Rudeus Greyrat
And there we have it.
I was able to convince Orsted with Operation "Get along with the Seafolk".
Originally my plan was to come along with Aisha. We would establish a kingdom and try to form some kind of alliance with the Sea Folk. Of course I had to adjust the plan a bit.
A little switcharoo was in order, with me and Arty.
Thank goodness he answered my letter, though I did find it was a bit odd it took him a while to answer. Hmmm ... I wonder what was going on at his end.
Oh well, this was a side project I was planning for anyway. It could have started anytime when Arty came by, so I should say thank goodness he accepted.
Of course I had to ask Arty to protect Aisha in my stead. From what I read and what Orsted told me, Ringus Sea can be a pretty dangerous place.
To be honest I was already thinly spread out right now so this worked out perfectly. I had that whole oppositions in the Millis Kingdom to worry about.
The operation would take longer without my involvement. I had to ask Nanahoshi to make a list of potential mages for me.
Though its a bummer.
But I suppose this is for the better since I won't be around forever. If people can't maintain the teleportation network without me than what's the point. So this would be good practice to be self reliant.
It's like Arty once said "Catch a man a fish, you feed him for a day. Teach a man to fish, you feed him for life." Hmmm, wait. Why did that saying sounded oddly familiar. I wondered where Arty heard that saying.
I'm gonna have to apologize with Aisha. I kept her out of the loop for this coming project. I can tell from her voice she was surprised.
Actually she's pretty against teaming up with Arty. Did they get in a fight? Not that I know of. Then again they weren't even that close to begin with, I suppose.
Anyhow, I didn't set up any contracts for lumber, labor force, etc.
Not that it was impossible. The reason being, if I told Aisha in advance she would already have everything prepared. And that would not go with my makeshift plan.
The plan was for Arty and Orsted to interact more on this project.
If I gave Aisha the heads up before hand. She would probably have the construction running on it own before I knew it and then she will be back at the house.
I was actually starting to be a bit worried about Aisha a bit. She seems to ... Not what to leave home as of late. I think it was about after Norn's wedding. It felt like she was doubling down on her position as a maid.
Whenever she got a task at the Rude Mercenary Company. I would get a bit shocked how fast she would complete them, almost as if she wanted to finish them quickly and then return home. No lovelife, no hobbies persay, heck no hanging out with any friends.
So I would like this task to be like a little vacation for her.
Then again building a kingdom from scratch wasn't really an ideal vacation. But at least it will act as a vacation from her maid work.
Maybe she will make some friends, maybe meet someone. Though they will have to pass her big brother's test before he tries anything.
So the multi layered plan won't work if Aisha finishes up quickly.
And then Arty will be on his way, not making up with Orsted.
Phftt look at me ... Why do I have to be the middle man between these two adults. I feel like that one friend that would send messages back and forth between the two other friends who have beef.
It's ok ... I gave Orsted that little cheat sheet so he can strike up a conversation with Arty. I know he can be a bit of a tsundere sometimes or a little awkward.
Sadly if I told him I wanted him to work with Orsted on this he would have said no and run off. Which is why I gave him the job as guard. He just have to be in the same room as Orsted and the rest would be up to Orsted himself.
"Ouch ... Eris ... careful about my horn stumps"
"S-sorry ... keep still ... it's been a while"
My deep thoughts was interrupted with Arty slight cry of pain as Eris was washing his hair.
Hmm hmm Eris sure has come a long way with learning to control her strength. I still remember when Lucy came running out all naked saying to rescue her from Eris as she was scrubbing too hard.
It's ok Eris it not your fault, it's just that Arty's horns can be pretty sensitive. I guess you can relate it to how Sylphie's ears can be pretty sensitive, especially when I give them a good nibbling while I ...
"Geez Arty you need to take better care of yourself ... Your body is full of scars. You know you can always come over. I'm sure Rudy or Sylphie can get you fixed up"
"Ahh that's ok Eris, it's fine ... I like my scars "
I looked over Arty backside as I can see a good amount of scars. I can see at his lower back what appears to be claw marks, not the ones you usually see when you get freaky with a woman but it was three individual scars. It made me think that a huge monster up and stabbed him with its huge claws almost like he was impaled by them.
Ouch, just thinking about it hurts.
And his second most note worthy scar on his back was what looks like he was slashed by something as it went to his neck down to his shoulder blade. I couldn't help but picture Arty with the injury as his arm threaten to fall loose.
These scars actually can make him look quite manly despite his boyish nature deep down.
Hoho ... Arty are you trying to impress some women ... Hmmm maybe not. Arty doesn't really have a show offish nature. I suppose he just view them as sentimental, yea that sounds about right for Arthur.
"Hmm I know what you mean, scars can make you look pretty cool ... But Rudy keeps on healing mine"
"Huh ... Oh I guess your right. I guess I see them as a ... Reminder"
"How very Arty of you"
"Eris what does that mean?"
"Ruijerd has a cool scar on his face too" She pointed on the scar on my forehead.
Arty simply gave his scar a rub as he went down memory lane.
This scene reminds me of the good times. It brings me back to the days when we strengthen our bonds of a adventurer party through skin ship. Our shared baths sure were relaxing ... Hehehe
Huh Ruijerd, stop! I was just making sure they were washing the correct places ... Stop
Arty was a bit flushed as he stared straight forward. If I didn't know better I was sure his eyes were swirling. It looked like he was avoiding a certain view. When my eyes deducted where his weren't reaching, it became clear to me.
Oho Arty you sly dog ... a connoisseur of big breast are we?
Hmmm I wonder if this would be the perfect opportunity to ask him what his type is? A little locker room talk should be all fine and dandy with us guys ... hmmm but Eris is still here so I guest its not just us guys, I don't think Arty will open up.
No wait, I thought I told Orsted I wouldn't set Art up. Get out of my head.
Cough cough anyway back to the main topic at hand.
The main reason to open relation with the Sea folk would basically be insurance.
From what I read, Laplace before, at the Second Human-Demon War got the Beast Race and the isolated Sea folk to the demon side. From the history books, it was the Sea Folk's blockade that really put a hinderance to the human side of the warfront.
As of now, thanks to the Rude Mercenary Company. I'd say the human relationship with the beast folk is ok.
As for the Sea Folk. They tend to keep to themselves. So Aisha will have her work cut out for her with opening up to them. I'm not worried in the slightest. Heck Aisha even got the favor of Perugius, the Armored Dragon King, to my surprise when I wasn't looking.
And with Arty strength she will be perfectly safe, he told me so himself.
Arty never says empty words, when he says he will do something, he will move mountains to do it. It has always been a habit of his.
It was like when he said he will learn the King rank spell Lightening while Roxy was teaching it to me.
The way he learned the spell itself reminded me how in rpg games when a player will look ahead at a skill tree and then use their points to the shortest path to the skill they wanted from that tree, ignoring the other skills that didn't get his interest and move on to the others.
But still ... A King Rank spell while he himself was only at advance rank at best. To be honest, I wasn't expecting much. But again this was the past me and Arthur made me eat my theatrical words when he was able to perform it.
Well now that I think about. He kind of cheesed it. To first learn how to do the 'Lightening' spell. You had to learn the Saint Tier Water spell 'Cumulonimbus' and even before that the Advanced Tier spell 'Squall'.
That was the skill tree he had to follow to learn the spell he desired.
So Roxy began by teaching him 'Squall'. To say Arty was a model student wouldn't be what a lot of people would say. Roxy would show him the spell as he began to ask questions and other questions that lead to others. Sometimes it would be unrelated to the spell.
Somewhere along the line, it became a lesson about the weather and the different types of clouds there were and how they were formed.
It was at that part we were getting to the realm of science which didn't really extend much to this world.
An example of which was how in this world people would say that if you have fire in a enclosed space then it will poison the air. I knew because of my knowledge from my old world was that fire caused carbon monoxide to circulate in the air, but the people here will just take that as fact.
Arty will always ask the question 'why'.
Always trying to find a new angle to things. In that matter of fact, I can only say I respected him for that open mindedness. It was one of his strong points.
So when it got to that, I somehow took over the lesson. It caused Roxy to get dejected but I offer her head pats to calm her nerves and also Arty didn't want her to leave.
The way the lesson would usually go would be like this:
"Rudy what causes storm clouds?"
"When warm air raises rapidly and mixes into the air. It will create Cumulonimbus clouds which are storm clouds?
"Do other clouds causes storms?"
"Well ... yes, technically. They can contribute as well but its usually the Cumulonimbus clouds that do it"
"So then what causes rain then?
"Its when water molecules in the air collect and condenses in the air and form clouds and when they are too heavy it lands back on earth"
"I see ... Rudy what are molecules?"
"Oh ... hmmm, how such I put this. Think of them as the building blocks of everything"
"?!? ... What do you mean?"
I pointed to the stone wall that acts as our fence.
"It like this, see the wall how it made up earth blocks to make the wall there. Its the same for water, a bunch of water molecules clump together to form water"
"But if that's the case then why do we convert our mana to use water magic instead of using those 'molecules'"
". . . . ."
He would go on and on like this. Hmmm now that I thing about it, it reminds of a parent telling a child what to do and the child kept responding with 'why' until the parent or teacher for that matter was at a lost.
But Arty didn't do that with any bad intent. He just wanted a better understanding of how things worked.
He understood when I first taught him how to do chant-less magic, you had to have a good understanding on how the spell and element worked under the conditions you set it as.
Well, at least he was more talkative than before I would teach him stuff. We were in the demon continent and he had some free time as I was teaching him fire magic.
He was being good and staying on two legs as I can tell he was adorably trying to resist the urge to sit on all four.
If I had to say what was his specialty, it would be fire.
When I showed him how to cast the spell 'Flamethrower'. That was the spell that got him to be a wiz at chant-less magic and helped him incorporate it into his fighting style.
He didn't get it at first. I would show him and then he would run off on his own. I would sometimes get worried since he wouldn't be back for dinner but Ruijerd said he would be fine as there were plenty of times when they were traveling where he would go off on his own only to come back later.
And come back he did. But not for the reason I thought. He would come back, ask me to do it again, and run off on his own again. He did this around 12 times in a matter of a month. When one day.
"Rudy! Rudy! ... come come. I think I got it"
We got to the outskirts of the city when he showed me his work. Lets just say I was a bit shock with how he took his homework.
"Ahhhhhhh ... Whoosh ... Ppphhttff"
"Whoa"
Again it wasn't that he did it that surprised me. It was how he managed to accomplished it.
As I taught him, he needed a visual cue to help him cast without chanting. I thought he was using me as a visual since he asked me to show him so many times.
But when he get on all fours and breathed out, he was emitting the flamethrower spell from his mouth. So his visual cue was a dragon using his fire breath.
He was hoping around breathing around almost like Slyphie did when she got chant-less magic down packed.
He drew inspiration from dragons.
I think he thought it was cool
But then something happened. It was our first encounter with Orsted.
After that battle, he temporary abandoned any dragon inspired skills. It wasn't until he was able to hatch Nyla that he adopted them again. But he still refused to learn anything about the Dragon Tribe.
Nyla
That was another thing where he proved me wrong. I thought she wouldn't hatch. And for the longest time I thought he failed to hatch her, so I never rubbed it in.
It was when I fell into the Great Dragon Castym where she shoop in and saved me from my fall. I was so confused why this creature was here. But after the battle Arty just gave a 'heh' as if to say eat it and wheep Rudy.
I was impressed. He always continue to prove me wrong.
Heck I was even more impressed when he casted 'Lightening' for the first time. He used my lessons and the fact I was able to make a lower tier 'Lightening' spell called 'Electric'. I taught it to him as I tried to relieve him of learning the King Tier spell since it seemed too hard for him. But he refused to back down on it. He said he will learn it and learn it he did.
I believe it was when we had our rematch with Orsted. I told my family to back down as I will handle it and they listened but Arty was stubborn.
Yea maybe at the core of it, Arty was simply a stubborn person.
But let's get back at track, I was amazed, heck even Orsted seemed to be a bit shocked maybe because he fell for it as well.
It was like Arty was taking this battle as some kind of chess game. In the fight he would do random setups. Little things that neither me nor Orsted was sure what he was doing. And he made sure of that.
First he casted 'Squall' as he made it seem it was to help out with my 'Quaqmire' spells to get Orsted off balance. Then when I fired off my Gatling cannon at him from my Magic Armor MK I. He will assist with simple fire ball spells to try to throw Orsted off guard as well.
I didn't pay any mind at first but he would every now and then shot a couple into the air and before either of us knew he made a Cumulonimbus cloud as it began to thunder.
Even I didn't notice this but as I I was shooting off my Gatling he threw some kunai like knives at Orsted that blended in the debris.
With that everything was set for him. He casted 'Electric' on his sword as he pointed it up into the sky. And with his understanding of the 'Lightening' spell, he casted it mixing his Mana with the elements in the air right now.
And then he made it take shape. That was when Orsted was a bit shocked.
"How?"
He couldn't move for some reason when noticed the kunais had magic circles on them making some kind of barrier that restricted his movements.
"Who are you?"
Crackle Zzzzz Zap Crackle .... Roaaarrrr
And from the cloud he made the lightening take the shape of a dragon, specific a Chinese dragon that I once told him about when we were younger.
"Wouldn't you like to know"
He brought down his blade as the dragon followed and struck Orsted. The light flashing was blinding as the other spread throughout the earth.
But sadly it wasn't enough and should I say Arty's mana capacity wasn't enough as when Orsted used the Dragon Gate skill like he did when I first fought him and I tried to cast a nuke on him. He absorbed the blast before it can strike him down.
After that Arthur fainted from using up all his Mana. And then ... Well you know the rest.
But to my surprise he wasn't depressed for long, sure he was bummed out. It seemed when we separated from 'Dead End'.
When ack Eris left me ... No no it was a misunderstanding.
It seemed Eris and Arty made a promise to get stronger in there own way.
Heh ... Well I wish I was included in that nice friendship moment .. but oh well, I guess the past is the past.
But it seemed he was more bummed out that Eris was actually able to wound him and I was able to make him draw out his legendary 'godsword'. He was bummed out that he was knocked out for most of it, almost like he thought he didn't contribute at all.
But Arty did what Arty did best. He went back to the drawing board. From there he was able to cast the Lightening spell onto his sword and used his body as a medium. Again, colored me impressed.
From then on he would help out every now and again.
Like how he knew someone that can get us through the 'Red Dragon's Upper Jaw' when we needed to get Ariel to the capital. It was his teacher in the North god style.
If I had to describe her. She was a personality alright. But when I saw her skills, I couldn't help but think how she reminded me of a Kunoichi. She said she liked the sound of it and wanted to use the name for her style of North god style. But I interjected since she had a male student and suggested calling herself a Shinobi.
And thus the Shinobi style of the North God Style was born. She said she will help us since I gave her a nice name. Good thing too since the our enemy hired the 'Three Swords of the North God'. North Emperor tier opponents, each trickier than the last.
Hmm no that I think back as well, her fighting style also reminded me of Jackie Chan.
"Rudy who is that?"
"Ack, well let's just say he is a famous North god practiconer and leave it at that ok"
Hmmm I also guess the last time I saw him before that final battle would be when me, Cliff, and Aisha took my mom to go visit my grandma with my mother, Zenith.
He didn't do much. Actually, he was barely present. When I ran into him in the Millis Kingdom he said he was exploring the 'Blue Dragon Mountains' for something and he hit a dead end again.
After that incident with Zenith ... He mysteriously disappeared. No noticed, no letter, not even a goodbye.
He didn't come back until that final battle in the Beheiril Kingdom as he helped me out in my time of need.
Splash
"Hmmm that feels nice"
Arty was currently enjoying the hot water hitting his back. As he and Eris were finishing up.
Hmm ... Now that I think about it, that scar on his shoulder. I remembered it was still fresh when he came to help. I wondered what he was doing before he came to my rescue.
Should I ask him? Hmmm I wonder if it had to do something with how he finally impressed Orsted and now we are in this scenario.
But as I continued to examine Arty body, most noticably his ... Face
A chill ran down my spine for some reason. I felt ... Disgusted. Arty ... disgusting? ... No no those two don't mix ... But why?
I never got a really good look on his face before. Since he was a child his face was full of scales, hard scales. As a preteen, yea his scales were shedding but he still had a good amount on his face, not to mention his skin gave a 'fresh-like' appearance so it had to grow accustom to the environment. It was like when someone gets a sun burn and your skin peeled off. And when he was an adult in human terms at 15, he had about the same amount of scales as Orsted.
But from what I read and what experience Ruijerd got from the banish clanmen. The Hakuei aren't considered a adult until their scales fall off.
Ruijerd even noted from few he saw during the Laplace war. They also had a custom where they would make there scales into a somewhat sash they wore around there waist. The way he explained it, it almost sounded like they wore Obi sashes.
Even when he fully shedded. It was during our final battle with Badigadi so again I never got a good look.
"Hmm? Rudy is something wrong?"
"Yea Rudy ... Why are you just staring at Arty all of a sudden"
". . . . ."
Hmmm the Hakuei Clan, like the Dragon Tribe, should have silver hair and golden eyes. Heck at least some color to there silver hair. But Arty has black hair and black eyes. Almost like Nanahoshi .... Almost like ...
Boink
"Ouch"
"Rudy come on, snap out of, me and Arty already finished up"
"Ah" Maybe it was just my imagination, yea that must be it.
Arty tilted his head with that look he always gave ever since he was a child.
Yea I must be seeing things, not the cute and adorable Arty. The same one that followed me like a duckling
"Sorry, Hey Arty follow me I'll lead you to the guest room"
* * * * *
Arthur
"Well here you go"
"Thanks Rudy ... Good Ni-"
". . . . ."
"Rudy?"
"Ah ... I'm sorry ... Sleep well Arty. You and Aisha leave in a couple of days"
I walked into the room as I took in my surroundings. When he caught sight of a familiar sight
"Ah my stuff ... Thanks Rudy"
". . . . ."
"Rudy?"
"Ah ... It nothing. If you need anything, extra pair of clothes, some extra magic crystals, please feel free to ask. I can spare some. Good night"
The door shut close leaving me alone in this nice room.
Sigh what was that about?
I landed on the bed as I stared at the ceiling in a bit of confusion.
I've never seen Rudy stare at him like that
For some reason I felt a shiver go throughout my body. That look of ... Disgust ... Why does it feel so ... Familiar.
*Disgusting ... Why did you have to be like this ... You were suppose to fix everything for me*
A brief memory flashed in my mind.
The memory of a pretty lady with blackish sliver hair and golden eyes. She had a knife, I wonder why such a pretty lady would need a knife.
I always buried this away as I do not wish to recall it.
Sigh ... Ever since I found it ... It just keeps flooding back.
I just stared blankly at the ceiling as I clapped my cheeks together and I tried to sleep my worries away.
Time of Arty and Aisha departure: 2 days.