is sealed. No one will be going in or out."
The man beside me flinches slightly, and El inhales a muted gasp. A civilian shouts something but is silenced a moment later by a flicker of the Guildmaster's aura.
"The worse news is that we finally got word from the Skyfall Archives. These blood-monsters are associated with an unknown S-rank threat."
"But do not despair…" Some kind of skill tickles at the edges of my thoughts, but can't find purchase.
I don't pay any mind to that or the Guildmaster's probably rousing speech. I had a far larger concern: how was this the work of an unknown threat? A [Calamity] was a world-renowned monster capable of destroying cities and armies and fleets. We were the terrors of the six continents. Where we rampaged, devastation followed.
I was almost certain these slime-monsters were Ashe's [Bloodforged]. And if I was right, Reitzland was being visited by not one, but two [Calamities]—well, one was in disguise, but still. How could a city the size of Reitzland not recognize a [Calamity]? Unless…
My frown deepens. Was my sister really not at all famous in Dynegard? Did that mean people on the other continents didn't know about the [Calamity of Gluttony]? I could almost feel myself wilting. Have I really been that unimpressive a [Calamity]?
The guildmaster's speech that I'd been ignoring ends with a rousing shout, one that's echoed by the adventurers surrounding me. Despite feeling inadequate and not at all like shouting, I do it anyway.
The gathered slime-army responds to our battle cry with a burbly one of its own, and then they charge.
As the wave of rancid blood rushes across the field, I turn to look at Markus, "Stay safe."
He nods his furry head—he'd left my scarf with one of the civilians we'd rescued for safekeeping. I turn around to look at my other teammate and repeat the same words with the same grin.
"I should be saying that to you, you idiot."
I grin and feel my earlier disappointment fade away like an army hit by [Annihilation]. I'd found a great pair of teammates—the best—and we were about to defend a city against a horde of monsters. What could possibly be better than this?
At twenty paces, our guildmaster raises her sword high overhead and brings it down in a sweeping motion. The air lights up with mana and arrows. [Firebolts] and [Cutting Wind] and [Water Cannons] fall amidst the enemy ranks and tear holes in their cascading charge. The second barrage is much less impressive, though, as only a few of the quicker adventurers launch a second arrow or fire off a second spell before the wave crashes upon us.
I dig my feet into the gory mud and brace for the charge as a goblin-slime slams face-first into me. Thanks to my [Enhanced Strength] and my [Basic Shield Proficiency], I deflect the force of the slime's attack to the side, where the red-haired man turns it into a splash of rotten blood with a strike of his hammer.
I bat away another goblin-slime and use my sword like a spoon to scoop out his slime-brain. El shouts to duck. The cat-girl and the redhead both drop, but I'm short enough that I don't have to do anything to avoid the fan of flame that sprays out over us.
Into the gap opened by my teammate's attack, I sprint forward and slam my shield down on a burnt, crippled-looking goblin-slime. Markus jumps off my shoulder and chomps into the archer's slime-neck while I spin to one side to block a slime arrow with my shield. My sword flicks out as he leaps onto another goblin-slime to continue his attack, and I finish the decapitation he'd started.
There's a deep, bellowed shout to my left an instant before I feel slime-claws scraping against my [Thick Skin]. I roll away before the claws can do anything more than graze me, and as I hop to my feet, I see the redhead turning my attacker into a slimy pulp.
I lift my shield in thanks and then sprint over to where the cat-girl is weaving between the claws and Blades of a trio of goblin-slimes. I crash into the rearmost one and angle my shield to drive him into the ground. My opponent explodes in a splash of blood and gore that is joined a heartbeat later by the splashy remains of the other two slimes.
Cat-girl smirks at me, and as one, we turn toward a hobgoblin-slime lumbering toward us. In unspoken unison, we rush forward to meet him. She strikes high, her fists carving divots out of his slime-chest. I go low, my shield and sword scissoring together to snip right through his slime-leg.
Unbalanced, he falls to one knee. Before he can even begin to reattach his leg, he's engulfed in a blender of fists and swords. Moments later, all that's left is a streak of blood and slime.
I look around at the space our attack had opened, and grin as I see Markus and El have teamed up. He nips at a goblin-slime's hamstring, and she blasts him with fire. That was good teamwork. In fact, our whole impromptu group seems to be doing well enough that there's a little bubble of space around us. So, I cast a quick look around the battlefield.
To the left, our line of guards and adventurers is buckling, but before I can help, Alis shouts '[Blade of the Gargant]' and swings her suddenly massive sword through rank after rank of slimes.
Wow. My heart starts beating faster as I scoop out a goblin-slime's guts with my shield before jumping up and crushing its head beneath my feet. I couldn't wait until I learned something cool like that. Unfortunately, I don't get much time to marvel at the attack before another wave of slime monsters is here.
I grin proudly as I watch Markus dive through the eye of a hobgoblin-slime, and take advantage of its distraction to carve off a slime-filled leg. Before I can follow up with a decapitating strike, the cat-girl pulps its torso with a single punch. A few feet away to my left, the red-haired man destroys a goblin-slime with a [Concussive Strike] while the dark-blue ripple of air his strike creates explodes half a dozen more.
That was so cool. I was surrounded by so many cool people. I shake my head. I couldn't afford to get distracted by the other adventurers. If I did, they'd outperform me, and they might become a [Hero] instead of me. I couldn't let that happen.
A hobgoblin-slime bubbles out a roar and swings his slime-axe down at me. I just grin and dart between his legs like I had with that fire-bear. As I break free on the other side, I shovel a huge chunk out of his slime-spine. He burbles out another roar as he spins around to face me. I'd been counting on that, though, and El doesn't disappoint. Before he can even bring his weapon around in an attack, a [Firebolt] explodes his head and fries his slime-brain.
In another tiny pocket of space between the thrill of battle, I see a slime-minotaur racing toward a wounded adventurer. A warcry tears out of my throat as I charge after him. In seconds, I catch up to the minotaur and carve halfway through his left leg, but not before he buries his axe in the wounded adventurer's stomach. I roll through the slime's legs and pop upright, my shield held up to deflect the slime's killing blow.
The blow hits me like a mini-rampage, the force of it driving me down to one knee. The minotaur doesn't escape unscathed, though, as his axe shatters into a spray of blood. I force myself back to my feet and prepare to attack, but before I can, a shout of '[Second Wind]' is followed by the wounded adventurer burying his axe haft deep in the minotaur's stomach. He pulls his weapon free, and I move over to join him. Together, we spend a few moments turning the slime into a puddle of gore and blood.
"Thanks, kid, I owe ya one." The adventurer grins a bearded grin at me and then races off to fight another slime-monster.
I prepare to do the same, only to stop dead at a shout of 'Ciel!' That was El! My eyes frantically scan the battlefield, and I see her retreating from a pair of goblin-slimes. Her robes are torn, and her fingers sparking with flaming embers. Oh no! I'd left my teammate alone, and now I was too far to-
My mind shatters into fractal patterns and returns quicker than it ever had before. Time slows around me.
I would only have one chance, but that was fine. I was going to be a [Hero], and [Heroes] never missed when it counted.
I look down at my shield and bid it farewell, then I tap into my [Enhanced Strength], knowing it would be hours before it comes back. My grip shifts on my shield as I grab onto the side of it like it's a discus. My torso twists as I wind up, and with a bellowing warcry, I launch my shield. The instant my shield leaves my outstretched fingers, time snaps back to its normal speed.
I hold my breath, an unpleasant fluttery-ness beating its wings in my stomach as my shield hurtles through the air. Only to sigh explosively as my shield scythes through the pair of goblin-slimes chasing my teammate. She was safe.
I turn to a slime-goblin creeping up on me and lift my sword, or at least try to. It's a lot heavier than I remember. That doesn't stop me from bashing my hilt into its head and stomping on it until it's a puddle, but it does leave me more winded than I should be.
Without my shield, I felt different. Incomplete. It was as though my path to becoming a [Hero] had faded into a gray fog. A fog that transforms the battle raging around me into a dull and monotonous affair. A fog so thick that I could barely register what was happening. I could feel my sword swing through jelly-bodies. I could feel my arm ache. I could even feel my [Thick Skin] as it shreds in a dozen places, the victim of slime-forged barbs and claws.
The battlefield is awash with sprays of mana and the screams of the dying. I don't pay attention to any of it, though. It's as much as I can do to keep lifting my sword and cutting through opponents. Everything hurts. My arms feel like lead weights. My legs wobble like the slime-monsters I cut through.
I haven't seen or heard El or Markus in an eternity, but I can't bring myself to care. The fog wrapped around me is too strong. I barely see the world in front of me as I slip and slide and stumble from fight to fight. I register neither the hoarse thanks of those I manage to help nor the vacant-eyed stares of those I don't. I can't even find a mote of relief within me that none of those vacant stares belong to my teammates.
Listless exhaustion threatens to overwhelm me, but I can't let myself quit. If I quit now, I knew I would never become a [Hero].
"Regroup!"
The guildmaster's voice cuts through the muffled bits of my mind, and I look up at the empty battlefield surrounding me. The army of slime-monsters has been broken. Or, rather the first army had been.
I look up at a second army full of monsters that look much more dangerous than goblins and minotaurs we'd just defeated. Six-legged lizards prowl the space between shambling masses of plant-shapes while weird beasts covered in hooks and blades intermix with a chimeric combination of snake and human.
Towering above them all, its wings spread wide enough to block out the sun, was a dragon.
Oooh. That might be a bit much to fight.
We regroup in a much smaller circle than the first time around. Neither the cat-girl nor the red-haired man are standing next to me. I don't quite have the energy to check whether they're dead or somewhere else. To my right is the bearded man I'd saved earlier, and I feel a distant sort of relief at seeing El and Markus standing to my left.
The bearded adventurer looks over at me, and I realize that while he's the same height as I am, he's maybe three times as wide. "Never got the chance to thank ya properly, kid. Name's Fodrin of Clan Mournestone. Ya ever find yer way up the Jhoral Mountains, tell 'em know that I sent ya, and they'll treat ya right."
El scoffs and looks down from on high at us, "We've got to get out of this first, and I don't think any of us has anything for a fucking dragon."
"Can't go wrong bashing 'em in the knees." The dwarf—Was he actually a dwarf? Have I really never met a dwarf before—smirks proudly, and I nod in distant agreement. Hitting the slime monsters in the legs had worked for me all day.
"Tch," my partner scoffs and mutters something like 'now there's two of them' before pulling my shield off her back and dropping it in front of me. "You owe me for carrying that around the last half-hour. I take payment in rare books, manastones, and silence."
As I pick up the shield and slip my arm through the straps, my exhaustion starts to fade away as if it had never existed. No longer was I one of those weirdo [Duelists] who walked about with a single sword and poked people. I was, as I should always be, the tank that got mauled, so my teammates didn't.
It felt like I was whole again. A soon-to-be [Hero] walking the path of the [Paladin].
"Thanks, El! I'll have to find a manastone then." After all, my partner liked really boring books, and I certainly wasn't going to be quiet.
"Now that's a look," The dwarf's face crinkles up as he smirks into his beard. "Got more fight in ya than any ten of these tall-folk."
"That's right. Short people have to stick together." I raise my shield meaningfully, and after a moment, he bangs it with his hammer.
It's too bad he looked like a tank, too, or I'd have found my fourth teammate. Still, he said I saved his life and even mentioned a dwarven clan. If that wasn't a plot hook for an almost a [Hero] to receive an ancient dwarven relic, then I didn't know what was.
I open my mouth to thank him for his future generosity, only to be slammed down into the dirt by an explosion of mana and aura. "For the murder you have so cavalierly committed, I have been chosen to deliver unto you a punishment every bit the equal of your crime."
The pressure bearing down on me lifts just enough that I can look up at the source of that booming, mellifluous voice. My jaw drops as a radiant figure in a long, flowing dress descends from the sky. That's Ashe! A tired grin splits my face. I knew these blood-monsters were hers.
"Every last one of you will die, slowly and in agonizing pain. When your frail bodies can no longer withstand the torture you all so richly deserve, I will use your blood to craft an army the likes of which this world has never seen. It will be the wave that scours this forsaken continent of all life."
What was she doing here? She was normally on the other side of the world, busy with that floating city of hers.
I lift a weary and battered arm to wave at her, only to stop. I was an adventurer now. Surely, it wasn't appropriate for an adventurer to run out and greet her [Calamity] sister—even if I hadn't seen her in what felt like forever. Our relationship was definitely something I should keep secret just like I keep my own [Calamity]ness a secret.
Except, what kind of sister would I be to ignore Ashe when she's brought an army of [Bloodforged] to destroy Reitzland? A horrible one, my genius mind answers almost instantly.
A sour feeling burbles within me as I feel caught between two extremes. If I ran out to greet her, that would mean showing everyone I was really a [Calamity] in disguise, which would surely be the end of my dream of being a [Hero]. Yet, what if she found out I was ignoring her and told the rest of our sisters, and they decided to ignore me in return?
I shake my head frantically, trying to banish a thought almost too terrible for words.
A shaky hand settles on my shoulder, and I look over at my partner's pale face. She opens her mouth to speak, but no words come out. She licks her lips and tries again, managing to croak out something that sounded like 'it will be ok.'
No, it wouldn't! I could barely resist the urge to shout at her. If I charged out there as an adventurer, I'd make my sister sad, but if I ran out to greet her, I'd make my partners sad. How could I do that to either of them? I was stuck. I didn't know what to do.
I let my mind shatter into fractal patterns, only to almost collapse in despair as it reformed. Even my genius couldn't answer the questions that scraped at the soft underbelly of my mind with their barbed claws.
What am I supposed to do?
Was my dream to become a [Hero] really this fragile all along?
Was this what I deserved by trying to become something more than just a [Calamity]?
A single one rang louder than all the others, though. It wailed in the emptiness of my mind.
Would whoever I ended up disappointing ever forgive me?
Invisible walls crash down on me, squeezing my chest and boxing me in like my chrysalis once had. My breath quickens as the faces of my favorite people flash through my head: my partners, the nice guildmaster, the old lady who'd given me my scarf, the pudgy chef who bakes tasty bread, the dwarven adventurer. When my sister decided to end her game, she would drown the city in blood—they would die.
My heart starts to pound so loudly in my ears that it drowns out the sound of everything else. A pressure builds in my chest and burns at my eyes. It felt like I wanted to cry, even though I wasn't sad.
On any other day, I would have been thrilled by the newness of it all, but today, I didn't have an ounce of attention to spare. Instead, my body shudders, and my mind creaks with the effort of keeping my emotions bottled up within me until-
"NO! I REFUSE!" I explode, the thunderous volume of my voice startling me as it echoes in the stillness following my sister's proclamation.
Before I could quite realize what was happening, I had left the line of guards and adventurers behind me. With shield and sword raised, I sprint as fast as my smaller form can carry me. To what end, I don't know.
That doesn't stop me, though. Neither does the panicked shouting from El or the high-pitched chirps from Markus. It's a simple thought that launches me forward faster and faster until it feels like my feet aren't even touching the ground: when I finally saw my sister, I'd know what to say.
Row upon row of [Bloodforged] blur past me as I sprint toward the very heart of the army. To the place where Ashe had landed. When the last line of [Bloodforged] parts in front of me to reveal an infinitely familiar face smiling gently down at me, I…
[] "Hi, sis!" my sword and shield fall to the side as I collide with my sister's hip and wrap her in a bone-crushing hug.
[] "Halt, evildoer!" I raise my sword and shield and prepare for the most difficult fight of my life.
[AN]
Poor Ciel's having a day. I won't spoil the outcome, but I will say that both choices are equally valid as far as the story goes.
Now is not the time.
