Chapter 54.

Adrian suppressed his emotions and tested out the system as quickly as he could and found that it was a real method but his satisfaction was quickly cut down as he realized just how massive the number of materials he needed for this system to work. Using this method would need megatons of monsters. Waves worth of monsters. Powerful, but only in the long run.

What a cunning little monster.

"It's working," he said, politely, the words feeling like they were being dragged out, "thank you"

She nodded and then started to lead him to her carriage. He stopped her and asked her to take his party and Itsuki with them. He needed to be safe and while it was unlikely he would like to be certain that Kyo or another wouldn't be able to kill them. Fitoria would take them to the Waves she normally dealt with but he would be responsible for registering for the other Waves.

Her acceptance was a positive piece of news but Adrian couldn't help but feel furious at the Filolial in front of him. She had lied to him multiple times in this conversation and forced him into a deal that was quite unfavourable. He didn't know what she was lying about or what she was keeping from him but he could tell that she was lying. There were some positives and he certainly hadn't expected for her to give him all the power-up methods...but this was not right.

She was risking Naofumi's life. His daughter's life for her agenda. It was something he should have expected and it sparked a fire in him as he realized that he needed a counter to her soon as well as a Vassal Weapon Wielder who would serve him and he needed to register for every single Wave around civilization.

Adrian sent a silent apology to Motoyasu and Itsuki as his plans began to crystallize. They didn't deserve what he was likely going to have to do to them.

Naofumi

Naofumi winced as he stood up slowly, feeling incredible sluggish, and shook his head to shake off the remainder of the dizziness. The teleportation had been seamless but the landing had not.

He saw the angel girl standing up, her hair and dress in disarray, and looked away as she shot a massive bolt of lightning at the corpse with a grimace on her face.

He glanced around, studying the area, and found the contrast between the shattered and ruined earth that had been teleported with them, a result of the spell their enemy had cast and the attacks that Adrian had used to try and destroy the bubble, and the beautiful plains that they had been teleported into, to be amazing but his mind didn't linger on this for long.

The Shield Hero's eyes found the remains of his party.

For a long moment, he didn't want to believe what he was seeing. Ethan's armour was twisted and he could see the pulverized remains of his friend inside the steel. Rizwan and Mirza who were less armoured and had been crushed, reducing them to little more than bloodstains and broken bones, while Fenral, who had the least level among them, had nothing left of him.

Naofumi looked away from the remains and felt a burn in the back of his throat. He swallowed the urge to vomit and turned towards Isis who had been carefully looking at the charred body of the man who was responsible for killing his party. The rage that rose up was a surprise as was the cold satisfaction that manifested.

"Shield Hero," said the girl, her tone urgent, "can you absorb this man?"

Naofumi felt a little surprised at her request and the urgency behind it. He walked towards her, wincing at every step as the wounds on his body triggered some pain, dodging the pieces of wood and rock that was scattered around the field they were in.

He glanced at the corpse and then looked away as he realized that it had been melted and was quite horribly deformed at this point. It drew attention to the pristine-looking book that seemed to have been completely unharmed by the attacks on its wielder. Naofumi's eyes started to water as the smell of ozone and burned flesh entered his nose. He pinched his nose shut and then turned towards the girl.

"Why do you need me to absorb that?" he asked, feeling quite odd at the thought of letting that guy into his shield.

"We didn't get any experience for killing him," she admitted, looking surprised that she had to explain "he looks like he's dead but…"

"Got it," he said, and knelt beside the corpse, before willing it to absorb the man. Barely an instant later the body was gone and the book was left behind. Naofumi ignored the messages that came up thanks to the absorption but found himself frowning. This didn't make sense. He couldn't absorb living things and if this guy had died then they should have received some experience.

Naofumi opened up his status menu and then just...stopped moving. He shut the screen and then opened it up again.

Naofumi Iwatani Level 1

Isis Level 1

This...this made no fucking sense. He quickly checked on his shields and then winced as he realized that most of them were not accessible. His stats seemed to be pretty high, so he guessed that his bonuses from his mastered shields were still there but he didn't have access to a lot of his Shields and their special abilities.

Naofumi looked towards Isis and opened his mouth to speak to her, he wanted her to check her status screen and verify what he had seen, but found himself staying silent as he saw the Book floating and glowing as it circled around the transformed Filolial.

"I see," she whispered, "you were enslaved,"

The book glowed, almost as if it was responding to her words, and then suddenly stopped glowing and began to float in front of her. Isis held out her hands and it flew into it before glowing one last time.

She looked sad as she stared at the Book in her hands, "I won't hurt you as he did," she said, her tone firm, "but I'll need to go home soon. Father will be sad if I don't."

Naofumi didn't interrupt but he had to admit that Isis looked a little crazy. Thing is the gem embedded in the cover of the book seemed to glow in response. He was pretty sure that the book was a weapon like his was. Naofumi stared at his Shield wondering if it could speak as well.

"Really?!" she said, looking stunned and happy, "Thank you!" she turned towards him, "Shield Hero," she said, her tone pleased, "this book can take us back to our world as long as we find the right rift during a Wave."

Naofumi just stared at her. For a second her words failed to register. Then their meaning hit him like a meteor.

"We're in another world," he said, his tone flat, sounding like a statement rather than a question it was.

Isis looked puzzled at his confusion, "Yes, of course," she said, "that's why the world isn't supporting us anymore."

Naofumi started to ask what she meant by that before he realized that she was talking about levels. Support of the world? Is that what levels were? He shook off the useless thoughts. This was not the time for a deviation.

He took a deep breath, ignored the concerned frown on the face of the girl in front of him, and then exhaled loudly. Another world. He was in another goddamn world. How the fuck was that even possible? He turned towards his allies, looked at the bright blue sky, and then back to the girl. He had no idea if she was being honest but..the data fit. Had his level not been reset then he could probably assume that she was lying but after being inside a weird spatial distortion he had little reason not to believe her.

Naofumi walked towards his companions and knelt down at their side. Isis followed him, for a couple of long minutes she didn't say anything and Naofumi just looked at the remnants of his allies.

"I don't know what to do," he admitted, not sure if he was talking to himself or to the girl standing behind him, "I don't know what type of traditions they have in Melromarc or in Siltvelt." he laughed, a bitter sound.

"You can store them in your shield," she said, "and then-"

"I'm not absorbing them," he said, turning towards her swiftly and glaring at her before wincing as his wounds started to sting again. He ignored the pain. The shield made it easy to tolerate...and it felt like he deserved it. What sort of Shield didn't manage to protect people?

She shook her head, "Not absorb them to power up your shield," she said, "just store them so that you can take them back to our world. Father could store everything. Your weapons are almost the same, though yours is much, much weaker, so you can do it as well."

Naofumi wanted to tell her to shut up. That she was wrong and that his useless little shield couldn't do half the shit that Adrian''s sword could do...but there was a part of him that wanted her to be right. That wanted to be able to lay his party members, his allies and friends, to rest. So he focused on his shield and tried to find a storage function. He remembered how Adrian had somehow managed to store furniture in it and tried to imagine a box inside his weapon that he could place things in.

After a long minute of concentration, he opened his Status Menu and looked for a storage function. When he found it he felt a curious lack of surprise. Maybe it was because he had half expected it to be there now that he wanted it to be there. Naofumi remembered well how the help menu had updated itself after Adrian told him about the Four Heroes being needed to create a barrier around the world. This was similar.

Naofumi moved towards them, muttered an apology, feeling horribly disrespectful and absorbed them. For a long moment, he stared at the empty spot, the blood that was still spread across the ground and tried to suppress the wretched feeling. Then, he got up and turned to Isis who was standing by. He felt a surge of guilt about snapping at her before when she had only tried to help.

"Sorry," he said, his voice low, "I didn't-"

"It's okay," she said, as she turned towards the forest he could see on the edge of the fields they were in, "but we should go there are some monsters coming towards us and we're weak right now."

Naofumi looked at the blood all around them and then nodded and then followed her as they moved. It was inevitable that this mess would attract predators and he didn't want to face a huge swarm at level 1.

Once they moved out of the ruined area they had arrived in, the world around them seemed to be bright and beautiful. He preferred the devastated area, this place felt like it was mocking the deaths of his companions.

Kyo Ethnina tried to scream but produced no sound as he had no body, but his soul was in pain as it twisted and warped to adjust to his new body. It was akin to placing a square block into a circular hole smaller than the square if he wanted it to fit something would be lost.

In this case, that something was aspects of himself. Kyo wished that he could purge his most recent memories. He didn't want to remember the cold expression on the face of the man who had murdered him without mercy. He didn't want to remember the pain of being struck by attack after attack by an unrelenting monster.

But he was not that fortunate.

Kyo cursed the bastard that had killed him as memories of both his childhoods slipped away from his grasp. Were he not feeling like someone had set his skin on fire, he would have tried to hold onto his memories, his thoughts, his desires but he felt them vanish even as he tried to grasp them.

It was like trying to hold smoke in a clenched fist. Impossible.

Soon he lost track of everything except the pain, he wanted to hold on to himself, to fight for his soul but he barely knew what was happening. He didn't even know what he was losing.

It was sometime later, an eternity or an instant he wasn't sure, that he opened his eyes. For a second he felt fear rise up before his mind asserted itself and he relaxed. He was in his laboratory.

He was safe.

Then, the pain hit again. This time it was his nerves starting to function in his new body rather than his soul adjusting to its' new shell. Kyo relished in the pain. It proved to him that even death couldn't take him. Not forever.

Kyo focused his mana and smiled as it responded as it always had, and then reached for his book. For a second he felt nothing and then he screamed, his vocal cords producing a hoarse sound as they were used for the first time. He felt his body start to shake as the mana from the book seeped through his body and began to rip it apart.

Not like this, he thought, as he mustered his mana. He would not die like this!

It took him several long minutes and every fragment of his mana that he could gather but he managed to suppress the mana from the Vassal Weapon. Kyo grit his teeth as he got off the platform that his body had been stored on, the glass dome covering it moving out of the way, and stood up on unsteady legs.

"Initiate Wildfire contingency," he whispered, the well-designed system, forged thanks to his genius activated instantly. He smiled, his lips struggling to form the expression, as he felt the foreign mana leave his body.

It was only then that he realized what had occurred, his smile vanished, and he looked at himself. He was bereft of his Vassal Weapon. Kyo reached out for it again, half expecting the pain to start again, but was instead met with nothing.

"Damn it, damn it, DAMN IT," he screamed, ignoring his aching throat, as he realized that his weapon had been stolen from him. Just like his tools had been. He remembered that brat with wings whom he had seen before his spirit had been summoned back to his lab and then continued to curse.

He knew exactly what had happened. Kyo was no fool. He knew that the blasted book had taken advantage of his temporary vulnerability. It had cursed him and then left. Leave him for that useless girl who hadn't even been able to scratch him!

That bastard and the brat had taken everything away from him. Kyo grit his teeth as he walked towards the core of his lab, he cursed the bastard who had robbed him of his strength, killed him and then had proceeded to take his weapon.

"I'll kill you...," he muttered, as his defences analyzed his soul, and then disabled themselves, "I'll take everything from you and kill you…"

Kyo shuddered as he remembered the unrelenting Hero who had no strategy, no skill, nothing. That piece of trash didn't deserve his power. He had just gotten lucky to end up with a Legendary Weapon. Kyo was certain that the sword bastard didn't even know how to use it properly.

The former Vassal wielder cursed as he stumbled across his laboratory and moved towards the most secure location where three crystals floated. He touched the alchemic array root that was responsible for containing them and then muttered, "Omega Composition,"

For an instant, nothing occurred, then he began to laugh as pure power ran into his new body and it corrected itself. He smiled as he saw the three idiots whom he had captured whimper as he drained them of power that they had never earned but his mood soured as he was reminded of the monster that had murdered him.

He clenched his fists and then stared at the Legendary Hero of Blunt Weapons, he was nothing more than a tool, Kyo had hesitated to use these three, he didn't want to destroy this world, after all, he had spent a lot of time establishing himself here...but that scum had reminded him of just how unfair life was.

Kyo had started with nothing. He had been forced to earn every scrap of power and that fucker had ruined two years of preparation, but the only reason why that idiot had managed to defeat him was that he was using a Legendary Weapon that was more powerful than normal. Kyo had never used one directly because of the defences preventing them from being used making it risky.

It was time to change that. He would use their power directly and then go back to that world and kill that bastard. Then he remembered that he didn't have his book. That it had been stolen from him.

The Hero corrected himself, as he focused on the Weapons and used all of his stored mana in the array, slowly but surely suppressing the Spirit in the Weapons, he would first kill that girl who had taken his weapon, then capture that Shield Hero and then he would go to their world and kill the bastard who had spat on his efforts.

His face twisted into a malicious smile as he imagined the despair on that bastard's face as Kyo took everything from him. He desperately tried to ignore the part of himself that was screaming at him not to face that monster again.

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