บท 35: Chapter 35 - Welcome Home
Time resumed, and those around us began to move once more. The body of the monster had been reduced to chunks, and the lives of the top ten had been miraculously saved, by one man... the only one who could intervene besides God himself.
"AHH-wait, what the hell?"
"What just happened?"
"I don't know, the body, it was falling just a second ago!"
"It just...disappeared..."
"God? Was this you?"
These were some of the phrases being tossed around the group as time resumed. I could tell the heroes were confused at first, but they all collectively began to realize what was going on, when they turned their heads and saw who was standing before them.
Hero, a man with no name, seemingly immortal, and the most powerful hero in the Hero Camp. Despite my conversations with him, which lasted nearly an hour, to everybody else, it seemed instantaneous.
He never clarified his real age with me, but at this point, I was willing to bet he didn't even know it himself. He could take the form of any age that he chose. He could be 18, 30, 70, 400 for all I knew. But regardless, his very presence overwhelmed the entire field.
Ambrosia was the first to notice his presence, shuddering in place as she gazed upon his elegance. She spoke in a high pitch with great excitement, startling Hero a bit.
"W-welcome home! How was your m-mission!?"
The rest of the heroes came to their feet, and began to realize who had just shown up. A few of them ran over to us, others staying back, still overcome with shock. It seemed Hero wasn't all that common of an appearance.
"H-Hero!? Where did you come from?" asked Grandmaster.
"I can't believe it, he's finally back!" said Tasuki.
The other heroes cheered for the return of their leader, beaming with excitement. Hero quickly toned the crowd down and explained what had taken place.
"Everybody, calm yourselves. I returned because I could sense that your lives were in danger. I stopped time, and took out this monster for you all. But, Yukio here managed to override my time manipulation, and was unaffected by it."
"Because of this, I questioned him, and learned a lot about him, as he did about me. It seems we both have a common goal, and a common ability."
"Wait, how long were you and Yukio talking? You...learned a lot about him?" asked Ambrosia.
"Time was stopped for nearly an hour. We discussed the current state of the world, as well as what's been going on since I left. You ask how my mission went, yes?"
"Yeah, how did it go? You were gone for 5 months!"
"Well...my mission... it was fruitless... although I killed numerous monsters, I failed my essential task...though I hope you managed to run the place alright during my absence."
"...wait, you failed? What were you trying to do? How could you fail at anything?" asked Ambrosia.
Hero was about to explain where he had been for the last 5 months to the top ten. Their reactions, he could not control. Although he hoped they would understand...
"Well, everyone. There's some news that I must share with you all. Although, I'm sure you're all already aware of our circumstances, based on this battle that you all fought your hardest at. I'm proud of everyone here..."
"During my absence, I ran into some trouble. You could say this "trouble" was the entire reason I went on a 5-month leave. Adventuring on my own should seem somewhat normalized by now, but this absence was nowhere near normal."
"Does this have to do with The Zodiac?" asked Alanzo.
"Indeed it does. I've been hunting their leaders for the past 5 months. I ran into Marius by accident a while ago, and figured out the truth about their organization. Although, I was unable to kill any of them. I met 5 of their leaders, and all 5 eluded me..."
"You knew everything before we even had a clue, and you tried to stop it on your own... you're as reckless as ever, Hero," said Grandmaster, chuckling to himself.
"...but, you mentioned how you were unable to kill their leaders... tell me, Hero, who are they, and what are their abilities?"
As Grandmaster asked this question, Hero began to shake. It seemed as if he was getting nervous. Despite his unfathomable power, it seemed that even he was shaken by The Zodiac and its leaders.
"-tch..." Hero gritted his teeth and squinted his eyes in annoyance.
"...I met four who call themselves Patriarchs, and then I met their founder...it's The Shade, he's running the entire operation."
The heroes gasped upon hearing this news. Although I was already aware from the administration that The Shade could be a possible leader. Now that I thought about it, did Hero know that the administration knew about the Zodiac? Hero went on,
"The four Patriarchs I met were Marius, Henka, and then two more. Their names are Yurei and Cynthia. They're both dangerous. Yurei is a ghost girl, and Cynthia's powers are very unusual. I don't understand them yet."
"Yurei has the ability to turn herself transparent, which allows her to avoid damage, fly, and phase through matter, similar to you Ambrosia, except she is unrestricted with her powers. While you cannot interact with objects or people while in transparency, she can...she represents Aquarius."
Ambrosia's eyes widened. This girl could be a potential target for her, due to their shared transparency abilities. If anyone was going to take her down, it would be Ambrosia.
"Cynthia's powers, I'm unaware how they work. I could barely keep up with her. She seems to be able to predict the future, and move accordingly, dodging all attacks effortlessly, although that's simply my estimate. She has inhuman agility. Landing a hit on her at this time would be impossible. She represents Aries."
"What about stopping time? Wouldn't that work?" I asked, jumping into the conversation.
"I'd like to think it would work, and to be honest, I thought it would, until I tried it. Turns out, the Patriarchs aren't affected by my time manipulation, which is probably why you weren't affected by it either. Maybe your authority of Capricorn, as well as their authorities, are overriding it somehow."
"Initially, I thought your DNA had been modified, preventing you from being affected by time stopping, but when you mentioned Capricorn to me, I knew that that was the reason," said Hero.
If The Shade blessed these patriarchs with their powers, God knows how strong The Shade himself really was. Hero mentioned how he wanted to dominate the world with his race of "demi-monsters", but why? How did he figure out that eating a heart would turn one into a monster in the first place?
"I see... what's terrifying to me, is how they were able to elude death, even from someone as powerful as you," I said.
I got to thinking. I still wasn't fully reeled into the idea of Etheria. I knew that this was a fantasy world, and that perhaps death here would lead to an unusual circumstance, maybe even a return to Earth. It was like a video game.
If this were a video game, The Shade was the final boss, the Patriarchs were like the world bosses, the humanoid monsters were the mini-bosses, and the regular monsters were the enemies. This world was littered with danger.
As of now, my ultimate task is "Defeat The Shade", but it seems I've started gathering smaller quests along the way. "Slay Monsters", "Join the Hero Camp", "Defeat the Patriarchs", etc. Perhaps this really was like a video game...
If it was, then that meant I wouldn't have to think about my situations too deeply, and that there would always be a concrete way to win any battle, even if it meant dying. But what happened when I died? I didn't want to find out, but at the same time, I was curious.
"It is indeed terrifying. Yukio, you look lost in thought, is there something troubling you?" asked Hero.
"It's nothing. I'm just thinking about ways we could go about this situation. You said you were going to warn the administration, correct?"
"Yes, I should probably go do that sooner than later-" I cut off Hero.
"They're already aware... they've known about them for 30 years now..."
"Did you say...thirty years?"
"Yes, thirty years. I was surprised too, and so was Ambrosia. They've been keeping the truth from us, in hopes that they would never have to worry about it. But now, it's coming back to bite us all in the ass..." I said.
"Dear God, they've had 30 years to prepare their operations, and we've been doing nothing about it until 5 months ago, when I figured it out myself. The Zodiac has been hiding it super well..."
"It's not too late to fight back though, we can still win, even if The Shade has recruited thousands of people." said Rebirth Man, entering our conversation.
"How do you expect us to go about doing that?" asked Ambrosia.
"It might be easier than you think. Simply put, we need to overwhelm the patriarchs one at a time. Now that Hero is with us, the 9 of us can storm each patriarch individually, and overpower them."
"Although they each have abilities that let them avoid death, it doesn't mean they're unkillable. Everybody has a weakness, regardless of power. To me, it sounds like most of these patriarchs can be slain with a swift sneak attack, catching them off-guard before they can react."
Rebirth Man had a similar thought process to mine, whereas we would use sneak attacks to defeat these patriarchs. But finding them, and catching them off-guard would prove to be a challenging task.
"Say, Hero, how did you get all of this information? Were you spying on The Zodiac for the last 5 months? Or did they try brainwashing you too?" asked Rebirth Man.
"Well, Marius tried recruiting me, but when he realized how powerful I was, he ran away. I then asked the man who he was with to tell me exactly what happened, and he did. He told me everything Marius told him."
"From that day, I spent 5 months looking for The Zodiac's members, and their HQ. I couldn't find their HQ, but I found 3 more members, Henka, Yurei, and Cynthia. I realized The Shade was their mastermind because of a slip-up by Yurei."
"When I had a confrontation with her, she mentioned how "Shadie would be upset with her for trying to take me on 1v1", and then immediately covered her mouth, and flew away as fast as she could. She shouldn't have said that..."
"I continued my spying missions, killing monsters as I went. Eventually, I followed Marius and Henka back to Camp Alpha, and found you guys about to die after fighting him. Everything lined up perfectly, but they got away again..." said Hero, summing up his 5-month mission.
"I see... well, we should waste no more time idling around, I think we should split up when we get transferred back to our camps, and try and find these patriarchs. If we see them, we can report it, and the 9 of us can swarm in to take care of them," said Saburo, lowering his hood.
Suddenly, Daphne's ears began moving. She perked her head up, and sharply turned to the left, facing the minced remains of Marius's body. There was movement... although she couldn't see it, she could feel it and hear it.
Then, they heard soft words coming from the pile of remains...
"--the 9 of us? I think you're forgetting someone..."
"Who the hell is that?" asked Ambrosia. Daphne was quick to respond.
"NO WAY!" she said, excitedly.
It was Natsuo Ren, his body emerging from the rubble and guts. He was in a severe condition, having suffered major injuries. He had died, but come back to life? Daphne ran over to him, and jumped into his arms.
He was bleeding all over, and his armor was heavily damaged by the monster's foot. Tasuki still had his sword, though. He caught Daphne, and grunted in pain, but opted to hold her anyway, as he loved her.
"NATSIE!" she yelled. "HOW ARE YOU HERE RIGHT NOW?"
"Ah, I had a chat with God, and he sent me back here. He said my mission wasn't completed yet, and that I have more work to do. He fixed up my body as best he could, but I'm still injured... So, how's eve-HERO!? IS THAT YOU!?" yelled Natsuo, just now realizing that Hero was here.
Natuso really did have connections with God... perhaps he was more powerful than I initially thought. Being the 4th seat in the top ten, his position was nothing to sneeze at.
"Hah, it's good to see you Natsuo. Looks to me like you escaped death once again, but just barely this time!"
"I sure did! Sorry Saburo, maybe you'll get me next time!" said Natsuo, sticking his tongue out. Saburo sighed and smiled.
"I'm glad you're alive, Natsuo. Your sacrifice helped save us, but, there's some stuff we need to catch you up on... come here please."
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