User blog:Thrycius/Zheiro and The Moonlight Sculptor: Chapter 17

'''Disclaimer: This is a crossover fanfic between Brave Frontier and The Legendary Moonlight Sculptor. I don't own either of those; they belong to their respective owners, namely Gumi/Alim and Nam-Hi-Sung (남희성) respectively.'''

'''Disclaimer (extended): This crossover fanfic now also contains some elements from the Type-Moon universe, owned entirely by Kinoku Nasu. I don't own anything from there, either.'''

Is this your first time seeing this story? Go directly to chapter 1 here!

Although they said they would be going to the country of Morgan now, Zheiro and his companions had decided to stop by in a nearby town to recover from their fight with the Juggernaut.

Thrycius claimed he was exhausted after having expended too much of his magic reserves, and Sarui wanted to recover all the paint she used up during the fight, but to Zheiro who barely had the energy to pick himself up now that his adrenaline rush had ceased, his companions looked as energetic as ever.

“How can you guys keep moving so much?” Zheiro protested as he was being dragged by the storyteller.

“No, I should be the one asking why you’re so exhausted when you barely did anything during the actual fight,” Sarui countered, crossing her arms.

“Hold up!” Zheiro vehemently protested. “I had to quickly carve a countless number of statues in preparation for our fight! Do you know how exhausting that was?”

“So?” Sarui retorted indifferently. “You’re supposed to be a sculptor. Sculpting has always been your job. But I’m a painter, yet I was made to fight a deity head on! So pick up the pace and walk already! It’s not like you used your feet to carve, you know!”

“No, that’s being unreasonable,” Zheiro grumbled. “Just because I carve with my hands doesn’t mean I was sitting the entire time without using my legs at all. And I think it that goes without saying that the only way I could carve through stone so quickly was thanks to the Moonlight Sculpting Blade technique, so I’m not just physically exhausted, but mentally as well.”

“Why are you still complaining? At least you got to use your skills for art. You call yourself a sculptor, so you should be happy to have exhausted yourself sculpting things.” Sarui argued. “But I had to waste a lot of paint for a meaningless battle!”

“You say that, but the statues I carved were made with the purpose of being destroyed! How can I be happy about that?” Zheiro argued back. “Besides—”

“All right, all right, that’s enough,” Thrycius interrupted, placing a hand on their heads. “Don’t start arguing just because the two of you are irritated from the exhaustion. Besides, we’re already at our destination.”

In response, Sarui whacked away the storyteller’s arm and harrumphed in dissatisfaction, and as for Zheiro…

Zheiro blinked as he realized that he hadn’t even noticed they had entered town while he was still arguing. How embarrassing, Zheiro thought. In the future, he would have to try to be more aware of his surroundings.

“Let’s go to the inn and have a meal, shall we? I’m sure after filling ourselves up and having a good rest we’ll all be back to our usual selves.” Thrycius said, laughing. “Oh, and Sarui,” Thrycius continued, handing over a heavy bag full of zel. “I really appreciated your assistance and willingness to use up your paint for our battle, so please take this to help replenish your stock.”

“It’s not like I was doing this for you,” Sarui grumbled, roughly grabbing the bag of zel out of the storyteller’s hand. In response, Thrycius simply laughed, before leaning over to whisper something in her ear.

“Really?” Sarui asked, her eyes slightly widening as the corner of her mouth turned up with excitement. “I’ll hold you up on that. If it’s a lie I’ll never forgive you.”

“Of course,” Thrycius replied, laughing like usual.

Sarui narrowed her eyes for a moment at his laughter before she turned around and stalked off into the distance, although Zheiro also noted that her steps weren’t as heavy as before. Zheiro may not have been able to hear what Thrycius had just said, but whatever it was it must have been magic because Sarui’s mood had visibly improved.

“Now then,” Thrycius said, turning back to Zheiro. “Let’s find ourselves an inn, shall we?”

“Are you serious?” Zheiro shouted in disbelief. “You’re not joking, are you?”

“I’m not lowering the price. One day is 2,400,000 zel per person.” The innkeeper stubbornly insisted. “Of course, if you were a summoner, the summoner discount is just 1 zel per person per day.”

“That’s absolutely ridiculous!” Zheiro protested. “What kind of dubious inn is this?”

“Now, now, Zheiro, there’s no need to panic.” Thrycius said, patting him on the shoulder while tossing out a small card towards the innkeeper. “Here’s my summoner’s ID card.”

The innkeeper scrutinized the card carefully “ID number 9076130877… you are registered as Thrycius. Well, I guess you’re really a summoner,” she said, frowning as she handed the card back. “In that case, the discount will be in effect so that’ll be 2 zel per day.”

“Make that 3,” Thrycius said, grinning as he tossed over a handful of zel. “We have another companion who’s not here at the moment. And we’ll probably be here for about a week, so that comes to a total of 24 zel. Feel free to keep the change.”

“Thank you for your patronage.”

“I didn’t know you were still a summoner.” Zheiro commented once they got to their room. “I thought you already quit to become a storyteller.”

“I did quit.” Thrycius easily admitted with a laugh as he bit into a dango that the inn happened to serve. “But I still held onto my ID despite everything. It’s quite convenient to have at times.”

“I can certainly see that,” Zheiro grumbled.

Seriously, wasn’t 2,400,000 zel a completely ridiculous amount for anyone who’s not a summoner to have on hand?

“Oh and by the way, Zheiro, you should rest up and try to recover quickly. Otherwise, you might get rusty with your sculpting skills.” Thrycius laughed. “You never know when you’ll need to sculpt again with such skill.”

“Thank you for the sentiment.” Zheiro grumbled. “But I think I’ll be taking full advantage of this week break here to relax.”

Still, Thrycius was right about that, so he quickly went to sleep for the day.

The next day, the three of them were out leisurely taking walk through the town.

“You know, as boring as it is, being an adventurer or summoner has a lot of perks, you know” Thrycius was saying. “You get the respect of the people, cheap rates at Inns, and you can even walk into people’s houses and take stuff.”

“Sounds like you’re describing a thief more than a summoner.” Sarui snarked. “Are you sure you got the job description down right?”

“Or rather, I thought you disliked summoners.” Zheiro pointed out. “Why are you taking the time to point out their benefits now?”

“Just because I dislike something doesn’t mean I will deny its existence.” Thrycius said laughing as they approached a peculiarly shaped building. “I’m not that immature.”

“...And why is that house shaped like a peanut shell?” Zheiro asked, confused.

“Who knows? You’ll have to ask the one who decided to build it,” Thrycius admitted freely. “Now, allow me to demonstrate what I was saying earlier…”

Without hesitation Thrycius swung open the door to the house, ready to step inside as if he owned the place.

“Oh hello there,” A voice excitedly called out from within. “This is a house only for summoners. Are you a summoner? I recently became a summoner. “

Within seconds, the newly-registered summoner was standing in the doorway.

“Recently?” Thrycius said, tilting his head as he stopped in his tracks. “I first registered to be a summoner quite a long while back.” he commented, conveniently leaving out the fact that he had also already quit long ago.

“Oh, so you’re a veteran summoner!” the summoner exclaimed, clasping his hands together with an expectant face as he conveniently completely misunderstood Thrycius’ words. “The other day I just summoned an Oracle Ziz. Tell me, is that good?”

A long moment of silence passed as Thrycius’ right eyebrow constantly twitched in annoyance, before suddenly slamming the door shut in the summoner’s face.

“And that,” Thrycius finally said as he turned around, “is why I find summoners annoying. Although,” Thrycius continued, looking back up at the house. “I have to admit, whoever built this thing is an absolute genius.”

Zheiro and Sarui tilted their heads in confusion at his final, random comment.

“Is it really okay for you to leave him hanging like that?” Zheiro eventually asked.

“Eh, who cares. Let’s just keep going.” Thrycius said, waving it aside like it was nothing as he stepped back onto the street. “Anyway, as I was saying…”

Since Thrycius apparently felt the need to keep rambling on nonstop for the rest of the day about everything that he could conceivably think of, Sarui had decided to drag Zheiro off in the middle of their walk.

“Since we’re taking a break here, now is the perfect opportunity.” Sarui said with a slightly wicked grin.

“Is it really okay to leave Thrycius behind?” Zheiro asked. He had a pretty bad feeling about this.

“Of course,” Sarui stated imperiously. “Zheiro, I challenge you to another art contest!”

Zheiro blinked at the sudden statement, before Thrycius’ words from the night before hit him like a truck.

''“Oh and by the way, Zheiro, you should rest up and try to recover quickly. Otherwise, you might get rusty with your sculpting skills.” Thrycius had said, laughing. “You never know when you’ll need to sculpt again with such skill.”''

T-that annoying storyteller, he had known all along!

Zheiro wanted to scream in frustration. “Didn’t we just fight the Juggernaut the other day? We’re both exhausted, so why are you challenging me now all of a sudden?”

“It’s already been a day since we’ve arrived. Don’t tell me you haven’t recovered yet?” Sarui said, not waiting for him to answer. “We’ve got a week to relax here, so we should take the time and see who’s skills are better now.”

For some reason, Zheiro felt it was a bad idea to retort about getting only a day to recover, since it was Sarui he was talking to. “Can we at least try to make this contest quick, then? I don’t want it to last a full week like it did last time.”

“Well, that depends on the speed of your sculpting!” Sarui said. “Then, it’s decided. Let’s have a contest right here. The townspeople will be the ones to decide who the winner is.”

They ended up finishing within a day.

The topic this time, they had decided, was to portray a goddess. Zheiro had no problems since he had seen Thrycius summon Zellha before, and so she had become his model.

Zheiro was able to drastically speed up his carving rate with his Moonlight Sculpting Blade technique. It was like trying to carve butter with a hot knife—the only thing he had to worry about was not to make a mistake.

On the other hand, continued use of the technique made him feeling even more exhausted. But their second contest was finally over.

Unfortunately, Sarui’s initial decision to allow the townspeople to judge their contest was probably a really, really, bad idea.

“As expected, the painting is much nicer.” the first townsperson said. Sarui initially nodded her head in agreement, but froze when she heard what their first commenter had to say about it. “As expected, 2D is better than 3D!”

“Hah?” Sarui said with shock. “Are you serious? That’s why you decided mine was better?”

“No no,” a second townsperson interjected. “The sculpture is better. 3D is obviously better than 2D.”

“You’re wrong!” Townsperson #1 shouted. “My 2D girlfriends will never betray me, unlike 3D ones!”

“You can’t interact with 3D girls properly, though!” Townsperson #2 argued. “You can’t have a 2D girl in your bed!”

Zheiro could only palm his face at the stupidity of it all.

“Yes you can!” Townsperson #1 retorted. “2D girls are so much more fun to—”

“ENOUGH!” Sarui roared, smacking both of them and sending them sprawling. “Neither of your feedback is remotely useful for this contest—”

“GYAAAAH!” Townsperson #1 screamed as he rolled in pain on the ground. “I told you 2D was better!”

“THAT…” Townsperson #2 yelled as he too wriggled about on the ground. “THAT WAS SO GOOD! HIT ME AGAIN!”

Zheiro decided he was probably better off ignoring those idiots and pretending he never knew them.

“This was a contest for depicting a goddess, right?” Townsperson #164 said, looking at both the painting and the sculpture.

“Yes, yes it is,” Sarui said, looking completely frazzled. “Please tell me you will judge this contest properly, unlike the 163 idiots before you.”

“That was most certainly my intent,” townsperson #164 said, crossing his arms. “So WHY ISN’T MIMIR DEPICTED?!?!?”

Zheiro had already given up trying to retort could only sit there, exhausted just by listening to all these idiots.

“What the heck are you talking about?” Sarui argued. “Mimir isn’t a goddess—”

“BLASPHEMY! MIMIR IS LOVE, MIMIR IS LIFE!”

Sarui could only palm her own face in resignation. “I should have known better than to ask the commoners to even try judging our contest,” she moaned.

“Ha ha ha!” Familiar laughter sounded from behind them. “I’ve forgotten summoners like that exist! Ha ha ha ha ha!”

“Thrycius!” Zheiro shouted. “When did you get here?”

“Not too long ago,” Thrycius admitted. “I arrived right when one of the townspeople begged Sarui to hit him again.”

“I’m pretty sure that was near the beginning of our judging!” Zheiro retorted. “Couldn’t you have said something sooner?”

“Hmm? Nah, watching this was too amusing,” Thrycius said chuckling to himself. “And I already told Sarui the day before that I wouldn’t interfere with your contest should she challenge you sometime this week.”

“Why are you still holding back?,” Sarui interjected. “It’s already quite clear that no one here is competent enough to judge our contest except you, and it wouldn’t be fair if Zheiro or I judged it ourselves. Besides, judging the contest wouldn’t be interfering, but rather helping it progress further, so there’s no harm in doing so.”

“You’re absolutely right,” Thrycius said, laughing. “Then, shall I?”

“Hold up!” Townsperson #164 shouted. “I refuse to allow this! It’s clear that both of them failed since neither of them depicted Mimir!”

“SHUT UP!” Sarui roared.

Her voice was so loud and full of power that everything in the vicinity was immediately silenced— at least until Thrycius started laughing again.

“That was a good voice, Sarui,” Thrycius acknowledged, before turning to townsperson #164. “And as for you… You really like Mimir, don’t you?”

“Like I said, Mimir is love, Mimir is life!” Townsperson #164 declared.

“If that’s the case, if you keep walking in that direction you’ll definitely find Mimir.” Thrycius said with a grin, pointing in a direction that led out of town. “Just keep going that way until you find some ruins, I saw Mimir there a while ago.”

Before Thrycius could even finish speaking the townsman had already run off full speed, never to be seen again.

“Are you sure that’s okay?” Zheiro asked. “Isn’t it a bit dangerous out there?”

“Ah, don’t worry,” Thrycius said, laughing. “His utter devotion to Mimir will probably keep him alive. Probably.”

“You’re not even sure!” Zheiro retorted.

“Anyway, my thought about your work so far,” Thrycius said, continuing on. “Zheiro, you sculpted all this in a single day, huh?”

“Y-yeah, what about it?” Zheiro asked, suddenly feeling nervous.

“This is really impressive! Magic really is some amazing stuff!” Thrycius praised. “You must have gotten a lot of practice using your Moonlight Sculpting Blade technique when we were preparing to fight the Juggernaut!”

Now that Zheiro thought about it, he really did use that technique extensively before that battle. Was that really enough for him to master such a technique?

“But still, using Zellha as your model? I’m surprised,” Thrycius said, despite still grinning. “I thought you would have used someone else. In any case, considering your skill, it’s not bad, but I know you can do better. Visually, it looks nice, but unlike that bouquet you carved for me the first time we met, there’s a distinctive lack of artistic presence here, which lowers your score somewhat.”

“I see,” Zheiro nodded.

“And as for your painting,” Thrycius said, turning towards Sarui. “I can’t say there’s been much improvement in skill since the last one.”

“Doesn’t that just mean that there’s nothing left for me to improve on?” Sarui said imperiously.

“Are you saying,” Thrycius said with a smirk, “That with all the talent and skill that you have, this is the farthest you can go?”

“Wha—”

“If that’s the case, you’ll never surpass me. And Zheiro here is already quickly catching up; the only reason why his sculpture here isn’t up to par is because he didn’t put his all into it, so it’s lacking that presence that marks it as true art. Yours, on the other hand, while I can certainly feel that presence I was looking for, the skill used to create that painting doesn’t quite match up to his. In short, another tie.”

Sarui frowned. “I see. Certainly, I can not deny that your skill is currently greater than mine. But for Zheiro to be catching up, I must be getting ahead of myself.”

“You certainly were,” Thrycius confirmed. “But well, the only reason I’m better than you at the moment is simply because I have far more experience than you do. It’s true that I’m older, but it’s also true that you had only started painting around…what, around 7-8 years ago? You may be talented, but you still have much to learn.”

“Eh?” Zheiro said, staring at Sarui. “That short? I started years before that!”

It had been eleven years since Zheiro had been separated from his childhood friend, and he had more or less been practicing his sculpting ability nonstop since then. And Zheiro had started sculpting another few years before that!

“That’s a pretty accurate guess,” Sarui finally acknowledged. “Yeah, I think it’s been about that long.”

“Thrycius, just how old are you, anyway?” Zheiro questioned, finally decided to ask Thrycius. The storyteller looked to be around his high 20s, but it was kind of hard to tell with someone like him.

“Oh my, asking me such a question out of the blue,” Thrycius said, laughing. “Sarui, how old are you?”

“Huh? That’s not a question you should be asking a lady,” Sarui frowned further.

“Exactly,” Thrycius said, laughing. “Don’t you know it’s impolite to ask questions like that towards a lady?”

“YOU’RE NOT A LADY SO NO ONE CARES!” Sarui shouted, landing a punch on Thrycius’ face.

With a scream, Thrycius was sent flying once again while Zheiro could only palm his face at the stupidity of it all.

“Anyway,” Thrycius said after they cleaned up after themselves and had settled down for the night. “While you two were having that art contest I decided to go get some information.”

“Information about what?” Zheiro asked.

“Why the Juggernaut was still around despite it having already been defeated by a certain upcoming famous summoner, of course,” Thrycius said.

“Yeah, I was surprised too,” Sarui admitted. “I’ve already heard of the rumors of the deity Creator Maxwell and all his deity subordinates being defeated by a certain summoner. So to hear that the Juggernaut was still here, I was surprised.”

“Wait a moment,” Zheiro interrupted. “Was I the only one here who had no idea who the Juggernaut was?”

“Pretty much,” Thrycius admitted with his usual grin.

“Does that mean we actually just did something really awesome?” Zheiro asked excitedly.

“Technically, I suppose so, but Sarui did most of the work,” Thrycius reminded him.

“And even if Zheiro weren’t there we probably still could have won anyway,” Sarui continued. “Having sculpted statues attack was a nice touch, but it was also unnecessary.”

“I really don’t want to hear how useless I was from you,” Zheiro grumbled.

“Moving along,” Thrycius continued. “That certain summoner—”

“Does that summoner not have a name?” Zheiro interrupted. “Constantly calling him or her a ‘certain summoner’ seems like a hassle. Since that summoner is more or less famous already, I’m quite sure you already know their name.”

“Well, how do I put this,” Thrycius said, chuckling. “I certainly do know that summoner’s name. Or rather, that summoner has over 10 million different names and having to know all of them is such a hassle.”

“O-over 10 million?” Zheiro nearly shouted. “Are you serious?”

“That’s the strange thing about this summoner. Known by so many different names, yet they all refer to the same person… It’s strange, isn’t it?” Thrycius said, laughing. “Well, regardless, if I had to call that summoner by something… I think the “player” would be quite suitable.”

‘What, so that summoner is popular with all the women?” Sarui asked, frowning.

“Ha ha ha! Maybe, maybe not.” Thrycius said, laughing. “Regardless, we’re moving off track. First, it’s undisputable that this “player” character really did defeat the Maxwell as well as his subordinates, which include the Juggernaut. It’s already been officially confirmed.”

“Right, but we still ended up running into the Juggernaut anyway,” Zheiro pointed out.

“That’s right. However,” Thrycius continued, “It turns out the Juggernaut we fought was a fake.”

“Another fake!?” Zheiro exclaimed. “Wait, if we didn’t even fight the real thing, does that mean that we actually had it easy?”

“On the contrary, no,” Thrycius replied. “It may be a fake, but it’s apparently a perfect copy of the real thing. Turns out one particular researcher back in Randall named Noel set this up.”

“Why would he do something as crazy as this?” Sarui asked. “Making copies of a deity is no easy task, nor is it something that most people could easily ignore.”

“For the sake of research, of course!” Thrycius shouted, posing. “Or at least, that’s exactly what he told me.”

“You spoke with him?” Zheiro asked, surprised. “You mean he’s here?”

“No, he’s still in Randall.” Thrycius admitted. “I just visited him for a while and then came back.”

Zheiro stared at him blankly for a few moments, before giving up.

When it comes to Thrycius, sometimes it was better not to ask questions—at times, he could be even more unreasonable and definitely more unpredictable than Sarui.

“I’ll have you explain how you did that to me later,” Zheiro decided. “So? In other words, Noel just felt like it?”

“It’s for the sake of research, not just because he felt like it,” Thrycius said, laughing. “Besides, it comes with the dual effect of being a test for new summoners travelling through the area.”

“A test? What kind of ridiculous test requires you to fight a deity?” Zheiro asked.

“One that challenges your strength, of course.” Thrycius said, as if it was obvious. “Of course, summoners actually have it easy since they can summon an entire squad of ancient legends to fight for them.”

“Well, if you put it that way,” Zheiro admitted. “I guess that’s true.”

“Besides, the monsters in Morgan are harder to defeat than the monsters in Mistral, so us beating the Juggernaut means we’re ready to go onto the next area, apparently.”

“Wait a moment.” Sarui suddenly cut in. “Does this mean we’ll have to face Abaddon and Maxwell at some point in the future as well?”

“Most likely,” Thrycius confirmed with a smile.

“Seriously, what a pain,” Sarui said. “I’m not looking forward to that at all.”

“Wait, Sarui,” Zheiro said, turning towards her. “You’re still going to travel with… What are you doing?”

Before him, Sarui was painting on the walls of the inn room they were in, creating one giant mural.

“Giving this place a much better decor, of course.” Sarui said, as if it was obvious. “And as for me travelling with you two, isn’t it obvious? I’ve already decided that I wanted to see your Moonlight Sculpting for myself so I could defeat it with my skill.”

“I, I see, “ Zheiro said, not sure what to say after being faced with such ridiculousness.

Zheiro decided to take back his statement about Thrycius being more unreasonable and unpredictable than Sarui.

She could be just as ridiculous as well!

And so, the week came to an end and it was time for them to leave for Morgan.

Although they were supposed to be there to relax, Zheiro felt even more exhausted leaving then when he had first arrived—but he was also glad to finally be leaving.

Finally, after a week of nonsense he could get back on track and learn how to sculpt the moonlight!

A/N: Chapter 10.5 may have been a joke chapter, but this is a chapter full of jokes.

Anyway, I actually didn't expect to upload this quickly either, but things happened and here we are, lol.

''There are quite a lot of jokes here, some of which should be really obvious and others a bit more subtle. Hope you enjoy it.''

Oh, and I know we don't have a proper exploration type RPG for BF so there's no house for us to wander in and randomly take anything we can, but I couldn't resist cracking a joke about that too.

''Other than the jokes, this is more like a recovery chapter after the intense battle last chapter. After this we'll be going straight through Morgan.''

''There were also some other info bits here and there. Actually, I was also planning on explaining about the existence of the gates Lucius controls which allow us to travel from one continent quickly to another, but the chapter was getting long enough as it is so I decided to explain that later.''

''As always, special thanks to Restire for proofreading this chapter. And please leave a comment even if you didn't like it; constructive criticism is always helpful. Thanks!''

Previous Chapter Next Chapter