Magical battles weren’t exactly my forte. My forte, at least back when I’d had levels and abilities, had been a mixture of swordfighting, with supplementary magic. Even so, I’d been involved in enough fights that revolved around throwing arcane energies at an opponent to exhaust them to at least try to keep track of what was going on before me. It was just unfortunate that I couldn’t really support Aastor yet. I was a supporter, but my only useful ability, “Business at Hand”, was likely useless to Aastor. It had leveled up, certainly, but I wasn’t sure if the levels would make a significant difference. I opened up my Profile, hoping to see something there that might be useful.

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ISEKAI HERO V2.0 Beta by XXXXXX

Name: Blanc

Level: 1

Class: Butler to a Disgraced Archmage

Employer: Magus Emeritus Aastor VII

Title: N/A

Fame: N/A

Skills:

* As You Command (Lvl 15)

* Business at Hand (Lvl 15)

* Conversations at Midnight (Lvl 1)

Equipment:

* None

Pets:

* Kel, ????? Spark (Lvl 5)

Active Quests:

* Highway Robbery! No, Seriously! (Employer Assigned)

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Well, nothing new, though it did give me a little burst of joy to see the levels go up. I’m not exactly a numerically focused gamer, but seeing numbers jump up is fun no matter who you are!

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Class Ability: As You Command (Lvl. 15) (Conditional Activation)

Diligence! A Butler must be diligent in carrying out the letter of a command, if not the spirit. The Butler gains buffs when carrying out an Employer’s orders, and debuffs when sabotaging them.

* 20% -> 100% Increase to all Quest Rewards for quests assigned by the Employer.

* 50% -> 175% Quest Reward penalty for failing quests assigned by the Employer.

* If the Butler is unable to pay the Penalty, the Butler is temporarily afflicted with the “Untrustworthy Helper” debuff.

* 20% -> 100% Increase to all Stats when carrying out quests assigned by the Employer.

* 50% -> 50% Decrease to all Stats when sabotaging a quest assigned by the Employer.

Activation Condition: Butler has an Employer Entity.

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As You Command was….insane. It was an insane ability. Doubling my stats and my rewards upon successful completion of an Employer assigned quest? Even though I was only Level 1, if Isekai Hero 2.0 scaled anything like the earlier versions, I’d still be able to hold my own against someone or something at about Level 8 or 9 with ease. Of course, with the run of luck I’d been having so far, a 100% increase, as ludicrous as it sounded, was probably barely enough for me to be functionally competent.

As I was looking over the screen, Aastor was cackling maniacally. Still standing on top of the carriage, the old man was surrounded in a hazy, midnight blue mist. Very arcane, very tasteful, excellent special effects indeed. He was chanting something, but I couldn’t quite make out exactly what he’d been saying. Perhaps the arcane rituals of Excelsia were conducted in a tongue that I simply didn’t have the ability to understand yet. Or perhaps the putrid, squelching noises and cries of ecstasy that were filling the air around me prevented me from really paying attention. Either way, the old man was up to something.

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Class Ability: Business at Hand (Lvl. 15) (Passive)

You wouldn’t want to fight in front of the help! The Butler exudes a slight suppressing aura that allows cooler heads to prevail.

* Negates all Psychic Status Conditions of Mild and Moderate

* Allows the Butler to grant Allies the “Composed” Buff, which reduces the effect of Psychic debuffs and increases WIS and INT by 25%.

* The Butler is given the toggle-able “Self-Composed” Buff, which reduces the effect of Psychic debuffs and Increases WIS and INT by 50%.

* Deactivating “Self-Composed” gives the Butler a temporary debuff of 50% to VIT and inflicts the “Exhaustion” Status effect.

* Each hour of use before Deactivation causes the debuffs to persist for another hour.

* Gives the Butler the ability to change the direction of a conversation. This may be used once per conversation, and twice in any conversation with the Employer.

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Okay, so maybe I could actually be useful. That was nice to know. The scaled, percentage-based increases were really adding up. A 100% boost to all my stats, with an additional 50% Buff to WIS and INT? That was almost certainly a veritable boost. Not that I had any spells or useful abilities that the boost would be useful for.

It was an odd kind of Support class. For some reason, the scaling on self-buffing and self-boosting was much, much greater than the scaling on Ally buffing. What kind of Support was more useful at the frontline than at the back helping the actual damage dealers boost their abilities?

I didn’t have a lot of time to really ponder the intricacies of the abilities though. It had only taken a few minutes to read through the ability descriptions, but plenty of things had been happening in the meantime. I crept towards the Carriage on all fours, just in case more flying debris was abound. I poked my head around the side, and I finally got my first look at the Calamity. I poked my head around the side, but I still wasn’t able to see the Calamity.

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It hadn’t disappeared. It was very much still there, but looking at it directly made my eyes glaze over. As though there was a small hole in space where it existed, my eyes would begin to see the edges of the Calamity and then immediately slip over to the other side, taking nothing in. I knew it was there, I could even see flashes of it out of the corner of my eyes when I looked around it. But I couldn’t…comprehend it directly. All I had were vague impressions. Impressions of…patterns that were slightly wrong, skin that looked malevolent and eyes that looked bored.

Chirrup

Chirrup

Kel was helping. I think she was helping, at least. Between Kel and “Self-Composed”, at least I wasn’t screeching in terror, running away in a panic or offering myself up to be Calamity chow. I didn’t know what else to do though, so instead of trying and failing to stare at whatever it was that was about to make a meal of the bandits, I had to do something. When I was a brand new hero, I’d have tried to save the bandits. But looking at the situation with cold, hard detachment, I could tell that trying to run after Baldric and his friends was going to be a death sentence. If they’d been properly zonked out, completely mesmerized and helpless, maybe I’d have stood a chance. But when I’d been mesmerized, I’d been conscious and willing. Which meant, I’d been able to fight. And if I tried to fight Baldric or his three companions, I’d waste time, possibly die myself, and accomplish nothing.

No. It was hard, but there was a logically sound choice here. Quickly, I clambered up the carriage, onto the roof and started to make my way towards Aastor. The blue haze had grown steadily thicker, and was dotted with small sprays of white and yellow. Aastor, as the source of the magic, looked like he was standing in the middle of his own personal universe, creating and expanding it all at once. It would have been beautiful, and I would have admired it, if we weren’t in dire straits.

The Calamity, meanwhile, was covered in nothingness. It wasn’t really a thing, as much as a force. A force of what, exactly, I didn’t know. But the area it encompassed and then erased was steadily increasing, as though it was getting larger with time.

“Do you require any aid, Sir?” I wasn’t sure how “Business at Hand” worked, but my best guess was that it was similar to a Bard skill. I needed to be doing something for the passive effects to kick in, and so far, I’d only ever had it kick in while conversing with Aastor. So I assumed that was at least one trigger that worked.

“Boy? Listen, I ain’t sayin’ you aren’t wanted here but-”

“But as your Butler, perhaps it is best that I support you from within earshot.”

He grunted. The magic was taking a toll on him. “Is that so? Well, see, I seem ta disagree ya, and seein’ as I’m in charge here…”

Oh okay, so either the idea of being a Support class wasn’t common on Excelsia, or Aastor was a little too busy to pay attention to the hints I was dropping. Hopefully being direct wouldn’t count as “rudeness” in the eyes of the System.

“Sir, I believe I can be of assistance here. Perhaps you can continue dealing with the Calamity in the meantime, and call upon me if you need any aid?” I cleared my throat, and spoke in a lower voice. “After all, I cannot believe that I shall be in much less danger a few feet back than I am here.”

A small counter appeared on the side of my vision, and ticked up to 1. I guess that counted as one use of “Business at Hand” for this conversation? Still, it had worked. Aastor just grimaced and harrumphed and then continued to chant. I still couldn’t see his Spark, so it must have been truly tiny. Good. At least size didn’t correspond to magical energy, which meant Kel’s small size wasn’t anything to worry about.

The non-existence was spreading slowly outward from the Calamity. I could make out one of the figures near the front for only a few seconds before I could no longer perceive them. The non-existence wasn’t just a visual tic however. It had seemed that way when the Calamity was chewing through things on a smaller scale, but as it continued to delete things, everything was getting dimmer, quieter….calmer. In an odd way, the Calamity was reducing noise and light and heat, and as it continued to eat, the temperature was dropping, scents were disappearing and…I was beginning to struggle to remember. What had been there before? A clearing? Trees? I could still see Baldric and his two companions, so I could at least rest easy that none of them had been swallowed up by the nothingness yet.

Aastor gritted his teeth next to me, and his mumbling died down. He’d been relentless at first, but apparently the buff had worked. The lines on his face had eased a little bit the longer I’d been standing next to him, and even he looked a touch surprised when he was done. A 25% buff to WIS and INT would do that! Take that, Old Man, I’m not just a pet!

The fog had solidified itself around Aastor, and looking closer, I could see that my initial impressions had been correct. The hazy imitation of a universe had turned crystal clear, and looking into it, I could make out stars and planets, comets and suns, the vast emptiness that existed between spaces and the thing that occupied that vastness. And as I saw the thing…it saw me. It saw me, and it smiled.

“STOP! BOY, STOP LOOKING RIGHT NOW, YA HEAR?” Aastor roared out, even as he struggled to maintain the universe around himself. He sounded desperate, worried.

And he had every right to be. Something awful was in there, in the universe that surrounded Aastor and it was unhappy about being there. Something even worse than the Calamity was. Angry and miserable, it was waiting and lingering, looking to escape one day. I guess one way of beating a monster is to recruit a more powerful monster. Monsters all the way down, but eventually…eventually you’d find the biggest, baddest monster and then what?

Before I could bring it up, Aastor gathered up the solidified fog, and started to compress it. Once again, his concentration was absolute, but it seemed like my very presence was making the task a touch easier. I didn’t want to give myself too much credit, however. This was a spell I hadn’t seen before, but it was clearly dangerous and complex. I had enough experience with magic to know that big, flashy spells were definitely not just big and flashy for show. The speed and alacrity with which Aastor was gathering up the fog, having it twist and twirl into a small orb that sat in the palm of his hand was impressive even if my buff was helping him along.

Aastor knew what he was doing.

Yeah, that’s my Employer! That’s right, Calamity! Betcha didn’t count on Aastor and his Butler when you decided to rampage across the countryside, did you?

The nothingness still hadn’t reached Baldric and his companion. It was miraculous how slowly they had walked, but I was glad nobody would be hurt or injured as a result of the Calamity. All four of us, Baldric, Aastor, Chanak and I would likely come out of this unscathed.

Preparations complete, Aastor held a small, glittering ball in his hand. It contained multitudes, and while I couldn’t tell what it was made from, I could no longer detect the presence inside. Still, the fact that it seemed to contain what was tantamount to a compressed universe unnerved me. I couldn’t imagine breaking it would have a positive outcome.

“Boy?”

“Yes, Sir?”

“You any good at throwing balls?”

“I….well, maybe, Sir?”

“Ya, gotta be better’n me anyway. Catch!”

STOP THROWING THINGS WILLY NILLY! At least it wasn’t a hard throw, Aastor had tossed the ball directly at me and I caught it fairly easily. It was ice cold to the touch, and I half-expected to get frostbite just holding it. It wasn’t like holding an icecube either. It was like holding something that was actively sucking the heat from your body, hungrily taking it all in and never growing warmer.

“Good. Now throw.”

“Where?”

He looked at me as if it was a dumb question. Which, in hindsight, it was. I sighed, and took aim. Dexterity had been a dump stat, but since I was following Aastor’s orders, I was fairly sure that I’d be getting the insane buff that “As You Command” had to offer. I bent my arm back, and with a grunt of effort, chucked the glittering orb as far as I could.

Trying to hit nothing is weird. I wasn’t really aiming at something, I was more aiming to miss something. I tried to trace a path all the way up from my feet out to the countryside until I suddenly felt my vision slip and I was staring at the sky. I did it again, but slower. Slower. Slower. Until I finally identified one, solitary spot I could look at without slipping. It was half in, and half out of reality, almost not there.

And then I threw at it, and tried to miss.

The ball arced in the darkness, glittering like a comet in the air.

“Now what?”

“Now? Pray.”