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Side Story 11: Realizing and making up for my mistakes. [Release Version]
🕑 Added 2020-04-19 04:32:32 +0000 UTC“Daichi, you idiot! Look where the hell you’re shooting your spells!”
“I am, you piece of shit! You’re just rushing in like a blind mole whenever I finish casting my spells!”
“Urck! Hey, Tatsuya, stop arguing with Mikami and look in front of you. That kobold nearly stabbed you with his spear!”
“No, no, no. When am I supposed to shoot an arrow when everybody in front is moving around like that? Urgh, why is this so different from practice?”
“Sigh…what a wonder that nobody is hurt yet. Meh, that just means that I don’t have to do anything until the inevitable happens.”
While arguing among us was already a bad sign of a terrible team cohesion, it was even more evident when we’re doing that during a fight, and not just any fight, but one where our life was actually at stake.
After Yorshka gave us a rundown of how dungeoning worked; Tsuji-san, acting as the de facto leader between our two parties, suggested that we start using our first names when we work together. She mentioned that it was something she read in a book on Earth that said that calling each other by our first names would increase closeness and work efficiency
Also, as the people in this world would address us with our first names, she thought that it would stop any confusion whenever we talked with a native.
While it felt uncomfortable, our entire group nodded in agreement anyway, realizing that this was the case for the church. While the grey-robed priests and lower-rank white-robed priests would indulge us, the higher ones simply called us either by our unique skill's name or our first.
It honestly pissed me off and was another big reason why I still don’t feel extremely comfortable there. Frankly, a single day in Laveata town has been more relaxing than the four months I spent at the church.
After starting calling each other with our first name, we started moving in our ten-man group with our two knights walking behind and commenting on things. It was mostly Yorshka explaining the importance of working together and how we had to be careful as we walked through the dungeon, as traps could exist.
While the upper levels didn’t, she still told us that some monsters were intelligent enough to plan ambushes. They might not be very refined, but she warned us that many newbies have died from not knowing this simple information.
After moving through the first floor and watching other beginners fight against monsters, we finally found our first group of monsters responsible for giving this dungeon its name: Kobolds.
The ones we met were the lowest rank, G, and was eligible for our quest. There were three and as our “Kobold Subjugation” quest was shared among us, our two parties had to cooperate and kill ten kobolds in total.
Tamae-san, Tsuji-san’s first name, suggested that we first work together, which means ten people against three. It might seem overkill but I guess we needed that extra safety net so we could fight properly. The majority of us were anxious about actually "doing the deed", while Daichi, that psychopath, was the only one thrilled about it.
Our cautiousness actually proved correct because killing really was as hard as I seemed. Tsuji-san’s teammates Kohaku and Kazumi both were close combatants like Kyouya and I, so to kill these kobolds we had to stab our blades into their body, through their flesh, bones, and blood. Kazumi even had it worse as she was a rogue who uses daggers and short swords to fight.
The fight itself wasn’t anything special, though. We had professional training and our status boards were strong enough to fight against F rank monsters, so G ranks, with their pushover level of stats, were nothing to us.
However, trying to slam in the finishing blow was hard. Us frontliners struggled to actually get our first kills as we hesitated, so in the end our mages Mikami and Nishio-san plus Misaki, the other party’s archer, had to do it for us.
After killing our first monsters nobody in our party leveled up, while Tamae-san’s did due to having two of their members getting the kill credit. They described it as a short-term euphoria moment that not only restored their Health and Mana but it also made their bodies feel stronger.
Despite our first success, our groups couldn’t exactly move from the spot for a minute or so. Our sudden realization that we actually killed a living being stunned us in place. They might not have been humans, but they were still alive. Trying to think of them like animals at the end of the day didn't help at all.
It was only when Elrick and Yorshka came over and began to congratulate us that we snapped out of our frozen state. Checking myself and then the others, I noticed that I wasn’t the only one that was heavily breathing.
The fight wasn’t hard. We barely strained ourselves but…my heart felt like it could have exploded at any time, without any signs of slowing down. While I was able to endure my nausea, Haruka couldn’t.
After having a moment to recover, we continued onwards after everyone agreed to it. We then met another three-man group of G rank kobolds but this time we frontliners made quick work with them.
Kyouya and I got two of the kills so our party also leveled up once, gaining level one and 100 SP. While I didn’t buy anything from the SP shop yet, I was quite elated that a lot of the options whitened up. No longer was the shop completely grey for me, ha ha!
Still, I definitely have to say that actually killing something with my own two hands was not even close to a pleasant feeling as I thought it would be. I was so hyped that I would be able to finally power level, get stronger, and do whatever RPG dream you can do but it’s just…not as cool at all.
The resistance of the flesh, the cracking bones, and the flowing blood, all of this happened just because I rammed my spear into the kobold’s body. Coughing up blood because blood was entering its lungs and its slow but final painful cries as it breathed its last.
Our mages and archers truly had an incredible advantage, only because they didn’t have to experience all of this upfront. Kyouya, Kohaku, and I were completely unable to fight due to being the ones to deal the last blow this time.
Honestly, I was thankful that both Elrick and Yorshka were kind enough to let us three rest. Being important parts of our group’s frontline, nobody in our parties could continue onwards because of us.
This marked the second time that we had to stop and take a break just because we couldn’t handle the realities of killing living beings. Yorshka was quite happy that we weren’t pushing ourselves too much, slowly getting used to our new environment and the idea of killing to get stronger.
Hearing her say that made me think of what she said about the other three groups. It made me worry that Aiko wasn’t here and instead was with the supposedly “old-fashion” knights. Yorshka sounded so sure when she insulted them, but I do hope that Aiko’s bodyguard isn’t pushing her too much…but she’s the saint, maybe I’m worrying too much.
As we continued taking a rest, the other party started to talk about their unique skills, talking about what they were planning to buy with their SP.
I already knew about Tamae-san’s [Enchanter’s Oath], but besides the names, I had no idea what the others did. Asking them, I was able to learn the effects of [Sovereign of the Elements], [Samurai Distinction: Yumi], [Tricky Kitty], and [Dwarven Runeslayer] from Nishio-san, Misaki, Kazumi, and Kohaku respectively.
<Enchanter’s Oath: A skill that promotes supportive actions. Improves the effectiveness of stat-boosting spells and enchanted items. Reduces the mana costs of all actions and arcane corruption accumulation>
<Sovereign of the Elements: Mana cost of using spells from the primary tetra-elements, fire, earth, wind, water, are decreased by 30%. User can weaken a target's elemental resistance by hitting them with a corresponding element. Able to cast two spells at once and mix these spells together to improve them at the cost of mana>
<Samurai Distinction: Yumi: User can expend mana to create mana arrow of any type they wish. The longer the user readies the bow, the more powerful the shot will become. The user will always ignore 25% of a target's Vitality when the arrow hits>
<Tricky Kitty: User can expend mana to create up to 4 [Dusk Clones] that the user may control the autonomy of, whose effectiveness depends on the skill's level. Increases Agility based skills and abilities. Ability to identify weak spots through observation and increases own damage to these spots. Gives the user the smell of a feline and some of their improved senses>
<Dwarven Runeslayer: The user is unable to expel mana from outside their body. Enchantments, parameter boosting spells, and runes have improved efficiency and cost less mana to maintain. User is 50% less susceptible to magic damage>
Once break was over, we continued down to the second floor of the dungeon. Continuing her current job as a tour guide, Yorshka explained that each dungeon had a random number of floors, determined at the point which they were created. Dungeons are a natural phenomenon in this world that appeared after the introduction of the System, which suggests that they were made by the origin gods.
This dungeon only has ten floors, easily manageable for newer parties while being a good warm-up for stronger parties.
As we ventured into the second floor, we finally met our first F rank monsters: Kobold Warriors. Yes, most of the early monsters are kobolds, there is nothing we can do about it. There isn’t anything fearsome but that’s a godsend for us…
…as party “Misfits” is already struggling to deal with them.
“Dammit, Tatsuya, you bastard! Are you rushing all of this just so you can get the kills?! Let me fucking kill it for you, you weakling!” Daichi shouted with a face that matched the color of his fire spells.
“Yo, Daichi-kun, calm down already…have you forgotten what our instructors told you about letting your emotions run wild? Also, you’re so loud that you’re making me deaf,” Asaka Hanazawa said nonchalantly, clearly bored.
"Asaka-san is right, you two!" Kyouya proclaimed beside me, agreeing with Asaka's statement. "We're struggling here and you two can't work together, even now? Please, concentrate!"
The group of kobold warriors consisted out of four members when we first found them. Yorshka, showing a mischievous smile, suggested that this was a great chance for us to show everybody the results of our four months’ worth of training.
She told us to separate into our respective parties and challenge the kobolds, two for each. With our stats and skills, we should have literally no problem taking on two F rank monsters simultaneously, so Yorshka was confident that she could make this into a sort of challenge and test.
A test, to show us what we are still missing and where we should improve, while a challenge to drive competitiveness between the two parties. Whoever finishes first gets to go with Yorshka to an acquaintance blacksmith of hers, where that party may request him to create a weapon for them, on her tab.
While the church has given us some pretty good weapons with good stats, they were all without any skills. Magical weapons, or advanced weapons in general, all had skills that helped the wielder perform better in battle supplementing their battle style with a wide range of skills.
As we literally had no money, and we didn’t know how expensive it would be, most of us were enthusiastic about it, thinking that this would be a good way to not depend on the church that much.
Also, this sort of made me believe that Yorshka is stacked, cash-wise.
“Goddess…Elrick, did you help them at all in the one month you had with them?” Yorshka commented from outside the battle. “Their technique is still pretty crude, but the fundamentals can be seen, however, they look like a ragtag group of new adventurers…an actual G rank party!”
"Lady Yorshka, I humbly apologized that you had to witness this. I have failed as their supervisor,” Elrick said with a crestfallen expression.
While it might be true that we had a month to form a party and then work out our synergy, however…I did mention that Asaka and Mikami had no intention to do that. We didn't even know Elrick's name until the day of our class change…which was a week ago!
We had no time to train as a party nor did we have a synergy to begin with. I thought that if Kyouya and I could work on ours that everything would be alright, but a real battle is completely different.
I was initially quite optimistic about our chance to win this challenge due to our group’s unique skills. Firstly, party “Misfits” had high burst skills in my [Rush Hour] and Mikami’s [Kamikaze], while the low defense caused by these skills can be covered by Kyouya’s [Ardent Defender].
We can continue dealing DPS, while Kyouya can use his shield abilities to block damage for us. Even if one of us does get hurt, we could rely on Asaka’s healing abilities as a [Saint Candidate]. As we’ve seen from her sending Kyouya, our tank, flying away with a single punch using [Saint’s Wrath] we can rely on her to defend the backline while throwing out [Smite] from range.
Haruka Sakamoto didn’t have a combat-related unique skill but that didn’t mean [Foxian Slyness] was useless. Being able to ignore [Identity Blocker] meant that she could scout the enemy’s skill set for us, giving us a chance to anticipate whatever tricks they might have. At the very least, she could use her bow to shoot something.
But…well, we’re making no progress. Daichi’s selfishness of wanting to get the kills made it hard for me fight with him. We were both the damage dealers but our fighting styles conflicted too much with each other.
As he has to cast spells, there is a downtime before he can attack, a time that I'm using to go in. But before I can actually hit something, his spell activates, forcing me to dodge if I didn't want to be burnt.
As none of our attacks were hitting and I kept arguing with Mikami, Kyouya had to defend us when we were letting our guards down. They might be F ranks, but Kyouya still had to get used to fighting kobolds, and with us two arguing, he was fighting two at once.
Haruka tried to support him with her arrows but it was showing that she wasn’t a fighter. She kept missing her arrows, even if she used an archery ability. It also didn’t help that her meekness coupled with her recent depressive mood was causing her morale to drop with every single missed shot.
The only other person, besides Kyouya, who was doing their job correctly was Asaka…and that is by doing nothing! She might have [Smite] but her role was that of a cleric in our party, and Daichi, in his infinite wisdom, decided that it was more important to “conserve mana” instead of having her attack.
I mean, I can understand that but, come on, look how disastrous it was.
Looking at my dysfunctional team made it even harder to look at Tamae-san’s team…
“Take this! Dance of the Flame sword!” the black-haired girl with red tints shouted, swinging her flaming sword to end a kobold’s life. “Urgh, no, no, no, no! Screaming all this cringy stuff isn’t making it any better. I still feel terrible for doing this to them…woah!”
Pushing the swordswoman out of the way, a small brown-haired girl blocked an approaching axe swing from a kobold while chiding her flustered companion, “Kohaku-chan, you can complain about this later. Blocking axes isn’t part of my job description.”
Pushing the kobold back, she jumped to the side, shouting, “Nishio-san, now!”
“Good work, Kazumi-san! Oh, wind! Gather with my call and form into power to push back my enemies, Wind Bullet!” a guy with glasses called out, pointing his staff at the kobold before a pocket of wind is shot out.
“Grah!” the kobold shouted out, knocked on the ground before an arrow flew by and cleanly pierced his head. "Gruk…."
"Woooo, guess that means we won, right?" an aloof girl said, brushing her long black hair to the side after shooting that arrow.
"Nice shot, Misa-chan!" a girl wearing a white robe who also carried a staff said, praising her archer friend. "And yeah, we won the challenge. You’ll probably request for a change of weapons correct?”
“That’s correct, Tama-san. A western bow doesn’t feel as comfortable compared to a yumi,” Misaki, the archer girl, said with a small smile.
“Urgh, I guess this is my job from now on, huh?” Kazumi, the brown-haired dagger girl said with disgust, carrying around two large kobold fangs. “I even got [Dismantle] just now. Ewww, I can't wait to do a full-body autopsy in the future…bleh."
“Come on, Kazumi-chan, it could be worse. Don’t worry, you will have my aid for the future, my feline-smelling friend!” Kohaku, the swordswoman, said, walking besides Kazumi as she made a cool-looking pose. “Oh, and thanks for saving me there. I still can’t get used to stabbing things…”
“Don’t be too hard on yourself, Kohaku-san, you did great. I think all of us still have to get used this madness,” Nishio, the dude with glasses said with a deadpan face. “Also, it seems [Imbue Fire] really worked great with your [Dwarven Runeslayer]. It really was worth to train my [Fire Magic] up instead of [Earth Magic].”
“Ah, everyone! All of you did wonderfully!” Tamae-san, the white-robed girl, said, waving her hand at her approaching teammates. “Urgh, I’m sorry I couldn’t do anything there, guys. You guys really didn’t need my healing…”
"Wha-?! No, don't be sad Tamae-san!" Nishio cast his expressionless away once Tamae-san began chastising herself, anxiously trying to comfort her. "Y-You just haven’t reached your full potential yet! [Enchanter’s Oath] requires a lot of time investment but I bet you will be invaluable once it happens!”
“Thank you, Nishio-kun, but I know that until that happens, I can’t help much…oh, I know, I’ll treat all of you to some of my cooking later on,” Tamae-san offered, quickly switching her mood around.
“Wooo, awesome, that might be an even better reward than those weapons!” Kazumi cried out, jumping in excitement, before patting Nishio-san’s back. “You did a good job, lover boy. We get to enjoy Tama-chan’s cuisine, again!”
Holy shit, they actually made that look easy…just like Yorshka said…wah?!
"Wah?!" as I was looking at Nishio-san's brightening face, somebody suddenly pushed me to the side before dashing forward.
“Kyouya, back me up!” looking up, I saw somebody running to Kyouya’s side, somebody that I didn’t expect: Asaka.
With a short, “Yes!”, the two began fighting together. While Kyouya blocked any approaching attack with his shield while throwing a counterattack with his sword, Asaka would dash forward before swinging down her staff coated in a white aura at the attacking kobold’s head.
Once it was knocked down, Kyouya would defend the second kobold’s attack and the process repeated. In the end, with both kobolds knocked down, Kyouya simply had to push his blade into the monsters’ throat, killing them.
<Experience has reached multiple breaking points. [Human, Tatsuya Nagata] has risen from [Level 1] to [Level 5]>
<Attributes have increased due to level up>
<Acquired 450 skill points>
<Quest [Kobold Subjugation] fulfilled. Please hand it in at the next [Hunter Guild]>
…What?
Both Mikami and I were frozen in place, shocked at what we just witnessed. I mean, did we just see Asaka. Lazy, unreliable Asaka just team-up and kill the two monsters just like that?
“Jeez, that was so easy and you two were having this much trouble working with Kyouya to beat them? Loud and useless…” Asaka remarked before walking away annoyed.
“Wait a minute!” I called out to Asaka.
“Huh? What do you want, Nagata?” Asaka turned around, responded to me with my surname.
“Urgh,” I groaned, realizing that she wasn’t fond of me at all. “Can I borrow your ID? I’m curious about something on your status board.”
Shrugging, the blue-colored hair girl handed me her ID, telling me not to break it. Ignoring her comment, I simply attached her ID card to my party bracelet’s chain to display her status board on my blue menu.
_____________________________________
Name: Asaka Hanazawa Level: 5 Race: Human
Age: 18 Years Job: Cleric
Status: Health: 356/356 Mana: 287/287
Strength: 136 Intelligence: 198
Vitality: 89 Wisdom: 176
Agility: 116 Stamina: 239/239
Effects: None
Skill Points: 550
Unique Skill: [Saint’s Wrath Lv. 2]
Skill: Magic skills and related:
[Mana Efficiency Lv. 1] [Mana Control Lv. 3] [Arcane Mind Lv. 2]
[Holy Magic Lv. 4] [Mental Stability Lv. 1]
Physical skills and related:
[Unarmed Mastery Lv. 1] [Staff Mastery Lv. 1] [Mana Strike Lv. 1]
Senses and movement skills:
[Concentration Lv. 1] [Prediction Lv. 1] [Enhanced Enemy Sense Lv. 1]
[Enhanced Auditory Sense Lv. 2] [Enhanced Olfactory Sense Lv. 1]
[Enhanced Vision Lv. 1] [Evasion Lv. 1] [Acrobatic Lv. 1]
Stat growths and related:
[Enhanced Mana Growth Lv. 1] [Enhanced Mana Capacity Lv. 1]
[Enhanced Intelligence Growth Lv. 1] [Enhanced Wisdom Growth Lv. 1]
Resistances:
[Physical Resistance Lv. 1] [Pain Resistance Lv. 1] [Holy Resistance Lv. 3]
[Water Resistance Lv. 1]
Others:
[Dancing Lv. 2] [Singing Lv. 1] [Musician Lv. 3] [Artist Lv. 1]
[Royal Etiquette Lv. 3] [Cooking Lv. 3] [Dismantle Lv. 1] [Sewing Lv. 2]
Spells: Custom Spells:
[Apply Light]
Holy Spells:
[Minor Heal] [Cure] [Modest Heal] [Smite]
Titles: [Otherworldly Visitor] [Saint Candidate]
_____________________________________
…There is nothing special about this.
I asked her to show me her status board because I thought she must have had something in her status board that allowed her to do that but there wasn’t. Her status board was as high quality as Kyouya’s!
“…Thanks,” I gave her card back, trying to hide my slight disappointment.
With a “Hmph”, she walked back to where she was, being greeted by Elrick with “A wonderful execution, Lady Asaka. That was wonderfully done.”
In response to his smile and praise, Asaka simply sighed in exasperation, "Yeah, of course, you would say that. You were the one that forced me to train with you. If it hadn't been Kyouya then I wouldn't have even tried that."
“Maybe, but once you knew you could do it, you did it. Forgive me for praising myself but I was correct that it would become useful, right?” Elrick said with a teasing smile. “[Saint’s Wrath] can deal quite a lot of damage the more you level [Holy Magic], so it was only obvious that you must learn those techniques, even if others would think otherwise.”
Ignoring the annoyed Asaka and mischievous Elrick, Yorshka walked forward to announce the winner of the challenge, "Well that was interesting but as everybody knows, there can only be one winner. With overwhelming results, ‘The Magical Biscuits’ have won over the ‘Misfits’!”
“““Wohoooo!””” Tamae-san, Kazumi, Kohaku cheered
“Good work, everyone,” Nishio-san clapped at the cheering girls.
“Thank you for your hard work until now. I’ll give you a good polish once we are back,” Misaki whispered to her bow, caressing it with a smile.
“Good, as nobody seems to be terribly affected this time, I suggest we continue. You should have finished your quest, correct?” seeing us nod, Yorshka continued. “Good, we won’t be fighting anymore until tomorrow. I want to show you kids the dungeon core.”
With that said, we continued onwards. Compared to the slow progress that our party did, having Elrick and Yorshka lead the way was way too fast. We were walking but there was barely any caution in their faces as they kept moving forward, undaunted by the fact that the deeper we went, the harder it got. They showed the difference in power as they swiftly cleaned fodder by fodder by fodder, not sweating even a bit.
Eventually, at stage four, we finally met our other classmates. All three parties were firmly led by their knights, listening, and obeying their commands as if they were soldiers. The only one who didn’t have to listen to the constant shouting was Aiko, whose guardian knight instead requested her to do it with a softer tone.
Not wanting to be seen, Yorshka led us towards a completely different path to avoid the eyes of the knights. She might have been part of the knights’ order, but she wasn’t showing any of the camaraderie you would expect from something that prestigious.
Continuing to mow down waves and waves of monsters, our party eventually reached the last floor of the dungeon. There we saw a group of guards standing in front of a magical barrier.
“Halt, this is the dungeon core area. If you wish to fight the dungeon boss then please go that way,” a guard said, pointing in the direction of another room…that aside, did he just say dungeon boss?!
“Ahh, sorry about this, boys. We two are church knights, and we’re supervising newcomers,” Yorshka said, before showing her ID. “I just wanted to show the kids the dungeon core, and then we’ll be going back up. Hope that won’t inconvenient you.”
“Mhmm…oh, Yorshka?!” one of the guards cried out while reading the ID with his party bracelet. “Oh, yeah, sure! Take your time, madam. The core has been gathering even more mana recently, so more monsters are being spawned inside. It sure looks beautiful but kinda sad at the same time, huh?”
While Yorshka was talking with the guards, we simply looked at the shining blue crystal sitting in the middle of the barrier. It wasn’t a small crystal but a large diamond-looking floating core with a deep marine blue color.
As Yorshka was socializing and making connections, Elrick replaced her as our tour guide. He explained that the darker the blue was, the more mana was concentrated into the crystal making the dungeon spawn more monsters and magical items, meaning loot.
While it benefited adventures the darker it was, the dungeon could only turn darker when outside sources of mana entered the dungeon. Apparently, the dungeon continuously consumes new sources once they expire and are left in the dungeon for more than a day.
While the guilds could donate high mana filled monsters’ part to fuel the core, another source could be dead adventurers. While there wasn’t any evidence, adventurers used to going through dungeons consider a deep blue dungeon core a sign of bad luck.
As we considered the meaning of this sad fact, Nishio began asking Elrick questions about dungeons. Elrick, agreeing to answer his curiosity, continued.
"Well, the first thing that you should know is the most important rule concerning dungeon cores," he began. "This one was made by the gods, so you could call this an absolute rule without any leeway. You may never break a dungeon core while it still has mana."
He explained that if you were to remove a dungeon core, a dungeon would cease to work, eventually disappearing if it isn't returned. While this would annoy the guilds, it wasn't the reason for this rule.
He told us that if a dungeon core that still had mana in it is cracked and was destroyed, the mana inside it would rupture and cause an explosion so devastating that it could destroy all of Laveata Town. While that would be bad enough, the explosion would leave a fallout behind that overflowed the area with mana that would continuously spawn monsters and mana plants.
Until the mana naturally disappeared over the years, the area would become uninhabitable due to the random appearance of monsters.
While it was forbidden to do that, the destruction of dungeons and cores itself wasn't. Once, you drained all the mana out of a core, which acted as a giant mana battery, you could safely salvage the valuable crystal for its chunks.
Due to the opportunity costs of a dungeons, dungeon core chunks have become quite valuable as it was both rare to get and an incredibly good material for magical weapons and armor. The high mana absorption features that the crystal had made it perfect to store skills in.
“You only have to remember to never destroy the core. That is a sin that even the gods would send down divine punishment,” Elrick said grimly.
“How do you know that? Was it written somewhere in a book at the church?” Nishio-san asked.
"Yes, that rule is written in our bible but us humans have already seen it happen once," Elrick said. "On the island where the Empire originated from, we humans waged war with the demonkins living in a small area. In their wrath, they triggered the destruction of a dungeon core in one of their own towns that were just occupied by the empire's army. While the mass destruction killed the army, the following wrath of Plesia, the Goddess of Water also destroyed the demonkins.”
Ending with that, Nishio-san stopped asking, staying silent at what we just heard.
Essentially, from what I understood, the demonkins triggered a nuke-like alternative and destroyed a whole army but also had their own army destroyed because they angered a goddess? Wow…
No wonder the church was showing this much disdain for the demonkins…but…this also meant that they were throwing us at people that were willing to risk the wrath of a goddess just to kill their mortal enemies. Urgh, what the hell…
After Yorshka finished talking, we all were done for the day and went back to the surface. We handed in the quest and got some money and experience. After that, Yorshka went with her party to a blacksmith to have them request their personal weapons.
Elrick brought us back to our lodging before going out, having to report today’s event to his superiors, the other knights.
In the living room of the mansion, I finally made up my mind to do it.
“Asaka-san,” I called out to her while she was lying on the sofa.
“‘-san’? Huh, did something kick you in the head on the way back, Nagata?” Asaka said, clearing bewildered by my sudden politeness.
"I wanted to first apologize to you for everything that I have done to you, until now!" I apologized, bowing deeply to show how serious I was.
“Wha-What?! Where did that just come from you idiot?! Wait, are you trying to trick me?” she questioned, suspicious of my out of character behavior.
The other members of my party were also in the living room, looking at me, probably thinking that I’ve gone crazy. My dislike for Hanazawa for her laziness was real and well known by the others due to my recent outburst.
"No, I am being earnest here!" undeterred by her comments, I continued. "Everybody saw me taking my spear out and my intentions to attack you with it, but you didn’t even mention it to the church. You could have told them about it and have gotten rid of me, just like that. Thank you for not doing that.”
If the knights were able to notice it then Asaka who was closer to me should have seen me unsheathe my spear. Seeing somebody try to attack you with a weapon would be a good reason for you to hate them, and I would understand if she told the church to throw me out or something even worse.
From hearing what Elrick told me, I knew that doing anything like that to Asaka was absolutely a death sentence. They had people like Yorshka and Elrick working for them, not to mention that giant prick, the knight-commander. Any of them could have “erased” me simply because Asaka, a saint candidate, said so.
Elrick warned me that people were zealous and fanatical about their religion, and I didn’t listen…
"Uhh, you know, I didn't do that for you, right? That was a jerk move, especially doing it with your spear, but I honestly didn't want to deal with the bastards at the top," Asaka said with a troubled face, honestly not seeing a reason for why I should thank her. "If you want to thank somebody, then thank Elrick. He was the one who had to persuade the church, telling them that it would be a scandal to do it on that day. I may cause him problems, but you just ruined all the work he's done for all his time as a knight."
“Urck…,” I groaned, damaged by what my actions caused.
The ramifications might not have affected me but that was only due to everything the others have done. If Asaka or Elrick had been just a bit more wrathful, I would have been a goner.
“Still, let me make it up for you,” I stopped bowing, corrected my posture before reaching out my hand. “It still doesn’t change the fact that I would have been thrown out of the church, or even worse, if you hadn’t been like…well, yourself.”
"Uhhh, ok? Still didn't do it for you, as I said…but, what's with the hand?" she asked looking at my stretched arm.
"It's my sign that I wish to work with you properly," I said. "In these past four months, I've been acting like a spoiled idiot and despite getting help from others, I still nearly caused myself a bad ending. So, to finally act like an adult, I want to say sorry and ask you that we work together…as a team."
While Asaka was thinking about it, Kyouya suddenly came over, “What the clumsy idiot here wanted to say is that he wants to make up, so our party doesn’t keep lagging behind. I also think that we should work together, Asaka-san. You don’t like the church and that we can understand, but you should also know that you can’t do it alone. Even if we can’t become friends, at least allow us to help you when you need a rest from them. We are, to your chagrin, a party now, ha ha!”
“Hmm, yeah, when Kyouya says it like that, I can understand how this would benefit me,” Asaka said, stabbing me in the chest with her words. “Still, I have to agree…watching Tamae’s party doing so well, while ours was dancing around with two left feet was embarrassing. I also owe Elrick, so maybe doing better would make his life better…”
“If that’s so, then count me in, too!” standing up from a chair, Haruka also came over to join in. “Asaka-san, I know you don’t like me, and I understand that. I also don’t…I have my disagreements with you but if you want to help out Elrick then I want to do it, too. Everything that happened that day was because I couldn’t keep my mouth shut. And now, I’m making him look bad because I can’t get over my own reluctance of…killing, urgh. It isn’t fair of me to call you all those mean names when I myself am being immature.”
“…Ahhh, I get what you mean now, twerp,” Asaka exclaimed with a smile, which made Haruka blush. “Well, you all said your piece but that doesn’t mean that I want to work with you. You guys are making this sound like you’ll begin treating me like a leader, but you should all know this by now, but I have no intention to do so. Even acting as the ‘figurative’ leader is already causing me enough troubles, you know? Why should I want all those responsibilities, huh?”
Urgh, this is the part that I really hate about her…but that’s something I have to learn to live with now.
“I know, and I won't expect you to be like that. However, I still want to work with you somehow," I said unwavering, causing her to raise an eyebrow. "There is no commitment to this handshake. If you want out, then just say so and I won't complain. I just think that we should stop being stubborn about it and just work together just so we can all stay alive in the future. We won't stay with the church forever, after that, we'll be forced to do our 'Hero Duty', regardless of our wishes. By then, you will need our help and we will need yours. I don't want us to go out into the world like how we were today. It's embarrassing and, honestly, we can't keep on relying on Elrick or Yorshka.”
Giving myself a short break, I breathed in to fill my lungs and then continued speaking, “We’re a party, party ‘Misfits’. We’re a bunch of idiots that none of the other parties wanted as the first pick. Just like the ragtag team that we are, let’s keep each other safe. If you need help, then don’t be shy to call for us, Asaka.”
Asaka closed her eyes, scratching her temple, before opening up one eye, “Urgh, even having you guys look at me like that is making me feel like I want to run away, but…argh, ok, ok! You made your point. I understand what you mean and, honestly, dealing with you idiots should be better than those old church geezers…and, I guess being with people I know since our first high school year would be more comforting…”
Stretching her own hand, she grabbed mine and starting putting more strength into it, slowly crushing it, “This is the ramifications for persuading me like that, Tatsuya.”
Afterward, Kyouya and Haruka put their hands onto ours, as a sign that they agreed to it…which only leaves us with one last person.
“…Yo, Daichi,” I looked at our resident mage who was reading a book. “Will you also…”
"Leave me out of the party's 'bonding moment', dipshit. If you want me to work properly as a team, then I'll do it even without you wasting my time. I'm only interested in leveling up as fast as possible so I can get stronger and stronger," Daichi said without raising his head from the book. "Ha, I've seen all the skills that I can get from the shop, and boy, do I need a ton of SP for them! Call me when you want to train. I hate losing and I hate losing even more when a great prize like that was at the tip of my fingers."
…It seems we also got his agreement.
With that, "Misfits" was reborn.
We stayed in the town for a whole month, training until all parties finally were able to reach the lowest floor without any outside help. With our trip finished, our knights agreed that it was time to travel back to the church
As we spent time in the church, we continued studying about the world that we were about to be sent into and both “Misfits” and “The Magical Biscuits” kept training together to improve our stats and skills. Having no other chance to go outside, we made sure to use our times are best as we could until the day the church would send us out.
Three months later, on the eight month, HarvestBloom, the church has finally announced that we were ready to be sent out to our first real church mission: to hunt down a bandit camp.
