--- Atrog ---
[Level Up!]
Atrog wiped the status message away with his hand. "I just leveled up again. This still feels so weird. Huh. It says I gained a [Feat] this time. What's that?"
"I will be so happy to teach you!" His assigned priestess of Niphia exclaimed with a smile, and a pose that would probably have been very seductive, if he was a human.
"The Chosen Ones must learn all about the [System], as the great Isekai Prophecy foretold!"
Gods, this world was weird. Everything ran on numbers, people had statistics they could 'level up', and Niphia, the goddess of wish-fulfillment, was one of the most powerful gods around.
As a paladin, Atrog was used to having the favor of the gods, but he was a little concerned about which gods were supporting him the most. First Tonos, then Niphia. Both of them were insane. He had never chosen to worship either of them, so why were they helping him out?
Why didn't any of the more sensible gods support him this much?
Mind you, Atrog wasn’t one to look a gift horse in the mouth, and he did feel grateful for the help. It was just a little bit depressing to find that your greatest supporters were crazy.
--- Atrog ---
Galanys looked at the assembled enemy ranks and smiled viciously. "I cast [Mass Testicular Torsion]!"
The battlefield erupted in howls of agony.
Atrog shivered in empathetic horror. "*Having a [System] for inventing spells is just making it too easy for Galanys. I just wish she came up with less horrific spells.*"
"*You don't know the half of it.*" Dov responded. "*You weren't there when she did research. I had to act as a conscience and stop her from learning: [Mend Butt Crack] and [Hedonic Inversion].*"
Atrog shivered again. "*[Mend Butt Crack] sounds horrific. Dare I ask what [Hedonic Inversion] does?*"
"*It rewires your brain so that pleasure feels like pain and pain feels like pleasure. It drives the target insane.*"
"*Please continue to keep a close eye on her.*"
"*I will. Though to be fair, some of her inventions may be messed up, but they are also really useful. Like [Animate Skeleton]. We can keep that as a trump card for an emergency.*"
"*I don't understand. She already knows necromancy.*"
"*Oh. [Animate Skeleton] is not a necromancy spell. It does not require the target to be dead, or for the skeleton to be outside of someone's body.*"
--- Balron ---
"This is an intervention. Balron, you have a problem." Atrog said, as they cornered him in his workshop.
"How many [Potions of Ultimate Fire Resistance] does that make now?" He asked, pointing at the pile.
"Twenty-four." Balron replied.
"Don't you think that is excessive? Consumable items are meant to be used, not hoarded. Those potions could have helped us in our last fight."
"It is important to be prepared!" Balron countered. "We could encounter some more fire-based enemies in the future, and then we will be glad to have these."
"We literally just fought the Lord of the Elemental Plane of Fire!" Atrog replied in exasperation.
--- Galanys ---
"I cast [Repeatedly Updating EULA]." Galanys said.
The enemies were briefly distracted, but they kept fighting.
"*What kind of spell name is that? What does it do?*" Dov asked.
"*I have no idea where the name comes from, the [System] auto-generated it. It floods the target's HUD with a ton of status messages that are all slightly different and useless. The only way to get rid of them is to use mute all [System] messages.*"
"*That's it? How does that help us? It's a minor inconvenience at most*" Dov asked.
"*No, that's just the first half. Somewhere mixed into all those status updates is a message that presents a very important choice with a timer, and if they don't notice that in time and deactivate the default option, they get random terrible status effects." Galanys responded.
"*That’s a really weird spell.*"
"*Oh, it is.*" Galanys shrugged. "*But I don't make the rules of the [System], I just exploit them. Putting harmful status effects in a spell increases the mana cost, but making them optional means that the [System] treats it as a buff instead, and self-harming pseudo buffs are very cheap. So I can really ramp up the intensity of the effect while keeping the mana cost low. Randomizing the effects reduces the cost, too.
“Watch this, the timer is about to run out and the effects will kick in.*"
As if on cue, bad things started happening to their enemies. One burst into flames. One started puking. One shrunk in size.
And one had things happen to him that are not appropriate for all audiences to describe in a novel.
"...I think I will have nightmares from this." Dov commented.
"...Same. I should work on the randomized options for that spell." Galanys added, barely keeping in her breakfast.
--- Dov ---
"...and remember: You will need a [Runesmith] to enter the gate. Unfortunately all of our Runesmiths are occupied with the war, so finding someone to help you will be a challenge." The [Quest Giver] said.
Dov still found it a bit weird that [Quest Giver] was an official title in these parts. They were odd people. For some strange cultural reasons, their work uniform included an illusion projector that created an enormous floating question mark over their heads.
"Could we just take a few levels of [Runesmith] ourselves instead of looking for somebody?" She asked the Quest Giver.
"In theory, yes. But it takes fifteen levels to unlock the skills needed, and [Runesmiths] are not useful for multiclassing."
"To be clear, we only need that to get past the gate, and the levels won't be needed afterwards, right?"
"Yes, that's correct. That's another reason why it would be a waste to become a [Runesmith] yourself, instead of hiring one."
Dov smiled. Being a [Davlash] proved useful even in this strange number-based universe: [Activating Racial Skill: Respec].
--- Balron ---
"I will handle the left flank." Balron said.
"The entire left flank? On your own?" The general asked incredulously.
"Yes. Based on our reconnaissance, the left flank consists entirely of regular types of demons, no abnormalities. They are all known quantities that I have planned for."
"There are hundreds of them!" The general replied. "Even the weakest among them can tear men apart with their bare hands! They even have fliers and mage support!"
"They do. But their mages all use the same twenty six different types of spells. They do not have access to any other ones. All of their more esoteric types of spellcasters are off to deal with Galanys. That makes the remainder of their forces predictable.
"Their numbers do not matter. I will hold the left flank." He repeated confidently.
The general hesitated for a moment, then nodded. "Very well. I trust that the goddess chose you for a reason."
Hours later, the demon horde approached.
One could never be sure if the enemy might suddenly grow a functioning brain and decide to attack without giving him time to cast his buff spells in advance. It hadn't happened so far, but Balron didn't want to rule out the possibility. So when the enemy approached, he gave a mental command and all of his prepared protective spells triggered at once.
[Protection from Evil], [Protection from Bad Guy], [Protection from Asshole], [Protection from Mean], [Skipping 217 additional System Messages].
Then Balron activated his trusty telekinesis spell and he became the epicenter of a whirlwind of death. He started flying as well, choosing to float close to the ground for now, to trick the melee-oriented demons into coming closer and entering his meat grinder.
Back in his home universe, he was a force to be reckoned with. But here? Here he was an absolute monster. The power scaling made possible by the System was patently ridiculous.
Balron would be the first to admit that he was kind of obsessive. And where the other members of team Nundru found varied ways to exploit the System, Balron was very goal-oriented, and he just asked himself two questions:
Question one was how to learn efficient counters for every threat he could conceive of. Fortunately, the world's libraries were open to the prophesied heroes, and so he was able to learn an extremely varied selection of spells from the combined knowledge of multiple nations.
Question two was how to optimize his telekinetic abilities, his one-size-fits-all method for dominating the battlefield. As luck would have it, the System counted telekinesis both as a magical ability and as a martial effect. So Balron took a page out of Dov's playbook and multiclassed, to stack buffs that clearly weren't meant to go together, until the numbers on his telekinetic spells started looking so absurd that the System's user interface started to have display issues.
The demons charged at him with reckless abandon, and most of them died without Balron even noticing. The weaker ones were flung away by the telekinetic storm long before they could reach him. The stronger ones managed a couple of steps more before they turned into a bloody mess on the ground.
Even the Nether Wolves, the dreaded shock troopers of A'p'ostr'o'thu's' legions, died in seconds.
"[Fireball], [Lightning Bolt]" The enemy mages chanted.
The expected System message popped into Balron's head: [Activating Contingent Spell: Auto-Repeating Counterspell]
And all the enemy's spells kept getting countered without demanding Balron's attention.
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"This is bullshit!" One of the demons complained. "You are a wizard! You are supposed to be made of paper! Why! Won't! You! Die!"
But then Balron's flight brought him into his proximity and the demon turned into bloody chunks before it could voice its anger at the System's balancing issues.
Out of the corner of his eyes, Balron saw a Nether Slime firing an enchanted arrow at him.
The Nether Slimes were dangerous assassins. Nobody thought of slimes as assassins, which was what made them so great at their role.
He had no time to dodge.
The arrow caught him directly in the throat.
"[Protection from the Unexpected] triggered. Damage reduced to zero." The System informed him.
It was important to expect the unexpected, so naturally Balron had prepared spells for that.
--- Phil the Peasant ---
Phil could no longer take it. It was just too weird. Sure, they were the prophesied heroes, but he needed to know why they were forcing him to learn these skills. It was ruining his build. One's build was one's identity. Forcing another person to learn skills they didn't need just wasn't done. He could tell that the other members of the militia around him were just as concerned, but none of them wanted to speak up.
"Ma'am. Just why are we doing this? Why do we need three levels of [Professional Baseball Player]? How will that help us fend off the demonic hordes?"
"I'm glad someone finally asked!" Galanys responded, then addressed one of her guards. "Put that man in charge of a squad. It's nice to see a little bit of initiative around here.
"The reason you need three levels of [Professional Baseball Player] is so that you can [Return] a ball as a [Reaction] in constant time, with a negligible loss of energy. You will have mages casting a specialized form of [Lesser Acceleration Field] wherein your [Reaction] can be refreshed for near-zero cost. You will then keep passing the ball towards each other as fast as you can. If we have at least twenty-three of you doing this, the refresh-rate will exceed the decay-rate and you end up with exponential acceleration. The ball should reach relativistic speeds within two minutes."
All was silent. Phil had no idea what she just said, and neither did anyone else.
Galanys sighed: "You will be able to kill dragons from five miles away by batting baseballs at them."
--- Dov ---
"Sneak Attack!" Dov shouted, several seconds before she struck at the enemy.
Somehow, her target did not take that ample time as a warning to turn around.
"*Do you have to always shout out the names of your techniques?*" Atrog asked. "*I get that this world is like some kind of fantasy story, but that doesn't mean you have to act like it. You are normally professional.*"
"*Yes, actually. I do have to shout the names out loud.*" She responded. "*The [Dramatic Moment] feature of the [Showman] takes only one level to obtain and it gives a 10% bonus that stacks with anything. It counts as a silent ability that doesn't draw aggro and doesn't even have a cooldown. I don't even care that it's stupid, it's just really efficient. Frankly, anyone who cares about optimization at all should dip one level in [Showman]."
"Distracting Strike!" She shouted. And even though she was shouting right in her target’s face, it still worked and he turned to look in another direction.
--- Lilian ---
"[Protection from Mooks]" Lilian cast.
She and the whole team started glowing as the spell took hold. The bright light was visible from hundreds of meters away.
And yet, the enemy did not react.
"*This universe does not make any sense.*" Atrog complained. "Are they seriously just going to stand there and wait while you cast spells on us?"
"Sure, we haven't entered aggro range yet. This looks like a boss area, so I'm going all out with precasting my buffs."
"[Detect Plot Relevance]." The ornate sword held by one of the stronger-looking enemies suddenly lit up in Atrog's vision.
"[Load Checkhov's Gun]."
"[Greater Plot Contrivance]."
"[Quicksave]."
--- Galanys ---
"I am sorry, but we can not help you. We have bigger concerns." The mayor sneered.
"Bigger concerns?" Dov asked. "What could possibly be a bigger concern than the demon army bent on destroying all life? All we are asking for is permission to enter the Forest of Plot Advancement, so that we can retrieve the Mac Guffin!"
"Oh please. The Mac Guffin is just an unfounded rumor, and letting outsiders enter the Forest of Plot Advancement has tested negatively with key voting demographics."
"Are you serious? This is just about you getting re-elected?"
"*Well, at least he is surprisingly honest about it.*" Galanys commented. "*Luckily I have just the spell for the situation. Watch this!*"
"[Cure Rectal-Cranial Inversion]" She cast.
The mayor was stunned for a few seconds, then he blinked in confusion before a look of horror descended on his face. "What am I saying! Of course the demon invasion is more important! I will give you access to the forest, and any resources you need!"
"*What did you do?*" Dov asked in concern. "*Did you just use mind control?*"
"*Not mind control, no. It's a healing spell. It turns out that having your head up your ass is an actual status effect recognized by the system. I created a healing spell to cure it.*"
--- Dov ---
Dov looked at the tower of horses in front of her. Twenty summoned warhorses were stacked on top of each other, each riding the one below it. It was anyone's guess how they managed to maintain balance, or why the horses accepted their situation so calmly.
Atrog walked in, looked at the horse-stack, and turned a questioning look at her and Galanys: "Dare I even ask what is going on here?"
"*Please ask. We are actually quite proud of this.*" Dov said. "*I used my Davlash abilities to get useful racial traits and combined them with multiclassing to make a combo. It took a lot of experimentation to get this far. Let me walk you through it:
"Turning into a half-faerie lets me take the racial class [Corgi Knight], which allows me to ride on summoned creatures of my own size class. Importantly, this is treated as a magical talent instead of an ordinary ability. Being a half-ogre on top of that turns my size class back to medium, so now I can ride medium-sized creatures as well. Everyone can do that normally, but now my ability to ride medium-sized creatures counts as magical.
"*Taking ten levels of [Paladin] and choosing the [Holy Cavalry] subclass lets me summon a magical, medium-sized horse. This counts as a spell. Fifteen levels of [Warden] with the [Forest Empath] subclass lets me share magical talents with summoned creatures that I am able to ride. This includes the ability to ride summoned creatures of my own size class, since that counts as a magical talent for me, so now my horse can ride another horse.
"*Five levels of [Arcane Knight] allows me to share spells with my mount if the spell targets only myself and I am riding it. Finally, seventeen levels of [Rune Mage] with the [Magical Tattooist] subclass allows me to store a spell in a magical tattoo, which makes the spell count as targeting only myself regardless of its later effect.
"*Now, I can only have one warhorse summoned at a time, but it turns out there is no rule about recursive summoning. I can sit on my horse and cast another horse-summoning spell as a rune, then dismiss the spell. My existing mount gets a shared version of that spell, so now it can summon its own mount. By mounting that new horse, my horse fulfills all of the requirements to do the whole thing again, recursively.
“*At first the tower kept falling over, but then I added eight levels of [Dompteur] to make sure the horses can maintain balance even during combat*”
"*Now it works flawlessly, and I can just keep adding horses to the stack forever, and I'm limited only by how often I can cast the summoning spell.*"
Atrog said nothing for several seconds, then responded: "Alright. But why, though? What are you going to do with a tower of horses? You had to cripple your entire build for that!"
"*That's where the [Artificer] levels come in!*" Galanys added excitedly.
--- A'p'ostr'o'thu's the Demon Lord ---
"By the Abyss, what is this?" A'p'ostr'o'thu's the [Demon Lord] found himself asking out loud.
A walking tower of warhorses was moving towards his Doom Fortress and crushing everything in their path. The tower reached up into the clouds, and yet somehow it did not topple over.
It was absurd. He was the [Demon Lord] here, and the enemy were humanoids. He was the one who was supposed to be using unnatural and sanity defying abominations, not them!
The tower was moving directly towards his main army and showed no signs of stopping. Surely they couldn't be arrogant enough to believe that they could win?
The strange creature on top of the horse-stack cast a spell, and just like every previous time the effect percolated down through the entire stack.
The System flooded his HUD with notifications: [Lightning Bolt], [Lightning Bolt], [Lightning Bolt], [2045 similar messages have been suppressed]
And three entire companies of his legions disappeared in the blink of an eye as the horse-stack shot lightning bolts in all directions.
Ok. This was bad. This was really bad.
But A'p'ostr'o'thu's the [Demon Lord] was not a quitter. He tried to look on the bright side of things. According to his spies, the woman riding the horse-stack was a multiclasser. At least that meant that she couldn't have access to higher-level spells. She might be a threat to his armies, but A'p'ostr'o'thu's himself and his lieutenants were immune to lower-level spells. They would just have to make the army retreat and engage her themselves.
But against something this unusual he wasn't going to take any chances. He called all of his strongest subordinates to his side. Each of them a [Greater Demon], able to defeat entire armies on their own. Together they flew out to engage the strangest enemy they had ever seen.
"Looks like he took the bait." The woman said.
Wait. What?
"Activate Artificer class feature: [Ignore Magic Item Restrictions]. Use Scroll: [Power Word: Unmake]"
[Power Word: Unmake], [Power Word: Unmake], [Power Word: Unmake], [2045 similar messages have been suppressed]
--- Antigone Hiro ---
Antigone Hiro was nervous.
She was hunting for her next victim: Lilian Weaver.
She was going to kill her and take her power for her own. For the Greater Good. Or something.
Antigone Hiro was pretty sure that killing someone for her own personal power was good. At least it was if she did it. She was the protagonist after all, and that made all of her actions morally justified by default.
Antigone Hiro was the Chosen of Niphia. Granted, one of several Chosen of Niphia. But still, she was from the real world so that automatically made her better. That Niphia had given her a totally hax cheat skill when she reincarnated further proved that she was special, and that the normal rules of society did not apply to her.
Her special skill was just awesome. [There Can Be Only One] allowed her to absorb the powers of any other Isekai'd person she killed. It wasn't murder, as far as she was concerned. Really, if they weren't strong enough to survive here then she was doing them a favor by killing them and presumably sending them back home.
And Lilian? She was just another Isekai hero undeserving of the title, like so many before her. Worse, rumor had it that Lilian was the Chosen of Tonos, in addition to being Chosen by Niphia. That made her doubly chosen, which was kind of special.
It threatened Antigone's status as the protagonist, and she could not abide that.
Still, Lilian was rumored to be quite powerful. There were a lot of rumors about her, really. Most of them were kind of ridiculous.
She was even said to be a [Quest Giver] empowered by the System itself. Supposedly she could hand out [Quests] to other heroes that actually gave XP.
No matter. She would die just like anyone else.
Infiltrating her mansion had been trivial. The guards had been incompetent and predictable, and it was simplicity itself for her to sneak past them.
And now she had her target in the sights of her bow.
She tried to think of a cool one-liner, when Lilian suddenly spoke up: "It sure would be dramatically appropriate timing for an assassination attempt right now."
What?
"You aren't fooling anybody. Just come out." The woman continued.
Antigone was shocked, but she had the good sense not to give up her advantage. Lilian was already in her sights.
So she shot her arrow.
Without looking at her, Lilian instinctively moved a few centimeters to the right. The arrow missed her by a hair's breadth.
She turned around, and the two of them locked eyes.
Antigone wasted no time and nocked her second arrow, but Lilian just remained standing without a care in the world.
She wasn't going to fall for it twice. She activated her secondary cheat skill: [Observe].
[Lilian Weaver], [Chosen of Tonos], [Active Status Effects: Plot Armor], [Additional Status Effects: [REDACTED TO AVOID SPOILERS]]
Redacted to avoid spoilers? What? That had never happened to her before! Her cheat skills were supposed to be super overpowered and uncounterable. What was going on here?
"I have the God of Stories on my side." Lilian declared while sweeping her arms in a grand gesture. "Your inflated stats mean nothing to me. You are going to need a much edgier backstory if you want to have a chance to defeat me."
"Impossible! I am the Main Character!" Antigone countered.
"You deluded extra. You are not the Main Character. She is!"
Then Lilian pointed at a door, and at just that moment three young women in frilly dresses barged in.
"Halt evildoer! In the name of Justice, we will punish you!" Their leader declared bombastically.
Then she added more quietly: "Hi Lilian! I'm sorry it took so long. The transformation sequence took longer than normal."
Lilian shook her head: "A transformation sequence never takes too long, Aranea. It always takes as long as is dramatically appropriate."
Transformation sequence? Frilly dresses?
Were those... [Magical Girls]?
They had the power of god and anime on their sides.
This wasn't a fight she could win.
Antigone ran.
As the [Magical Girls] gave chase, Lilian shouted after them: "You won't catch her, it's her first appearance! Remember what I taught you about recurring villains! Try to set up a cool character arc!"
--- Dov ---
"*Now close your eyes, and relax.*" Dov told the Isekai'd hero.
She could feel through her telepathic link that he was trying his best, but following an order to relax was difficult to do. The immense respect, fear, and even reverence that people held for her and the rest of team Nundru after their defeat of the [Demon Lord] did not help matters.
Luckily that problem was fixed easily enough with a bit of telepathically induced sleep.
She used her psychic powers to delve into his dreams, and she called upon the racial ability [Timeless Oracle] she gained by absorbing a sphinx's genes. This ability allowed her to see clearly where anyone else would only see muddled images, as her quarry seemed to distort divination spells and even memories.
Her goal: To find out where the Isekai Heroes were coming from.
The man in front of her was the third hero she tried this on, and this time the images she got were much clearer than before.
She looked through the hero's eyes as he watched a young girl playing on the street.
Then he saw it: Truck-kun.
Truck-kun was going to run over the girl. Like many heroes before him, he selflessly jumped onto the street, and pushed her out of the way.
And in the process he positioned himself in Truck-kun's path, who proceeded to Isekai him.
Outside the dream, Dov smiled to herself.
This time, she got a clear image of Truck-kun. It wasn't much, but it was progress.
With some more effort, she was sure they would eventually figure out the nature of this eldritch entity. And from that, they would learn to replicate its ability to reincarnate people across worlds.
Maybe in a few years, they would have their first prototype of the Isekai-inator, as Lilian called it.