Shield Hero, but hopefully Heroic

[X] A shady ally door that had 'Terry's Legitimate Magic Business' crudely written on a piece of wood out front.
[X] Motoyasu
 
[X] Barber Jones Hairstyling.
[X] King Aultcray


We really need that haircut. I'm also curious as to what complicated feelings are lying inside the king right now.
 
Barber Jones and the Styling of Hair
[X] Barber Jones Hairstyling.
[X] King Aultcray


Okay neat. The interlude will be something I work on right after this update.

---

You were drawn to a barbershop. Specifically Barber Jones Hairstyling. You knew you could get service here without getting kicked out due to talking with him about investments earlier but you didn't get a good enough deal to justify the money he wanted you to lend him. You really needed to have someone fix your hair. Especially if you were serious about being in business. The more you respect yourself the more people will respect you as your father always said. "Huh? A customer this late... Oh Yukihime! Welcome, welcome take a seat! I knew you'd come back so I can take care of that mop on your head!" Jones was scarred, like you. He had a prosthetic leg and an eyepatch. More than that he was a big jolly fellow with a well groomed goatee and ironically bald. His main customer base were military veterans so you thought it was just right to go to him for your hair... "Yes, Mister Jones. I think... I think I want my hair tamed from the unruly mess it is right now... Please avoid cutting where you can, I am quite attached to it despite how it looks." It was sentimental, it was just hair after all but you liked your hair damn it. "Haha! I get that one all the time. Though I've never worked on something like this before... I'm going to need to head over to Charlie's Perfume store, he has some special hair treatment stuff he usually uses for his own hair I can buy off him. Sit tight kid, I'll be back." Jones put way too much trust in you, leaving his store unguarded with two relative strangers. You weren't going to do anything though you just thought it was sorta irresponsible. For a moment it was awkward just sitting in silence.

"So... William... Knitting?" You were bad at small talk. "Yes, I used to be really good at it in my youth. Though, when I was on the road there was very little opportunity for it... Now that I'm stationary in a place that sells supplies for my hobby cheaply I can do it whenever I want! Maybe I'll branch off into other parts of clothes making... Sometimes... Sometimes Yukihime, when you're walking towards a goal you start to forget the small things in life. I wish I treasured things like that before now..." Things puttered back into companionable silence. You liked William. He and you were basically on the same level of human interaction both of you able to see much more in each other in small quiet conversations like this. You were incorrect when you saw your father in him, William truly was a type of person you've never met before and you're glad to have met him.

"Huff, ahh... Give me a moment... Phew! I'm back kid. I'm out of shape! But I have the equipment I need." Jones finally came back. You were surprised at the small bottle in his hands, but you reserved your judgement. Things didn't work like you thought it did, the only thing you knew was that you knew nothing. Jones, didn't use magic. In fact you were pretty surprised, seeing the crazy amount of magic users as business owners. "Hey, Jones... Why is there so many magic users running shops?" So you asked him directly. "Oh that? That's easy. There's only a few institutions that professionally teach magic in Melromarc, the fee to enter one is absurd and the competition to stay inside is even more crazy. This creates the problem of 'Hedge Wizards' who fuck around in the countryside using unlicensed magic, and a large amount of people who don't bother to even try to learn magic outside of the craft they want. For example, Alchemy Girl... Pris... Pri.. Alchemy Girl, she was privately taught by Master Ricardo for the longest time before being sent to Melromarc's Magic Academy with the instructions to only learn things that would help in her chosen field. For you see, you only really need to have a year of being a student under your belt in these academies to get licensed for business pursuits. That being said, a lot of people don't bother to go at all and just illegally do magic as Hedge Wizards because it's really hard to enforce the ban even with most of the knowledge being hidden in some castle somewhere." Huh. Interesting. Brush, brush, brush, snip... This is giving you anxiety time for the next topic.

"That makes sense, but what's with all the business owners either being foreign, young or really old... No offense Mister Jones." The more info you get the more you can use it to your advantage. "Well that's simple too. A lot of the younger business folk are bastards, illegitimate offspring of noblemen. A lot of the last generation of businessmen had much of their wealth taken by the crown in the last war, and then the rest of it after the wave devastated the military. It's why there's so many poor folk in the capital, and also why you're slightly popular with the business folks because you got away with the greatest political beat down Aultcray has ever experienced in public. If he wasn't a war hero he'd probably have been experiencing a public revolt by now with how much he's favoring the nobility and the church over us and the common folk." So you just entered the fray in a political entity tearing at the seams in a economic depression. Snip... Snip snip... Brush. "Done!"

That was pretty fast and painless. You looked into the mirror, ignoring your mangled face and bloodshot eyes you looked good. Your hair was well groomed now, and led down to your lower back. You're going to need a brush and some hair ties. You were pretty tired now... "It looks great... How much do I owe you?", "Hah! Nothing kid. The fact that one of the Four went into my shop? I'll profit off that for months. Not to mention kid, it was an absolute pleasure working on that hair." You couldn't accept that charity... "Then allow me to tip you for your good work!" Jones looked apprehensive "I couldn't possibly do that... Keep your money, kid." No. You know what, you'll just conveniently leave some money somewhere for him to take then. So you left fifteen silver on his desk on your way out. You pay your debts in full, to not do so would make you less than an animal.

You got back to the tavern with William and you ate. You forgot to ask to exchange some silver to copper so William had to pay again, but at this point your finances were so linked together that you didn't mind anymore. Just as you were finishing up William asked you something.

"Yukihime, I've been thinking it over for a while. I would like you to become my student."

Do you accept?

[X] I'd be honored...

[X] No thank you.

I'll be working on the interlude.
 
[X] I'd be honored...

I have no idea what William is intending to teach Yukihime, but I trust him. If he thinks that this would benefit her, then let's accept.

I like how we got a bit more worldbuilding here. While the quest is interesting, I haven't read the canon, and what little I've heard about it doesn't encourage me to read it.
 
[X] I'd be honored...
I think this might be a generally good idea-given the whole 'lack of weapon besides holy one' thing that caps our offense, and that we're going to NEED to be able to fight smarter just in general to succeed- even assuming Malnurished doesn't bite our physical stats, they're only around decent.
As for Magic...*frowns* So I don't know if the others canonically pick it up but on the flipside our shields I think tend to be semi-magical in terms of what they enable? I figure if Magic becomes a NECESSITY then we'll be steered in the direction of picking some up.
 
[X] No thank you.
"Look, I didn't want to say this, but in reality I became a child soldier in order to skip handing in my homework. It got a bit dicey sometimes, but ultimately I think it was worth it."
 
Interlude 1: King Aultcray
You are King Aultcray. You were a renown war hero, a legendary king, and a father. You also fucked up miserably. This was a disaster. Your daughter and the Three Heroes Church goaded you into summoning the four heroes and caused an international incident. In all honesty you felt like a huge fool letting yourself be puppeted around so easily. You knew that your dislike of the Shield Hero would keep you from being impartial so you left it to your daughter Malty. She's been looking for a chance to prove her worth for a long time now, and you thought that she'd want to take her father's footsteps and win the crown through action...

But she fucked everything up. You loved her, you really did but... The catastrophic way that she messed up was the problem. She had, like everyone else thought that the summoning would grant legendary figures... So when a small crippled fourteen year old came out you knew instantly that everything was wrong but you pushed on anyway because you hated the Shield Hero for admittedly irrational reasons. It was only after you reacted without thinking did you realize how horrible it must have looked and how it reflected on you. You lost the respect of the heroes you needed to SAVE THE WORLD! Instantly. You had no idea that Malty was planning to isolate the Shield Hero and give them no followers either, and the Spear Hero just flat out vanished after the first day in the capital. Then the Sword hero? He went to go to the villages... He's the only one who kept his crown picked adventurers, and they seem to be working well together from what you can tell... It's just that he seems to be focusing more on getting stronger than helping at the moment but you can forgive that it's only been a few days. Malty hasn't taken her failure well, you didn't have the heart to scold her. She's been so desperate to get her title as heir back, and she seems to be just in a shell shocked state of seeing her one chance go by. Maybe you'll go talk to her about how you proved yourself to Mirellia? Malty seems deadset on intrigue and court politics to try to get herself in power, but that'll never work and she's getting desperate... You need to offer her an alternative before she does something rash.

The Shield Hero? You actually turned your opinion around. You didn't like her but you didn't hate her. If she kept going and helping the people? Well, that's another story. Your dislike was based simply because she was a religious figure in another nation... Your daughter Melty got you to see how stupid that was, and she was quite the fan of the Shield Hero so far... You thought Melty was just naive when she brought up things that distressed her like the suffering of the Demihumans and the stance against the Shield Hero... Maybe you were wrong? God you were old... You were old and foolish, you weren't anywhere near the legendary figure everyone thought you were... You can't let go of the hate you feel for the Demihumans. You know it's irrational, it's based off the death of your family and the people in your nation have nothing to do with it but you can't just shake off a lifetime of prejudice. This is why you have decentralized your influence over the kingdom, but you still fucked it up regardless. You were just the Consort for God's sake, and now all the other nations are furious due to your actions. Maybe... Maybe you need to wait for your wife... Mirellia was a true genius that could get you out of this... All you needed to do was keep the country from falling apart. She's still really angry at you for not stopping the legalization of slavery all that time ago, and she didn't even look at you when you fucked up everything and summoned all four heroes here... She'd know what to do.

The Bow Hero... You hated him. He wasn't as sneaky as he thought he was, he was killing people. He was being obvious about it too. Everyone knew that the Bow Hero was killing nobles and nobody could really do anything about it because we needed the full set to save the world. He was a jumped up serial killer, and you were glad you removed Malty from his party. You actually had to thank the Shield Hero for that, if you weren't studying her every move you'd have missed the flash of disgust and confusion in her eyes when she looked at him. You detected it as well, Itsuki was warped...

Did you really need a serial killer 'hero' to save the world? If only you didn't NEED Itsuki! If only you could summon another without needing to kill all the heroes to do so... If only you could... somehow... transfer...? Wait that's it! You get up from your chair and go for the parchment and ink, you need to write this down. Two letters. One to your court wizard, and another one to the Shield Hero.

To my faithful Court Wizard, Leonard Goldman. As you know, the Bow Hero has been causing much unwanted trouble in the land. Already he has murdered several prominent noblemen so we must figure out a way to remove him without removing the Bow Hero off the board. I wish for you to look into trying to transfer the Bow Heroes powers into another individual. We absolutely must not lose the Bow Hero, but at the same time we cannot let him do whatever he pleases.

Your King, Aultcray Melromarc XXXII


Now, to the Shield Hero, as the only one still within the capital city...

To the Shield Hero, Yukihime Sakura. By royal decree of the powers invested in me by Queen Mirellia Q. Melromarc I summon you to partake in a mission to capture the serial killer Itsuki Kawasumi for the crimes of murder for the deaths of multiple lords. I implore you to meet me and pick out a hunting party to capture Itsuki at your earliest convenience. You must absolutely NOT kill him, as all four heroes are needed to save the world.

King Aultcray Melromarc XXXIII


You cut out the theater you usually put in your letters. This was the time for direct action. The world was on the line, and it was time to act.

--

Now you get to see the major divergent point and your first 'quest'. King Aultcray had no reason to really dislike you beyond your vague connection to another religion, and no reason to focus on you... So he wasn't blind to the actions of the other heroes. Specifically he's now aware that Itsuki's been murdering people and that he was wary of the wrong hero. He's just had his entire life pulled out from under him as well, and is not going to actively antagonize you unless you do crimes. As you're the only one who's in the city at this time you're being tasked to hunt Itsuki down.

Ren is actually including his party and is focusing on getting stronger for the waves. He's not a known public figure like you, and he likes it like that. Motoyasu fucked off somewhere, maybe even out of the country.
 
This is going to be uncomfortable for her on at least two levels.

('You mean... Not kill the enemy combatant? Great...' and 'I hate that king wtf is he doing summoning me like this, is BS, go die')

I wonder if the King can muster, y'know, an apology.
 
Hrm.
Good news is, with Bow's dickery exposed early, and our duo should be fairly well-suited...Assuming we don't get shot upside the head because he can shoot through cover or something wild like that.
Bad news is he's going to have a larger retinue. And while I dunno about level comparisons, I am worried about our equipment-the majority of our shields are based around fixing ourselves up, but it's the small shield that offers the durability...
 
[X] I'd be honored...

About the interlude, wow that's a big shift. I'm glad Itsuki was exposed early though, and that Aultcray removed Malty from his team.

Motoyasu either must've fled the country or is lying low somewhere. Ren seems fine with what he's doing; that's good.
 
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[X] I'd be honored...

Hopefully we don't have to hunt him down immediately, I'm not confident we could take him down without casualties as we are.
 
Kind of want to see her go ," What do you mean he's a serial killer!? Now, you want me to be a detective. I just wanted to learn the theology of Monks and to stay off my bad leg."
 
[X] I'd be honored...

Wow, that came out of left field. I didn't know any of the other heroes beyond Shield were problematic in canon, so learning Bow is something of a serial killer of nobility is quite surprising. Wonder why he's doing that? Comes from a world where he got horribly mistreated by them?
 
[X] I'd be honored...

Wow, that came out of left field. I didn't know any of the other heroes beyond Shield were problematic in canon, so learning Bow is something of a serial killer of nobility is quite surprising. Wonder why he's doing that? Comes from a world where he got horribly mistreated by them?
From what I remember from the Light Novel and manga the Bow Hero has a Hero of Justice thing going. He hears of an local evil lord and goes to kill him not realising that he makes life harder for the people that live there. Since the King is not focused on the Shield he sees what the Bow is doing and is trying to fix it.

[X] I'd be honored...
 
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