9 Days Post-Kret
A large, rocky and topographically chaotic landscape stood before the three members of Blessed Catalyst. Rocks and trees coating the land in equal measure; blacks, browns and grays intermixed with various shades of green and soft blues as far as the eye could see.
At the very back, bored into the hard stone-face of the plateau that cut off the rest of the Vianthian peninsula, sat what appeared to be a mine entrance; unnaturally widened and very, very recently worked on based on the teen’s own experience with the small mine near their hometown.
And in between that, and the three teens, sat a few hundred individuals. People of all ages, shapes, and sizes milling about or trying their best to move calmly through the chaos.
“Hey, so….how many other teams were sent on this same mission?” Peter asked, his eyes sliding back and forth as he clutched both straps of his backpack and dutifully marched forward.
“I’m not sure…” Angelica mumbled, her index finger curled and placed over her lips as she looked this way and that.
Adventurer, adventurer, knight, knight, high-ranking knight, civilian-
The internal categorizing just kept going and going, the red-haired female doing all that she could to note down as many individuals as she humanly could as the three of them walked.
‘This is way…way more than just a simple [Iron-rank] quest.’
“Isn’t that Red Panther?” Felicia asked, pointing at a group of adventurers sat around a cooking pot laughing together.
The newly promoted [Gold-rank] party seemed to be just as new to the scene as they were, given the way that one of them was still going through their pack for some gear.
For a party like them, who had been gaining more and more notoriety within both the Guild and World Quest, to be here as well spoke of something that the two girls were beginning to get a little worried over.
What was so special about these ruins that the Guild needed both this many people and this caliber of adventurers too? And if people like that were here, why was Blessed Catalyst?
As much as they liked that attention, like any other teenager put in their position –they imagined–, this was clearly unusual.
“You’re right, it is. I think I see Grembell over there too.” Angelica nodded, pointing in the direction of the [Tungsten-rank] party.
Unlike Red Panther, who were busy enjoying themselves and sorting out their gear, Grembell were a far calmer adventuring party. The three members making up its whole stood by a large boulder sticking out of the ground and seemed to be discussing something. Two of them shifted their weight from foot to foot as they made small hand movements to corroborate whatever it was they were saying.
The third, a young woman with long black hair that hung partially over her face, seemed to be making small comments while drawing something on the ground with a long stick. The three of them were unaware –or more probably just ignoring– of the many sets of eyes that sat upon them.
“Ohhh.” Felicia’s mouth formed a small ‘o’ as she nodded her head quickly. “They just completed a big raid recently, I read about it in World Quest.”
“That’s right, that lesser dragon nest in southern Kairahl.” Angelica confirmed, crossing her arms and humming, “I didn’t think I’d ever get to meet anyone like them in person.”
“Not meeting to look at them from afar.”
“Oh, you get what I mean.” Angelica groaned, rolling her eyes.
“Oh my gods!” Peter’s, excited, yell snapped the girls out of their conversation, their gazes turned to him as he excitedly bounced on the spot and pointed ahead of them, towards the mine entrance.
So, curious about the red-haired teen’s excitement, the two of them followed his pointed finger.
Pink and purple eyes widened in a unique mixture of amazement and complete and utter fear.
“No way…”
“What is this quest…?”
There, stood by the entrance to the mine talking to a civilian that none of the three teens could recognize, was a woman with hard green eyes and straight, silky white hair pulled up in a ponytail that dangled down to about her shoulders. Tight black pants that flared at mid-calf and black boots with wide, solid soles adorned her legs. Her upper torso was adorned in a button-up white shirt with three-quarter sleeves and a sleeveless vest as black as her pants done up over said shirt.
“Tristana Promethea…” Angelica awed, her eyes seeming to shine just a little as she spoke the woman’s name.
Tristana Promethea, the leader of the adventuring party Titan, and world-famous [Lunar-Warrior] currently stood not even a full eight hundred meters from the three members of Blessed Catalyst.
The [Platinum-rank] adventurer herself: The Beast Butcher.
XXXxxxXXX
‘He’s already caught up!?’
Olivia’s back foot slipped a few centimeters as the wooden blade of Alec crashed into her own, her teeth gritting as she pushed back to re-enter into her own offensive.
Somewhat ironically, for someone who willingly enrolled in an academy that taught the Dragon-Scale style, Olivia was far better at offense than defense. Despite that, she had thought that her defense was still plenty good enough, especially when compared to the other –more experienced– students within the academy.
And up until just this moment, she had thought of herself as the undisputed greatest within the newer crop of students.
‘I understand that I’d only gained a few days lead on him, but it's not like I stopped training either!’
Offense and Defense in equal measure, that was the best way to describe the two teens as they danced this way and that, practically forcing the other students to cordon off a section of the trainarium for them specifically.
“You’ve gotten better, Olivia. I nearly missed that last jab.” Alec said, deflecting her blade and twirling his blade back up to knock away the return slash that she sent at him.
“I don’t need your praise.” She replied in return.
She had wanted to come out on top in a fair environment, that was still undeniably true, but the fact that he had even caught back up in the first place was beginning to annoy her. She understood, from a logical point of view, that it was simply a matter of a couple of weeks of training and that different people learned different things at different speeds. Yet that didn’t stop her emotionally from feeling like his catching back up was a direct slap in the face of her own efforts.
Why bother trying when a real genius is just going to overtake you?
That was the question that the dark, traitorous, part of Olivia’s mind couldn’t help but sneer whenever she found herself just coming short of where she wanted to be.
However, she refused to let that voice, her families thoughts, get one up on her. She refused to let herself fall to such baseless, cutthroat insecurities. She would get better, she would prove herself as better, and she would come out on top of not only Alec but everyone else who had ever put those thoughts in her head in the first place.
The first step in doing that was to make a solid distance between her and Alec and maintain said distance.
Thwack!
“Agh! Damn. You win…” Alec grumbled, waving his arm as a red mark began to appear over his forearm, his expression twisting and morphing as he tilted his head down to look at himself.
‘Ah, that’s right.’
Olivia felt like a bucket of cold water had been poured over her, the burning desire in her quenched and quieted as she watched her fellow student try to wave the stinging sensation out of his arm.
‘Alec Dius is chasing something impossible too, that’s what’s spurring him forward.’
“Again.”
“I’m grabbing a drink, wait or find someone else.” She scoffed, turning around to go grab a drink to rehydrate herself after the rather fast-paced spar.
‘Heh. We’re pretty similar, aren’t we?’
XXXxxxXXX
The Next Morning, Vianthian Peninsula
“The natives are preparing a large-scale raid on Krinvoth, easily over a hundred combatants of varying strengths.” A figure with dark red skin spoke, knelt on a single knee behind another figure of the same skin tone.
The difference between the two was night and day, not just because of their differing genders but also because of the pure difference in height and muscle mass between them. The kneeling figure, one of eight including the figure that they knelt to, was decidedly a female of about 163cm in height with two horns curling out of her temples.
They were short and pointed straight back for a good 18cm but tightly spiraled, similarly to a corkscrew and just as sharp too.
The male figure that stood before her, on the other hand, was a monster of a man at about 193cm tall with thick black horns that curled out of his temples and came right back around to point forward at about the height of his Adam’s apple, similar to a goat’s horns.
Did you know this text is from a different site? Read the official version to support the creator.
“Unsurprising, Krinvoth is an important ancestral home to the natives of this particular country.” The male snorted, his eyes locked on the mountain that sat above the ruins in question, a thick traveler’s cloak fluttering in the wind.
“Is our Lord’s power not influencing their decisions?”
“Our Lord is powerful, but the seal placed upon him is even more so. You haven’t seen it before, but there is nothing of him that is allowed to escape, ambient or otherwise.”
“Then why come here now? Are we not just putting ourselves at unnecessary risk by revealing ourselves? There’s only one more Forsaken Favoured left.”
“And that last Favoured is being guarded by their partner Favoured, don’t forget. As much as it burns me to admit, our goal cannot be completed without the strength of our Lord.”
“Is our ‘goal’ even doing anything?” Another figure, leant against a tree, spoke up cynically. “We’ve been stuck in this cycle for centuries and all that ever happens is we murder them and once the proper Favoured croak, more pairs are born, and we go after the Forsaken’s once again.”
“Our goal is maintaining this status quo.” The burly male grunted, not even shifting his gaze an inch but his displeasure more than evident. “We may not be ‘making ground’ as you’d call it, but we are still denying these natives true monsters upon which to refine themselves further.”
“I suppose that’s true…”
“Do not suppose, accept that it is true. We have never allowed one to escape our grasp, before or after our Lord’s defeat, and we won’t fail to do so now. Even if it means revealing ourselves to bring that same Lord back from his stasis.”
“Very poetic. How long did you practice that one?” The cynic by the tree snorted, getting a small tense of the burly man’s shoulders.
“I didn’t, actually. Now let’s go. Even with our shortcuts it’s going to take a while to descend all the way.”
“Aye aye, Captain.”
XXXxxxXXX
Meanwhile, Blessed Catalyst
“Well, it looks like we aren’t exactly getting the brunt of the dangerous work,” Angelica muttered, reading through the small, mass-printed, pamphlet that had been handed out to all the adventurers a few minutes earlier.
“Aw, man…I can’t believe this.” Peter muttered, curled up on his side on the ground, sniffling dramatically as he hugged his knees to his chest.
“Preliminary surveillance has shown a lot of monsters the deeper you go into the ruins. Throwing [Iron-rank]’s directly into combat only to be murdered by something too strong isn’t the Guild’s forte.” Felicia hummed, flipping through her own pamphlet.
“The monsters might not even be that dangerous!”
“On the other hand, they could all be too dangerous for us to handle.” Angelica shot her brother down once more, getting a loud, pitiful, whine from the red-haired teen.
“Being used as pack mules isn’t fun either.” The [Saintess] muttered.
“Well, would you prefer this or not being a part of this raid at all?” The Kroll sister rolled her eyes. “This is history in the making! And we’re here, right now, getting to witness it first-hand!”
“I guess you’re right…” Peter grumbled, pushing himself back into a seated position and picking up his slightly crumpled pamphlet from the ground once more.
“Glad to see you finally listening to reason.”
“Hmph! Alec would totally agree with me!” Peter crossed his arms and huffed loudly.
“No, he wouldn’t.” The –simultaneous– response from his sister and friend shut him down faster than any attack or insult ever could.
A strangled cry of pain left his lips as he fell onto his back, one hand in the air as if reaching for something.
“This…pain. It’s…..too much!”
Both young women stared dryly at the antics of their party leader, their eyes slowly sliding to the sides to look at each other in silence.
“So,” Angelica spoke, turning to face Felicia once more. “Do you think that using magic to help carry more should be our first option or should we try and play it by ear?”
“By ear.” Felicia nodded, turned to face away from Peter and towards Angelica, “For all we know we could be carrying moss samples or something like that, no point wasting mana if that’s the case.”
“H-Hey! You’re ignoring me!”
“You have a good point; do we even know what it is that we might be carrying in and out? I can’t imagine they’re going to be trying to deconstruct the ruins while we’re all still in there.”
“Moss, rocks, minerals, shiny things.” Felicia listed off dryly, tapping a finger on her left hand with each successive idea she rattled off.
“Hello!” All three teens jumped a little at the exuberant shout, though while both Peter and Angelica let out small yelps, Felicia only jolted on the spot like a spooked cat.
The shout in question came from a rather interesting-looking young lady. Her brown hair was done up in a professional-looking bun with some large circular glasses resting atop the bridge of her nose and a few freckles across her cheeks. Her clothing was professional with some minor padding built into the pants and jacket, based on Peter’s relatively inexperienced eye, and a lanyard hung from her neck with a rather familiar symbol stamped on the left side of the card that hung from it.
“Oop! Sorry! I didn’t mean to frighten you all, I’m just so excited. You’re Blessed Catalyst, right? Peter, Angelica, and Felicia?”
“That’s…us. Do we know you?” Angelica asked, one eyebrow raised, and her forearms rested on her knees.
“Oh! No probably not. My name’s Haley, nice to meet you all. I’m an on-field reporter with the Adventurer’s Guild.”
“Ohhh! The cataloguers.” Felicia nodded, a fist lightly landing in her palm.
“That’d be me! Uh- Us? That’s right.” Haley finally decided, a sheepish laugh leaving her as she rubbed her arm unconsciously.
Peter would have liked to chime into the conversation, unfortunately, his attention had been grabbed by Haley before he’d even realized it and he had now zoned out.
It wasn’t like a charm spell, or that she was somehow the walking personification of all his personal tastes in a woman; no, it was nothing as cliché as that. It was simply just a matter of Haley’s unique mixture of appearance and actions that happened to catch his attention.
The fact that he didn’t have any experience with girls his own age outside of the orphanage was certainly a large part of why he zoned out as much as he did. Though he’d rather go this entire quest without fighting a single thing than admit as much.
“I see, what brings you over?” Angelica asked, an amused smile crossing her features and one of her eyebrows raised.
“Oh! I was hoping that I could shadow the three of you on this quest today?” The woman asked respectfully, bowing just a little as she did so.
Angelica opened her mouth to speak once more, only to snap it closed with an audible clack as she heard a small squeak from her brother. Like a predator tracking its prey, the girl’s eyes locked onto her brother with all the speed and suddenness of a bolt of lightning.
“OW! What was that for Angelica!?” Peter hissed, clutching and rubbing his shin as his sister huffed and looked away from him, crossing the leg that had just struck him over her other.
“Maybe try not staring?”
“Ah- I’m…sorry.” He muttered in defeat, his cheeks going slightly red as he realized that his sister had just caught him staring at a girl; innocent intentions or not, it was just embarrassing.
“That should be fine.” Felicia finally answered the slightly flustered reporter, who had caught onto what was happening just a second or two after Angelica’s kick.
“T-Thank you. I’m really glad!” Haley quickly shook off the moment though, her small but bright smile returning as quickly as it had left. “I always enjoy doing stories on upcoming newbies and you three are rising through the ranks pretty quickly for such a small party.”
“Oh, thank you.”
“Cause we’re awesome.”
The simultaneous answers from both Angelica and Felicia got a startled, wide-eyed blink from the spectacled girl before she giggled into her hand.
“Well, I can’t say that that’s wrong per se. But you shouldn’t get a big head. After all, who knooooows what I’ll end up putting in my report.” Haley hummed, crossing her arms and puffing her chest out as Felicia’s flat expression drooped slightly and she clasped both of her hands together.
“Can you, uh, fight? It’d be sort of silly to not know that going in…” Peter pointed out, getting a happy smile from his sister.
“Oh yes! I’m a [Silver-rank] adventurer myself. I’m not the greatest when it comes to melee, but I have a few spells that I’m handy with.” Haley informed them all, raising a hand and creating a small floating crystal of ice above it.
“Oh wow, your usage of ice-based magic is very efficient. I didn’t even feel the air cool down until the crystal was already in your palm.” Angelica awed, leaned in closer to gaze at the crystal from every possible angle, stars in her eyes.
“Oh, thank you. The attribute of my mana is ‘cold’, so ice magic has always been a lot easier for me to grasp.” Haley explained, creating a second crystal in her other hand and making both of them begin floating around Angelica lazily.
“I see, that makes sense. None of our attributes really do the same thing.”
“Ehhhh.” Felicia hummed, wiggling her hand back and forth while tilting her head.
“Well, I suppose that yours helps heat up the power you get from Solyre even more, Felicia. But I wouldn’t say it's exactly the same.” Angelica tried to explain, bracing one elbow with her hand and making a small gesture towards her friend.
“True. I get to cheat.” Felicia hummed, a small twitch in Angelica’s eye letting the white-haired teen know that she’d managed to successfully annoy the [High-Sorcerer].
“Why must you always say that? We all know that it’s simply just separate-“
BBBBWWWWWOOOOOOOMMMMMM!
Everyone juttered to a halt, their eyes wide and hearts beating in their ears. Murmurs spread throughout the massive, multi-hundred-person camp as everyone turned toward the loud, low-frequency, sound of the horn that had just been blown.
There, stood atop the refurbished entrance to the mine that they would all soon have to enter, stood the Beast Butcher herself, Tristana Promethea.
“Can everybody hear me?” Her voice echoed over the entire camp unnaturally, sounding like she was only a few meters away even to the members of Blessed Catalyst; who sat over 500 meters away from her.
A series of murmurs and shouts called out and the [Lunar-Warrior] rested her weight on one leg.
“Alright, excellent. So, the guild members here want me to give you all a little pep-talk as the only [Platinum-rank] here at this raid.”
“She is? What about the rest of her party?”
“Maybe the rest of Titan are busy doing something else?”
“I don’t have much to say, this is a big operation but not exactly the most deadly. A little boring if you ask me but whatever.” Tristana sighed, her figure turning and leaning over to look at someone below her that none of the teens could see from their distance.
‘Likely a guild official…’ Angelica thought to herself.
“Yeah yeah, I get it. Something actually motivational.” The woman’s voice continued to transmit over the entire camp, a deadpan expression covering the three teen’s faces at the first-hand experience of the legendary adventurer’s personality.
“Well, how about this? This raid isn’t exactly meant to be the deadliest in the entire world, but there’s plenty of creepy-crawlies inside this ruin that have decided to try and make it their home. There are beasts in there of all shapes, sizes, and strengths, not to mention all of these guild reporters and officials around out here! All you adventurers worth your salt should know what that means, right?”
Her words were electric, and a tangible excitement began to fill the campsite like an energy being brought to the surface once deeply buried. Even the three teens of Blessed Catalyst were unable to escape its grasp. Their eyes widened and their muscles tensed ever so minutely, as if ready to act at a moment’s notice.
“A chance for everyone here to prove themselves to the Guild, should you actually come across anything of course. So, all you lumps of fatty meat, if you come across anything fight worthy I want a showing that’ll impress even me. And believe me, I’ll be asking every reporter what they’ve seen before this raid is done.”
With a brief sound of static, Tristana’s voice finished broadcasting across the campsite, replaced instead by the droning voice of one of the guild officials who began to go over the entrance procedure for everyone entering the ruins.
Yet Peter heard none of it, his hand jittering slightly as he clenched it as tightly as possible. A wide, mostly excited yet still somewhat nervous, smile across his features and his eyes practically glowed with frenzied energy.
“Holy crap…How could I ever dial the power back with a pep talk like that? Just you wait Tristana, if I fight something today I’ll make sure you hear about it personally.”