CHAPTER 175(Siege Equipment)

Please read the author's notes. (Examples and explanation of moves and appearance+ Monster Sources)

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pat.treon:/Keanu_Eugene

CHAPTER START---

"Anymore after this?" Finn asks.

Standing in Babel Plaza not far away from the fountain he watches members of Hephaestus familia offload the sixth cart of small crates. Wooden boxes no larger than standard shoeboxes, each boasting two sigils. One being the Hephaestus familia sigil of two smithing hammers crossed, and the other representing the smith that made the contents within. Their way of advertising.

"This is the last of it sir," the man responds as he passes his clipboard over to Finn.

"Thank you," Finn signs the documents and hands them back to the man.

"No problem, and good luck," he says before walking over to the other adventurers from Hephaestus familia and taking the carts back to their familia home in the city.

"That's enough?" Gareth asks as he walks over to Finn from the other side of the boxes. Riveria and Lefiya were sitting back at the fountain, the girl seemingly teasing her mentor and making the woman blush for some reason.

"I hope so," Finn says. "A hundred and fifty of each element, three hundred magic swords total. Even if they aren't all Crozzo made this should do, must have cost a fortune," Finn grimaces at the cost as he looks at the piles of boxes.

"The guild can afford it," Gareth chuckles and shakes his head. "Can't say they'll like it though, can't say I care..."

"I can't help but agree, Royman threw us into the fire with just a few short lines," Finn releases a deep sigh. "Atleast they figured something out to get us the info we have, we should be able to take this monster down without much problem with everyone and everything we have."

As if on queue, marching down the street of Orario is seemingly some sort of intimidating parade, two hundred adventurers walk into the plaza.

The great familias with their respective representatives carrying their banners. For Loki familia, as their captain was already in the plaza handling deliveries, the adventuring representative for Orario, Sword Princess Ais Wallenstein was proudly carrying the familia banner. Fifty members of her familia would be on this expedition.

Beside her is the leader of Orario's policing force and captain of Ganesha familia, Shakti Varma. As the largest familia in Orario, they would be volunteering one hundred members to this hunt. Eleven of those one hundred would be level five.

And the last familia in the parade, the prestigious and somewhat feared Freya familia, with the King himself, Ottar, standing at seven feet tall and carrying the banner in one hand leading the charge at the front. Freya familia, much like Loki's would be lending fifty adventurers to this hunt. For the first time in a long time instead of the two generic greatswords on his back, Ottar had a wide black, six-foot-long greatsword on his back. The Supreme Black Sword, the first weapon in know history, to those few who knew, to be made of Udeaus Black Sword. A feared Durandal blade.

As everyone forms their smaller groups to begin separating to enter the dungeon, done in sets of twenty in order to prevent crowding on the upper floors, Ottar and Shakti make their way over to Finn.

Seeing them approaching, Finn looks over to his own familia and gestures for Tione to come to him, the girl gives him a dazzling smile and she breaks into a full sprint over to him.

"Yes captain?" she asks with a mad grin.

"Tione, I need you to check the sigils on these crates," he gestures to the stacks upon stacks of crates behind him. "Grab some of our familia to help if you'd like. Anything with Welf, Hephaestus, Or Tsubaki sigils comes to me, understood?"

"Yes sir!" she gives an energetic salute before rushing off to grab Tiona.

As she steps away Ottar and Shakti arrive in front of Finn and Gareth.

"I assume everyone is ready for this mission to begin, right?" Finn asks.

"Of course," Shakti says, Ottar only nods along. "Are these the magic swords? I've never seen so many in one place before. Actually, I don't think I've seen so many before in total," she says in awe.

"Your familia will be using most of them, that's why I asked you to bring anyone above level two. Anyone without magic of their own will be carrying one of each element. Only Lightning and Ice will work on this monster but it has to be exactly when I say, got it?"

"Of course, anything else?"

"When we get to the Water Palace floors your familia will be doing most of the fighting for anything other than our target, we'll deal with big problems but otherwise keeping camp clear will be mainly for you. Camping on monster-infested floors isn't really what anyone does so we'll need to lean on your numbers to keep us safe while the main fighters save their strength."

"Clear the small stuff and be ready with the swords, we can do that," Shakti says.

"Good, now Ottar," Finn turns to the tall man. "I need you to send Allen and Bringar down to floor thirty. The moment Kulve enters that floor they need to come tell us, they can leave now," he says.

"Is that all?" Ottar asks.

"Yeah that's it, I'll come find you if I have anything else," Finn says.

As the captains break apart Riveria walks up to Finn and Gareth with a pronounced frown.

"Still can't be around her?" Finn asks, looking over to where a swarm of adventurers was trying to speak to Ais, Lefiya was at her side trying to shoo them away.

"I, I just need more time, it also really doesn't help that Lefiya's only had two moods lately. Teasing me and praising Ais," she says.

"And yet you won't let anyone tell her," Gareth says to Riveria.

"She's just a girl, they both are. They should each have one friend."

"And what happens later on when Lefiya figures it out?" Finn asks.

"We'll deal with that when it happens..."

After a few more minutes of discussion Tione interrupts the conversation. "Captain! I only managed to find this from Ms. Tsubaki," she says. Handing him two boxes.

"Are you sure?" Finn asks, clear concern in his voice.

"Uh, yeah, we double-checked. Nothing from Welf or Lady Hephaestus. Sorry."

"Hmm, alright," he says while handing one of the boxes to Gareth. As he opens the box Tione is still holding he sees three yellow daggers with thunderbolts on their handles. "Lightning Magic Swords here," he calls out.

"These are Ice," Riveria says as she shut the box Gareth was holding.

"Tsubaki really is something, made double the amount of magic swords as these other smiths," Gareth points out. True to his words she was the only smith to send two crates. "Glad I worked out that contract with her to supply our executives weapons huh," he grins.

"It's paid off well," Finn says. "But it's almost time to renew that contract, I'm hoping we can aim a bit higher than her this time, weapons are breaking a lot easier these days," Finn says.

They all knew Tsubaki made some of the best weapons in the world, but they also had to admit that with certain new threats, and especially if the guild would be calling them for these types of missions more often in the future having weapons from Orario's number one smith would be best.

"That's impossible," Riveria immediately says. "Hephaestus doesn't take contracts like that she only does single custom jobs, and unless your name is Yang Shen or Thalie... whatever her last name is, Welf won't be making anything for us."

"We'll just have to deal with that when it's time. For now I'm curious about where Welf's magic swords are. We were supposed to have some to counter the heat in the fight but he hasn't sent anything..."

"They aren't magic swords," a new voice joins the conversation. Asfi Al Andromeda, Perseus, Orario's number one item maker and captain of Hermes familia. Wearing a long white coat completely covering her body aside from her beautiful face and light blue hair she steps into the little talking circle. "This is for you," she hands Finn a Mission scroll from the guild.

With a raised brow the man opens it to see the official guild stamp and Royman's signature at the bottom, "they want you to study the... 'Heat Rods?', that Welf is making?" he asks.

"Precisely, they've issued me the task of studying it to be replicated, the guild would like someone more...easily accessible, to be able to make such items," she says.

"What the hell is a Heat Rod?" Gareth asks.

"I'm not sure, and neither is the guild. But it costs five billion Valis," Asfi says.

"Billion!" Tione yells out in shock, eyes almost falling out of their sockets.

"Please calm down," Asfi chides the young girl. "They obviously raised the prices by a large margin to make a profit from the guild. I can't imagine anything Welf can make is worth five billion Valis."

"I wouldn't underestimate anyone on that team if I were you Asfi, considering who the leader is anyone on it has to be a monster in their own way," Riveria says.

As they continue speaking Allen and Bringar enter the dungeon first and begin rushing off to floor thirty while everyone else begins figuring out who carries however many crates. Moments later a voice calls out from above.

"Hey! Delivery here," Yang shouts out as everyone makes a spot for him to land.

With flames at the bottom of his feet, he gently lands with three large wooden boxes in his arms. Ten feet long and a foot wide he lays them down on the floor in front of Finn, Riveria, Gareth, Ottar, and Asfi.

"Are these the items?" Finn asks.

"Yeah, three Heat Rods," Yang says. "Five billion a piece so don't break them. You got three so you've basically got three lives alright. Put some magic into them when you get to the battlefield to set it to the current temperature. When the fight starts and things get hot put magic into it again and it'll absorb ambient heat to make the temperature match the first one it locked onto, genius right?"

"Wow, that's incredible, what's the range?" Riveria asks.

"The lower part of floor twenty-seven, you'll be fine."

"Thank you, now we can get this mission done," Finn says, "but how long do these last?"

"About ten minutes, plenty of time in a fight, and you've got three, but it's single-use. When it's on you can't stop it until it breaks."

"Perfect, anything else?" Finn asks Yang.

"Uh, nope. Just, good luck, and if you need anything else, figure it out yourself, you're all adults," he says before flying off.

Seeing the abrupt interaction Ottar turns to Finn, "he doesn't like you very much," he says.

Finn sighs and shakes his head, "well I haven't exactly given him any reason to like me..." he quickly refocuses his thoughts and turns to Asfi, "you'll be with Ottar on the trip down. He'll be protecting these items and I'd like you to make sure they're in working order once we get there, then you can study them, got it?"

"Of course," she quickly turns to Ottar and gives him a nervous smile and bow, "I'll be in your care."

As Ottar takes the equipment away and adds Asfi to his detail, Finn can't help but smile as he looks around the plaza to see all but three of Orario's best adventurers.

"Yeah, we'll be fine," he says.

"Why the sudden confidence?" Riveria asks.

"That's simple," he raises his left hand for her to see, "my thumb hasn't ached at all since we had that meeting with him. Between the plan and all this gear, it must mean we succeed."

"Hmm, it's never been wrong before, but let's still be careful..."

END CHAPTER---

Predictions for the fight?

Trifecta made 15 Billion by selling three Heat Rods to the guild for this siege + whatever else the deal Yang made includes.