Disclaimer: I do not own BNHA, Konosuba or any other fictional story that i my use in here.
Chapter 9
XxXxXxX
According to the reports that she was given from the royal guard, this town was supposed to be after siege performed by one of the undead Demon generals. But nearing the gates of Axel, Sena couldn't really spot any obvious signs of the conflict, only a few scorch marks on the ground and walls near the entryway were visible.
As she entered the city limits, an older guard greeted them, and after asking for their destination started to guide them to the guild hall.
"Were you one of the guards that defended this town from Beldia?" The young woman asked. Her purple eyes shined with a bit of curiosity behind her triangular glasses. To defend a town from such an assault with only 80 city guards and a bunch of adventurers was an achievement of really grand proportions.
"I indeed was, Lady Sena. The Black Princess directed a vast majority of the city guard near the attacked gate. We were responsible for setting the hordes on fire when they come close. It was a sight to behold when Lady Creati started using her magic, even iron and stone was set on fire, the undead minions didn't stand a chance." Lucas proudly stated, remembering this unbelievable show of arcane mastery.
"Is she an arch wizard then? I never heard of such a spell, must be a really high ranked one. But where was sir Kyouya then? Last time I checked he was sent here by the King himself to defeat the Dullahan." Sena said, intentionally seeming as ignorant and uninformed to gauge the reaction of the locals.
The guards face immediately twisted into a scowl, when he heard that blue idiot's name. "That imbecile was nowhere to be found, he left the city a day before the attack. After what he did in the guild I'm starting to think he could be allied with the Demon King army." Said Lucas visibly agitated at the swordsman.
Not expecting such a hostile reaction from the guards she decided to ask further. "What did he do? Was it something serious?"
"Serious? He destroyed a lot of property, nearly killed a few people. This buffoon decided it was a great idea to challenge our savior to a duel of honor because of some unfunded rumors. After he started to lose, he used his magic sword and started shooting magic left and right. If it wasn't for Luna's immediate decision to evacuate, and mister Deku controlling his opponent's direction of attacks we would have a bloodbath." Lucas didn't even attempt to hide his distaste for the man responsible.
"Can you tell me something about this man called Deku? His name seams strange." Sena asked, knowing only that he was the one to defeat the general and fight Kyouya in a duel.
"He is a real hero of this town. From what I heard he is a close friend of Lady Creati, the Black Princes herself. There were rumors that they are engaged, and there was this one ridiculous that the man was a warlord and a cruel brute, but all of them were created before he even arrived here." He smiled a bit remembering some of the most ridiculous of them.
"I was still up on the wall when he entered the fight. Lady Creati with her friend, a Crusader names Darkness entered into a fierce melee with the Dullahan near the gates, it was one of those fights you remember to your last breath. The Crusader was taking heavy blows and got sent to the ground, the Black Princess then took her sword and defended her downed friend, it was surreal when her blade many times smaller than that behemoth of a sword that Beldia wielded was deflecting and blocking him. After her weapon shattered she took out a short metal tube that transformed into a fighting staff and continued to defend, but that weapon was destroyed too and she could only dodge the attacks." The older man paused for a second to gather his thoughts.
"When it seemed she was going to die, her friend flew in, feet first into that monster. He launched him away like it was nothing, using some sort of enchantment spells. A green lighting was dancing of his skin like crazy, he dodged bullets of death fired in great succession even from only few mels. After his other companion went to him and talked to him he just teleported to the enemy and hit him so hard that the Dullahan's armor folded in half. When I later went to the crater they created it looked like a piece of scrap metal, bent and torn apart." He finished his retelling of the events. They neared the guild.
"This is the guild building, please proceed inside, at the counter should be a young blonde woman. She is the head receptionist and the one responsible for this branch." Lucas said, bowing lightly and going back to his work.
The agent of kingdom looked a bit at the large door contemplating. In the official report there was no description of how the fight went, it was a bit humbling to know that there were people who wielded so much power in this world.
When she entered inside, the whole place was bustling with activity. Some adventurers were browsing the quest boards, some were drinking with their friends or eating meals with joyful laughter.
On the wall behind the counter, in ornate display hung a huge sword, dark blue in color.
"Good day, what can I help you with?" A soft voice greeted her when she neared the counter. Luna smiled at her new guest immediately recognizing the official attire.
"Good day to you too. I'm searching for two adventures, both relatively new. One man by the name of Deku, and a young woman named Creati. Could you possibly point me in the direction of their stay?" Sena spoke officially, not wasting any time.
"Oh i am sorry, but the two of them accompanied by Darkness and Deku's summoned guardian spirit went on an escort mission to the town of Arkton. They started the journey... Eight days ago i think." The blonde replied, bowing slightly to the kingdom's official.
"The party they joined is based in the outer parts of the city, near the west gate. The party leader, Kazuma Satou, owns a large house and its their place of stay when they are in town." She decided to add, giving a bit more information to the woman.
"I heard that Creati was the one leading the defense of the town, why isn't she the leader of their party then?" Sena asked our of pure curiosity.
"Oh the group they joined was former nearly half a year before they arrived in this town. I guess they didn't want to destroy the already established dynamic of the team, or something like that. I never really thought about that until now..." Luna mused.
"I wanted to ask, what is that sword on the wall? It looks really ominous, looking at it sends shivers down my spine." Sena asked, giving in to her curiosity yet again. She wasn't attuned to the arcane forces, but she clearly could feel something bad from the blade.
"Ah, this is the sword of Beldia the Dullahan. Deku allowed the guild to take it in as the trophy of his victory when he registered with us. It is cursed but when we regain a bit of our wealth we will post a quest to purify it. For now our funds are redirected to repairs and reconstructions of the guild warehouses." The blonde supplied surprising the bespectacled woman before her.
"I guess he didn't need such powerful weapon if he already had something stronger than that. What weapon was he even using to defeat such a monster?" At those words Luna smiled, laughing inside at the incoming reaction.
"I saw him fight barehanded with that Mitsurugi fellow. His moves and punches were so powerful he was literally kicking up a dust storm. He finished the duel by punching that armored idiot across the field straight into the third floor of the guild." Sena had to consciously prevent her jaw from dropping. It would seem that the King finally found someone he was searching for.
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After traveling for over a week, the four person team of Izuku, Nana, Momo and Darkness was working like a well oiled machine. They rotated their shifts and every day traveled with someone different for a bit of entertainment. Until now the journey was relatively peaceful, only a few occasional wild monsters trying to take a bite out of the horses or the passengers.
As they moved along, the gentle rolling hills turned to more forested areas, now they were riding on a dirt road, so far they passed only a few other travelers. Trees around then looked like straight from a fantasy film. Really tall and thick trunks reaching around 60 meters into the air, with a parasol like branched structure at the top. The leaves were large and triangular ranging in color from blue to deep green giving them a strange feel.
Seating at the back of the last wagon with Darkness beside him, Izuku was looking at the passing vegetation. Like a lot of other things in this world it looked stunning and alien to him at the same time. There were some blue leafed plants in his world but trees this huge could be counted on two hands. All of them remnants of a national park in California.
So much was destroyed and wasted in their world by wars. It was a miracle really, that the human race didn't wipe itself yet.
"Was it really that bad in your world?" The blonde's voice brought him out of his thoughts. Looking in her direction with a questioning look he prompted her to continue.
"I spoke with Creati earlier and she said this world is much more lovely and colorful than the one you are from. And just now you were talking to yourself and looking around with this look of wonder." She said gesturing to the trees passing by.
"I was just curious really, how was your world looking like, that this one is so beautiful to you two." She finished seating herself a bit more comfortably.
Thinking for a while how to answer, the greenette started. "Well it isn't that there was no colors or anything. But there were large devastating wars not so long ago across the whole world. Forests were burned down, entire species of animals went extinct. I lived in the city all my life so i don't know how it is in the countryside, but the small forest nearby my home was replaced with a factory. Now the only place with trees is a small park, made mostly for kids to have a place to play."
Darkness didn't really know how to respond to that. In her own world there was a huge war but there wasn't really a lot of evidence who started it or what was the cause. Only certain thing is that the now extinct race of people living mostly underground fought against some invaders, and there is nothing known about who won either.
After a bit of silence Izuku spoke again. "Those powers me and Momo have, we call them quirks. They showed up out of nowhere around 200 years ago and suddenly there were people that could shoot deadly energy beams, control minds of others, fly or teleport around. At the start it was chaos, people in panic didn't know what to do. A lot of villains emerged, backed up by their powers they were nearly unstoppable. Then the people that had enough of that started to fight back using their own powers. That's how it all started, and continued for over 180 years." He started to retell to his companion history of his home world.
"Around 20 years ago a real hero rose up from the masses, single-handedly decreasing the amount of villains worldwide by the factor of 10. His mere presence was so intimidating to the evil doers they surrendered without a word when he arrives at the scene. He is known as All Might, the strongest of the heroes." At those words Darkness eyes widened a bit.
"I recognize that name, Creati regaled me and Wiz about your fight with the man named Wolfram. You fought alongside that hero and helped him save the day." The blond happily said.
Izuku looked to the blue skies hidden behind the cover of the trees. "Yes it was one of the scariest moments of my life. My power is really similar to the one All Might possesses, and he was training me how to use it. A daughter of his friend, Melissa Shield created a special gauntlet for me that regulated the flow of that energy inside me. It was the first time I could use all my strength in a fight like that, i nearly tripped myself when I launched at full speed for the first time." He laughed a bit, remembering his experience at the I-island.
"Well Creati definitely didn't saw that, she said you looked like a hero, moving at the speed of lightning." She chuckled a bit too.
As a moment of silent returned to the two, Nana floated down before them, following the carriage as it rolled along.
"Hey Zuku, i flown a bit ahead and it seems there is a fancy carriage, around two kilometers ahead of us, otherwise it's really boring. Those trees are very pretty from up top though, they even had some flowers around the upper branches." The floating girl happily droned about some things for few minutes.
"Did you maybe saw an emblem on that carriage?" Darkness asked.
"Yea, it was a rose crossed with a sword on a shield. It looked like they were standing still, so we will catch up to them in few minutes probably." Nana replied and slowly floated back to Momo.
"It sounds like the Sullet household insignia. Maybe they are traveling back from somewhere, their lands are near the capital and they live in the city itself." The blonde told Izuku a bit about the noble family whose carriage they will meet.
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As Arianne Maud Sulett was sitting bored out of her mind in the carriage, her guards, butler and the driver tried to repair a broken axle that stopped them.
It wasn't anything new really, as the young noble girl liked to travel a lot, accidents like this one happened from time to time. Normally the elite guards would do something about that, at least temporarily, by now. But her usual guardians had to be exchanged for now.
The physically strongest were recalled to the garrison in the capital, because a Demon King's General made a move. The ones at hand now weren't weaker in the sense of combat prowess, but relied more on magic and didn't have physical strength needed to make the repairs.
After some time her butler knocked at the door, entering with her consent. "It seams a caravan is approaching from behind us. We will try to acquire their help to repair our carriage." The older man, with white hair and nicely trimmed beard reported to her. He had a black travel suit as a uniform.
After the older man excused himself, she observed him trough the window, as he talked to a dwarf driving the first wagon. Near him sat an armored girl, with her outfit looking like it was taken from the royal treasury itself, and someone who by looks was her sister. She had to be a really powerful mage to just float around without any reason.
The dwarf spoke to the girls, and after something that the armored one said, her sister flew to the back of the column. After two minutes a young man, rather short in stature, walked up to them. He was wearing something that made him look really bulky, thick metallic boots with shin guards that extended up to his thighs, a segmented plate armor over his torso and a set of thick gauntlets that looked to heavy to be practical.
She decided to exit the vehicle, to look at them from a closer perspective. As she opened the door and went out her light blue dress fluttered a bit on the gentle breeze.
Getting the attention of the rest of the people she introduced herself.
"Good day to you all. I am Arianne Maud Sulett, third daughter of the Duke Hubert Maud Sulett."
After a second, the armored girl decided to speak first when no one else did.
"Good day to you too, miss Sulett. I am Momo Creati Yaoyorozu, and this two are my companions, Izuku Deku Midoriya and Nana" She said gesturing to the both. "We have one more with us but she is currently guarding the approach from the back. We should be able to help your group with the repairs of your carriage." Politely she introduced her group and stated that they could help.
"I never heard of your households, are you two maybe nobles from some far away lands?" The young blonde asked excitedly, her eyes gleaming with curiosity.
At her sudden change Momo only smiled, and clarified that indeed they were from really far away country, and that such long names were a normal thing there, not tied to the status.
As Creati kept the young noble girl company with a bit of a chat, Izuku went with his employer to the four guards gathered near the broken vehicle. Nana floated back to the Crusader's side to help her with the guarding duty.
"What's broken?" The dwarf asked, as he had a bit of knowledge about the thing.
"It seams we broke an axle near the right wheel, it looks okay when it's standing like that, but the wheels would just slide out if we tried to move. We don't have tools to repair something like that on the fly here, and we would need to lift the thing to get the job done, we need to patch it up so we can at least get to the nearest town." A light armored guard summed up the situation, not really knowing how to proceed.
Havram combed his beard for few seconds thinking about it. "We have the tools on us in the caravan, but this thing is heavily reinforced, it probably weights more than a brick house." His suspicion was confirmed when he saw that the animals that were dragging it weren't horses but a special breed of wyrms. One of those beasts had more strength than six horses, and there were four of them to move this monstrosity of a carriage.
"Please get the tools, i will lift it for you." The greenette stated, shocking all who are in earshot.
"Are you sure you will be able to? I know you are strong, but this thing is extremely heavy." The dwarf asked. After hearing in Axel about his exploits, and after talking with his companions he knew that the man was a capable combatant. But hitting really hard was different from lifting and holding such weights for longer time.
"Don't worry, just please show me a place to grab onto, so i won't damage it." Izuku said, smiling a bit.
XxX
As Arianne was having a good time talking with Creati, she looked her armor over a bit. It was made of some metal, not really too cold in touch. It was in the color of coal, with a bit of shine to it. It looked a bit too bulky and heavy for the girl but she moved with grace and didn't look the least bit bothered by it. Visible between the plating was a red under armor, giving the whole set a really good look.
As she was about to ask her about something, the young noble heard her butler gasp a little, looking in the direction he was watching her own jaw nearly unhinged.
The young man in the bulky armor from before was holding the back of her carriage up, now he rested it on his shoulder, as if he was just holding up a small basket or something. Occasionally a small green lightning was dancing across his frame, not really connecting with anything other than him
Momo noticing the girls reaction just smiled knowingly. To the normal people, even in her own world such show of strength was something spectacular. She still sometimes was in awe to how much power her crush could produce.
"Is he using some sort of strengthening magic? Last time we had an accident like that, we had eight strongest knights in the kingdom lifting this thing and they struggled a lot." The butler asked the armored girl, who still smiling lightly replied.
"It's something like that, he is one of the strongest people i ever met." She looked at him from the small distance, it was somewhat funny that the shortest guy, not counting their dwarf employer, was the strongest of them all.
XxX
Darkness was seating at the back of the caravan with Nana, guarding the rear from any unwanted visitors. Her companion was flying just under the branches of the trees, high in the air. As the blonde started to clean and maintain her sword, the floating girl descended quickly just before her.
"Are there walking trees in this world?" She asked the Crusader.
"You mean treants? They are quite rate but they exist. Normally they live deep in the forests, away from civilization." Darkness replied, not seeing anything stage in the question.
"There are three of them heading this way, around 400 meters to the west." Nana's reply stirred the blonde into motion, she dropped her cleaning supplies to the back of the carriage she was seating on, and immediately started to scan her surroundings.
"Inform everyone about that, they are really thought to fend off, we need everyone on this." At her words, Nana flew off to the rest of the group.
As the whole group prepared for battle, the young noble girl went into her carriage, for now immobile without the rear axle and wheels because of the repairs underway. The royal guards escorting her formed a perimeter around the vehicle to defend it.
Momo and Izuku meet with Darkness and with Nana in the skies as their eyes they prepared themselves for the confrontation.
"I didn't see to much about those monsters in the guild's bestiary. What do we know? How do we fight them?" Izuku asked the blonde, trying to get more information.
"Treants, they are around 9 to 13 mels high. Extraordinarily durable, their wooden flesh is reinforced by magic. They use their upper appendages to strike at the targets like with a whip. They are melee only, rather slow and weak to fire, but have enough strength to crush armored warriors with ease. Try to avoid getting caught." Darkness once more showed her knowledge of the world.
As the first monster emerged from between the trees, the group saw a humanoid like wooden creature, with the head adorned by the leaves imitating hair. When it saw them it immediately started to run at them.
It wasn't fast on its legs, but the hands that ended in few vine like tentacles were trashing around like whips, even cracking in the air occasionally.
Izuku being the fastest, launched in the direction of the attacker to keep him away from the rest. After dodging a few inaccurate strikes, his heavy armored boot connected in a side kick with the chest area of the monster.
A loud cracking of destroyed wood was heard, and the monster bent nearly in two was launched a couple of meters back, falling to the floor.
Turning around, he spotted another enemy, just starting to attack the girls, Darkness and Momo were nearly back to back deflecting and cutting off its vine whips when they could. He saw how the blonde Crusader deliberately let some of the strikes hit her, causing him to sweat drop at the sight. He was about to go help them when one of the whips of the broken in half monster tied up his legs together.
Flexing his leg muscles, he tore apart his bindings, looking back at the form of his opponent. The monster was staring at him with his glowing yellow eyes, made of embers of energy suspended in the black void of its eye sockets.
It tried to catch him again but the greenette dodged the attack, after a second of hesitation he rocketed to the laying monster and crushed his head area, witch caused the rest of his body to at last go limp.
Now turning back to the girls he saw Darkness bound by her legs with the vines, suspended in the air head down, clearly enjoying the experience. Nana was trying to defend the crusader from the vines but those attacks clearly didn't do any damage to the blonde. She just cried and gasped in high voice begging for more.
Momo was using the distraction, her face totally flat and unmoving at her friend's shameless performance. Circling from the back she used her quirk to create a small thermite bomb, attaching it to creature. After she set it off, a small ball of flame quickly engulfed the creature that stopped moving after few seconds, dropping the blonde to the ground.
A loud crash from the head of the caravan announced the presence of the third treant to them. Leaving Nana in the skies as a lookout, they went to help.
Two of the guards were using short blades to defend the carriage, which now had a large hole in its side, and the other two were pointing their magical stafs at the monster keeping him away. A terrified form of the young noble girl could be seen inside, the butler shielding her with his own body.
The two armored girls went to the carriage to help the guards, and Izuku again attacked the creature, this time with intention to lead it away from the group first. Running past the monster he caught it's outstretched arm and yanked him along.
XxX
It was horrifying. She always yearned for an adventure but not like that. As she sat in her carriage with her trusty butler she was shaking in fear.
Arianne never met such danger on her travels. An occasional pack of horned wolves, goblins, maybe some bandits. The royal guards always made fast work of them. But those wooden monstrosities were huge and powerful. She remembered stories about whole groups of adventurers falling to a single one of them, and apparently there were three out there.
She yelled in fright as a huge crash rocked the carriage. The older man shielded her from the bits and pieces of the carriage's wall, that now was missing. She clearly could see the monster in its full glory. A hollow yellow gaze, huge frame and multiple limbs moving like snakes. It striked at her guards, two of them visible from her perspective were defending themselves and her with their blades.
Suddenly out of nowhere, the armored adventurer from the caravan showed up, clad in emerald lightning that was arcing along his armor, giving it all ethereal look. Running by the monster so fast she nearly missed it he grabbed a few of its snake like appendages and pulled it along.
As if in slow motion, Arianne saw the armored hero ripping apart the vine arms he was holding with his gauntleted hands. This action caused the monster to attack him in rage, trying to strike with the remaining limbs. The greenette caught the offending appendages again and pulled at them so fast and strong that he ripped them out of the monster itself, causing the creature to slightly lift off the ground and slam down on its face. After that he jumped high and dropped at the treant's head, finishing the beast.
Even if he did it in a brutal way, that short man just defeated a monster that could finish of a lot of adventurer teams. Iris will be so jealous when she hears about this.
XxX
After evading pursuit for few days, Kyouya was now camping with his companion in a cave, near the northern border of the kingdom.
Using his relic's power he carried his sole remaining party member with him to speed up the getaway, in a few days covering weeks worth of travel. He lost the pursuers over two days ago but he didn't want to be attacked again. Even if killing those NPCs wasn't hard it did leave bad taste in his mouth.
In the distance he could see something that looked like a giant tower of sorts, clearly abandoned and forgotten. He could see the damage from elements and time but it could serve as a more permanent base than this cave.
"Kyouya... You should rest and eat something." A shy and quiet voice of the red headed mage, Fio caught his ear.
He was grateful that he at least had someone to speak to. After spending a few days with only her, and carrying her when he ran their connection grew a little, she helped him tremendously with survival and camping.
"Thanks, i will in a bit. I want to go explore that tower in the distance, maybe we could make a more permanent base there." He informed her of his plans.
Those ruins often had a few ancient golems defending the place but the blue swordsman defeated a lot of them in the past with relative ease. And getting somewhere to rest from their far travel would be great too.
The redhead nodded to him and went back into the cave to warm herself a bit near the fire. It was getting cold so close to the mountains.
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