Redberry Woods a few miles off of New Gorpisal:

Zefir, who had lived in Terragalia for over a year, was still amazed at how the girls could bark exactly like dogs. He hadn’t seen much Garm-folk and those he had met back in Ontala didn’t bark, but then again there was no call for them to do so. He has heard kobolds howl, but it was mostly limited to night watches who called out every hour, and an assigned howler would reply. In Terragalia, it was the opposite of Earth; NOT hearing a wolf howl was creepy, because there’s supposed to be someone out on patrol.

“C’mon boys and girls!” Kvaris called out “Hurry and pack up! You don’t want to get caught out here during a Red Moon!”

As she spoke, Kinu was barking rhythmically letting everyone know to start making their way to town. Zefir and Ingrid were helping some campers pack their things so they could join the growing line of people heading back to town.

When The Whales had stepped out of Autumnhollow in another nearby forest, they had seen wagons from the town come in to help with the exodus of campers. The reason for many people camping out were many. Some were engaged in quests involving night time such as the gathering of herbs or flowers that only bloomed or opened up in the moonlight i.e. their profitable and pickable state, others were on the patrol for dealing with various nuisance animals that prowled the nearby farmlands looking for some midnight snack in the form of livestock, and others were weary travelers who were a few miles away but were too sleepy to walk the last miles home.

As Ingrid watched the wagon move away, she heard Kvaris and Kinu still barking.

“Hey! I know you’re out there! WOOF! WOOF! WOOF!!! Come out already! You’re in danger here tonight! WOOF!” Kvaris barked.

“What’s the matter?” Ingrid said, hurrying over to them.

“There’s someone still out there, straight ahead.” Kvaris pointed in a direction in the forest.

“I don’t know why they haven’t come out yet.” Kinu frowned. “We should check it out, they could be hurt or sick…”

“I’ll go ahead!” Ingrid sprinted over, Cecil flying over and anchoring himself to her. She kicked herself off into the air, then generated a series of force fields for her to kick off, pinballing herself in a zigzag motion and increasing velocity as she did. Her reflexes alone helped her avoid hitting any branches and she left a strong gust of wind in her wake.

She reached a clearing in the span of three seconds and saw the big tent, or rather what covered the tent.

Modern camouflage netting.

“ANOTHER reincarnator?” Cecil said in disbelief.

A sigh came from the tent.

“Listen.” a girl’s voice from within said. “Whatever you do, please spare my maid. She’s innocent!”

“Uhhhh…” Ingrid frowned, “What does your maid have to do with this?”

“Can you give me a second? Gwen, please step away to the side and show yourself.”

Ingrid and Cecil looked at each other, what was this girl’s problem? There’s a Red Moon coming and they’re babbling about some non-issue.

An auburn-haired Ciltran dressed like a regular peasant shyly stepped out, and she scurried as far as she could from the tent but stayed in the clearing.

“Ummm…please don’t hurt her!” Gwen said.

“Why would I do that?” Ingrid said.

“It's me, Ingrid...” The blond girl said as she stepped out of the tent, looking at Ingrid. “Though I have to say, I didn't expect to see you looking like an elfen kunoichi.”

Like Gwen, she was dressed as a rather-affluent village girl in a knee-length traditional dress with tribal motifs straight out of the Caucasus or Black Sea regions. She had short bovine horns curving upward from the sides of her head, their bases sheathed in engraved silver. A belt with a well-made buckle, a pair of laced-up felt boots and thick woolen socks completed her ensemble. For most people, she looked ordinary enough, but for Ingrid and Cecil; the modern terran tent, and the Glock 9-millimeter in her hand, her rich golden blond hair parted to the right and her face told them that she wasn’t just any reincarnator posing as a villager.

“Melro-PHILIA!” Ingrid exclaimed happily. Before she could react, Philia was bearhugged. The blond princess flailed her arms in surprise, Cecil quickly flew over and extended a tendril over her gun hand, taking it away from her. Turning to Gwen and ignoring Ingrid blubbering with joy and Philia screaming for air he said to her.

“Let’s get this place packed up, Gwen. There’s a Red Moon coming.”

“Ingrid!?” Kvaris yelled as she burst into the scene.

“Ingrid! Stop attacking that poor girl!” Kinu cried out in horror.

“PHILIA! I MISSED YOUUUUU!” Ingrid cried joyfully, tears flowing from her eyes.

The two Garm sisters tried to grab Ingrid’s arms but she was too strong, and Ingrid was lost in emotion as she belted out apologies and joy to Philia.

“Bad girl! Bad! Ingrid let her go!!!” The Garms cried.

“What’s going on here?” Zefir said, finally catching up.

Cecil looked up at him “We found the one that Isekai’d us…sort of. It’s Philia Lovelock, Melrondia’s previous self before she got corrupted.”

“Did you just give out her real name?” Zefir said. More of a statement than a question.

“Put it on your tweet.” Cecil chuckled.

Philia screamed, still being bearhugged.

___

“I…I thought I was gonna die!” Philia said as she collapsed to her knees, gasping hard for breath.

Ingrid, Cecil, and Zefir, without asking for permission suddenly ran inside the tent, their voices of awe and joy at whatever they found inside was heard loud and clear.

“Hey! Don’t root through someone’s things! What’s gotten into you three?” Kvaris barked.

“N-no!” Philia croaked. “Let them… they know what to do with what they find there…” At that, Kvaris, who was about to pull them out of the tent, stopped and walked over to her.

“Look, I’m so sorry! I don’t know what got into her.” Kinu said, holding out a hand. “She’s Ingrid and… well, she’s not really our pet but I do apologize for her behavior!”

“It’s going to sound strange but… I know Ingrid and Cecil.” Philia wheezed, shakily getting up with Kinu’s help. Gwen quickly hurried over to help her mistress.

“Who are you?” Kvaris asked.

“I’m Philia Elion-Nosco, princess of the Elion-Nosco Kingdom.”

“Oh, that king’s bastard embarrassment of a daughter.” Kvaris said pointedly. “I’m guessing you came in disguise. Last I heard, princess Philia was a human.”

“Watch your tongue!” Gwen yelled, but Philia held up a hand to silence her. She then pulled off the horns that were attached to her head. As she did so, the horns vanished, revealing only the engraved silver bases. They turned out to be modified hairclips that anchored themselves to the body once their magic was activated, allowing them to pass off as real horns.

“No, she’s right. I am an embarrassment to the Elion-Nosco family… and I’m also human as you can see…” Philia pointed to the tent. “...and I recognize Ingrid and Cecil. We know each other.”

“Was Ingrid one of yours?” Kvaris asked and Philia shook her head.

“Has Ingrid told you she’s from Earth?” Philia asked. Both of the Garm girls nodded.

“You can’t tell us you’re from Earth like she is.” Kinu said “Everybody knows you’re born and raised in Elion-Nosco all your life.”

“I am…or rather, was. Earth isn’t some far-off country beyond the sea. It’s another world altogether. I was originally born there. In my previous life I worked with Ingrid as a heroine called a Starchaser.” Philia told them, feeling better now that she had more oxygen flowing into her body.

“Starchaser? Our Ciltran boy Zefir mentioned that Ingrid was one of those.” Kinu blurted, the mention of having memories of a previous life was ludicrous. Ingrid and Zefir could have come up with that story well before she and her sister had met them. In fact, they could have been acquainted with her back in Elion-Nosco years ago. Why else would Ingrid act the way she did earlier?

“Well that’s news to me.” Philia remarked. “I don’t know who this Zefir is. Anyway, In my previous life, my corrupted self Melrondia and Ingrid killed each other. Cecil was involved as well, as he was Ingrid’s familiar. After that, the next thing I see is that I was back to being an infant child and now the bastard daughter of a king in Elion-Nosco.”

“Ingrid said she was battling a Dark Queen Melrondia-” Kvaris began and Philia interrupted her briefly.

“That was me, one and the same.”

“...right, and then the next thing she saw was that she was on Ontala beach a few days ago.”

“Huh, so they reincarnated here only recently. I don’t need to prove this story that we’re from Earth, but you should see what those three can do.” Philia pointed at Ingrid, Zefir, and Cecil coming out of her tent. They held in their hands strange long objects. The way they held it reminded Kvaris and Kinu oddly enough of a crossbow. Ingrid took aim at a tree some distance away. Gwen quickly covered her ears. Kinu was about to ask her what happened when-

A series of loud BANGs emanated from the tip of the strange weapon and the tree trunk was battered with an invisible force, sending bits of trunk flying everywhere. The Garm girls watched in surprise as Cecil and Zefir also took aim with their weapons and shredded the tree trunk in front of them.

“W-what was that!?” Kvaris yelled in disbelief.

Ingrid held up the weapon, pointing it up at the sky. “AK-74, it’s a kind of firearm from our previous world.”

“A firearm?” Kvaris was curious at this weapon. The hellish noise it made would definitely be good in spooking any wild animal coming their way.

“It’s like a crossbow.” Philia explained “but instead of tension and a string, you have an explosion inside the hollow metal barrel that drives a bullet forward. It’s too fast for most people see, much less react to and the firearm or gun, that’s another way to call it… the gun that Ingrid uses hits considerably harder than a mounted lancer at full gallop.”

Ingrid's eyes glowed as she looked Philia over, she knew what that meant.

“No Ingrid, I’m not back as Star Lotus. I grew up having to hone my power all by my lonesome.”

On hearing that Ingrid’s shoulders drooped.

“But you got to summon guns!” Ingrid then frowned then examined the gun again. It was an AK-74 model but with a modernized form, yet it didn’t have the usual polymer parts. What it had on the receiver and barrel was-

“Ceramic. Lightweight ceramic” Philia told her “It’s called floatstone here due to a big chunk of it capable of floating in water. That said, it's quite tough despite its weight and highly heat-resistant. That’s not a retro-fitted gun by the way, that I had to construct with magic. The original AK-74 is elsewhere.”

She sighed a bit, remembering the long road she took to be able to get firearms.

“The good news is that I was able to summon firearms from Earth, the bad news is that it took me a lot of time to get it done. This world has dungeons, Ingrid. And in those dungeons there’s these portals called Rifts which bring in monsters from different dimensions.” Philia began, trying to summarize as best as she could her progression from summoning nothing or duds to bringing a functioning firearm to Terragalia.

“Between my other duties as princess, the sheer difficulty and research time took me several years to summon a gun from Earth. I also had to keep this all a secret because Elion-Nosco is the last country you want to have guns. What you’re looking at is nearly two decades of hard work and lot of all-nighters.”

As she spoke, Ingrid came over and pulled her in for a hug, patting her back.

“You did great, Philia.”

Philia hugged her back. “It’s the best I can do to recreate my role as Star Lotus.”

“As Star Lotus, she could summon various weapons.” Cecil explained to the garm girls.

“Philia here said that after she died she was reborn here as an infant.” Kinu said “Meanwhile, you were brought in only a few days ago.”

“It’s still hard to believe.” Kvaris asserted “...but I don’t see what you four have to gain with this that we’ll lose, so I’ll bite.”

“Anyway, it took me time to develop those cloned guns, I had to use local materials and that’s why they look like guns from some hero shooter game or an MMO with all that fantasy aesthetic. I’ve yet to fully test those guns but considering it’s going to be a Red Moon tonight, let’s just hope I got my math correct.”

“Knowing you, I’m sure it’ll turn out right.” Ingrid said. She then walked over to Zefir and tapped him on the shoulder.

“Summon Autumnhollow.” she said, nodding at clearing around them, it was definitely bigger than the one they spent the night in, so Autumnhollow should fit.

Without any objection, Zefir nodded and began quietly chanting his spell. Ingrid waved over to Gwen, indicating for her to get out of the way.

“What’s he doing?” Philia asked.

“That’s Zefir, another reincarnator like us. He’s been here for only a year though, and he’s a fan of us. He ended up having this ability to summon a house. We’ll use it to store your gear. The weapons will go to Cecil, assuming you have no objections.”

“None.” Philia said quickly. “So why are you looking like a Nemesis-Stalker, Ingrid? Don’t you know what that means? I mean, seeing as how you cleared the distance from the grasslands to here so quickly, I’m guessing you’ve retained your Starchaser powers.”

“More like my Raiment’s been fused to me. Now I no longer have to worry about maintaining it.”

“Okay, well, anyway you’re definitely strong enough to fend off an army, so why are you posing as a pet?”

“Just look at them!” Ingrid said, spreading her arms wide and then gesturing to the kemonomimis. “Fluffies everywhere!”

Philia cleared her throat in a dignified manner. “Point taken. I’m guessing you’re in a party, I want in, Gwen too.”

“Good to know you're back!” Cecil said, hovering over. “Anyway, I’mma start placing the guns in my room. I’m stuck in this pocket dimension by the way, but inanimate objects can come and go without any problems… so long as I allow it.”

“Yeah, that’s the thing with Cecil, we don't know where that room actually is, but at the very least he can poke most of himself out and free fly.” Ingrid held her hand out and Cecil flew closer and popped most of himself out of the portal to receive loving headpats from Cecil and Philia.

“Very well, guns and stuff we may need immediately go to Cecil.” Philia said, giving Ingrid a hug before guiding Cecil on where she kept her guns and ammo.

“Gwen, right?” Ingrid asked, looking at Philia’s maid. “Ingrid, as you’ve already heard. Let’s get to work packing up.”

As she spoke, Autumnhollow materialized in a gentle cascade of fairy dust.

“C’mon Gwen, we have to get to work.” Ingrid said, gently pulling on her shoulder.

The tent hiding underneath the big camouflage net was modestly-sized, however, also hiding underneath the camouflage netting was a full-sized wagon. The beasts of burden that pulled them were a pair of aurochs (“Whoa? Aurochs exist here? Cool!” Zefir and Cecil chorused.) It turns out that by the time Ingrid and company had arrived, Philia and Gwen were already in the process of packing up and were ready to leave. The aurochs were originally tied up some distance away and Philia had just wrangled the animals over and hitched them to the yokes when she heard the Garm girls barking.

Philia had taken out her binoculars and to her horror saw Ingrid. She decided to wait it out and see what happens. At first she was afraid at the prospect of losing her life to Ingrid again, but fear turned to resignation. She was about to call out to them when Ingrid suddenly dashed in, causing her to retreat inside and tell Gwen to just follow her lead. She then had taken a pistol not to attack Ingrid but simply kill herself to spare herself the pain.

Of course, that didn’t happen. Ingrid wasn’t angry and instead was overjoyed to reunite with her; immediately recognizing her as Philia Lovelock and not the Dark Queen Melrondia. She felt a little jealous seeing Zefir and the two Garm girls openly grope Ingrid’s body but she pushed her feelings aside. She was responsible for bringing Ingrid here after all.

“Most of the guns and ammo are in the wagon.” She told Cecil “We should go there next.” Ingrid, Cecil, and Zefir nodded and quickly started transferring all the combat equipment among a few others into Cecil’s room.

It was at this point that the two ex-Starchasers learned that Cecil could expand the size of his portal, which proved to be helpful, he had learned this trick a day or two ago when he and Zefir went off to the market. During that trip, Ceci had used his share of earnings from the red bear’s carcass to purchase an entire barrel of assorted dried food.

Obviously they would only buy it if Cecil was able to manipulate the portal’s size, which it did. Zefir then recommended to him on that day to store these dry rations that way everyone had access to some food in case he was incapacitated in the field.

Taking the guns and ammo, he laid these against the east side wall of his room, the same wall where the door to the balcony led, using the 24/7 morning sunshine as reference. He picked that as the location for storing weapons so he could easily whisk open the curtains that covered the balcony door and quickly allow the sunlight to flood through his portal and light up the way should they be in any dark area.

There were only a few guns and in the room and the earthlings quickly headed outside to the wagon, with Ingrid briefly pausing to give the friendly aurochs a pat on their heads.

“They seem quite excited with those weapons.” Kvaris remarked as she worked with the rest to pack up the other things in the tent.

“I can imagine why, it sounds like whoever uses them is as good as a company of archers.” Kinu.

“The noise is dreadful, takes awhile to get used to, but it's useful in scaring off one's enemies.” Gwen said.

“Yet they do…” Kvaris realized “they were reveling in it. I wonder if that’s how they fought their wars back in Earth.”

“Ugh, that’s gonna kill my ears.” Kinu groaned.

When they were all finished, they retreated into Autumnhollow, bringing the wagon and aurochs into the effective field, preventing anyone from accidentally stumbling into their wagon and stealing it.

“We’ve laid most of them out on the Patio floor, would that be good enough?” Kinu asked. Zefir nodded his head, busy with the stove and making a quickly late-morning second breakfast. Philia and Gwen were in the shower cleaning off, while Ingrid was making coffee.

“Technically speaking if it’s within the limits of Autumnhollow’s effective field it’ll carry over, but to be safe, yes, just putting it on the patio floor will suffice, we can unpack them later.” Zefir replied.

“The ones who will be using guns would be me, Zefir, and Philia…” Cecil began. “We need to secure the New Gorpisal cityhall tower, it’s pretty high enough for us to see all around town. We can snipe from there.”

“Good idea.” Ingrid agreed. “As for me, once we’re in town I’m going to freeze for a bit and gather up energy. Cecil, you’ll have to let me know when the attack begins.”

“Gotcha.”

“Get Philia and Gwen registered to our party once you get to the guild hall, and yeah, get to that tower, it’s a great location.”

Gwen and Philia rejoined the group, all dressed and ready for action.

Gwen wore a generic-looking maid outfit. She had long consigned her Elion-Nosco maid outfit to the flames, as wearing it would give away her identity easily. She had elected to resume publicly wearing a maid outfit now that her mistress had the Whales sponsoring her.

Philia spoke up. “Anyway, I’ll be joining the party as an Artificer. Ingrid, that means I’ll be your mad scientist, since I’ve lost my Starchaser abilities. That said…” Philia eyed Ingrid’s multiple channeling stones. “...it’ll take me too much time to enchant all of your channeling stones.”

“Sounds good.” Ingrid said. Zefir came over and laid out the second breakfast for the team, they all quickly dug in. It was approaching noontime soon and they needed to be on the move.

In twenty minutes, they were back on the road, the wagon having a lot more space inside now that it was cleared of all extraneous stuff.

For weapons, Philia carried a modernized model of an AK-74. It was a reproduction of the real thing, with the polymer parts on the receiver and barrel replaced with very lightweight lacquered-black ceramic covers and decorative engravings and gold embellishments. Cecil kept a 50. Cal BMG to his left and an M-60 to his right side of the portal, while Zefir carried a SCAR-H rifle.

Did you know this text is from a different site? Read the official version to support the creator.

The driving was alternated between the garm girls and gwen, with Ingrid sitting atop the wagon.

“So, notice anything?” Philia said as the wagon bumped up and down the forest floor on its way to join the main road to New Gorpisal.

It took them a few moments that despite all the moving about, the wagon was completely stable.

“Suspension springs?” Ingrid said, but the ride was too smooth.

“What’s suspension?” Kvaris asked.

“Look at how stable the wagon is!” Zefir exclaimed in realization. “The forest floor is uneven yet it feels like we haven’t moved yet!” At once everyone looked at Philia in amazement.

“Even better… it’s not just suspension springs, it’s something I’ve been working on. Anti-gravity pads.” She said proudly. “That one’s not magic. I ‘stole’ it from my own laboratory back in Earth, I guess it’ll take the other Starchasers time before they find my hidden lab.”

“I’m not sure how much time has passed on Earth now.” Zefir began. “I mean, you had to live your life from scratch, I came here a year ago, and Ingrid’s only been here for a few days. We’ll have to assume at this point it’s now a one-is-to-one ratio, so anything you have to pull out of your lab, you should start doing it soon.”

Philia nodded “Agreed, I did get most out…and they’re mostly at the border of Veles and Elion-Nosco, we should double back there when this is over.”

Ingrid, Cecil, and Zefir nodded. Philia nodded to Gwen and she took over the driving duty, that way her mistress didn’t repeat her story. As Kinu settled down in the wagon, Philia began her story.

“I should tell you all about myself. As you know, I’m the princess of Elion-Nosco. I’m the human daughter of the king and an embarrassment because that country sees humans as only pets or working animals. That said, having a human princess was a novelty for him. You could say he was sort of like Caligula, making his horse a senator as a way of mocking their position and relevance. In my case, he gave me positions of responsibility to keep everyone on their toes. I wasn’t going to fall into his throneroom schemes of course, I held back and stayed an ‘embarrassment’ in order to be under his radar. This allowed me to amass a good amount of time and money to refine my magic.”

The former princess paused a bit. “This is going to sound fucked up, but I even had reviled criminals no one will miss put into my experiments, especially those regarding summoning magic. It was necessary, both to further my research, second to end their long sentences, and finally I wanted to create the perception that I was someone you don’t want to be near with… this allowed me all the privacy I could use to study and conduct research. As far as my father was concerned, it made me into an unlikeable but competent minister of sorts and he was only too happy to leave me alone and let me do ‘vile’ things.”

Ingrid shrugged. “Sounds like those prisoners were going to stay there forever anyway, continue.”

“As you’ve already seen, I’ve been able to summon weapons and other inanimate objects from Earth. It’s quite a lengthy process, and that’s why most of the guns you see there are all replicas. Incidentally, we’re going to have to break the Prime Directive and commission some dwarves to make us new bullets, or even conduct repairs or add enchantments to our guns. I can only hope these can be done as discreetly as possible. Elion-Nosco may not be the nicest place, but it’s foolish for me to think there aren’t other people of power here that would want to have these things. Will you help me keep these in our teams’ hands only?”

Everyone nodded. Philia was about to say more when…

“Two more travellers ahead, looks like they’re heading towards the town.” Gwen called out. Catching the attention of the two, she called out to them. “Are you travelling towards New Gorpisal? We’re heading that way too.”

The two stopped and regarded the auroch-driven wagon as it slowly lurched to a halt. A half-orc and a ciltran, Gwen thought.

Half-human half-orcs are an oddity in Terragalia. Most orcs generally look like beefy elves with a more simian look, while rarer orcs take on a more pig- or rather wild boar-like look. Which is fitting, considering among the top gods in their pantheon is the Valiant God that has a boar head. Depending on how such an individual grows up, being born looking like the Valiant God is either a blessing or a curse since the enhanced strength comes with enhanced pressure from the tribe to perform well in various fields. Half-human half-orcs generally take on their human parent’s appearance, while from their orc parent genetics suddenly decide to mess around and always give them the ultra-rare boar ears regardless of their parent’s appearance.

In the case of the amazon, she had a large pair of tear-drop shaped fuzzy ears that slightly drooped at the tips like that of a wild boar. Her luxurious black hair in wavy curls and olive skin was what made her think of an amazon or greek warrior, especially with the golden half-tiara around her head that looked like a wreath of laurel leaves. Although in Terragalia it was a plant associated with the Valiant God.

As was in vogue for half-orcs, since they lacked the handsome tusks of their orc parent, they often sported tusks from a sacred game boar which had to be hunted down personally. In the case of this amazon, it was attached to her half-circlet of golden leaves. It was affixed near the back of her head and its tips were sheathed in gold, these and the ivory tusks contrasted against her dark hair.

On her arms were custom-made duregar war bracers, a marvel of dwarven technology. They covered her elbows, forearms, and even had protection for the back of her hands and knuckles. Underneath them were fur-lined leather arm sleeves, an explosion of white tufts of downy fur pouring out of the bracers’ ends.

The Whales would later learn these bracers could deploy blades for offense. The masterful engineering prevented the blades from deploying when her wrists or fingers bent at a certain angle, preventing it from accidentally harming her, and the knuckle protection also doubled as a force multiplier for punching.

On her shoulders were pauldrons. These steel pauldrons were inside a leather cover with silver embellishments, The real defense however, came from the little heater shields that rested atop them. They were about the size of a buckler, gold-engraved and at the center was an oval platinum cameo depicting a shield-bearing maiden. A tan leather gorget with fur lining acts as padding and a partial strapping point for these armor pieces.

It would soon be established that these little decorative shields were enchanted and despite how little protection the amazon seemed to have, she was as good as wearing a full suit of actual plate armor. The reason for this was because these little heater shields generated a force field with the toughness of a full-sized pavise, if the shield got overloaded then she only needed a few hours to regenerate the shielding, and she had two of them, giving her plenty of protection.

Tucked beneath her pauldrons were red ribbon-like cinctures that dangled down to her waist.

What wasn’t purely decorative was an elegant Lavlava, an orcish red sash hanging on the right side of her belt. It had fringes along its edges and was richly embroidered. Like her pauldrons, it was enchanted, allowing her to inherit its elemental resistances. Gwen recognized the embroidery as that of the Nightmane tribe, which regularly wintered in Elion-Nosco.

For weapons, the amazon warrior carried a wicked-looking halberd. A sword hung on the left side of her waist, while a big hunting dagger hung at the back of the belt, both with a horse design on their pommels.

Her ciltran companion was much shorter and wore a short white robe with embroidery at the trim and lapels. Like Ingrid’s Nykki ensemble; it had a hood with cat ears. Underneath was a short sleeveless frilly dress and short comfy boots. She carried a backpack and held a simple wooden staff with some amulets dangling from it.

The amazon and the younger cat girl looked at Gwen as she stopped the wagon. At once the rest of the team popped their heads out.

“What do you think?” The amazon asked her companion, adjusting a big bag slung over her shoulder.

“We should.” the cat girl replied.

Ingrid popped out from the back of the wagon, “I’m Ingrid by the way, and I lead this team. We’re The Whales.”

The two of them stared wide eyed at the human, intriguingly enough she asserted herself as the leader of the group, an assertion that not only went unchallenged but was regarded with unanimous assent from the group.

“Sammy Foster of the Nightmane Tribe.” The amazon replied. “This is my companion Viel Yulga from the Na’Geanna clan.” The ciltran shyly bowed.

“Come on in then!” Philia said. “We got room!”

___

Ingrid pulled them into the wagon, Sammy noted how strong she was to do this effortlessly but then again she was a Nemesis-Stalker and had probably been trained well. She made an adorable squealing sound as she picked up Viel and sat her on her lap, cuddling the ciltran and purring happily.

“Don’t mind her.” Philia said. “She loves cute girls.”

“Is it true she’s your leader? Are you her master or something?” Sammy asked, meanwhile Viel giggled at Ingrid’s affectionate cuddling.

“Ingrid isn’t really our pet.” Zefir began. “As she said, she is our leader. She only lets herself be barded like a beast because she finds non-humans fascinating.”

The two garm girls nod their heads with a big smile, their tails wagging happily.

“It’s not like anyone can force her. To be honest, she’s too strong to be subjected to any form of controlling magic.” Philia said, remembering how as Star Lily, Ingrid had broken free from mental attacks before, from a time when Philia was still Melrondia and had dispatched SEED minions with psionic capabilities. “Trust me on this, I’ve tried more than once when I wasn’t myself.”

Everyone then made their rounds of introductions. Then, Sammy explained their circumstances.

“We planned to head over to the demon city of Teth-Odin, we expected to reach that place well before the Red Moon but I guess it came over much earlier than we expected.” Sammy explained to them.

“Demon city?” Ingrid asked. To her, Sammy outside of her outfit resembled a rebellious Japanese gyaru cosplaying as a bikini armor babe.

“Oh right…” Philia said in realization, Ingrid had only arrived a few days ago, there was no way she would have known about these things. She turned to the two newcomers “Let me explain, Ingrid isn’t from here you see…” turning to Ingrid, she said “think of those as cities with a dungeon underneath them.”

“Oh, dungeoneering!” Ingrid replied. “Sounds fun!” turning her attention back to Sammy and Viel. “If you two don’t have a team in mind, both of you can join us. We’re still looking for more members.”

The younger ciltran looked up at Sammy with worry, who responded by patting her head.

“Only if you let Viel in, or no deal.” Sammy said. Her tone was friendly but firm. Ingrid’s face lit up, hugging Viel with a pleased purr in her tone.

“Of course Viel comes with us! She’s a cute widdle kitty cat!” Ingrid said happily, hugging Viel a little tighter; a reassuring hug.

“Th-thank you! Thank you!” The cute ciltran said, turning around and hugging Ingrid.

“Awwww… of course you have to come along with us.” Ingrid said, nuzzling her, rubbing their cheeks together.

“Why do you think we’ll ditch Viel? Isn’t she your companion?” Kvaris asked.

Sammy thought for a while. “Viel has no combat skills. She learned magic from her grandmother, and mother. She’s well-read in the arcane arts and all, but a lot of adventuring parties didn’t like that. We met in the city of Vuz-Diran and have been together since. True, she can’t help in a fight, but everything else she excels in. That’s why I won’t leave her, and she’s good company too.“

“Viel stays, no worries about it.” Ingrid assured her. “Besides, we don’t have a traditional Item Box user here anyway, our Ciltran boy Zefir over here has an unusual version of the spell, not suited for hauling in multiple carcasses which he has mentioned to me.”

“Actually…” Philia said, now that Sammy mentioned Viel was a competent sorceress “There IS something Viel can help me with now.” She turned to Cecil and said “Cecil, the magic stuff I mentioned you put away in the corner of the room? There’s a little box there, hinged top, carved with roses, it’s got like five rings on it…can you get it for me?” Cecil nodded and quickly started looking through the piles of containers.

“What is it?” Viel shyly asked. She had doffed her hood to reveal cinnamon brown hair in a bowlcut. Her cat ears and tail had tabby fur and her eyes were lime green and feline. Ingrid couldn’t resist but ruffle her hair affectionately, causing her to giggle.

“Apport Rings.” Philia said. “Have you heard of them?” At the mention of Apport Rings, Kinu and Kvar’s tails wagged.

“Impressive, those things are.” Kvaris said.

Viel nodded “They’re pretty rare for sure… did you make them?”

“Yes…” Philia began “...I was planning to sell them or take them to a proper Atelier since I’m missing one component, and that’s the recall point. Can you help?”

“A recall point?” Cecil asked.

“Our father sold some Apport Rings before.” Kvaris replied. “It lets you summon to your ringed hand whatever weapon or item you’ve have registered to the ring’s magic. A recall point is a designated spot where you keep the registered items.”

“That’s pretty cool!” Cecil exclaimed.

“Yes, but I might have overdone it.” Philia said. “I’ve set the rings to register up to three weapons… unfortunately I’ve screwed myself over because I can’t set any recall points.”

“It’s possible.” Viel said, studying one of the rings. She reached in ther bag and took out a scroll, channeling her mana into it. She briefly muttered a spell and the scroll began filling up with words and diagrams.Ingrid, who was cuddling Viel from behind, felt a considerable amount of mana flow out of her body. In response, she transferred some of her own in Viel’s causing the girl to cry out surprise.

“Oh-Oh! Ingrid?”

“Shhh… I just helped restore some of your mana back.”

“Oh…th-thank you.” Viel said, Ingrid patted her head and let her work.

Viel laid down the scroll and showed it to Philia.

“By the way, the enchantment of these rings have caused five of them to share a single recall point…I have a formula in mind to create a stable recall point… if you’ll allow me. One thing to keep in mind, it does require the wearer to already have a weapon in hand, at least one.”

“I guess we can table that for now.” Philia said, placing the box of rings back into Cecil’s Room. Viel was looking at the portal that Cecil was in.

“Cecil’s room would be perfect.” Viel said.

“Kinu and I would like a ring, I think I already have some weapons in mind.” Kvaris said.

“Very well, we’ll do that once we reach town.” Philia said. “What about the others?”

“It wouldn’t hurt.” Sammy said “I do already have this.” It was at this point she showed the hidden blades on her duregar war bracers, which prompted awe from the rest of the team.

“A throwing spear, or an axe” Kinu suggested. “I know I’d could make do with a throwing axe. Do you have any other enchanted items, Philia.”

“I do.” The blond ex-princess said. “Wands of duality, and a Rogue Companion Shillelagh. Heard of either of them?”

“Wands of duality!” Sammy said excitedly. “Show us!”

In a few moments, Cecil brought out a designated box, this carried five wands, they looked like they were made of bone, looked rather fragile and brittle but it was the bones from a powerful magical beast and was quite sturdy enough to stab someone with it. At the center of each wand was a slightly glowing gem.

“What does that do?” Zefir asked.

“It lets you switch between weapons” Philia said. “The Rogue Companion Shillelagh is a charm you affix to a weapon and it summons a bludgeoning weapon to assist with your attack. I also have one more, but I’ve made only one, it’s a Guardian Sword.”

Sammy looked at Philia wide-eyed. “They’re yours to use if you join us, I thought I should help in establishing my group’s bonafdes.”

“Are you sure?” Sammy asked “Why not the others?”

Kvaris laughed “You can’t use a Guardian sword when you have a shield, silly!”

Sammy shook her head. “I’m using Shield Maiden Pauldrons.” she pointed at the small heater-shields on her shoulder armor.

Viel and Philia thought for a bit.

“I seem to recall among the requirements of this spell it is ‘No shield can be held.’” Philia said. “It’s true you're using them but they shouldn’t count.”

“It shouldn’t be considered a real shield.” Viel concurred.

“What does that mean?” Ingrid asked.

“Try knocking on her arm, Ingrid.” Philia said.

Wonderingly, Ingrid did just that, her knuckles rapped against a forcefield.

“So she’s protected with a full body shield similar to yours, Ingrid.” Cecil said. “Flexibility, mobility, and protection, that’s just perfect.”

“My shield sister!” Ingrid declared happily. ”We shall protect our party with our bodies!”

“Uh-huh…” Sammy said, returning Ingrid’s hug. She really acted like an affectionate pet human.

When they approached New Gorpisal, they saw that the town was now sporting new defenses. Stakes and hedgehog spike defenses have been setup, a ditch had been dug and the farmlands have been stripped of all crops.

“Huh,” Ingrid remarked. “All this Red Moon business is bad for farming, how often does this happen?”

“I’ve experienced two last year.” Zefir said.

“There’s no telling how many and when.” Philia replied “sometimes you get as much as five in a year. All you get is a warning that one’s coming up in a week at the very least.”

“That doesn’t add up.” Ingrid frowned “If that’s the case, why are people even bothering to farm? How does anyone build anything here then?”

“That’s the fun part.” Kinu said, “Fertilizer from Red Moon monsters causes crops to grow really fast and is one of the best things to eat.”

“Also, all that byproducts you can harvest from them…there’s quite a lot to gain, so long as you survive.” Zefir added. “Medicines, materials for better equipment and magic tools, et cetera et cetera…”

“Good to know we’ll get something out of this besides a steak overload.” Ingrid said, she peeked out of the wagon and waved at George, who curtly nodded in acknowledgement.

“I’ll head straight to the guild right now.” Ingrid said to the team. “I won’t be moving until the attack starts. Cecil, Philia, you two take over! Ciao!” And with that she jumped off the still-moving wagon and leapt from roof-to-roof to the Fenrir Guild Hall.

Philia looked at the rest.

“Cecil, Sammy, Kinu, Kvaris, come with me, let’s get these magic items taken care of. Gwen, Viel, follow Zefir to the guild and get our registrations done. We’ll regroup with Viel later once we’ve decided on our weapons.” And with that, Cecil, Sammy, Kinu, Kvaris, and Philia jumped out of the wagon and headed towards the street that sold weapons.

“I’ll foot the bill, don’t worry.” Philia said “Lead the way!”

The Enthana sisters recommended a shop called Algrig’s. The shop had a few other customers as well as small detail of shopkeepers attending to them. The Gnoll proprietor immediately recognized the sisters when they entered and he called out to them.

“If it’s Amaduscia’s whelps! Come on in!” he laughed “What do you have in mind for tonight?” he and the sister’s embraced, all three’s tails wagging.

“Good to see you again, Throun!” The girls said in unison.

“Our friend…Philia here.” Kvaris flicked a thumb at her “She’s got us a nice Apport ring for three weapons.”

Throun whistled. “That is quite a work of art, you must be a really talented Artificer, miss Philia.” he bowed lightly.

“...and there’s more, she’s got a Wand of Duality and a Companion Rogue’s Shillelagh.” Kinu added. “So we’re looking for some good weapons.”

“Very well, tell me what you want.”

Kvaris thought for a while “We’ll keep our original swords sheathed, for now, we want a spear we could use one-handed, A long sword; longer than our usual ones but light enough to carry, and a throwing axe.

“A greatsword for me and a throwing spear. Sammy of the Nightmane tribe.” Sammy added.

“Get her some good ones.” Kinu said.

Throun gestured to the back of his shop and the girls headed that way.

“Corsecas.” Throun said, handing them to the Enthana sisters.

The two girls hefted the polearms given to them. They had longer blades, almost like a short sword and had two prongs almost half a foot wide each that looked like a crescent moon. It had a counterweight at the back and featured an enchantment that allowed the user to wield it one-handed without any issue.

“Very nice.” Kvaris said “These prongs will be helpful in pushing back our victims.” Kinu nodded in agreement.

Kinu caught Philia’s attention, who was also having a look at the various weapons. Sammy on the other hand was trying out various greatswords.

“What is it?” The blond girl asked.

“We’ll put our Shillelagh onto these.” Kinu said.

“You’ll need a weapon to go with it.” Philia advised her. “It has to be a one-handed blunt weapon.”

“May I suggest this?” Throun held up a heavy-looking war hammer.

“It doesn’t matter how heavy it is once it’s stored in the companion charm.” Philia said, “it can be as heavy as you like so long as you can carry it one-handed, that is the condition.” She handed them a pair of charms on a lanyard. They looked like a little stylized club. The girls took the charms and held them over the hammers. Focusing their mana into the charm, the hammers vanished and the charm changed its appearance into a miniature version of them, which the girls quickly tied near the center of their spears.

“We’ll take these.” Kvaris said. “Now for the next weapon for our rings. We need a long sword…”

It didn’t take them long to find a sword that matched their criteria; longer than their kreigsmesser swords and double-edged. Meanwhile the throwing axe they chose came with an enchantment where it would temporarily multiply into randomly three or five (it was random) when thrown, so long as they channeled some energy into the axe.

“Alright, that's three weapons for the ring.”

“Can we have two wands of duality?” Kvaris asked.

Two wands? Philia wondered. She had five. She looked at Sammy, who shrugged, she only needed one.

“Very well. What are you thinking?”

“The first wand of duality will go to our long swords. We’ll use a flail, for the other wand it will be a second sword for our shield.” Kvaris explained. She glanced at Kinu who briefly considered the idea then nodded in assent.

Philia looked at Sammy again who waved her hand in agreement.

Kvaris and Kinu briefly consulted with each other regarding the flails they would use. They picked a pair that resembled a threshing flail and about the same size; having a long handle but still enough to be wielded one-handed. Its striking head was also pretty long and was enchanted to manipulate its weight. As a result, when attacking, the head would suddenly increase its weight and thus strike with far more force than usual, before reverting back to a lightweight but tough striking head. This prevented the user from losing their grip or injuring or straining themselves.

As for the second (or third) sword, they picked one that had a similar length to their long sword, also double-edged and straight.

Using the Wands of Duality, the pair then cast the spell to merge their long swords with their flails, while their shields were merged with the second longsword.

Sammy on the other hand, touched her halberd, which she named “Silent Storm” to the greatsword of her choice. In addition, she also picked a short throwing spear for her ring-weapon.

At the back of the shop, the girls tried out their weapons as it had enough room for them to test it out. Philia had Cecil take out from a long box an ornamental-looking short sword. It looked too beautiful to be used in a fight.

“This…” Philia said “...is the Guardian Sword. Are you familiar with this?”

Sammy nodded “I’ve heard of them.” she said, taking the sword. She touched the sword to the handle of Silent Storm and the ornamental sword glowed and broke down into a cascade of fairy dust-like particles. Sammy then stepped away from Philia and then performed a series of strikes with her halberd.

To Philia’s delight, a pair of flying longswords appeared and lashed out along with her. The blades looked like they were plated in platinum, with gold inscriptions running along its length. Most peculiar about the swords’ designs were the double swept-hilt handguard which rendered it impractical for handling. It looked like a longsword cosplaying as a rapier. That said, the impractical hand guards were a moot point as the weapon was apparently being controlled telekinetically.

As Sammy performed different strikes, the swords would appear afterwards, she showed that they could follow through with her strike, or swing the opposite way, or swing in a completely different path. In one instance, she thrust her halberd forward, and the swords performed a scissor-like cut after her thrust followed by a cross-slash as she pulled back her weapon. Sammy then alternated between the halberd and great sword to great effect. As she switched weapons, the current one faded into fairydust but regardless of which weapon she used, the Guardian Swords would activate.

“It seems.” Sammy said “that my Shield Maiden Pauldrons aren’t violating the conditions after all.”

___

The quintet met up with the rest of the group in one of the courtyards of the Fenrir Guildhall, pausing briefly to confirm the registration of Philia Lovelock as a Daos-folk (people with short bovine horns) artificer and Gwen Hartpenny, her Ciltran maid, Sammy Smith as a warrior and Viel Yulga as new members of the Whales.

“More pretty girls.” Siria, the receptionist remarked. “Ingrid’s at the third courtyard, I’ll be joining up with the defense by the way.”

“You can fight?” Philia asked. The pretty blond elf nodded.

“I used to be an adventurer myself. Solo usually, thought I do join a team occasionally. Siria Bluethorne, I’m a sorceress.” Siria replied.

“If you’re solo, you can join up with us.” Cecil suggested “Ingrid’s still looking for new members. We’re planning to go to Teth-Odin afterwards, if we survive.”

Siria giggled. “How many girls does your tamer’s master want in his party?”

Cecil and Philia laughed, shaking their heads. “Ingrid is the real leader of our team…”

“I’m serious though.” Cecil said “Ingrid is the one who calls the shots in our party. She’s only a pet in paper.”

“I can vouch for that, back on Earth, despite working in a troupe of other Starchasers, she was a lone wolf.” Philia added. Siria looked at her quizzically, not knowing the term.

“It means she prefers to act alone.” Philia explained. “The fact that she has a party means she trusts and loves them.”

Ingrid and the rest of The whales were at the third courtyard of the Fenrir Guild. There were several adventurers milling about, mostly huddled together in groups, discussing strategies and plans for the upcoming battle. More than a few glanced at Ingrid who once again froze herself.

Philia evinced no surprise in seeing Ingrid in that state. She could feel a large amount of energy flowing into the floating marquise-shaped ice formation, and knew that Ingrid did this when preparing for a particularly intense battle. Something Ingrid didn’t get to do on the day Philia was captured by the enemy, but that was the point of conducting an ambush.

Philia cleared her throat to catch the team’s attention as they were conversing with each other on what to do in the upcoming battle.

“Ingrid’s currently gathering energy, she won’t move until the battle starts.” She declared to the team. They looked at her. “I know, I’ve fought alongside her many times. At this point, Cecil will be providing her information. I know I’m not the leader of this group, but considering the weapons that I, Zefir, and Cecil will be using, we plan to go to the city hall tower, the highest point in this town and provide supporting fire. That means shooting at the incoming monsters. Viel, can you help us with setting the recall point?”

Viel’s eyes brightened up. “Yes!” she chirped. “Let me get my Magus Inscriptor!”

Cecil moved over the south-west corner of the room where he had already set aside all the furniture in the way.

After a few moments Viel held up what looked like a fountain pen. Leaning into the portal, she touched the Inscriptor on the floor of Cecil’s room while letting her aura flow into the magic tool. “Spin me around!” she said.

As a slime, Cecil had no problem turning around in a perfect circle, keeping the portal level as he did so. Following Viel’s directions, they made a few circles on the floor, the Inscriptor letting out light sparks that reminded Cecil of welding but nowhere close to being painful on the eyes. Next, came her writing various runes on the edges of the circle.

As Viel worked, Cecil asked her “once you designate a ring-weapon, can you change it later?”

“Very difficult.” she replied without looking up, focusing on her work. “It’s a complicated process. The fact that Philia even tripled its ‘capacity’ while impressive and unprecedented makes it even more difficult to alter later on. All the same, these rings were well-made.”

Philia nodded and smiled smugly.

Cecil thought for a bit. “Will they interfere with any enchanted weapons?”

Viel shook her head “They won’t. Otherwise there wouldn’t be any point in using weapons like these. Most adventurers would usually have some form of enchantmnt in their weapons and most people that own these have some kind of enchanted weapon or two…”

Philia waited and let everyone test their weapon switching. It was instantaneous. She watched as Kinu and Kvaris performed practice swings with their different weapons; swinging at first their flails and then their swords on the return stroke before summoning their corsecas to perform a thrusting attack.

Kvaris grinned confidently. “Thanks Philia, these will work nicely.”

Sammy nodded in approval as well.

“Just keep your heads on your shoulders, you three. Zefir, Viel, Gwen, let’s go. We need to get to that tower and setup our gear now.” Philia said. Zefir didn’t argue and he immediately got up from the ground.

As the Garm girls watched the three of them leave, Kvaris leaned over to Kinu. “Can you trust that Elion-Nosco princess?”

Kinu shook her head. “Not really, but she and Ingrid spoke like long-time friends, also, we don’t have proof she’s actually an Elion-Noscoite much less a princess nobody’s ever seen. For all we know she’s just some runaway aristocrat friend of hers…but that weapon did look potent enough.”

Kvaris hmm’d in assent “Agreed, at the very least it allows Cecil and Zefir to join the fighting.” and with that the two and Sammy began planning together regarding fighting together as a team.

A few minutes later, Siria approached the trio.

“I heard from Cecil that you three might need some sorceress support…”

____

“Got any experience shooting?” Philia asked as they made their way out of the guild hall.

“I started out in the boy scouts.” Zefir replied.

“Where are you from by the way?” Philia asked.

“Sarasota.” came the cat boy’s reply.

“Don’t ask his name.” Cecil said.

“No, please, ask away.” Zefir said.

“Zefir?”

“I meant, don’t ask his previous name.”

“I’m Philia Lovelock, formerly Star Lotus. So what was yours, Zefir?”

“...”

Zefir breathed deeply and smiled broadly.

“Dick Wood.”

----------------------------------------

PARTY INFO

* PHILIA has joined the party

* GWEN has joined the party

* SAMMY has joined the party

* VIEL has joined the party

* KINU, KVARIS, and SAMMY obtained (Apport Ring)

* KINU, KVARIS obtained (Companion Rogue Shillelagh)

* SAMMY obtained (Guardian Sword)

* KINU and KVARIS obtained (Long Sword x2, Flail, Corseca, Throwing Axe, War Hammer)

* SAMMY obtained (Great Sword, Throwing Spear)