Heart

"More reinforcements?!" Seoul cried in horror.

"Wait, is that Princess Corissa?!" Uther yelped, "Then that means that black knight is..."

"There's no way we can win against him brother!"

"Everyone, full retreat!"

At Uther's orders the mercenaries all disengaged from their battles and ran over to Anoter, picking up the giant 15 year old together before running off with Uther carrying Eiam under his arm. With the sudden end to the fighting, everybody reconvened in the middle of the road.

"Corissa!" Helena cried and immediately hugged her friend, "I knew you'd come!"

"Sorry, I'm a bit late." Corissa giggled as she pat Helena on the back, "I hadto prepare yesterday and woke up early today to catch up with you guys. I honestly didn't expect to find you guys so fast."

"We had a lot of obstructions." Kaguya sighed, "But what happened? I thought you weren't going to come with us."

"Well, I wasn't." Corissa said as she and Helena let go of each other, "But my mom and dad showed up and told me I should go."

"Have you considered that they were just trying to manipulate your love life again?" Roko sighed.

"That's what I thought too!" Corissa cried, "But no, they seemed pretty serious. Said that I really should go to the elf city. That I could learn a lot from them."

"Unusually serious?" Roko asked.

"Yeah." Corissa nodded, "They said they'll meet you at the next town so maybe you can ask about them then."

"Hm. That does sound pretty serious." Roko nodded, "Guess we'll find out later."

"The next town is a day's trip away." Momo said, "We're going to have to camp for the night. Are you prepared?"

"Yes!" Corissa nodded as she shifted her backpack up on her shoulders, "My mom and dad helped me gather the supplies!"

"Then we're all set." Kaguya smiled, "Let's get going, we're already running late as it is."

With their group fully reunited, the girls were embroiled in loud cheerful chatter as they made their way down the road. No bandits in sight, Badguy or otherwise so their group was finally able to proceed at a remarkably more normal place. Mikado and Roland were leading the group along with Varis but the black knight was firmly separated from the small middling conversations that Roland would try to start. Roko was positioned at the very back, trailing behind everyone else partly because he wasn't particularly one for casual chitchat, especially not the kind Roland was interested in. And partly because of the small group of three to four people following them from a few paces behind them. They seemed to be all males and not particularly skilled at stealth if Roko was able to notice them. He wasn't sure when this group appeared and started following them but they were definitely observing them and taking to each other about something. Roko wasn't sure if they were a threat but he was keeping an eye on them just in case. Eventually, Helena noticed Roko's actions and slowed down to speak with him.

"Something up?" She asked.

"There's a few people following us." Roko scowled, "They've been doing it for a while. Do you know them?"

"Hm?" Helena looked back at the group stalking them, "Oh, that's just-" And then she stopped as she seemed to realize something.

"What?" Roko asked.

"You've never been outside with Corissa have you?" Helena said.

"What's that supposed to mean?" Roko frowned.

"You've never been outside the school with Corissa have you?!" Helena repeated, glee leaking into her voice.

"I've been in Galia with her before." Roko replied, confused, "And I've been in Cordis outside with her."

"You've never been outside with Corissa before!" Helena grinned, "Oh this is going to be great."

And with that, Helena walked away from him, giggling like a schoolgirl.

"Okay..." Roko said, "Weird."

And before Roko could even think on it any further, he heard the strum of a guitar come from in front of them.

"Halt!"

"What's going on now?" Roko scowled as he hurried back to the front of the group.

Standing in front of everybody was a band of musicians. They were standing in the middle of the road, tuning their instruments as if they were preparing for a performance.

"What's going on?" Roko asked as he approached them.

"Lady Corissa!" The leader of the band ignored Roko as he finished preparing his guitar, "It has been a while since we last met! As always we are here to sing songs of love to you! Please, listen!"

"Corissa, do you know these people?!" Roko cried as he turned to the princess who was now hiding timidly behind Varis.

"I...I...no but uh...kinda?" Corissa squeaked as the band began playing their song.

"Wow, I didn't think this would happen so soon." Momo chuckled.

"I'm surprised, it didn't happen earlier." Kaguya sighed.

"What's going on?!" Roko cried.

"Remember those guys following us?" Helena grinned.

"Yeah?!"

"This is Corissa's fanclub."

…

"Come again?" Roko said, completely blindsided.

"Have you seen this cute face?" Helena said as she squished Corissa's cheeks, "Corissa's a celebrity. She's been voted as the most beautiful person in the world since she was 16. She has admirers all over the world!"

"...You're joking..." Roko said, dumbfounded.

"I'm surprised you haven't found out already." Kaguya smiled.

"How could I have known?!" Roko cried, "I mean her charisma score is still the highest I've ever seen...and there was that kidnapping...oh god..."

"To be fair, it would be pretty hard to know since you've only been around the only few places where stuff like this is strictly forbidden." Kaguya shrugged, "Obviously her fans couldn't get into Memoria Auspice if they tried and even if any of them slipped in as a knight or staff, illicit behavior is strictly monitored within the school. Same goes for Galia as they are basically sponsored by the school."

"And Cordis has very strict regulations on rabid fanboyism." Momo nodded, "Of course it has to, that's where everyone's idol lives."

"I can't believe this." Roko covered his face with his hands as he tried to process this information.

"Sorry!" Corissa yelped, "I'm not trying to attract people like this, believe me!"

Roko just stood there, still processing what he should do.

"Roko?" Corissa asked nervously.

"Lady Corissa, are you listening to our passionate song?!" The band leader cried, his voice spooking Corissa enough to hide back behind Varis as they continued playing.

"You know, I've been listening to this song and it's not that bad really." Helena smiled, "Kind of good, even."

" 'You can run, you can hide, but you can't escape my love!' "

"Okay, those were some unfortunate lyrics." Helena admitted.

"You okay there, Roko?" Kaguya called with grin on her face.

"Right!" Roko stood up suddenly, "Well, I'm glad to have had all of you here. We've been through a lot together and I'm glad we got this far but from now on, I'm going to be traveling on my own."

"You're just going to abandon Corissa like that?" Momo smirked.

"I'm not abandoning Corissa, I'm abandoning ALL of yall!" Roko snapped, "This was supposed to be my journey anyway! Bye!"

"Wait, Roko, don't leave me alone with these people!" Corissa yelped as Roko began to walk away, running out from behind Varis to try and follow him only for the band to block her way.

"Princess Corissa, please accept our passionate feelings in the form of this song!" The band leader cried as they began to play faster.

"V-Varis!" Corissa yelled as the band began to inch closer to her.

Varis walked up and put himself directly in between his princess and the band. The band's song continued, unintimidated by the powerful black knight. Varis' hand began to reach for his sword until Roko's foot came from behind and smashed into the back of the band leader's head.

"Don't draw your sword against civilian!" Roko snapped, "What kind of person takes out a weapon against a bunch of unarmed musicians?!"

"B-Boss!" The other members stopped playing as their leader cradled the back of his head.

"What's your problem?!" The band leader cried as he turned around to face Roko, "Are you getting in the way of our love story?!"

"There ain't a love story here, you're just being a nuisance!" Roko yelled back as he grabbed the man by the collar and lifted him up with one arm, "How about you try tuning your brain instead of tuning your instrument?! Because clearly you're too love addled to recognize when you're clearly not wanted! Why don't you stay home and practice because your performance here is pretty mediocre at best! Your presentation is horrible too, where did that eye bleeding suit come from, the blind and crippled clown store?! Not that I expect you'd be able to get anything better with that cheap guitar you have! Is that even a guitar?! It's so small that's practically a banjo at this point! Or does it only look small because your obese ass is playing it?! I would accuse you of getting into music only to pick up girls but you can neither play music nor do you have any game so I truly, honestly don't know what the hell you're trying to do with your life aside from trying to get your noodle wet!"

"H-How uncouth! Get your filthy hands off me you miserable runt!"

Roko grabbed the guitar and pulled it off the musician, tossing the rotund man aside, striding past everyone else before he threw the guitar at the guys hiding in the trees, smashing the instrument against their hiding place.

"And you! Don't think I don't see you! Go find something else to do before I come evict your soul from your body!"

The hiding fanboys yelped and began running away in fear. Roko slowly turned back towards the band who kind of flinched when he glared at them.

"You too." Roko said in an almost quiet tone.

The band members quickly picked up their leader and ran away as well. With all that dealt with, Roko turned back to his traveling companions. Helena, Momo and Kaguya looking thoroughly entertained while everyone else looked back with concern.

"I'm leaving." Roko muttered as he walked past all of them and continued on down the road. The three princesses followed without a word, drawing the rest of the group to follow as well.

"Should I apologize?" Corissa whispered.

"Why? You didn't do anything wrong." Helena smirked.

The rest of their journey for the day went by silently, Roko taking the lead and not looking back at his companions until night came around and Helena called out to him, "Hey, Roko! Feel like calling it for the night?"

From there, everyone retreated into the woods, found a nearby clearing and set up camp for the night. Tables were set up, cooking equipment was put out and a simple dinner was soon brewing as everyone prepared to end the day. Corissa stood over the pot, brewing a simple onion soup while glancing worriedly at Roko who was sitting off to the side on his own, having not said a word since his snapped at the band and fanclub. Lowering the flame a bit, Corissa nervously made her way towards Roko.

"Hey..." Corissa said anxiously, "You okay?"

"I'm fine." Roko replied.

"I'm sorry about what happened." Corissa bit her lip, "I wish people wouldn't do that."

"You don't need to apologize." Roko sighed, "You didn't do anything wrong."

"That's what Helena said." Corissa smiled, "But I'm actually really glad you did that. Varis always uses his sword to chase them away and I always get worried when he does that."

"Well, it would be easier if he would talk. Though I honestly don't know what he'd say in that situation."

"I certainly can't imagine he'll have a tongue like yours." Corissa giggled, "I wish I was half as quippy as you are."

"You can be. You'll just be half as likable."

"Aw, but you're perfectly likable. I'm very happy that I got to come on this trip with you."

"Speaking of." Roko said as he looked towards Corissa, "Do you have any idea why your parents would press you to come with me?"

"Can't say that I do." Corissa mused, "But it definitely didn't seem like simple date arrangement."

"The elves are highly experienced with magic aren't they? Do they want you to learn some magic?"

"I can't imagine they do." Corissa frowned, "I've had all the time in Memoria Auspice to learn magic and they never pushed me to learn any spells. Nor did they mention learning any magic on this trip."

"Then does it have to do with your condition? Maybe you have a certain magical abnormality you were born with or something?"

"No, I'm perfectly healthy from what I know." Corissa shook her head, "I honestly have no idea."

"Are you sure you don't know any spells?"

"You would know for certain wouldn't you? You can try using scan but I honestly don't recall learning any spells."

"Nor do I recall seeing any spells listed in your stats but I can check, I guess. You okay with that?"

"Certainly."

"Alright. Scan."

Roko paused as the information poured into his mind.

"Well? Anything unusual?"

"Your charisma score has somehow gotten even higher."

"Oh dear, that's not good right?"

"I mean, it's not bad at all it just means more trouble might happen around you."

"That's not good at all!"

"At any rate, I don't see any spells." Roko reported, "It says right there, Spells: None."

"Then I really don't get it."

"I guess we'll just have to find out when we arrive at the town tomorrow." Roko sighed, "It better not be about romance."

"I'm...certain it's not." Corissa said, more encouragingly than she was certain.

"Corissa, soup's ready!" Helena called.

"Oh good!" Corissa turned around with a grin, "I'll get you some soup, Roko! You like onion soup?"

"There's nothing I hate about it."

"Good!" Corissa bounced back to the pot where Helena was taking a small test sip.

"Wow, this is really good!" Helena smiled, "Did you put some pepper in this?"

"Oh yes, are you okay with some spiciness?"

"Oh yeah, I'm good. I just forgot to pack some pepper myself so I'm glad you bought some!"

"Hm, I really should go around and ask about everyone's food preference. I hope nobody is allergic to anything."

"Nah, we're all good. But a little survey should probably help, yeah."

"Then I'll start with spiciness! How's everyone's tolerance for spices?!"

"I'm good!" Helena said.

"Fuyukian cooking is plenty spicy already so me and Mikado are quite tolerant." Kaguya nodded.

"I haven't had a lot of spicy foods." Momo said, "Maybe start me out a little bit more milder than the rest."

"A little bit of heat is nothing to me." Roland smirked, "I'm super resilient. Besides, nothing's hotter than you!"

Everyone just stared at Roland and his cheesy finger guns at Corissa.

"Dump all the pepper into his soup." Helena said.

Late, late, late into the night, when their campfire has gone out and everyone was sleeping quietly in their sleeping bags, a small object sneaked into the camp. It slid along the ground, in between each of their sleeping bags, seemingly surveying each of them. Until it stopped in front of one and jumped inside. A few moments later, a rustling began as one of the party slid out of their sleeping bag. They stumbled a little, moving in an awkward fashion as they reached down and picked up a sword. Unsheathing the weapon, they stood in front of Roland's sleeping bag. Raised the sword. And stabbed down into it.

Roland's scream of pain startled everyone out of their deep slumber. As they sprung out of their sleeping bags, Momo and Mikado immediately grabbed their swords as they stood up, prepared to defend themselves. Roko wasn't quite as trained, immediately jumping up as he heard the scream. Varis was quick to get up too but was unable to grab his sword. As it was now in the hands of Corissa, stabbed deep into Roland's shoulder.

"Corissa what the hell?!" Helena screamed, "His joke earlier was lame but it didn't mean he deserved to get stabbed!"

Corissa didn't reply, a strange sort of coat like melted human flesh had wrapped around her body. Her eyes were wide and blank under a hood of flesh that covered her head. Roko recognized it immediately.

"No way." Roko said, stunned, "Is this one of those flesh blobs from Cordis?!"

"You know what these are, Roko?!" Kaguya cried.

"Long story." Roko bit his lip, "I encountered them while I was in Cordis but I didn't know they were capable of this!"

Corissa's body jerked and shuddered as she pulled the sword out from Roland's shoulder, moaning painfully as she turned and swung her sword at her companions.

"Corissa stop!" Helena called as Corissa continued to swing the sword wildly.

"Stay back!" Momo said as she and Mikado quickly stepped in front her, "We need to subdue her first!"

"Umm...problem about that!" Kaguya called, "We're surrounded!"

Everyone turned around as an entire swarm of flesh blobs crept out of the woods, pulsating and moving in an utterly disgusting manner.

"Oh no..." Helena gasped, "What do we do?!"

Corissa yelled out in pain as she stumbled forward to slash someone in the back only for Varis to quickly step in and block her attack with his armored hand. He grabbed onto the flesh coat covering Corissa and tried to remove it but to no avail.

"They're coming!" Helena yelped as the blobs began to jump at them.

Roko quickly ran up and grabbed Varis' arm, "Leave her to me, we need you to help defend everyone!"

Varis looked at him, his face still hidden by this dark helmet but his hesitance clearly showing through. Roko just looked back at him, hoping the knight will trust him enough to leave his princess to him. Slowly, Varis nodded and let go of Corissa, turning to attack the swarm of blobs with powerful magic.

Roko approached Corissa who continued to jerk and move in inhuman ways. As if the parasite controlling her barely understood how humans worked. She turned to Roko and began to wave her sword at him, her movements too amateurish to land an actual hit but it was keeping him from actually reaching her. Roko continued to dodge around her, trying to find some way to get to her or disarm her but her movements were too erratic and he didn't have much time. Gritting his teeth, Roko lunged in, letting Corissa slash him in the shoulder. He grabbed onto her sword, keeping it from moving off his body as he grabbed onto the flesh coat that had taken over Corissa. Roko tried to rip off the inhuman parasite but it was stuck to Corissa as if it had melded with her own flesh. Even if her could rip it off, Corissa might suffer unimaginable damage in the process. Fire, water, earth, wind, ice, lightning, there wasn't a single spell that Roko could think of that could possibly help in this situation.

Roko ground his teeth and began to try to shake her as he yelled, "Corissa! I know you're in there somewhere! You can fight this! I know you can fight this thing!"

Corissa's body continued to struggle to pull her sword back, the parasitic blob unable to draw enough strength from its host. Roko continued to try and get through to her but the only response seemed to be mindless moans. He could see the struggle though, deep in the recesses of Corissa's emotionless eyes. No matter how long he would try and reach her, nothing seemed to be able to break the monster's control over her. Her moans grew more pained as Corissa continued to dig her sword into Roko's body.

"Why are there always so many of these?!" Helena yelled in the background.

"Roko, any progress?!" Kaguya called.

The blobs continued to attack in waves. There wasn't quite as many as the tentacle monsters back in Paramnesia Wildwoods but it was only a matter of time before they were overrun. And unlike the tentacle monsters, they wouldn't end up dead, they would end up being controlled and used against each other until they were either dead or converted. There was a little progress but completely resisting the parasite seemed impossible and they didn't have enough time to plan anything else. There...might not be a way to save Corissa.

"A...aaa..." Corissa whimpered, her resistance manifesting in these small token ways but that seemed to be the limit of her abilities. Continuing to try and resist the parasite...such a vague plan wasn't one that Roko normally would come up with. For a brief moment, Roko considered the worst possible scenario. Abandoning Corissa and retreating...there was no way he could leave her like this. So he'd have to...kill her…

Roko grabbed onto Corissa's shoulders with both hands, trying to pull the flesh coat off her as he continued to try and call her back to her senses, "Corissa, come on..." Roko grimaced as the sword was no free to withdraw off his body, "There has to be something you can do!"

Corissa's eyes began to cry, regaining enough of her body for her face to scrunch up in pain but her body continued to move on its own, raising the sword up to slash Roko again. Roko continued to try to pull the parasite off but it was like trying to pull someone's nail off. It seemed impossible to remove the monster. In the distance, he could hear the rest of his friends struggling, the monsters starting to overwhelm them.

"Corissa!" Roko cried desperately.

"Ho...ly..."

A burst of magic suddenly exploded out of Corissa's body. This invisible force rolling over the entire party and the monsters. The moment the monsters touched this strange magic, they began to instantly disintegrate, leaving Roko and company alone, completely unaffected. In seconds, the swarm was annihilated and Corissa collapsed into Roko's arms, the parasite controlling her body completely destroyed without a hint of damage to the princess. From absolute chaos to instant peace, everyone stood there for a moment, unable to comprehend what had happened. Helena and Momo collapsed onto the ground, too exhausted to remain standing after their traumatic incident.

"Okay..." Helena gasped, "WHAT WAS THAT?!"