"We're back!"
Returning to Memoria Auspice was nothing new anymore. A few polite princesses that were just around clapped politely but most just left or continued on with their days.
"We need more friends." Helena concluded.
"What, do you want them to throw a party every time we come back?" Melia smirked.
"I mean, maybe a small one?"
"Parties are overrated."
"Well of course YOU would say that, Roko."
"To be fair, our last party was pretty big." Kaguya chuckled.
"A bit too big for my taste." Helena nodded, "We were more staff than party goers that time."
"Well I GUESS we could have a little party for ourselves." Melia teased.
"Nah, I'm still tired. I'm going to go to my room and nap. Nobody disturb me mkay."
"Yeah, same." Kaguya yawned, "Lot of stuff I had to leave behind up til the last minute. I think I'm done talking for a while now."
"Everyone exhausted huh?" Corissa smiled, "We do deserve some time to ourselves after everything I suppose."
"So...should I just leave or..."
"Aida!" Corissa shouted as she ran over and hugged the young teen, "Oh I'm so glad to see you!"
"Roko, why is she hugging me tighter than usual?" Aida asked, her voice muffled behind Corissa's chest.
"I'll explain later." Roko sighed.
"Aida, listen to this!" Corissa cried ecstatically as she pulled Aida away from her to look her in the eyes, "You have a sister!"
"Or you can just say it right now." Roko muttered.
Aida stared at Corissa, unsure of what the news meant, "So...like...you have a child?"
"Yep!"
"Oh...Who's the father?"
"Huh?"
"It's Roko right?"
"Eresh?!" Corissa yelped as she realized the dark elf was standing right next to Aida, "You're here too?!"
"I mean it better be Roko, right?" Aida remarked, "It can't be with anybody else could it?"
"No no, that's not the case!" Corissa yelped, her face burning up.
"Oh..." Aida's eyes narrowed, "...It wasn't with Roland was it?"
"What? Of course not." Corissa replied matter of factly.
"Oh good."
"I was worried there for a second."
Off in a corner, Roland stood slumped over, arm out leaning against a tree as he stared at the ground.
"You okay there, buddy~?" Helena asked teasingly as she patted Roland on the shoulder as Melia stood off to the side snickering.
"So when's the baby due?" Eresh asked.
"B-B-B-B-B-B-B-B-"
"Alright, I'm just gonna step in where while Corissa reboots." Roko sighed as Corissa was reduced to a stuttering repeating mess of embarrassment, "I bought a slave while I was in Mulapin."
"If I didn't know you, that'd be incredibly alarming." Eresh frowned.
"That's my line." Aida said.
"Well she's free now."
"She better be." Eresh nodded.
"So is she like an actual sister cause I'm still not sure if this family thing is legit or not." Aida asked.
"Well if nothing else, I hope you'll get along with her if you meet her."
"Anything special about her?"
"She's a spider."
"Like an arachne?" Eresh raised an eyebrow, "That's cool as hell. I hear they're very dangerous though."
"Well she should be younger than you both at least physically and mentally."
"I've never met an arachne." Aida tapped a chisel over her lips curiously, "I should do some research on them."
"Still woodworking?" Roko asked.
"Yep." Eresh nodded, leaning an arm on Aida's shoulder, "We've made millions."
"Millions of what? We haven't been THAT successful." Aida frowned, "I for one still haven't made much from my figures."
"That's because you need to start chasing trends." Eresh stressed, "Bears and birds are nice and all but if we want to get the big bucks we need to be relevant with the modern market."
"I don't know what modern folks want." Aida scowled, "I lived in an isolated village tribe for most of my life."
"That's what I'M here for. Okay now picture this...a shark...wearing sneakers."
"Aight, I'm going to head out for now." Roko said, withdrawing from the conversation immediately, "You all get Corissa back to her room safely when she finishes rebooting okay?"
"Okay!"
Roko then left as quickly as possible as further conversation continued between the two teens.
"So you want like a shark on like...all fours with sneakers on?"
"No, just three."
"Three? Why three?"
"Trust me, it'll sell millions."
"I dunno about this..."
The day after, as soon as he finished grabbing his breakfast, Roko headed off for the headmaster's office. Like many times before, Roko returned to report what Zadkiel already knew about their adventures. A tiring cycle that Roko wasn't even sure was bearing any fruit but he was pretty well committed to this routine now so he decided to walk in with an open mind and sit in front of the headmaster of the school that had been sending him all over the world. Said headmaster seemed to be in a good mood though you could never really tell with this person. Once Roko had taken the seat across from Zadkiel, the two just waited for the other to start saying something.
"So." Zadkiel smiled, "I've been watching..."
"Pervert." Roko muttered.
"And I have to say...you've gotten much stronger in...certain aspects."
"I doubt that." Roko scowled.
"You've done a lot for me and I want to thank you and tell you that you've well earned my trust."
"Fucking finally." Roko said, a bit louder.
"Well in truth, you had my trust ever since you returned from Momokami."
"That was chapter 62!"
"Roko, please. The fourth wall is breaking."
"Whatever." Roko sighed as he sat back in his chair, "Anyway, you then sent me to Gran Reveria to get stronger then to Mulapin to test out my new skills. So what's the next step now?"
"Hmm...well, I had still hoped you'd be a bit stronger than you are now. Frankly, I was hoping for hmmm...Varis level."
"You're insane."
"Mmm...Momo level then."
"Still impossible."
"Regardless." Zadkiel giggled, "I now trust you well enough to tell you...the secrets of this world."
Roko gulped. He wasn't sure what he was expecting but the secrets of the world sounds...a bit heavy. Maybe a bit more than he anticipated but Roko wasn't about to complain.
"...And that's why I've got one last assignment for you."
"Goddammit!" Roko slammed his fists on his chair's armrests in frustration.
"Now now." Zadkiel laughed, "I just figured you'd probably like to hear about these secrets from someone who knows more about them first hand."
"What does that mean?" Roko scowled.
Zadkiel just smiled mysteriously as she opened her drawer and pulled out a book and set it on the table, "I want you to deliver this to someone."
Roko immediately recognized the book. Sleek black hard cover. No title. Gold trimmings.
"Isn't that the grimoire I retrieved from Fuyuki?" Roko frowned, "You want me to hand something as dangerous as this to someone else?"
"Not just anyone." Zadkiel smiled, "They're experts."
"Experts on grimoires?" Roko repeated, intrigued, "Who would that be?"
"Who else?" Zadkiel grinned, "The Hero."
The Hero. Roko had heard about them in passing. Every odd so years, the Demon King would show up and a Hero would rise to defeat him. Or something like that. A classic RPG story line that Roko played through a few times. Never thought he'd live through it though. At least he wasn't a hero, that'd be too much responsibility. That said, Zadkiel had given him a few days to prepare as she needed a few more days to prepare an appropriate container to keep the grimoire and it's effects safe. In the meantime, Roko decided to do some more research on this purported hero. And to his surprise, there was nothing. Oh, there was plenty of records of PREVIOUS heroes. Records that Roko had already glanced in passing in studying for Corissa's holy spell but there was nothing on a currently active hero. A very...strange situation as one would figure they surely must've had some sort of presence to be called a hero but no records spoke of anybody like that being found, ordained or even in action. See as this was a modern problem, Roko went to consult some modern folks.
"The Hero?" Momo replied nonchalantly when Roko broached the subject with her, "Oh yeah, they definitely exist."
"Then how do you explain the lack of records?"
"Hmmm...that is really peculiar." Momo mused, "Then again I...I can't remember the last time I ever heard of the Hero fighting the Demon King."
"Why do you think that is?" Roko asked.
"Hm? Well, the demon's territory is pretty far away so even if we did get updates, it'd take a while to reach us..." Momo frowned, "I guess it's not that infeasible that we'd hear nothing for a long time. But to hear...absolutely nothing for years...I dunno, I guess we got used to nothing and figured everything was going well."
"Hmmm..."
"That's the best I got anyway. Maybe someone with some deeper connections might know something?"
"The Hero?" Helena frowned, "Damn, that's a pretty obscure thing to talk about nowadays."
"Why's that?"
"Well, I mean the hero's like the political policies of a radical government on the other side of the world. Too distant to really matter to most of us."
"Even to the underworld?"
"Damn, is that all I'm good for?" Helena grinned.
"Hey don't cut yourself short. You also snipe and keep Roland in check."
"Hey, you know what, you're right." Helena snickered, "But seriously, I've never heard the underworld discuss the modern Hero either. I guess I've never found it weird until now. I don't think their actions would be much concern for the underworld unless it got really bad...Hm. Now I'm curious. I can try looking into it for you."
"Just so long as you're careful."
"No problem. But I don't think the underworld will have much for ya. Maybe try someone more worldly?"
"So you came to me?" Kaguya frowned.
"I mean, you're the most knowledgeable person I know."
"True, I'm probably the only one who pays attention to the lessons here." Kaguya sighed.
"Really? What about umm...uh..."
"I know what you're thinking." Kaguya giggled, "And to be clear, Momo only cares about fighting, Helena only remembers things to pass the tests and immediately forgets them and Corissa...she struggles with a studies quite a bit."
"How bad is it?"
"Well she's certainly not failing by any means but she could use some help."
"...Is this a ploy?"
"Are you offering?"
Roko's eyes narrowed and Kaguya burst out into laughter, "I'm kidding, Roko. You probably wouldn't be able to help her with the subjects we deal with anyway."
"Mmhmm..."
"Anyway, in regards to your question about the Hero, I'm sorry to say I haven't heard anything either. At the very least, the Hero has not been bumming around in the farthest corners of the snowlands."
"So not in the corners of the land, the shadows of society or records of war." Roko mused who else is left?"
"I dunno. Have you tried asking the gods?"
"..."
"Wait, why'd you come to me for that?" Corissa yelped.
"I mean you seemed pretty knowledgeable about gods back when we were in Cordis." Roko shrugged.
"You remembered that?!"
"I mean you were tossing around some names I don't recognize."
"Ehehe...Cordis is not particularly religiously oriented but since we do accept most anyone, we end up picking up a lot of different staggering religious pilgrims. It's usually fine since their gods are gone, so they won't be restarting their religion again anytime soon or anything but...they wouldn't be fanatics if they didn't try anyway."
"You said it was hard to determine piety from business opportunists nowadays if I recall correctly."
"True. The gods used to stand for something but it's not like the god that once stood for kindness now being gone means we can no longer be kind to each other. But that's what some would continue to say. Selling ethics to monetize what people should already be doing. It's a deplorable state."
"Why's it your job to investigate them though?" Roko asked, "Is that the kind of thing the Queen of Cordis is supposed to do?"
"Oh no, my title isn't special in that regard or anything." Corissa smiled, "It's just...it was kind of the only thing my parents found I could do to help around the city."
"The only thing?" Roko frowned.
"Yes well...I know I'm a princess but I was born a village girl you know." Corissa laughed lightly, "I wanted to help out the people more directly. The problem is where ever I went there were people who...um..."
"Made advances on you?"
"Yeah..." Corissa sighed, "But when it came to these religious grifters, trying to bed me usually came into conflict with the very ethics they were trying to sell. But honestly, that doesn't even happen that often anymore. Nowadays I just study up on their god's history and ideas before entering negotiations with them in order to block their expansion efforts."
"Wow. So you're like some sort of...prosecutor but for gods?"
"Goodness, you make my job sound much more exciting than it actually is!" Corissa grinned sheepishly, "But it's really not much. I just couldn't stand doing nothing around the house so I tried to find something to keep me busy."
"I see. So that's why you're so knowledgeable on gods."
"Not that it's come particularly in handy since there are no gods around." Corissa shrugged, "And it's not like I ever met a god personally so I don't know what they're like either. All I know is their ethics and how much they cost."
"And how much is that?"
"None! And that's why I like you so much Roko." Corissa smiled, "You always know what the right thing to do is and you don't charge us for telling us!"
"Ooo, run that first line back, Corissa."
"S-Shut it or you won't be next, Eresh." Corissa said, stiffly trying to hide her retroactive embarrassment.
"Aw..."
"Yeah so I've been meaning to ask." Roko coughed, "Is it safe to just continue woodworking while getting your ears cleaned like that, Aida?"
"We've done it before." Aida shrugged as Corissa continued to lovingly clean her ears with her head on her lap, "A lot of times really."
"How often do you get your ears cleaned?"
"Very often after you kidnapped all of Corissa's friends to Mulapin." Eresh replied.
"S-Shush, Eresh!" Corissa hissed, "Roko doesn't need to know that!"
"Every other day she would clean our ears."
"You could probably hear the softest of breezes now then." Roko remarked.
"I can hear colors." Aida smirked, "But hey, it kinda feels good so whatever."
"AN. Y. WAY." Corissa coughed, "I'm afraid I've never heard of the current Hero either."
"Damn. Not even the most beautiful woman in the world has heard of them." Roko mused.
"What happened to my expertise on gods?!" Corissa yelped.