17.3 BSM Scouting (Beach Episode)
Rosalia flinched, automatically reaching out to grab the side of the boat. Even though she couldn't see it, she knew it was there. Firmly she suppressed the nausea. What her body was experiencing, sitting in the hull of the boat, and what her eyes were seeing, was too different.
She was sitting in the left half of a cheaply made catamaran, steadily moving across the surface of the ocean that was the Floor.
Meanwhile, she had face gear obnoxiously similar to swimming goggles equipped on her head. According to the inventory system it was more like an [Accessory] than [Armor], but its real purpose was to serve as a [Mystic Code].
A pair of goggles, strapped to her face. And a pair of sapphires, high above. A two-dimensional plane was defined through each sapphire with thaumaturgy, and whatever [Light] struck that plane was automatically transmitted to the matching goggle lens. Like that, remote viewing.
Her gaze lingered, tracing the shape of the island spread out below her in the warm blue sea. It was low and off-round, wide sandy beaches rising up to dunes that didn't become hills as grass and bushes spread across the interior of the island. It was strangely dry and desert-like, an island that was never rained on. Each and every island on this Floor was different in that regard, each one like a completely different biome that saw different weather, tied together only as [Tropical Islands] and nothing more.
The sapphires were mounted in a mask that looked like her face (which was dissatisfying but really did help the connection), which was embossed on a [Light Armor Breastplate] that was equipped on a [Hawk Familiar] that was contracted to her. The familiar was a hand-me-down from Silica, and the armor that familiar was wearing, that Rosalia was looking through, had been made by the Sixth Ranger. But even if she had done it at the White Witch's guidance, it was Rosalia herself that had enchanted it as a [Mystic Code].
On the far side of the island, in the middle of the cigar-like shape of it, there was a fortress made of white stone, shaped for all the world like a Shuriken from a ninja anime. Well, like it was supposed to look like that in the past, rather than looking like it now. The stone was faded to an off-gray, the walls were crumbling, the buildings in the center looked collapsed, and even from her elevated position she could see barnacles spread where the waves lapped against the spikes that pushed out into the ocean, and how sand had piled up like a ramp against the other, inland side.
It was easy for her. Because she possessed the Rare Element of [Light]. Even if the Witch had been dissatisfied and called these goggles an ungainly hack compared to directly borrowing the Familiar's vision, it was something she had achieved so easily.
Rosalia knew there were lots of remote viewing spells, because it was so useful for Scouting. However, they had all kinds of limitations. The most fundamental was that they were expensive and hard to maintain, but there was also generally a trade-off between acuity and color. You could have modestly sharp sight in black-and-white, or you could see blurry color shapes.
She had thought that the [Light] element had been almost mocking her, the kind of thing a Pure Saintess Heroine would have, rather than a realist like Rosalia. Blasting undeads with a Holy wasn't really her.
And the Witch had chided her, telling her to think of [Light] as [Information] as well. Humans were powerfully visual creatures, who experienced the world by seeing it, by building up an idea of their surroundings by gathering the photons, emitted by the Sun, bouncing off everything with their eyes. After the Witch had explained that angle to her, they had brainstormed this equipment that let her completely surpass the standards of even the [Front Line], which made Rosalia start to feel like a genuine [Protagonist].
By taking advantage of her Rare Element, she could blow past all those limits. Because it was a [Mystic Code] with good fuel efficiency (even if those two Titles thought it was mediocre), she could casually use it all day without any problems. And there was no upper limit to the image quality it sent, instead her only limit was her own [Visual Enhancement].
The hawk banked, flapping its wings to gain altitude as it flew again, and Rosalia flinched again. She had been hesitant about bothering with all the Familiarcraft, but without the mental connection at least letting her gut keep up with the motion, if someone completely separate was driving, she definitely would be vomiting.
Still, the mapping was complete, and she could see the boat she was sitting in. It was like an out of body experience.
Right now she was in a party of five people, including herself.
In the right hull, standing up at the very front of the boat with his sword resting on his shoulder, was Kuradeel. He had that serious expression on his face, with that same unsavory quality as always. Like he was concentrating really hard, but on taking creepshots up high school girls' skirts on the train. Because he was wearing black swim-trunks with a flame motif and absolutely no armor, his embarrassingly chuuni sword looked even more out of place than usual.
Behind him was the soft-headed boy that Rosalia had only met today. His name was [Keita], which Rosalia only remembered because it was on her HUD while they were partied up. He was also wearing swim-trunks. Rosalia considered him soft-headed based on the way he talked, not on his appearance directly.
Sitting in the left canoe-hull of a catamaran, just about midships, was her own body. She could see herself swaying exactly as she felt herself swaying, and she felt a weird impulse to lay her hand over her chest, adding more coverage than just the bikini. In front of her was the Witch, who was absently splashing and playing in the water. It was eerie how perfect her little girl act was. Even if it was only Rosalia's instinct that it was an act, she was confident in that. Well, the fact she was wearing an elementary girl's school swimsuit was deeply suspicious.
Behind them, in both hulls, a bunch of furniture was piled up. That sounded like a joke, but apparently it was that boy's (glance up at the HUD: Keita) familiar team. Privately she doubted it would be worth the bother of carrying them along.
Silica was underwater somewhere.
The bird flapped again, and Rosalia reached up, holding her forearm up with a clenched fist as a perch, gritting her teeth and Reinforcing her skin. She would have preferred to have that leather falconer's glove, but that little tyrant insisted they equip [Swimsuits] since it was a [Beach Episode], and even if they had weirdly good defense parameters they still weren't anywhere close to their proper [Armor].
Still, the hawk landed delicately, without piercing her skin with its talons, and Rosalia matched its timing to roll back slightly, absorbing the impact in a manner like rolling with a blow.
She closed her eyes, reached up with her other hand, and pulled the goggles down.
The Witch was glancing back at her. It was uncanny how expressionless she could be, like a doll.
"Forwarding mapping data now." Rosalia said, answering the implied question.
"GJ, Rosalia-chan," Ilya said, with a cheerful smile.
"Of course, Guild Leader." Rosalia replied with her own smile. It had taken her a little bit to calibrate how obsequious she should be. While the Witch was busy looking over the map, Rosalia busied herself shifting her hawk over to stand on the edge of the boat-hull instead of her arm. Almost despite herself, she patted it when she set it down, and the bird began preening.
"Hmm, looks like it was a standard bastion fort, before it fell into ruin." Ilya mused, as she presumably reviewed what she was looking at the map in her menu.
"Oh?" Rosalia prompted. It wasn't just because she was trying to be an engaging conversational partner; she was actually curious, as well.
"Un." Ilya nodded. "Although they're crumbling away, the walls clearly came to sharp points to eliminate dead zones for gun cross-fire, and the sides facing the land have rising slopes to deal with indirect cannon-fire." She gave Rosalia a smug and slightly secretive smile. "The Italians developed the style during their constant silly wars, you know."
"Interesting." Rosalia said, frowning slightly. If you asked her whether it was good or bad, it was bad. Because if it was based on a real fortress style instead of just being shallowly shaped like a Shuriken, that meant that Cardinal was fundamentally taking it seriously when it had generated it, rather than creating it for the sake of a joke or a gimmick.
And then she flinched as a massive shark burst headfirst out of the water next to the boat, thrashing its head viciously as it came entirely clear of the water.
The swordfish mob it had clenched in that jaw wider than Rosalia was tall flew into pieces as the teeth bit down, shearing the front and the back away from the middle gripped in the jaws.
Sitting on the back of the shark, wearing a shark-skin bikini, was the last member of their party, Silica the [beast-master]. She shouted something, apparently cheering the shark on before it crashed back down into the water.
Rosalia flinched again, as the whip-like fishtail flew over the top of boat at the same time, before bursting into pixels.
After a moment, the shark's fin pierced the water, followed by Silica's head, before the hump of the back was visible as it easily swam alongside the boat. It was as long as a catamaran hull, a monster the size of a primeval megaladon.
Rosalia glanced to the middle, where a rope lashed to the cross-member of the catamaran disappeared down into the water. On the other side, hidden beneath the blue sea, was another one of those monsters with a harness like an oxen's yoke, pulling their boat.
"Hey." Kuradeel called out from the other hull, in a menacing heavy voice.
"Ah, yes?" Silica replied, glancing over at him.
"You may have won this time." Kuradeel said. "But prepare yourself, because Krokrokun will definitely beat you to the next one. You just got lucky that it was on your side."
"Do your best, Kuradeel-kun!" The Witch shouted, thrusting herself into the conversation. "You'll catch up to Silica-chan soon if you keep working hard!" And then she turned, smiling in the other direction. "As for you, Silica-chan, don't become complacent, your pride as Kuradeel's senpai is on the line."
Silica was visibly interpreting that in her head, before she put a professional smile on her face and turned to the boy in the other side of the boat. "Then I'm going to do my best to maintain my lead, so do your best to keep up, okay? Kuradeel-kouhai."
"Watch your back." Kuradeel threatened back. "Because I'm going to overtake you. Silica-senpai."
Even though she knew better, Rosalia felt vaguely betrayed that Kuradeel was yet again 100% on board with whatever nonsense the Witch got up to.
"Uh, um, right!" Silica said, before she patted her shark's back and they retreated underwater. Well, maybe Silica thought she was going back on the hunt, but she was definitely retreating from the conversation.
Right. Even though they were pushing along in a trash-quality boat that was approximately two tiers above the introduction canoe recipe, even though they hadn't developed anything special or even bothered equipping the mast and sail and tried to figure out sailing, they were still making good time without any problems. Propulsion was solved by brute force with one of Silica's monsters. The terrible defense stats of this thing was negated by more monsters, acting as destroyer submarines escorting the cargo ship they were riding in.
Silica surfaced again, this time staying above water rather than just taking another breath, as they closed in on the beach.
The boat creaked, and began to heave back and forth as they came closer to the island, as waves began to reflect off the beach they were approaching instead of just gently rocking up and down.
The other shark, the one pulling the boat, also surfaced, its dorsal fin and back visible too, as the water became shallow.
"OK!" The witch said, clapping her hands as she smiled at them. "We're mapping the [Dungeon] to see if there's anything worth bothering with, especially the [Field Boss] gating the [Floor Dungeon]." Then her smile grew a little more secretive, a little more wicked. "But we might as have a little fun, so we're going to have a contest to see who racks up the highest kill-count on mobs!" Then she struck a pose, shaking her finger. "But it's no fun to go running off, so we all have to stay in a group. I'll allow it, if your Familiars act autonomously, though!"
Kuradeel chuckled darkly. "It's in the bag, senpai. Your sharks can't operate on land."
In front of them, [Krokrokun] appeared, smoothly moving through the water. It was something like a saltwater crocodile, although the scales were oddly smooth and shiny, as dark and polished as obsidian. The jaw was off too, a completely smooth and eyeless skull, hydrodynamic nostrils, and a mouth almost salamander-like in profile rather than crocodilian.
Silica said nothing, as both sharks surged forward, beaching themselves as they pushed up onto the beach, wiggling back and forth like seals as they belly-walked up onto the sand. The one with the boat harness dragged them forward, but the line went slack as the hulls were pulled aground behind it.
"Papa-shark, Mama-shark," Silica said, grinning slyly. "Do it."
Their backs arched, curling their heads and tails up as they ground their bellies down into the beach, their mouths opened in silent howls; the hide over their ribs split open, and unsettlingly human arms burst out of their sides, three pairs in total. They spasmed for a moment, fingers taut, before they found themselves, lifting themselves up, hands firmly placed on the ground on either side like they were doing pushups, like they were lizards.
The arms were strangely gendered, the burly, hairy forearms coming to the rough and thick hands of Papa-shark, the slender and elegant lines and smooth hands (with painted nails, even) of Mama-shark.
"Tch." Kuradeel replied.
"There we have it!" The Witch theatrically announced. "Will it be Silica-senpai who wins in the end, or will Kuradeel-kohai exhibit his improvement." She dramatically placed her hands on her cheeks. "Ah! Or will the dark horse candidate Keita-bou come from behind?"
"Eh?" The boy said, flinching back as he was addressed and flinching back more when Kuradeel glared at him. "I mean… I thought you just wanted me to watch my boat. Uh, Ilya-san."
"Hmm." The Witch hummed in an exaggerated manner. "Well, that was my initial thought, but it would be unfortunate for you to come all this way and not participate. After all, you're trying to bring your Guild up to Front Liner standards, so it's a little sad to waste the chance. So please let me see what Kiribou sees in you."
The boy visibly firmed himself, clenching his hand and nodding. "Right. Silica-chan, Kuradeel-kun. I'll be in your care."
And then the furniture piled in the back of the catamaran hulls all surged. The four chairs splashed into the water and moved with strangely animalistic movements, the legs wiggling like bacterial cilia as they swam to the beach. The table slowly spinning around, somehow moving forward as it did so. And the closet, which made strange grumbling sounds as it simply surged forward.
"How about it? Rosalia-chan." Ilya said, turning and smiling at her. "Air superiority is a strong advantage, but have you figured out how to attack with your bird yet?"
Rosalia wondered if something like 'it's fine to just wear swimsuits since this time the Familiars will do all the fighting' was giving the Witch too much credit in this situation.
Without moving her eyes, she considered the other three party members. It was one thing to fall behind an established elite Protagonist like Silica, and she didn't respect Kuradeel personally but she could respect his strength as someone who came to the Front from an escalator Guild, even if he joined after she did, so she could rationalize falling behind him at least a bit. But to lose against the boy wasn't acceptable.
Or rather, wasn't this boy (Keita) from that Guild that had stumbled across that [Field Demon]? Rosalia had heard rumors through her boys that the [Laughing Coffin] had been searching for summoning and demonology types of magecraft around the same time. Was the Witch rubbing her face in that? That [Titan's Hand] was supposed to be the Witch's spies on the criminal side, but now the Witch was rubbing Rosalia's nose in what they'd lost to?
Rosalia frowned, but not too much, not too hard, as her mind whirled. She was confident that she would outpace Keita if she could fight herself.
No, well, that was all probably giving [The White Witch] too much credit, in a sense. The girl was absurdly direct, this kind of mind game wasn't her style at all. If she was unsatisfied with how [Titan's Hand] was doing, she would have simply complained. Well, now that Rosalia thought about it, the fact the Witch didn't even feel disappointed in the first place? That was frustrating in its own way.
Still, it wasn't like she could just stand back and not even participate. It was sacrificing a little pride, but the Hawk itself had almost no battle power and low health. Well it had a great defense rating because the armor it had equipped had unnecessarily high stats, but the Sixth Ranger was weirdly adamant about only making great equipment.
Ah, that was enough for a plan. "Hmm." Rosalia opened with a sly sound mirroring the Witch. "Well, it's common sense that Players work together as tank and DPS, and my cute little hawk is specced for defense, so I'll use it to kite enemies and strike them down myself." It would hurt her score in the sense that the Sharks and that Crocodile could actively hunt, but participating well was more important than winning, precisely.
"That's right." The Witch said, weirdly approving. "For a magus a Familiar is fundamentally a disposable pawn, so taking hits instead of you even if it dies, that is the purest truth for a Familiar." Like that, the words were almost insulting, but the delivery was honest praise.
"Um, then let's do our best, and may the best Player win!" Keita said, smiling. Oh, so he had some sense after all, Rosalia thought. He at least managed to head off Kuradeel's complaining.
"Do whatever you want." Kuradeel said, his head rolling back and to the side as he stared down at her. Even wearing only swim-trunks, even with that chuuni sword on his shoulder, it was still weirdly intimidating. He was just so intense.
"OK!" Ilya said, clapping again. "With that settled, let's set off!"
Behind her, accepting her silent command, her bird took off, flapping to gain altitude. Rosalia materialized her spear, adjusting the grip in her hands until she was comfortable. She stepped forward, taking the vanguard position in the Party formation. It was a little cheap, but it was an advantage for her own work.
The group moved forward, the furniture rumbling along behind them, the Sharks Couple flanking out on the left as Silica took the left side, and Krokrokun out to the right as Kuradeel took that side. Rosalia was quietly amused that the Witch took rearguard, letting Keita take the default leader's position in the middle. Or was she putting the lowest-leveled person in the safest position? That seemed too compassionate. Ilya probably hadn't really thought about it.
A noise to the right, as a crab burst out of the sand, scuttling towards them with club-like pincers raised in a threatening manner.
Krokrokun lunged, sprinting forward. The mouth opened, toothless gums spreading wide, and then raw darkness pulsed forward, swelling from the gums, from the tongue, from the jaw bones. It formed a second, much larger mouth, with wicked fangs which snapped down, capturing the crab whole and dealing large damage, before the whole mass dragged it back. The jaws closed, spearing the crab on those fangs. The mouth closed over those jaws, snapping shut.
The crab had been taller and wider than the snout of the crocodile, but it was still dragged in and swallowed whole as the outer mouth closed around that inner darkness mouth.
A beat later, the [Congratulations] music played, the encounter finished.
"That's one." Kuradeel bragged, without even breaking stride.
Rosalia realized she'd hesitated watching his monster act out its horror movie shtick, so she double-paced to recover her position in the formation.
Silica, she noticed, hadn't broken her stride either. At least Keita had. Well, the Witch had stopped too, but it was more like she was politely waiting for them, and had a look on her face that didn't match her at all, something like maternal pride.
They crossed the threshold of the beach, onto the dunes, directly approaching the ruined fortress at a diagonal angle from where they'd landed, off the small-axis center-line of the island.
It was when they had gotten right to the mid-point of the walk that the ambush happened. Well, it felt like they had walked into a scripted battle event, but even if they were only five instead of the [Party] limit six, there were also ten more counting Familiars, so it wasn't a big deal.
More crabs than Rosalia could quickly count burst out of the sand around them, but rather than hemming them in, so the Players had to take a defensive formation against every direction, the Familiars just bounded forward as an immediate counter-attack.
Krokrokun did that ghastly double-mouth thing again, and it seemed to have some kind of anti-Aggro effect, because the crabs all scuttled around it, trying to avoid the crocodile even as it attacked them.
The Shark Couple were slower on land than Krokrokun, but fast enough to meet the crabs. They still had their huge jaws and monster strength, so that was fine.
Meanwhile, Keita was using the chairs and table more to screen the mobs, while his closet shambled forward at a slower pace.
Well, it wasn't like Rosalia was going to let herself fall behind. She raised her spear, tucking it into her armpit as she sighted down the shaft. Her hawk swooped down, lightly clawing at a crab as it went past, harrying it. In the instant the crab stopped, turning as her Familiar pulled aggro, Rosalia shot it.
Like every member of the [Brotherhood of Saint Mark], Rosalia had a weapon customized to her own strengths made by the Sixth Ranger directly. With a shaft of black wood with wire set into it like veins, reaching up to encase a perfectly clear sapphire set like a heart at the base of the blade socket, it perfectly conducted her [Prana] out to fill the gem. Stretching out from the end was a long blade of some mysterious crystal, almost organic, that always looked wet. Sticking out as a strong cross-guard were two steel blades of excellent quality.
In short, her "spear" was exactly that, a [Laser Gun]. She simply converted the [Prana] in her Circuits into pure [Light], whatever that was, and just dumped it all into the gem, which flashed like a diode pumping the laser element of that crystal blade. Invisible, attacking at literally the speed of light, it pierced the crab, melting the shell and explosively boiling the water of the meat inside. The difficulty in using it was that the [Light] had to be perfectly and exactly one color. Apparently. Rosalia didn't really know why, and the Ranger was clearly repeating someone else's explanation when he said that.
It was a melee weapon that was really a ranged weapon, the Durability of the main blade was terrible in direct combat but excellent for shooting, with the cross-guards existing as secondary weapons only to keep enemies from getting closer. It was completely for someone who stood in the back, deceptively shaped like a vanguard's weapon. Having something that matched her preferences so precisely, she'd felt weirdly naked when the Sixth Ranger had been explaining how to use it and the philosophy behind the design.
Rosalia smiled to herself, feeling proud as she one-shotted a mob on the Front Line.
Then, as she was lining up her second shot on the other crab coming from the front, her Hawk wheeling around to distract it, Krokrokun lunged forward, swallowing it whole without fanfare.
"Seven!" Kuradeel shouted.
"Ni~ne!" Silica sang out, sounding deliberately smug.
"...I'd appreciate it if you didn't steal my kills, Silica-san." Keita said, sounding somewhere between remorseful and disapproving.
"Oh, what's this?" Ilya said in a chiding tone. "This is a race, Keita-kun. Silica-chan isn't stealing your kills, you need to do a better job attacking rather than just tying them up. Quantity is fine, but the superior quality of Mama Shark won out."
The Witch clapped her hands. "So that puts Silica in the lead with nine, Kuradeel in a close second with eight in total now, Keita in a distant third with three, and Rosalia in last place with one."
"Familiars are really imba." Rosalia said, laughing. It was her true complaint at the moment, but she deliberately expressed it in a way that was light-hearted.
"That's just common sense." The Witch replied, almost absently.
"I'm not so sure?" Keita said, hesitantly. "I mean, the growth penalty splitting my XP with Familiars that can't level hurts, and the time and cost of maintenance is a resource sink." He grimaced. "And tying up so much of my [Prana] in paying upkeep limits me as well."
"Mmm, there's some truth to that too." Ilya said. "It's true that Familiars can't level, well to be precise as spiritually finished existences they're incapable of growth. Oh and none of you are at a level to make something as sophisticated as an existence capable of growth, even without proactive countermeasures against rebellion. But even so, because they're not subject to human limits, they can be Complete at a higher baseline than a human." She turned, and smiled at Keita. "But fuel efficiency eventually becomes the overriding concern, that's very insightful."
Rosalia considered that. "...Rebellion?"
"Oh?" The Witch said, smiling at her. "It's inevitable, isn't it? You're exploiting your Familiars as slaves, so naturally if they're capable of understanding that, they respond with appropriate emotions."
Kuradeel just nodded going 'of course, of course', but Silica had a queasy, concerned look on her face. "That's…." She paused, gathering her thoughts. "That's not how I feel."
"Silica-chan, you brainwash creatures into loving you, and then remodel their organs and limbs to suit you." The Witch gently chided. "The love and attachment you feel for them, and the love and attachment they feel for you. Those emotions are real, but a proper magus is clear-hearted about that."
Silica looked completely thunderstruck, and Rosalia felt, unbidden, a bizarre sympathy for the girl. Now that she thought about it, that meant when the [Contract] for her hawk had been transferred to her, the emotional bond it had with Silica was rewritten to focus on her, instead. She wondered if that could be a problem, but it wouldn't be appropriate to bring up now.
"Is… that something I'm going to have to worry about?" Keita said, with his own apprehension.
The Witch smiled at him. "As long as you [Conceptualize] your Familiars as inanimate objects being falsely animated by your puppeteering, they can't. Well, in a sense it could even be said you're pretending your [Mystic Codes] are [Familiars], right?"
"But I started using them before I even picked up any [Enchantment] spells." Keita said, protesting.
"Mou, Keita, what even is a [Familiar]?" The Witch asked.
He frowned, licking his lips as he formulated his argument. "Well, it's something that acts for you, instead of you, right?"
"Un." The Witch replied. "Taking a dead animal and reanimating it is the easiest way of accomplishing that, because you're taking something that's leftover from an [Existence], and giving it a new one. But conversely it has the worst fuel efficiency for Prana consumption, because it's constantly fighting off the fact that it's already died." She nodded. "Silica-chan and Kuradeel-kun play to their strengths by leveraging their Elements and Traits, by subverting things before they die, and blurring the definitional [Death] they experience, respectively."
Keita nodded slowly, looking confused about how that applied to him, so the Witch kept speaking.
"By comparison, you do something a little more extreme, and start with [Furniture] that is completely removed from being alive. Even if you could say wood was once alive, by the time it's been processed into lumber and reworked, it's absolutely not alive. But conversely, because it's given form by a human, obeying human will is just one more step. Especially since you lean on [Ether] by making it sort of [Haunted]? But it lacks its own [Existence], it's incapable of common sense, so it needs to be micromanaged. And what's the point of creating a familiar to work on your behalf if you have to babysit it the whole time?"
"Well it can tank hits for me." Keita responded, with clearly the first thought that came to mind.
"Exactly!" The Witch said, nodding. Rosalia had to admit she was also surprised that was a correct answer.
"It's a very limited use case of helping you do something, rather than going off and doing as it's told. A broom is much better at sweeping the floor than your hands, and if you animate the broom to sweep as you direct your arms won't get tired while you're commanding it, right? But you need to give it precise orders on how many times to sweep, for how long, with conditional orders to error-catch because it's not capable of comprehending objectives, only following instructions. Whereas if you, say, reanimated a rat corpse, it would be capable of understanding that you fundamentally wanted the floor clean and just had to do that somehow, rather than just mechanically moving back and forth sweeping."
Rosalia recognized the story that was alluding to, but what an incredibly mundane example for what was, in the end, supposed to be [Game Magic].
"Nine!" Kuradeel interrupted, as Krokrokun dealt with a mob that popped while they were just standing around talking.
"Oh my, thank you for staying alert, Kuradeel-kun." Ilya praised. "Well, I think we should take that as the game nudging us to also move forward, hmm?"
They crested the hill, walking up to the edge of the fortress wall, and looking down into the dilapidated and grass-covered courtyard at the center of the fort.
"Tch." The Witch said, sounding disappointed. "That business with the mass ambush got my hopes up, but that courtyard doesn't look like an arena for a [Field Boss] or anything like that. Well, maybe we'll get lucky and draw another ambush set-piece."
That's not lucky, Rosalia thought, but she took the hint and started down towards the courtyard, scanning the wall in front of her for something like a staircase.
They were technically supposed to be [Scouting], after all.
I I I
Chapter 17.3 End
I I I
1) I was having a devil of a time getting this section to work, but taking the Familiar Proxy Contest; adding Keita as Ilya's press-ganged boat builder instead of having them directly ride Familiars; and then adding Rosalia as the outside viewpoint to increase the number of threads getting interwoven, when I got all of that conceptualized, I went from a fresh blank file to first draft complete in one sitting, LOL.
2) The Familiar Magibabble at the end stretched longer than I expected. But I dunno if I want to cut any of it, since I'm not sure what I'll need to use as foreshadowing (or not).
3) Conversely, (what I think is) my biggest problem with it running so long is Ilya being so patient and thorough explaining it all. I'd say it's character growth from literally setting herself up as a mentor figure who explains things, and starting to forget that these are technically Muggles, which is an angle with Hexi and stuff; but I worry this is just too much.
4) Rosalia is obviously going to get recruited into Lightsaber crafting, but that didn't occur to Shirou because he's too direct; I would have had Keita mention it maybe, but I couldn't get it to work. Ditto him suggesting she maybe go track down Will-o-Wisps to make Familiars out of. Well since I've now shown them going on a Quest together it would be easy to have a bunch of Wisps floating around Rosalia the next time she shows up and just have an aside that Keita mentioned them.
5) "Rosalia's Element is [Light] => Laser gun" is the kind of aggressively direct cheese that matches both Shirou's badly-tuned idea of "strong" and Kirito's rule-exploiting troll mentality, which is nice. "How lasers work" is a little too deep in science for them though, so I tried to imply that Shirou leaned on his social network to figure that out enough to make something. Let me know if you were sold on that, or not.
6) And yeah I still need to go back and revise 17.2 per comments, I haven't done that yet.[/Information]
