“The Cardinal saved me as I fell to my doom and when I got to a far enough distance, my body started working like normal and so I flew here.”
“So, the clan heads are-”
“I could not confirm that as I fled before seeing anything.”
She interjected to prevent any misinformation. She walked to the window and jumped onto its ledge.
“Ah, you’re disappearing again?”
Celica voiced her concern.
“Do you need something?”
Unable to respond, Celica slowly shook her head.
“Very well then. We shall meet again later on. Don’t forget to go find that person and do as I told you.”
She leapt out of the inn, leaving the duo alone.
Daryl scratched the back of his neck and let out a heavy sigh.
“When the hell did I sign up for all of this?”
He complained for the very first time since they embarked on this adventure. Who could blame him? The party just randomly met two people who claimed to be on a mission to save the world saying they needed their help. At first, Daryl took their words for granted, but over time, both showed their overwhelming abilities and a lot of things that were happening lined up with their story.
In no time he believed their words like they were all knowing beings of only truth. However, he was starting to feel like that was their first mistake. If they could take down monsters like dragons with so much ease, what use did they have for a group of fledgling adventurers with little to no experience as a united front.
Sure, the party grew together as group, but it had been close to a year since they started out together, yet the party wasn’t even officially ranked. If he had to estimate their rank, he’d put them on the lower side of B rank. That was by no means impressive as the average adventurer party was that rank.
They were completely average, with the exception of Marcus. His history made him a bit different, but his history had no effect on his skill as a swordsman, so it couldn’t count.
“Is something wrong?”
Celica, bothered by this unusual attitude from Daryl sat next to him.
“Yes Celica. There is something seriously wrong with all of this. We are normal people. This is not something normal people should be doing!” he yelled at her.
“You felt it once we entered the royal palace, right? Those paladins are on a completely different level. Even the kids we saved. Anyone of them could beat us all in a fight if we chose to fight them. Normal people shouldn’t be helping the hero of the era to fight a cult. We should be going on regular adventures. We should be enjoying our time with our loved ones. Thinking about settling down and starting families. Instead, we are here risking our life all because some woman in a red hood came before us and told us to do something with no real explanation other than a promise of fame. I don’t want fame to come after I died! Wh-”
Before he could continue, Celica put her fingers to his lips to silence him. Her eyes gestured to the door and standing there with an apple in his mouth was Marcus. He looked at both of them with his usual energetic eyes.
“Took a while to find you guys. If you were going to do that, you should close the door next time.”
He teased them and walked away after closing the door.
“You think he heard me?”
Daryl asked anxiously.
“With his ears, he definitely did.”
“…Damn it.”
***
Walking through the massive halls of the palace, Shiro stopped in front of a large door. This door had a very intriguing design that she couldn’t quite figure out. From her perspective it looked like sun rays bearing down on the earth and several men holding unique weapons pointed at the sun. In the centre, one person held up a sword to the sun while the others followed behind him.
There were other weird things behind the man with the sword, but they looked like allies of some sort.
She was surprised to see this since she had never seen this particular door since she got here. The door also had a tiny opening, suggesting someone just entered.
‘Come.’ A hollow voice whispered to her.
Curious, she also decided to proceed into the room. She got in and was met with a spine-chilling cold. Shiro shuddered and rubbed her skin in an attempt to warm herself up. Her breath was so cold she could see it.
This was her first time being so cold and she had come to the conclusion that she hated the cold.
“Karma.”
At her beckoning, the little dragon materialised before her. The dragon bowed and then addressed her.
‘Master, you called?’
“Use your dragon force to warm me up.”
Karma squealed with joy then jumped into Shiro’s arm. The girl caught the dragon and squeezed her tightly, and a warmth spread throughout her body. It felt like she was out in the spring sun, so she continued her exploration.
There was a red rag had been laid out on the ground leading to the end of the hallway. To her sides, there were pale blue torches that had been lit up, leading to the end of the room which had a shut door.
‘Shiro Tatsumaki. Come.’
The voice called for her once more. As if in a trance, she forged forward, walking for a good five minutes before reaching the other side of the hall.
Karma found her master’s aloofness to be odd, but it wasn’t something really new.
When Shiro got to the door, she opened it up without paying any attention to the symbols on the door. Behind it, a marvellous sight befell her eyes.
She entered the room and saw what could only be described as a tower of items, leading up so high she could say it was at an infinite height.
‘Wow!’
Karma’s eyes glittered. This was one of the very rare moments Karma showed her race’s instincts. Their love for anything beautiful was showing on her face as her glittered and drool escaped her mouth.
There were all sorts of things ranging from golden amulets and trinkets to weapons of all types radiating powerful demonic or holy aura. The whole room was more than enough to give Shiro weak knees as she marvelled in a daze at the seemingly endless amounts of items that had been put on display in the intensely cold room.
‘Come. Shiro Tatsumaki. Come.’
The voice called for her once again and her eyes were drawn to the one weapon in the centre of the spiral. A beautiful sword with a glass handle that had been stabbed deep into the ground and was chained down with red, indigo, blue, golden and grey chains, all of those radiating a very evil energy, whereas the sword was radiating a heavenly aura that was overpowering them.
She approached the sword. Its blade had a rainbow allure to it and the handle had five wings from it, all looking a bit different from one another.
Slowly, she reached out to the sword as it hummed with power and vibrated with every inch she drew closer to it.
“Little princess.”
A strict sounding voice entered her ears. She turned around in an instant and met white and black eyes. Well kept, silky smooth black hair running down beyond waist level. The person was clad in a battle gown with an insignia of a crown with one sword running through – the symbol of the oldest of the hero princesses.
Shiro gulped at the sight of the princess who was dubbed one of the strongest paladins as well as one of the scariest to interact with.
She currently had a scowl on her face and approached Shiro. The little girl gulped, shutting her eyes, afraid of getting scolded, but instead got a tap on the shoulder.
Her eyes slowly opened and she saw Neburis looking at the sword mournfully.
“This is the sword of humanity’s first hero, [Baldr]. A sword so powerful that no one has ever been able to touch it ever since the first hero. Some people called it ‘The First Holy Sword’.”
She begun to explain the origins of the beautiful weapon to Shiro.
“It is said that a single swipe of this sword is more than enough to slay even a god. Unfortunately, ever since the first hero, no one has been able to wield it until ‘he’ showed up. Now it seems there’s three people who can currently wield this sword.”
“He?”
Her body reflexively asked that question. Feeling like she shouldn’t have done that, she clasped her hands over her mouth to show that it wasn’t intentional.
The paladin could only chuckle at the cute sight.
“Yes. This era’s [True Hero]. Your older brother. Hiro Tatsumaki.”
“Eh? You know nii-san?”
“Oh? Of course. Aren’t you aware that your brother came to live with us ever since he turned 10?”
She slowly shook her head. All she knew was that her brother had gone off to school and there was an incident that resulted in him being missing. Ever since, no one had heard a word from him. The clan head was so enraged by this that mentioning his name back home had become taboo.
“Didn’t he go missing?”
At the question, Shiro could see Neburis’ expression turn dark. She looked at Shiro was a morbid expression, before looking back to the sword.
“It seems you are the third person to be capable of wielding the sword.”
She changed the topic completely and Shiro got the feeling that that particular topic was one she wasn’t ever supposed to touch. Instead, she now had a different question.
“You said there were three, right? If nii-san is the third and I’m the third. Who is the second?”
“That is not important. Since you managed to get here, do you wish to pick something out from the room? Not the sword, for obvious reasons."
She pointed to the sword and for the first time, Shiro could hear several wails from it. Souls were trying to escape the blade, but they were all stuck, completely incapable of escape.
“Um, how about something that boosts magic power?”
She retreated from the sword and asked with a smile. Neburis smiled gently and the two scanned the entire room for an item like that.
____________________________
In a realm beyond any accessible to mortals, two beings were sitting down across a table watching a monitor.
One was relaxing while drinking a cup of juice. The other was currently performing multiple actions and took a short break to consume a cup of coffee before proceeding.
~It seems my child is finally stepping into the role of a monarch as she should~
The one relaxing said with a pleased smile on their face.
“Tch, she randomly taking up this role suddenly gave me a lot of things to look into. I had so many errors in the system and because she never took it seriously, I couldn’t find them.”
The other one was scratching her head, attending to the several screens that popped up before her. She was currently not in a good mood with all that was happening.
First of all, an intruder had invaded her personal space and was refusing to leave. Being the person she was, she was unable to feel comfortable in the slightest. Especially since the intruder had practically overstayed their welcome and was still refusing to leave.
Secondly, ever since Hinotori (Other minds) started using the system in earnest, the system master had been forced to monitor a lot of things. She even temporarily disabled the Daily Quest system she made while trying to reconfigure everything else.
~What does it matter? Hurry on with it~
“Shut up or I’ll kick you out for real this time.”
The stressed out being, Alpha, warned. Whereas her visitor only smirked on drank from her cup.
-Yo, Alpha-
Just then, she received a call from another being.
“What is it? I’m busy.”
-Hihi, are you still working on your system? If you’d joined hands with others like ‘He’ told us to, you would be having a far easier time now, you know?-
The new person mocked her efforts. Alpha however didn’t have the energy to entertain this person.
“If you have nothing else to say, I’ll be cutting this call.”
-W-wai-
She cut the call and continued to check through her system. A message popped up in front of her. It came from the only being she’d given her system to.
“Seriously? Again? This is like the 10th time this week.”
~My child sent a message? Did she ask about me? Let me see her~
The visitor crossed over the table to appear next to Alpha in order to read the message. Annoyed by the overly friendliness she was displaying, Alpha walked away, but was only met with the persistence of the visitor.
“She didn’t send you a bloody message! Leave me alone, ah!”
She kicked her away and read through the message.
[Hey, system master. Can I receive any information on the Shadow’s Crib thing? There are cracks on it and I’m scared to see what comes out of it. Please tell me what exactly it is.]
After seeing the message, she sighed then called the visitor over.
“It’s for you.”
~Hmph, see? My child does care for me~
She came over, glossed through the message and couldn’t help but feel disappointed.
“Not what you were expecting, huh?”
~Tch. It was originally supposed to be my way to be reborn into that world. That thing simply needed to be kept in a cold dark place and giving shadow beings as a meal till it was ready to hatch, but it ended up consuming a devil instead. Not to mention one of the nine original monarchs of hell. I have absolutely no idea how it’s going to turn out~
For the first time in a long while, the system master could feel her lips curving upwards in a sadistic smile. Cheekily, she responded to the message.
[It’s a surprise. Even I don’t know ~(*~*)~]
“Yes, now suffer with the very anxiety you’ve been giving me for the past few days!”
-Yo!-
A new invader had appeared. Surprised, Alpha turned to meet the new person.
“How the hell did you get in here? I have a barrier set up for you specifically.”
-Don’t know. I found a way in here-
Alpha scanned the being from head to toe. They were thumb sized and didn’t radiate nearly as much power as they normally did. Her confusion turned to understanding then to malicious joy.
“You left out most of your power so you could sneak into this place, right? I've been needing a new stress ball.”
-E-Eh? No I d-di-Ah, what are you doing? Alpha, stop! No! N-
<A/N: Please give me your power stones, comments, reviews and golden tickets! Join the discord as well and let's talk. Also forgot to ask which character you'd like to see illustrated next.>
