CH.737 Hero’s Journey in the Past
After doing my part in the past, I was tempted to return to the future. But at the same time, I’ve already been here for over 40 years. Surely I can be here for another 10 or so.
Now you might ask why. And the answer is, that way I can record the Hero’s journey and make a movie out of it. Or something else.
And in case it looks like he will lose, I can step in and help him. Not that I think that will be the case.
Besides, I’ve already found saint Lucia and sage Arcadia. Well, they aren’t the Saint or the first Sage yet, but they eventually will be. As I said last time, I know how to make soul copies of myself, so I’ve had one tracking Lucia and another tracking Arcadia for the past few years.
As far as the two of them go, both are quite impressive already. Lucia is only fifteen, but she has quite high skill levels, including Holy Magic, the lifesaver title. Yes, I had recorded the time she gained the title. And no, she didn’t gain both the title and the System Support at the same time. The title was first and she later gained her System Support after she healed a mercenary group who had been ambushed by the Demon Lord’s forces.
As for Arcadia. She was a few years older than Lucia, being about 17 or 18. She has mastered multiple schools of magic, including opposing attributes. In fact, she could use Fire, Water, Wind and Earth Magic at quite high levels, and she even had an aptitude for Dark. The only thing she couldn’t do was Light Magic.
She also had a unique skill called Creator of Magic, which is basically like Alice’s Magical Girl. Except that Creator of Magic doesn’t come with magical girl clothes. But both skills allow for the creation of spells by using just imagination, and mana to fuel the spell.
What was more important about Arcadia was a crazy spell she had. A spell that could make skill orbs. Yeah. She can make them. And yes, it is as crazy as you think.
But it does come at a great cost. Naturally I’d heard the legends about how the Saint was able to make experience potions and the Sage could make skill orbs, but I wasn’t sure how. Well, now I know half of the secret.
Arcadia can’t just make a skill orb out of nothing. She makes a skill orb by literally removing a skill from a person, and solidifying it into a skill orb. Yeah… Let that sink in.
She can remove people’s skills. And it isn’t like me when I seal someone’s skill. When I do it, they still remember how to use the skill, they just lose the System assistance that makes it easier. But if I for example seal someone’s Sword Technique skill, they’ll still remember how to wield a sword. Yes they won’t be quite as good, but it doesn’t revert them into a beginner.
Arcadia isn’t the same. She quite literally rips the memories related to that skill from the person in order to make the skill orbs. This leaves them basically a beginner with the skill. That is assuming that Arcadia takes all of that skill. She can choose not to take all of it.
Still, an ability like that clearly shows that we don’t know everything about history. An ability like that could have made Arcadia the Demon Lord. But I suppose all comes down to how you use it.
“Do you think I could do that?” Alice asked.
“Yeah, probably. Sadly I never really found out what kind of spell Arcadia uses to make skill orbs, but we could figure it out ourselves.”
“Do we really need to?” Lua asked. “I mean, we already know how to gain most skills naturally, and for those we don’t, card installs.”
“It could be useful.” Cailie said. “We could rip the skills off of people like my sister instead of just sealing them.”
“Maybe Joan will tell us if we ask nicely?” Alice theorized.
“She might. Maybe we can trade the Hero’s name for that information.” I suggested.
The Hero met Arcadia first. She was quite hated in her village, as the villagers knew what she could do, but couldn’t stop her. So at first the Hero was going to defeat her, as the villagers said she was an agent of the Demon Lord. But after meeting with Arcadia, he realized that she wasn’t.
Luckily the Hero has an open mind. I mean, if he didn’t, he would have never talked with Anastasia and he would have had to go without his sword.
The Hero figured out that Arcadia wasn’t evil. She was quite the opposite. She was being shunned by the village for ‘being evil’, and the adult males of the village tried to punish her by doing unkind sexual things to her. Yeah, not the most fun.
Not that they were of any match to her. But every time someone tried, she’d rip a skill out of them and return them back to the village. So it is no wonder she has some infamy.
But the Hero let her explain herself, and invited her to join him on his quest to defeat the Demon Lord. She was a little hesitant at first, but after the Hero shared some otherworldly knowledge with her, she agreed to go with him. Even if she would forget all of that a few years later when the Hero’s memories were sacrificed to save the world.
It was also around this time when Arcadia gained her System Support, tasking her to assist the hero. It was after she had already joined, but additional motive. The Hero gained his just a few days after I handed him his sword.
The two of them continued their journey, gaining levels quickly thanks to the ever increasing number of monsters in the world. The dimensional barrier was nearly at its breaking point, so mana, miasma and creation energy were flowing into this world in excess. That caused monsters to evolve extremely quickly, leading to a large number of high ranked monsters roaming the lands.
Kanata and Arcadia turned those monsters into experience for themselves. And with the System Gods really interested in the quest, the two of them gained Limit Break basically as soon as they were able to.
Their meeting with saint Lucia came a little later. They had managed to take down a POW camp of the Demon Lord’s army, saving a bunch of people before they could be shipped to the Demon Lord for experimentation or enslavement.
But not all of those people were in good health, so the Hero looked for a healer who could help them.
That is how Lucia learned of them, and after gaining a System Support, she joined the two on their task, believing it would be the best way of taking care of those who couldn’t care for themselves.
From then on, they traveled together. Leveling up, getting stronger, saving people. The saving part was important, as they saved plenty of people skilled in different things. Like crafting and blacksmithing.
One of those blacksmiths made the Hero his armor and shield. He did that by studying the Hero’s sword.
Meanwhile, two craftsmen who were also at the same camp made the staves for Lucia and Arcadia. I made sure to closely observe the manufacturing process, just so it can be recorded for the current generations.
“We are watching that again. In slow motion, if possible.” Wilma said, as I fast forwarded through that part of the story. I knew she’d want to rewatch it anyway, and the others won’t get much out of it. Besides, we can’t exactly watch 80 years worth of footage, most of the time from multiple camera angles.
Instead, we were watching everything as basically an anime. Well, an out of order anime. In the final edit, it will probably start with the war raging between the humans and the Demon Lord’s forces. Then moving to the Hero summoning and all of that.
Hajime’s backstory will be told as flashbacks, if I’ll even tell it. It might be limited to some sort of side story. Or I might have to tell a modified version of it. Just to hide the power of a Chaos God Dungeon.
“Yeah, of course.” I promised Wilma. “I’m kind of live editing this while we are watching it, and I don’t think most will want to watch a few weeks of blacksmithing or crafting work. Besides, I’m sure Karl, Stina, Elma and the rest of the workshop staff want to see it as well.”
Sadly, the craftsmen weren’t quite skilled enough to make everything to the level where they needed to. Mainly because the raw materials they began with just weren’t up to snuff. Luckily I was there, and I have Storage and Material Quality Increase by my side. And between Time Magic and Storage only taking an instant to use the Material Quality Increase, I took their raw materials, or even slightly processed materials, into Storage and made them better, so the final piece would be better.
I also had to guide the hands of the enchanters when they enchanted the pieces. Enchanting techniques of the time just weren't where they are today. So with just the slightest touches to both their hands and minds, I made sure they wrote the enchants perfectly.
No, I didn’t make them enchant in the Spirit Language or Japanese or anything. That would have been too much. Just to make them use more optimal word choices in the enchanting texts they wrote.
“Are you going to reveal that?” Wilma asked.
“Definitely not. I think I’ll write my influence as coming from the Goddess, her guiding their hands and skills. It shows their skills, while also showing that the Gods are watching over us.”
“I suppose it makes for a better story. You are kind of playing the part of the Goddess, until her true appearance.” Cailie said.
“... what do you mean?” I asked.
“Didn’t you realize?” She asked.
“Realize what?”
“In your demon form, you look like a demonic version of the Hero’s version of the Goddess. You know, the ‘official one’.” Cailie said. “Long white hair, almost ethereal facial features, lean yet strong body.” Cailie pointed out.
“... oh God. So how the Hero sees the Goddess is based off of my altered genderbent demon form. … well, whatever.” I accepted the fact. "I mean I did somewhat base Aspirin off of the Goddess, but that is because I wanted that demonic beauty, and she kind of is the absolution of beauty. Not that she is a match for any of you. But conventionally."
After getting their new gear, the party continued their small-scale war against the Demon Lord. I mean, just three people going against an army is more like terrorism than actual war.
The trio did try to invite the people leading the small armies that were there into joining them, but it didn’t go all that well. People were simply too afraid of joining forces, believing that it would bring more attention, and more of the Demon Lord’s forces, towards them.
But slowly, as more and more of the Demon Lord’s camps were taken down by the Hero’s party, brave people began joining them in their raids. Basically the first adventuring parties.
Sadly, those parties also began losing members. But that did lead into Lucia learning how to resurrect people.
… Lucia also learned something else. Something much darker, much more in line with how Arcadia makes skill orbs.
She learned how to extract levels from people, and turn that extract into exp potions. Again, I knew she could do it, but I didn’t know how she did it. Until now.
“And now we know that.” Lua said. “But why does it use Holy Magic?”
“Because the Holy Magic is the best at interacting with the System integration of people.” I told her. “So it can also work in not so fun ways. Luckily these techniques were never written down, and they are kind of myths.”
“So you won’t be sharing them?” Alice asked.
“I might share Arcadia’s technique. It does require a unique skill to perform. And even if I shared it, I meant it more like I’d write a booklet about it and store it in the great sage only section.”
With more and more people seeing the Hero’s Party get success after success, forces began to gather that were ready to more than just deal with the camps of the Demon Lord’s forces. Three armies were formed, each led by a skilled warrior.
The leaders of those forces went by the names Ruiso, Narra and Bella.
So with three armies from different directions ready to move in on the Demon Lord’s castle, the final war was about to begin.