Chapter 22.1 - Next Quest [1]

[Tier - 2 Island Claim Key]

There's a whole lot of islands in [Yuriele], some bigger than others, all having different environments. Wouldn't it be nice to own one of them as your own?

This key allows you to claim a [Tier 2] Island. Anything above or below this tier will reject the key when used. Once used, all monsters that would spawn on an island will be inhibited (unless set otherwise), and an [Obelisk] will spawn at the centre.

-Note: A monthly fee will be required to keep the [Obelisk] running. Cost depends on what the island is like-

-Note: Using this key on an already claimed island will result in failure-

"...Haha, there goes my wallet…"

I sigh in despair, watching my 17 billion Yen drop to a sad 2 billion. I mean, I knew I was going to spend the money. I've spent a lot of money previously as well! It's just, watching the numbers go down, especially by that much, always hurts.

Ah, all the grinding I'll need to do…

Either ways, a couple days have passed since I split off with Shirou to go with Gilgamesh, and things have been...normal, to a degree. My life has never been normal by any means, but there aren't any overlying plans I have, no battles I'm specifically preparing for, no enemies I need to watch out for.

It's peaceful, and I can't help but feel tense.

Maybe I just need time to acclimate back to these peaceful times, maybe it'll stick with me forever. Who knows.

But! That's not important right now!

Several chapters back, I'd promised Shirou that I'd buy and make a house for the both of us, and the war's over now, so it's prime time to find one!

While Gilgamesh was busy instructing the villagers of [Dun Stadia], as she'd seemed to have grown rather fond of the people, I was sitting by the [Obelisk], browsing through the list of items while ideas for houses bounced around in my head. Then, as if fate answered me, I stumbled upon a certain item being sold.

An [Island Claim Key], something that could claim an island and allow me to control and shape it to my will. I took some time to ponder over the decision, before ultimately buying the second tier key, just to give us enough space to do even more stuff.

And as I said, it cost me 15 billion Yen when converting.

There actually was an [Island Creation Key], but it was hella expensive. Even the first tier of it costs 75 billion Yen when converting it to points, and the second tier was even worse at a staggering 400 billion.

So, yeah, no.

That all aside, I still need to find an island I'm going to convert into my base. Preferably, I'd like it to be a flat island, maybe a plains with a small amount of foliage. Don't quite know where an island like that is though, so I'm going to have to go exploring for a bit.

Which is completely fine actually. I haven't explored much of [Yuriele] at all, so might as well use this down time for that!

So, saying a quick farewell to Gilgamesh, I take off to the skies.

And of course, just like I've been doing for the past couple days, I'll only be using my sword and Reinforcement to battle, with the rest of my skills coming in when I truly needed them.

~~~

Fruel is not having a good day.

Several months ago, contact with the settlement of elves down below was lost, and anything he'd tried to do only ended in failure. The kingdom's growing anxious over it, and rumors about outside forces building their strength to destroy them is starting to circulate. As the representative of the elves to the outside world, he knows it's false, but the people don't, and everyone's growing worried.

It also doesn't help that Count Voskrou is trying to usurp the position of the king. For what reason, he doesn't know, but he can't really bother trying to figure out what goes through the head of that madman.

So he's taking some time off, flying through the air with his wings flapping on his back.

He's always found the wind relaxing, even if the element he controls is the exact opposite. The way the air washes past his face, the feeling of his hair dancing in the wind, it's something he'd never trade away.

As he isn't a battle maniac, he stuck around the relatively safer side of this world, intent on simply flying past anything in his path.

It's then that he senses something, or rather, someone.

Interested, Fruel flies towards the individual, curiosity bubbling within him. Though this is a relatively safe area, there aren't any nearby civilizations here. For what reason would someone even be here?

And there, on an island inhabited by short grass and giant husk beetles is a human girl, dancing around her opponents as she takes them down with her sword.

He finds himself rather mesmerized by the sight. There isn't a single style the girl seems to be using, almost as if she trained under several different masters, each with their own arts in the sword, and yet her movements are fluid, flowing from one to another, her sword snapping through the air and cutting through the shells of the giant insects.

She spins and moves, and with one final twirl, she brings her sword down on the last remaining bug, severing its head from the rest of its body.

Her battle over, the girl stretches,

Before she turns to him, blue eyes staring into his.

"...!" Fruel finds his breath stolen, an unseen weight suddenly present on his back. Those blue eyes, swirling and shifting, are far too bright, far too enchanting to belong to a human. Those eyes that seem to look through him, reading him like an open book.

He begins to feel a fraction of the strength behind her, one that was previously hidden behind that unassuming veil. He knows not of who she is, what she is, but it's certain that she's far more powerful than he, than perhaps anyone he's ever come to know.

Then, as if satisfied, the girl sends a cheery smile as her eyes return to a bright green.

What…?

So lost in his thoughts that he doesn't realise the girl had suddenly flown up to him, supported by some unseen magic. It's only when she gives him a gentle tap that he snaps out of his reverie, and taken aback by the cheery smile the girl has as she waves at him.

"Hello!" She says with enthusiasm, and Fruel barely manages to keep another surprised shout down his throat. Letting out a soft cough, he looks to her and smiles politely, an expression he'd built over the many years dealing with new, unfamiliar individuals. "Hello to you as well, young girl."

"Hrmm…What are you doing here? There's nothing interesting around here, is there?"

At that reminder, Fruel sags slightly. "I'm simply relaxing."

"Ah…" She hums, understanding in her eyes. "Tough day at work?"

"Unfortunately, yes."

The girl laughs kindly, before giving him a gentle pat on the shoulder. "Tough luck, buddy." She says with an understanding smile. "Actually, you're not doing anything right now, right?" At his confused nod, she continues. "Then why don't you join me? I've been cleaning out these islands solo, and I think having someone else join in would be fun."

"Well…"

"What do you say? Wanna join?"

He debated over the offer. He didn't know her, he didn't even know her name, and he wasn't some battle maniac who thrives from constant battling. Even then, the girl doesn't seem to harbor any ill intent, and he can't deny that he's interested in what she can do.

So, in a decision he would thank himself years down the line, he nods, and the girl smiles. "Alright then, let's go!" And without further words, she turned and flew off, with Fruel swiftly following in her trail.

As they flew, he made some short conversations with her, and he learnt more about this strange human girl.

Her name is Tsunaka Hanami, and she's a current resident of [Dun Stadia], which...confuses him. Last he recalled, that human village was fairly young, with only a rather small number of humans populating the island.

She has a partner called Emiya Shirou, a boy this one, and he's currently at a place called [Earth], a location he'd never heard of. He didn't pry for any further information however.

Of course, he told her of himself as well, but he kept most of his life to himself. He didn't need the girl to know everything about him.

They soon approach a floating desert island, its sand gradually falling off the edge and its crumbling soil crawling with large scaly sandworms.

Again, he bears witness to her fighting skills, seeing her cutting through the thick scales with nothing but her sword. Strangely, he feels as if she could defeat them all in moments, and Fruel can only wonder if she's deliberately limiting herself. For what reason however, he doesn't know.

He himself isn't idle, using his control over earthly elements to form spikes of sand and puncture through the sandworms' scales. Of course, he could also drive sand through the gaps between their scales and crush them from the inside, much like he likes to do, but he feels that's somewhat overkill for these weak monsters.

"Phew, another done!" She says with one last swing of her sword, decapitating an incoming sandworm before her. Fruel idly watches as the sandworm's blood impossibly slides off the sword's blade, not a single drop stuck onto it.

An enchanted sword perhaps?

"You're quite the Swordmaiden, Hanami."

"Mm, you think?" She says, doubtful of her own abilities. "I don't think I'm all that good to be honest...It's why I'm trying to train it up in the first place."

"Truly?" So swordsmanship isn't her main talent? That's certainly a surprise. The display she had before was definitely something even a veteran would be hard-pressed to replicate. The way her body moved in tandem with the blade told a tale of years of training, and there was no wasted movements in her strikes, no attacks were wasted.

"I'm more a caster, really, but…" She frowned as her eyes became distant. "I've been slacking on my close-combat, and I don't want to get caught off guard when my magic isn't enough."

Fruel blinks, surprised to hear that. If she was this skilled in the sword, then how strong was her magic? He can't help but think, and he holds back a shudder. He remembers those blue eyes she had, those eyes that seemed to look right through him. Was that also a part of her magic, or something else entirely?

"Couldn't you simply have someone protect you?"

"I could." She admits with a shrug. "But that'd just brush off the problem. I won't have someone with me at all times. I want to always be prepared." She then looks to him, smiling. "After all, it's better to over prepare than to not do so, right?"

'This girl…'

He'd met people like her before, but she's different. He can see that determination burning in her eyes, that strength boiling underneath. He doesn't know what stories she has behind that cheery smile, what kind of things she's seen to build that mind set, but he knows one thing.

With her here, things are definitely going to become interesting.

Fruel finds himself smiling back. "Indeed. I wholeheartedly agree."

~~~

In the end, the two of them had become completely side-tracked. What was first a plan to battle against monsters to train Hanami's skill in her sword became them sharing stories between one another. Fruel had never laughed and smiled so much in one single scenario, yet here he was, laughing as he watched the girl sigh in exasperation.

"And he just runs into the bath and goes, 'Hey, let me in~!', all naked and stuff. I mean, I don't mind too much, and Astolfo has a lot of screws loose in his head, but come on!" She finishes her rant with a sigh, Fruel can only give her a gentle pat on the back. He's known his fair share of people without common sense, far too many to be healthy perhaps.

Still, a crossdressing boy charging into a, what was it, an 'onsen' filled with women, without the intention of peeping?

"What an interesting life you lead." He says jokingly, and she laughs along, carefree and unworried as if they'd been friends for much longer.

It's something he'd quickly come to discover. The girl was extremely good at becoming friends, whether through jokes or digging under their skin. It helps that she's quite a kind person, always questioning if he'd mind sharing something about his life.

It was...liberating, in a sense, sharing all those things he'd kept pent up in the back of his mind.

And she responded kindly, simply placing a comforting hand on his shoulder and smiling, perhaps even giving some advice.

"But, how about you?" She asks. "You said you've been quite busy yourself. Trying to stop some civil war from happening or something?" Then, as if realising what she'd asked, quickly adds. "Ah, but if you're not comfortable with sharing it, it's fine to keep quiet, okay?"

"No worries, it's not exactly a secret." He smiles tiredly. "Keeping my country from falling apart is indeed one of my worries, but something else had cropped up, something much worse."

"Worse?"

He nods. "Months ago, I lost complete contact with the elves we'd sent down through the clouds in hopes of researching what was down below. Everything seemed fine, until all contact was suddenly lost one day, and nothing to re-establish contact has worked."

Hanami stills. "...elves, down there…?"

"Hanami?" He looks to her, and she sees her eyes suddenly widen, green turning to a bright shifting blue. Fruel blinks, surprised, but it swiftly disappears, her eyes returned to green.

"Could it be…?"

"Hanami?" He asks again, "Are you alright?"

"Hey, Fruel." She says, and he turns to her, confused. "Were they nature elves, and did they build giant satellite dishes?"

'What!? How did she-!?'

"...How did you know that?" He asks slowly, hoping that she'll know something.

"I...came across them, when I was trying to get into [Yuriele]." She says, and Fruel feels his hope climbing, his throat growing dry.

"Do you know what happened to them?"

Frowning, she nods. "All of them were dead." She says bluntly. The elf freezes at the revelation, and he quickly turns to her, a question burning in the back of his throat. Hanami swiftly continues. "I don't know too much, but every elf down there was infected by...something, and they've all become zombies. I had to fight off several hundreds before I could beam up here."

"A...disease? But that's impossible! We are elves of nature, we can't get sick!"

"That's the thing." She continues to frown. "You don't get sick, which means you don't need an immune system, but when something invades, they don't have anything to fight off the disease, and they all succumb."

Fruel goes silent, mulling over the new bit of information he'd just gathered. If something was to infect them, then it'd need to be something unconnected to nature, something that didn't come from the mother of all.

He looks to the girl, the first person to have even an inkling of what happened to his brothers down below the clouds, and he made his decision then and there.

"Hanami, if you don't mind, would you come with me to help determine what happened?"

The girl opens her mouth to speak, but then freezes, her eyes growing distant and dazed. She quickly shakes her head, and with a resolute frown, she nods.

"I will."