Once again, I was awake in El's townhome after my teammates had gone to sleep. And just like that last time, I'm far too excited to sleep, but for a much different reason this time.
This time I'm going on an adventure! A real-life adventure! One with a [Villain] hand-picked by my favorite—in a six-way tie for favorite—sister! I can hardly wait! Maybe there would be a dragon with a horde-
No, I shake my head. Despite being a common enemy in my books, I don't actually want to fight a dragon. They're always blathering about self-determination this or noblesse oblige that. That, and their meat's really stringy and their neck bones always get stuck in the back rows of my teeth.
With another shake of my head, I force myself to stop thinking about the evil plot my sister had created just for me. Even though I sometimes skipped to the end of a story to see if the [Hero] was really a [Calamity] in disguise—unfortunately, I was zero for four-thousand seven-hundred and ninety-three on that—I didn't want my own [Hero] story spoiled. After all, it's the anticipation that makes it so exciting.
We were going on an adventure tomorrow! It's all I could do to keep myself tucked into the sheets. I wanted to jump out of my sheets and rampage until everything was dust and ash.
Unfortunately, El had forbidden me from wandering about her home at night. She'd said something like, 'You'll just stomp around like a monster and gorge yourself on food if you do,' which just showed how well my teammate already knew me. Because I would have definitely done both. After all, stomping is really important because [Heroes] are supposed to let everyone know where they are—unless they were on a sneaky-sneak mission—and eating is always fun.
Well, at least I'd already had plenty of time to explore my teammate's home. Which had turned out to be just as boring as her boring-book room had been. So, instead of re-exploring, I was being a good teammate and staying in the room El had said was mine now. Which was really nice of her—and bumped her into second place on my favorite people list, just ahead of not-furry-Markus.
I squeeze my eyes shut, hoping that if I pretended I was sleeping hard enough, it would actually work, but it doesn't help. If only I were more like Soph. She could fall asleep while rampaging—which was the funnest thing in the world. I'm sure she'd have been asleep for hours if she were in my sheets. Well, maybe not. How could anyone sleep when there were adventures to have and villains to vanquish and people to meet and-
My genius mind pokes me and I grin widely. That's it!
That's what our party's missing. We don't need another tank. Because I don't want to make any future teammates feel bad by failing to stand out when compared to their leader and a future [Hero]. Nor did we need another damage dealer. El's fire and furry-Markus's fangs definitely have that covered. No. What we need is a [Bard].
Which is perfect, because we're going to help the dwarves out with their villain troubles, and everyone knew that dwarves liked to sing, especially in taverns. Finding a [Bard] teammate among that many singers would be as easy as chomping through a cow's backbone.
I snuggle into the pillow clutched in my arms as I bask in my genius idea. With a [Bard], we would have buffs that would make our team stronger and faster—plus, an adventuring team that had accompanying music is automatically ten times cooler than one that didn't. More important than any of that, though, is that a [Bard] would be the perfect person to record my [Heroic] adventures. They could write songs and plays and sagas and…
ZzzZzz…
The next morning, I'm awake before the sun peeks in through my window. I throw off my blankets and spring up to my feet. It's time! Today's the day! I have to go wake my teammates-
My perfect memory pokes that thought away before I can rush over to the door. El had said she'd shove me in a barrel for the trip if I tried to wake her up, which was an odd threat and an even odder thing to do to your party leader. However, she'd said it was part of the plan, so I couldn't really argue with it. That didn't make it any less strange, but maybe El liked barrels.
So, instead of stomping loudly throughout the townhome, I sneakily creep out of my room, pausing briefly to slam my door shut with just the right amount of [Enhanced Strength]. I had to make sure the door was really shut, or pesky intruders might get inside—that was a lesson Soph had taught me one time when I woke her up from a month-long nap. Then I start sneaking my way toward the kitchen where last night's leftovers surely awaited, being extra careful not to stomp my feet or even step on a creaky floorboard. But because I'm being so careful, by the time I reach the kitchen, I realize I'm the last of my teammates to arrive.
Furry-Markus is lounging on his ugly, way-to-big scarf, and I pause just long enough to show him my elegant scarf-ribbon tied into a pretty bow in my hair. He graciously acknowledges his defeat in that argument by not even raising his head from his inferior scarf.
As I pass by my squirrel-teammate, I set eyes on my probably-a-princess-teammate. El is squinting at the contents of a thick ceramic mug that's steaming with warmth and wafting a pleasant smell throughout the kitchen. Unlike Markus, she does look up when I creep into the room, though for some reason, her squinty face gets a lot bigger.
"Hi El. Hi Markus," I announce myself as I sidle up to the kitchen table that still has a few pieces of leftover meat and… "Ooh, I love marrow."
I reach out for a thick piece of bone that had once been covered in roasted meat. It cracks easily between my teeth, and I grin widely as both of my teammates look on in jealousy of my amazing jaw strength. I quietly slurp the marrow out—because Ashe always hit me with [Annihilation] beams when I did it too loudly—and then chomp down on the rest of the bone. Mmmm. Cow bone is so much crunchier than dragon.
El mutters something like, 'I can't believe I've accepted all this so quickly,' and if my mouth wasn't full of crunchy bone shards, I'd disagree. She's an amazing teammate; she should believe she could accept anything quickly.
Once I swallow the last bit of cow bone, I reach for a kettle wrapped in warming runes that seemed to have the same delightful smell as El's drink, only to get my fingers slapped. I look up at my teammate as she scowls down at me.
"Absolutely not."
"But it smells so good."
"It's not for you."
Well, that wasn't a good argument at all; a [Calamity of Gluttony] could eat or drink anything. Unfortunately, my perfect retort was something I couldn't say because it was also a secret. Fortunately, I had another, almost-as-good response.
"But I'm the team leader."
El's squinty face lightens just enough for a hungry-wolf-smile to cross her face, and something fizzles in my stomach as I realize that my nearly perfect argument will soon be defeated.
"That's a shame because this is a drink specifically for planners, not leaders."
My face falls as my fears are almost immediately realized. She's absolutely right. I'm the leader, not the planner.
Utterly defeated by the brilliance of my teammate, I snatch up the last piece of leftover beef and a somewhat less fluffy roll. Savagely, I carve open the roll with my blunt claws and shove the piece of meat inside. Mercilessly, my flat but still incredibly strong teeth ravage the impromptu sandwich in two bites. While I chew, El mutters something like, 'I knew I never wanted a little sister,' which is a strange thing to say because little sisters are the best thing in the world. I should know; I am one. Before I can open my mouth to tell her that, she plonks a stack of coins down in front of me.
"Here. Go buy whatever you need for our trip north."
My eyes widen at the stack of gold coins. I could buy so many [Hero] books with that much money! "Thanks, El! I'll make sure to buy everything I need."
"Chirp."
I turn to Markus as his head peeks out of his lame sweater-scarf and stares at me with something burning in his furry-eyes. I resist the urge to gloat too much, but I still, slowly, obviously put each coin into my pockets one after another.
"Chirp."
"No. She gave it to me, not to you."
"Chirp."
"You can find nuts in the forest. We shouldn't waste money on things like that."
"Chirp-"
El groans and takes a deep swig of her nice-smelling drink before slamming the cup down on the table. "Ugh, it's too early for this routine."
Her words are followed a moment later by the tinkle of a pair of gold coins as they bounce across the table toward Markus. The [Rogue] scampers out of his scarf-fort and bats at the coins as they roll by, knocking them into a neat stack in front of him. He looks from his puny stack over to me and then lifts his furry-nose into the air to stare at El.
"Chirp."
"It's clearly based on size. I'm ten times bigger than you, so I get ten times as much."
"Chirp."
"Of course, she likes me more, but this is about fairness, not me being more likable than you."
"Chirp."
"Maybe if you weren't-"
"Shut. Up." El growls out the words in a way that sounds a lot like that one fire-bear we'd fought. My genius mind tells me she might not appreciate the comparison, and so, despite not quite understanding why, I shut up just in time for her to continue. "Go spend your money, and let me drink my coffee in peace."
Well, I hardly needed any more motivation than that. Arguing with Markus is fun, but I could do that any time. It would be much harder to buy books once we got on the road. So I leap to my feet and sprint for the door.
As I jerk the front door open, my infallible memory pokes me, and I turn around to shout. "Bye, El! See you later! Thanks for the money!"
Markus scampers between my legs and runs off down the street, but since this isn't a race, I let him go in favor of slamming the door shut. Thanks to my [Calamity] hearing, I hear El mutter something like 'I can't believe I'm giving an allowance to an idiot and a squirrel.' as I run off, but I don't pay it any more attention than that. I have a bookstore to find.
"Hello, young one." A white-haired old woman greets me as I walk into a storefront that had been marked by a plaque covered in books with a woman's name written across the top. "Do you need to wait for your parents to get here?"
"Nope. I don't have any parents. I'm an adventurer." I reply happily as I raise my silver bracelet so she can get a good look. I'd gotten much more used to this particular question over the past few days. It seemed like something every older person I met asked about.
"That's…" she trails off for a moment. If she were El, she would have muttered something, but apparently this old lady didn't like to talk to herself as much as my teammate did. After a moment, she smiles an old-lady smile—the kind that makes even their wrinkles look happy—and continues. "In that case, what can I do for you, young adventurer."
"I'm Ciel, and this-"
I cut off as my impeccable memory tells me that Markus is not, in fact, riding on my shoulder. He'd gone off to buy as many pecans as he could with his puny stack of coins. I felt a moment of pity for my teammate that he hadn't gotten as much money as I had, but not much. Not when he insisted on lording around with his ratty, far-too-big scarf.
Still, since I was an excellent party leader, I made a note for my perfect memory to remind me to find out if my furry-teammate knew how to read. It was the only reason I could think of that would explain why he was out buying nuts rather than hero books.
"Oh, Markus isn't here now. It's just me."
"Is Markus your… guardian?"
"No. I'm the tank. Markus is a sneaky-sneak." I was really getting the hang of this leader stuff. I didn't even need my infallible memory to remind me that I wasn't supposed to share our classes with strangers.
"I see…"
The old lady trails off and looks at me in the same way El does when she's so amazed by what I said that she can't think of a response. I spare a moment to wonder if they were somehow related before deciding that a bookstore-owning-old-lady-princess being related to a secret-adventurer-princess would be ridiculous.
"Well, I'm Arya. What are you looking for, young Ciel? I'm afraid I don't really stock much for adventurers. I have a few travel anthologies and a Tier 1 spellbook in the back, but that's about it."
Were those really adventurer books? They sounded so boring. Fortunately, I wasn't here for any of that. "Hero Books! Especially the ones with girl [Heroes], because they spend a lot less time doing weird kissy-things with their teammates. My favorite is The [Hero] and the Cat."
"The Hero and the…" The old lady trails off in thought for a moment before smiling at me. "I remember that book. I used to read it to my daughter all the time when she was young. She really liked the parts with the hero's giant flaming sword."
"That's my favorite part too!" I would have to meet this old lady's daughter. Her taste in books was impeccable.
"Well, you're in luck because I have a special anniversary edition of it that comes with full-color illustrations."
My jaw drops, and I have to resist the urge to rampage. A book with pictures!!! How could there be anything more perfect!?! I barely even hear the old lady tell me to 'Wait right there.' before she's back and slams a massive, wooden bound tome down on the counter. It even had all ten volumes in one binding!
I release a high-pitched roar and practically teleport the distance between me and my new favorite thing. My hands twitch to rip the book from the old lady, but I manage to maintain myself. Shey always bopped me in the head when I was too impatient with her books. And since she had more books than anyone in the world, she would certainly know the right way to behave around them.
Carefully, the old lady flips the pages until she lands on a full portrait of a cat-girl with long red hair and the fluffiest ears I'd ever seen. That was Cat! [Hero]'s sidekick. Just like I imagined her to be. The old lady flips more pages, and more characters appear: the mean old [King], the ghost-woman who gave [Hero] her sword; it even had a two-page picture of the final battle between [Hero] and the evil dragon.
My heart thumps a triple beat in my chest as I stare down at a black-haired girl in a red cape wielding a giant flaming sword against a mountain-sized dragon made of shadow and evil. I reach into my pocket so quickly that I hear the rip of fabric—but who could possibly care about that—and slam down every coin El had given me.
"If that's not enough, I have a reward for saving the city that I can go and get." Surely, the tens of thousands of gold I'd gotten for my heroic act would be enough, but I didn't want to leave to go and get them. What if someone else came by and stole it from me while I was gone? I'd have to take it back and then eat them so they couldn't tell anyone, and that wouldn't be [Heroic] at all.
"That's…" The old lady smiles down at me warmly. "Why don't we find some other books to go with this one? You wouldn't want it to get lonely, would you?"
I didn't think books could get lonely—at least, I hoped they didn't—but I shake my head vigorously nonetheless. That was a risk I wasn't willing to take.
"I'm back!" I kick open the front door to El and my home. I carefully angle the satchel on my shoulder that was currently bulging with hero books so that we can both fit through without banging on the doorway.
"We're in the basement!" El's voice echoes up to me, followed a moment later by another shout. "And stop slamming my doors!"
I stop midswing and let the door gently click closed. Then I hitch my satchel a bit tighter around my shoulder so it won't swing and damage any books when it hits the walls and race downstairs to join them.
Markus pokes up out of his scarf, which is now perched atop a bag that must have contained ten times his weight in pecans and chirps. I grin at him and then turn to where my other teammate is dropping a thin leather bag on a second cart that was attached to the first one.
"Is that the cart we stole from the civilians we rescued?" There were a lot fewer bloodstains than I remembered, but to be fair, El's main cart also looked a lot cleaner than it had. Maybe they were self-cleaning.
"We didn't steal anything; we requisitioned it. There's a big difference." El looks over at me and raises an eyebrow at my bag of books. "That better not be full of bread from that baker of yours."
"No. That would be silly." I open up the satchel so I can show off. "I bought books."
"Of course. How silly of me to think you'd bought something completely useless." My teammate stares at me flatly, and I grin. It was awesome that she understood me so well.
"Not just any books, though. This one and this one have pictures in them."
I hold up two leather-bound books and then finish off my show of loot with my super-cool-favorite-thing-in-the-whole-world. "And this one is my all-time favorite book, The [Hero] and the Cat."
"You know what? Somehow, I'm not surprised." El sighs, completely overcome by how awesome my book is. "Put your stuff in the back with the rest of our supplies. You too, Markus. I want to get out of here before noon."
"Ok." I walk over to the backup cart and study the bags piled into it for a moment. There wasn't a good place for my books, at least not one that didn't look dangerously like it would end with my books falling off the back. I couldn't have that. I'd have to reorganize.
I poke open a bag and see a bundle of carrots and potatoes and some kind of dark red thing that didn't look at all tasty. Carefully, I pick up that bag and set it to one side so that my books could have a safe space to rest. As I'm debating removing another bag filled with loaves of bread that didn't look plump and fluffy at all—they looked like the clay bricks I made when I played [Calamity] and fort—Markus drags his bag over to join me.
He hops up on my shoulder and surveys the same collection of supplies that I am. A moment later, his chirp echoed with the same determination I had.
"You're right. Your pecans need a safe space, too."
Despite our feud over who had the better scarf—a debate that was only continuing because he stubbornly refused to admit defeat—we agreed here. The gross-looking bricks of bread had to go.
Carefully, I pull that bag free and place it beside the gross-looking vegetables, and free up the space for my teammate's loot. "There, all done."
"Chirp."
"You're welcome."
An hour later, we were on the road, zipping past civilians stuck in their not-magic carts. Normally, I had to run and jump in my larger form to move this fast, but in that form, I didn't have hair, and it was kind of hard to feel the wind through my armor plates. This was so much better.
The only thing that would have made it better was for me to be able to shout out my enjoyment. But El had threatened to turn us around and go home after my second 'Woohoo!' shouted at the top of my smaller lungs. So it was stuck being merely awesome.
"Look, El, look." I wait until she turns away from the road to look at me. "It's a cow with brown and white spots. Doesn't it look delicious? I bet it's really crunchy."
She turns away from me with a sigh of agreement and looks back to the road. "Cows aren't crunchy, Ciel."
"They are when you-"
I pause. I couldn't tell her how great it felt to bite one in half with your larger-form's jaws and let the juices run down your chin while the bones crunched as you chewed. That was absolutely a [Calamity] secret. Fortunately, my genius mind was there for me almost before I needed to flounder around for a quick answer.
"Their bones are." There, she couldn't argue with that.
"Their meat isn't," El smirks triumphantly as she drives home her point. "Which is what most normal people eat, Ciel."
"But-" I try to argue, but she cuts me off almost immediately.
"No, Ciel. People eat meat, not bones." Was that true? I certainly ate bones, but I wasn't sure whether I was a people.
"But-"
"You can keep eating all the bones you want." That was a relief. As a planner, I wasn't sure whether El could forbid me from doing it or not. "But I refuse to let you call a cow crunchy."
An hour later, the wind whipping through my hair wasn't as much fun. I'd tried to ask El whether we were there yet, but after the third time I did, she'd threatened to throw me off and make me run. Which I could probably do, but not in my smaller form, so I'd stopped asking.
Then I'd spent some time pointing out every animal I saw, including a lot of cows and horses and even, one time, a bear. But since Markus was asleep, and El seemed to be completely focused on the road—at least if her white-knuckled grip on the steering thing was anything to go by—my game of imagining how tasty each one would be wasn't nearly as fun with only one person.
Plus, it was totally the bear.
With no one to play with me, I was quickly growing bored. Fortunately, I had just the answer for my boredom. I stand up and start climbing to the back. "I'm going to read."
"Try not to fall off. We're not stopping."
That was another thing I'd learned about El today. She really cared about making good time, which I didn't really understand beyond it apparently meaning that we were not stopping for any reason whatsoever. Thankfully, I was still [Calamity] enough that I didn't have to go to the bathroom. Otherwise, things might have gotten a bit messy. How Markus and El were managing it was a mystery I didn't want to solve.
I hop lightly from the back of El's cart to the one she had requisitioned, which I had learned really was just a fancy way of saying stolen. I'd have to remember that the next time one of my sister's got mad at me for eating something I wasn't supposed to. 'I didn't eat your chthonic horror you spent two years growing, Riri; I requisitioned it.'
It was a flawless plan.
The rear cart jerks wildly when I land, and if I wasn't secretly a [Calamity], I might have fallen off, but I was, so I only stumbled to the side a bit. "I'm ok. I didn't fall."
"That's…" El grumbles something that even my refined hearing can't quite make out. "Good."
It really was great that my teammate cared so much about me. I don't think I could have gotten any luckier if I'd tried. But I could gush over how great my team was later, hopefully, when someone was there for me to brag about them to. For now, I had books to read and pictures to look at.
[Hero]—who looks a lot like me, how awesome was that—leans over a bed with a sleeping princess in it. She raises a curse-breaking bell and I reach into a nearby bag and pull out a fat wedge of bright orange cheese. I swallow it in two bites and turn back to my book.
[Hero] smiles bravely at Cat as the two of them stand alone against a horde of undead and I toss the empty bag of cheese off the back of the cart and reach for a bag that smelled like smoked meat. I pull out a string of meat as long as my arm but only an inch or so thick and chomp it down in three bites.
Raising her sword, [Hero] rushes at the evil dragon who had nearly killed her companion and I finish off a bag full of honey-oat cakes, careful to lick my fingers completely clean before touching the page. This was a great day.
"Ciel!!!"
I jerk out of my nap at the sound of my name being shouted at a volume that reminded me of Ashe when she was angry with me. I look up at my teammate and tilt my head to one side, completely confused at why she looked so upset.
"Don't give me that look, you fucking pig." El's hands clench into fists, and I blink as I realize we've stopped. "You ate a week's worth of food in a fucking afternoon."
Did I? I don't remember- I *burp* I smack my lips slightly and taste meat and cheese and honey. Maybe I did. "I-"
"Really don't want to hear it." My face falls. She looked really angry, and for some reason, it seemed to be with me. "I'm going to set up the tents. When I'm done, there'd better be a fucking dinner ready for me."
"O-"
"No. Your talking privileges are revoked until you come back with food."
I open my mouth to argue but close it before I can say anything. Since we were surrounded by trees rather than other people, this was probably a planning sort of thing. Well, it's not like I needed to talk to my teammates. I just really liked to.
My head falls at that, and I stare at the ground. What was this strange feeling in my stomach? I didn't like it at all. I look up at El to ask her, but I stop myself. I wasn't allowed to talk, so this was something I'd have to figure out on my own, with only the endless and eternal and unending silence of my thoughts for-
My genius mind pokes at me, and the weird feeling in my stomach vanishes. I grin. There was a clear loophole in her mandate. All I had to do was come back with dinner, and then I could talk again. And since I had my sword and my shield and my [Calamity] senses, hunting something to eat would be as easy as eating a cow.
I humm the word 'ok' since I couldn't speak it and dashed off into the forest. I had an animal to kill, and I'd wandered around this part of Dynegard long enough to know that these forests were full of them. Unfortunately, there weren't any crunchy cows, but there were plenty of chewy, crunchy elks.
Minutes later, my [Calamity] senses lead me to an elk with a delicious-looking rack of antlers on his head. I wipe at my mouth despite there being no one around to see me drool. Elks were almost as tasty as cows, but their antlers were fuzzy and crunchy at the same time. It was the kind of treat I couldn't find anywhere else. Now, all I had to do was kill it and drag it back to El, and then I could talk and eat elk meat, and everything would be fine.
I pull my sword free and flourish it in the way I'd practiced and swing my shield around with my other hand. Then I let out a fearsome warcry and charge toward dinner.
"I have dinner," I call out as I come back to camp, dragging the dead elk behind me with one arm. It was kind of heavy, but thanks to my [Enhanced Strength], it wasn't too bad. Plus, dragging it over the ground like this was surely making the meat even more tender and juicy than it would have been otherwise.
"That's a dead animal, not dinner." El spares a moment to look at me as I enter the clearing before returning her focus to a glass of wine. "Clean it and dress it, and then it may be dinner."
"What's that mean?" It totally was dinner. I even made sure to keep all the nice juicy bits inside in case El or Markus wanted them.
"It means-"
"Chirp."
"You do?" Wow, Markus knew all sorts of things.
"Chirp."
"You don't eat them? But they're so chewy." Who knew that people removed the organs and blood from animals before they ate them?
"Chirp."
"Less talking, Ciel, more dinner preparation." El cuts off my curiosity with a narrow-eyed stare.
"Ok." I agree. It was really nice that El was letting me talk even though I hadn't technically brought back dinner. "Can you help, Markus?"
"Chirp."
"I will not admit you have the better scarf."
"Chirp."
"Please."
"Chirp."
"If you don't help her, your sack of pecans is getting tossed as well."
"Chirp."
"So…" El trails off as she looks up to the full moon above us. Then she looks back down, her blonde hair falling in waves as she looks directly at me with her kind-of-blue, kind-of-purple eyes. "Why did you decide to become an adventurer."
I open my mouth to respond, only to let it close a moment later. I couldn't tell her that it was the best way for me to become a [Hero]. While that was definitely the truth, I knew from my books that sort of revelation had to come at a narratively appropriate time. But since I couldn't answer her question directly—and I did want to answer her; sharing things with my teammates is important—that meant I had to answer a different question altogether. A question that sounded a lot more like why I wanted to become a [Hero]—which was a much less straightforward question to answer.
Still, just because it was a hard question to answer didn't mean I wouldn't answer it. That wouldn't be very [Hero]-like at all. In fact, I would answer it just as soon as I figured out my answer.
I let my mind shatter into fractal patterns, but it reforms without an answer to give me. Or rather, it comes back with too many answers. The inside of my head looks like the sky after I'd eaten the top off a mountain, and it had started gushing out thick, burning blood.
I open my mouth to respond, though I'm not entirely sure what I am going to say. Since Markus and El were my teammates, I knew that whatever I was going to say would be fine as long as it wasn't the truth.
Unlike most times in my life, I didn't have an immediate answer for my teammate, but I wasn't going to let that stop me. I could absolutely tell them the truth, so long as I lied carefully enough to not share too much of my secret [Calamity] past.
"I was bored doing stuff," I wave my hands out wide instead of actually saying that stuff actually involved working for evil [Overlords]. This is much easier than I'd feared. I really was a genius.
"In between that boring stuff, I had a lot of time to do other stuff," I wave my hands again to avoid saying anything about my time between [Overlords] where I had fun rampaging. "Which was more fun than the other stuff, but still kind of… you know?"
"I do not." El stares at me in that completely flat way of hers that meant she was captivated by my storytelling abilities.
"Right. Exactly. So in between doing the boring stuff and the sometimes fun, sometimes boring stuff, there was some time where I didn't feel like doing anything… kind of like my- a person I know named Soph."
Soph had been the one to teach me all about how important sleep was for a growing [Calamity]. Which she did by using [Dark Between the Stars] to put me to sleep when I came to play. Fortunately, I'd eventually built up some resistance to her skill or I'd never even have learned how much fun she could be to rampage with when her naps were interrupted.
My teammate looks up at the sky, sighs, and mutters something like 'I'm already starting to regret asking,' though I'm not at all sure what question she could be talking about.
"So I went to see my other… person I know to ask her what she did when she didn't want to do anything, and Shey gave me my first book."
I wince internally as I realize the copy of The [Hero] and the Cat which she'd lent to me was probably still in the smoking heap of rubble that I'd left for the [Lord of Fallen Flame]. I'd have to get back to the Northern Wastes at some point and pick it up. I'd seen how my sister treated people that lost her books and I didn't want that to happen to me. While being hunted by a pack of assassin-golems would be fun, I don't think I wanted to see her disappointment directed at me. I was the best little sister, after all, and keeping my first-place rank definitely meant taking care of the things my sisters gave me.
"And then I read it," and everything changed for me. But how was I supposed to explain the way I felt in my chest when I read about [Hero] climbing up a dark and lonely tower to rescue Cat? It felt kind of like hunger, but not the kind that came from my stomach, "and I wondered and I…"
"I…" I pause again. [Hero] had all sorts of stuff. A cool sword that fired beams of light. Adventures that spanned across the entire world. Lots of parades and rewards for saving the world. A teammate she would take blasts of [Dragonfire] to protect. And I wanted that. "I wanted every last bit of what [Hero] had."
"But once I was done reading it, I wasn't- I mean, I didn't know how to- I went out and…" I wave my hands to disguise my very careful rampage of some fancy library in the middle of nowhere, "got a bunch more books."
After that, I retreated to my lair for what must have been weeks, and I read book after book after book. And as I kept reading, my want started to turn into not-hunger. "And it felt like…"
I trail off yet again. I had never been able to put that feeling into words. Even now, all I could think of was that it felt like everything inside my chest had been hit with [Annihilation], but not in a bad way. In a way that had made me want to jump and run and roar my fiercest roar.
Fortunately, my teammate realizes that I don't know how to describe the strange not-hunger hunger I felt—still feel? I'm not sure—and prods me with a question. "So you decided to be an adventurer because you wanted to be like the characters in your books?"
"Yeah," My head bobbles back and forth with the force of my agreement. That was exactly it. I could barely believe that I had already found a teammate who understood me so well. "The characters in my books were having so much fun and doing so many different things while I was stuck doing the same thing over and over and over."
"So I quit," and really, the [Lord of Fallen Flame] deserved his pile of rubble for being the boringest overlord I'd ever worked for. "And I decided that I wanted to do what they did and see what they saw."
"So I… traveled," I don't even wave this time to disguise my use of a [Hellfire Portal] to get to Reitzland because no one would suspect I even knew the spell unless they also knew I was secretly a [Calamity], "to Reitzland."
This next part was my favorite, "I met Markus in the forest and we stayed outside after something tripped the wards and we met the old lady who gave us scarves and then we rescued some people from a [Villain] and then I got directions to the adventurers guild at a gross-mercenary tavern and then I met you and passed the guildmaster's test and we became teammates."
I'd never had teammates before, just my sisters. I did once have some guy with fangs and a red cape declare himself my rival. Unfortunately, back then, I hadn't understood the narrative importance of rivals—I hadn't even wanted to be a [Hero], that's how long ago it was—so I'd turned into my larger form and gobbled him up in a single bite. For some reason, no one had ever wanted to be my rival after that.
"And then we fought slime-monsters and rescued civilians and scared away a [Calamity]."
"I don't think that's-"
"And even though we didn't get a parade to celebrate our heroic acts and no one ever came by to deliver our reward for saving the city in person." El looks at me strangely, and I nod my head in agreement. It really was kind of rude to just give us money and not even hold a feast… Ooh, or maybe they could have knighted us. I didn't want the class, but being bonked with a sword like that did seem fun. "It felt like I was a character in one of my books."
El reaches out to pat me on the head—I turn into it just enough to make sure her whole hand can reach— and smiles, "Well, I can't really comment on all of that, but I certainly understand wanting something different because you were bored."
Then she nods, and my eyes widen. Was she finally going to tell me about how she was secretly-a-princess? We'd have to wait at least a couple of arcs before we could restore her to her kingdom—I couldn't let all my sister's work creating villainous plots go to waste.
"I'm the ninth child of the current [Potentate] of the Aldenard Trading Consortium." My teammate smirks sarcastically and flourishes her travel robe in a seated sort of curtsey. "My older siblings are busy securing trade alliances and ensuring future generations of Portelaines."
I keep my face falling in disappointment internal, only to brighten up a moment later. So what if she wasn't technically a princess—if only because Raynwall was run by Merchant Houses rather than princesses? She was still certainly on the run from an evil and controlling father who we'd have to defeat in the middle of an inferno that had somehow engulfed his estate. And since he was El's father, and El was awesome, I'd bet he'd be the kind of [Villain] who, after his defeat, would promptly reform his evil ways.
"But I found accounting boring and the politics of Raynwall even more so, and after I set my third suitor on fire," El grins viciously, clearly enjoying the memories of her suitors screaming and begging for mercy. "My glorious father decided that so long as I avoided bringing shame upon the family's name, I could do as I wished."
That… didn't sound like an evil father at all. Where was the terrified flight in a lightless cabin across an ocean to Dynegard? Where were the bands of assassins and bounty hunters dogging at her heels? Where was the declaration of vengeance? None of it made any sense.
My face falls again, and this time, I make no effort to keep it inside. Instead, I look over at my teammate with betrayal burning in my eyes. How could she have led me on so callously? Didn't our partnership mean anything to her? Didn't-
A finger flicks against my forehead, and I blink. "Whatever you were thinking, stop. I don't have the energy to deal with it tonight."
"But-"
El flicks my forehead again. "I'm not a secret princess in disguise, and I don't need your help to overthrow my father. He sends me a quite generous allowance every month."
"But-"
"No, Ciel. You don't get to complain about this unless…" her grin returns, this time somehow even more vicious than when she'd basked in the memories of immolating her former suitors. "I suppose if we wanted to overthrow my father, we'd have to do without the money to buy all those fancy catered meals…"
"No!" My head shakes violently from one side to another as I realize just how vital a teammate with a loving relationship with her father was to me being a soon-to-be [Hero]. A well-fed, soon-to-be [Hero].
"I thought as much." Her grin shifts from vicious to self-satisfied, "but that's just the two of us, what about our third?"
El and I both look over to where Markus is napping in his ratty scarf-fort. After a moment, a furry head pokes out to look at us and blinks squirrelishly, "Chirp."
"Why did you want to become an adventurer, Markus?" I repeat the question for our sleepy friend.
Markus stares at me for a moment before chirping dismissively.
A scowl forms on my face at the baseless accusation, "I did not abduct you!"
A pair of furry-eyes roll at me, and he chirps again.
That wasn't true at all. I had to set the record straight. "Well, maybe you were asking for it with that fluffy red tail of yours, did you ever think about that, hmm?"
"Chirp."
"Oh yeah?" I couldn't believe that he was lying like that. Well, I had an argument just for that. "I was doing you a favor. If I'd left you, the monster that tripped the wards would have eaten you."
"Chirp."
"If not them, then what about the blood-slimes." I grin victoriously as Markus's whiskers twitch in doubt. "Exactly. Now you're a [Rogue] with way-to-big-scarf. Instead of dinner for some hungry blood-hawk."
"Chirp."
"It is, too." I flip a hand through my hair to show off my petite ribbon-scarf. "You're just jealous yours isn't as elegant as mine."
"Chirp-"
"Shut. Up." El interrupts the bickering with a tone of voice I was considering labeling her technically-not-a-princess-voice. "So, Markus, Ciel kidnapped you from the forest-"
"I didn't squirrelnap him, I requisitioned him." I grin triumphantly as Markus and El turn toward me speechlessly.
"I'm not…" El sighs, knowing that my genius argument has defeated her. "You certainly don't have to stay, Markus, but you're still here…"
"Chi…" Markus pauses midsentence and taps his furry-face with a furry-paw. The silence stretches around him a moment longer before he shrugs his furry-shoulders. "Chirp."
I blink back the brightness in my eyes and smile widely. "Aww, you're my favorite teammates too."
"There's only two of us, Ciel."
El sounded somewhat upset at being left off the list, so I turn carefully so that my grin is equally split between my two teammates, "and you're both in a two-way tie for first, how awesome is that?"
"Just as amazing as you would think," she responds in that monotone way that shows how overwhelmed she was to be my favorite teammate. Which only made sense. My sisters always sounded the exact same when I told them they were my favorite, too.
"So, to recap. Ciel and I are here because we were bored-" I open my mouth to interrupt, but El continues before I get a chance.
"And because of books, yes, Ciel. I remember that part," I grin, happy that my teammate had paid so much attention to my story. "And Markus is here because he has nowhere else to go."
"Chirp."
"Well, at least we're all in it for the right reasons."
She smirks at that and I pump my fist in the air again, "Yeah! Team Little Calamities is the best!"
"We are not calling ourselves that."
I wasn't sure why El's voice cracked like a whip on the word 'not,' but it probably had something to do with her not feeling as though she could live up to the awesomeness of the name. Before I had a chance to reassure her that it would be fine, Markus voices a disapproving chirp as well.
"But we're little, and we fought off a Calamity!"
It wasn't exactly why I wanted to name our team that, but since the real reason was a secret, it was the best I could do. Unfortunately, El stares at me with her I'm-not-going-to-agree-with-you-so-stop-asking-stare, and I feel my hopes for a super-cool name start to sink.
No. I refuse to let this end in failure. After all, Was I the kind of [Calamity] to let something as small as an endless well full of rotting, divine essence stop me? No. I'd drank the [Well of Urdr] dry, even as my stomach ballooned up to three times the size of the rest of me. And if I hadn't let that stop me, I surely wasn't going to let this stop me, either. After all, how could I call myself a soon-to-be [Hero] if I gave up at the first sign of resistance?
So I let my genius mind fracture, and a moment later, it comes back with an unbeatable argument. I grin smugly and repeat my brilliant argument to my team, "Besides, you're supposed to name adventurer teams after something fierce, so it scares away villains and rival adventurer teams. And what's fiercer than a [Calamity]?"
El stares at me, completely overwhelmed by my genius argument, and I raise my fist to pump it in the air a third time, only to stop as she shakes her head.
"Sorry, Ciel. Naming a team is an important planning thing."
"But…" I trail off, defeated once again by party dynamics. "ok, fine."
"Good, now that that's decided, let's go get some sleep. I set up some [Alarm] wards in case anything gets close." She gestures to a fancy-looking tent that is practically shimmering with magic.
"Ok."
I manage to keep my sulking internal as I open the flap to the tent, completely ignoring the soft feel of the carpet between my toes as I shuffle over to a bed covered in pillows. I flop into my bed, burrow into the blankets, and then bury myself into my mountain of pillows.
I'd have to find a way to counter that argument. I just needed to show El and Markus how genius my planning really was. Then they'd have no choice but to include me in those planning choices. And we'd have the coolest team name on the continent.
I perk my head up out of my book—it was my tenth re-read of The [Hero] and the Cat this trip, and it just got better every time I read it—as I catch a whiff of smoke. Not the pleasant smell of the campfire that El made for us at night so I had light to read, but a different kind of fire. A confused frown starts to cross my face but stops when my infallible memory reminds me that I hadn't rampaged anywhere in days. But if it wasn't me, then…
I put my book carefully back in its satchel and hop to the front cart. "Hey, El. Does it smell like a rampage-fire to you?"
"A rampage fire?"
My teammate turns away from driving her cart and raises an eyebrow at me. I decided to let her mispronunciation go in favor of just nodding and waiting for her to respond—we could work on expanding her vocabulary later. She sighs and, after a moment, sniffs deeply. Unfortunately, her feeble, human nose must not be able to smell anything because she just kind of shrugs.
"Well, what about the smoke?" I point out a thin stream of gray smoke that curls up through a narrow gap in the tree line formed by a curve in the road ahead.
"I don't see-"
She cuts off and mutters a quick [Eagle Sight]—a neat tier 1 spell that she hadn't used last time we'd been out adventuring. She must have learned it after Ashe came to visit and forgotten to mention it.
"No, you're right. That's too dark to be a campfire and far too…"
El casts a quick [Miniature Map] and frowns down at it. I peeked over her shoulder to see what she was frowning at. A blue dot labeled Vestmoore was maybe an inch away from our little red dot and a bit to the northeast. I look up at the sky to see the sun hanging in the same direction as the smoke, and my impeccable memory reminds me of the smoked elk I'd eaten for lunch a few hours ago. My genius mind puts together the clues, and I grin. The smoke was coming from Vestmoore.
A town on fire meant there was a job for a soon-to-be [Hero] to do! Plus, if we did a really good job, we might get the first hint at the evil plan my sister had created for me.
"El, let's go!" I shout directly into her ear, and she jumps backward into me. Thanks to my [Enhanced Strength], I barely move when she bounces off of me and sprawls awkwardly over the driving bench.
El mutters something like 'In my ear with that,' as she gracefully pushes herself back into her chair. Whatever she meant by that, though, is lost as the wind starts to whip through my hair as we pick up speed.
"Woohoo!" I shout, despite my perfect memory reminding me that El had threatened to turn the cart around if I did it again. We were definitely too far from Reitzland for her to do that now. "Hold on, burning-town, team Little Calamities is here to rescue you."
"I told you we are not calling ourselves that!" She has to shout to be heard over the howl of the wind and the scraping of tires as we skid around that curve in the road.
"I will until you come up with something better!" I shout back with a grin. Even if I couldn't be a planner, I could still use my team leader responsibilities to call us that. After all, every adventuring team needed a name, and Little Calamities was the best name.
Instead of charging into the middle of the town atop our cart and leaping off to the rescue—like we did with the civilians caught in my sister's visit. We stop right outside the gates, mostly because there's a man in dirty metal armor in front of a group of men in dirty clothing, yelling at us to stop.
"Hi!" I jump off the cart and land in front of the probably-a-militia group. Just because they'd stopped our dramatic entrance didn't mean I couldn't jump off the cart at all. "I'm Ciel, that's El, and this is Markus, and we're-"
"Ciel!"
"An unnamed adventuring team here to help."
The man looks overwhelmed by the appearance of the Little Calamities in disguise, so I helpfully raise my left wrist—the one with my silver adventurer bracelet on it. El refuses to get down from her cart, or even say hello, but she does raise her adventurer wrist as well.
The man chews on his tongue without speaking. Doubtless unsure of what to say to such an awesome adventuring team. "That's- I don't see a Markus."
"He's our sneaky-sneak."
I reply instantly, only to turn to look at El when I hear her palm collide with her forehead. Did she have a headache? Maybe driving the cart was more work than it looked. I'd have to make sure I took my turn if that was the case. I make a note for my perfect memory to remind me to check on that later. For now, I had a quest to get.
The man's shoulders slump. He turns to look at the ruins of his town behind him and then turns back to us. "I'm Albin, [Mayor] of Vestmoore. Thank you for your help."
"Sure!" I chirp happily. This was going really well. A few more questions and our new quest would be laid out perfectly. "Can you tell us what happened?"
"Heh." The man makes a sound like a laugh—if a laugh could happen without anything funny happening. "Not really. Some kind of bestial creatures attacked in the middle of the night. They swarmed over our walls, set fire to our buildings, and abducted a dozen of our people."
"They took our fucking children!" A voice a few rows back shouts out. "And we can't go look for them because this fucking coward is too worried about his own skin!"
The air around the [Mayor] gets heavy as he turns around, but despite the skill I could feel battering uselessly at my mind, he barely raises his voice at the man who had shouted.
"If I let you go and get yourself killed, Wiscard, what will I tell your wife?"
The man doesn't back down, but his voice drops to a volume that definitely wasn't shouting, "Tell her I died trying to rescue our son."
"So she can mourn over two graves rather than one?"
The shouty-man's face pales, but he doesn't respond as the [Mayor]'s gaze sweeps across the rest of the probably-a-militia before stopping on a gangly-looking red-haired boy.
"Edden, you saw one of the beasts, didn't you?"
The boy's face turns as red as his hair, but his eyes don't flinch away from the [Mayor]. "Yes, your mayorship. Was dark, but I saw 'em."
"Tell us." The [Mayor] turns back to my team and gestures at us. "Tell them what you saw."
"Looked like a man, but wrong. Not enough skin for its face." The boy frowns as his obviously-not-impeccable memory struggles to provide him with details. "It was wearin' spiky armor an' had a big black mace it carried in one hand. It bashed right through my pa's shed with that mace."
"Thank you, Edden," The [Mayor] nods, and the boy steps back into his spot, seemingly relieved to no longer be in the spotlight.
"You all saw what they did to Vel and Midryth." A number of scared faces nod, some reluctantly, and the [Mayor] continues, still in that same soft, almost conversational voice. "What do you think we could do against that? A dozen men in hand-me-down armor and weapons with not a single combat class between us against an unknown number of monsters with weapons and armor."
"Doesn't make it right." The no-longer-shouting man grumbles, but his eyes drop to the ground when the [Mayor] looks at him.
He turns back to us and sighs, "There you have it, Miss Ciel, Miss El."
I resist the urge to jump up and down in glee. This was perfect. Not only had they been attacked by an organized and powerful foe, but their friends and family had also been peoplenapped as well. If we went in and saved the day, I'd become a [Hero] for sure. "We'll get your people back, Mister [Mayor! Just leave it to the-"
"Ahem."
"Our unnamed adventurer company, which absolutely isn't called the Little Calamities."
"Ciel!"
I ignore my teammate's outraged shout, and after a perplexed stare from the [Mayor] that seems to flick between me and El, he decides to ignore her too. "I thank you, Miss Ciel. Vestmoore isn't a wealthy town, but we will spare no expense to gather a reward for your team."
"We don't need a reward!" I grin widely. Turning down a poor village's reward was exactly the sort of thing a [Hero] would say in my situation. I was so close I could almost taste it.
"That's-" the [Mayor] stares at me, dumbfounded by my [Hero]ic generosity. "Thank you, Lady Ciel."
Oooh. I'd graduated from Miss to Lady. A few more adventures and I might become one of those [Hero] kings they talked about in some of my oldest hero books. Today was turning out to be an awesome day.
"Hey, El!" I shout at my teammate who had remained lounging on her driving bench. "We have a quest to rescue a bunch of peoplenapped people and kill the monsters that did it!"
"I heard." Despite not shouting out her excitement, I could clearly tell she was thrilled she was by the flat tone of her voice.
[AN]
Not many changes here except combining several chapters into one. We're catching up to the quest, so I'll have to take some time to think if there's anything else I want to put into this arc.
