User blog:Thrycius/Zheiro and The Moonlight Sculptor: Chapter 15

'''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!

Zheiro panted, leaning heavily on his sword as he observed his surroundings.

Around him lay hundreds of broken bones scattered about, all by his doing.

“Another failure,” Zheiro groaned to himself. “This is pretty difficult.”

Suddenly, Zheiro was struck by a sense of deja vu. Something about this scene felt awfully familiar, which shouldn’t have been the case.

After all, didn’t he just come back after practicing projection for an idea he had for taking down skeletons? So why was he still failing just as much as before?

His initial idea had been to project a sharp blade and use it to fight against the skeletons, but when he tried that it just sputtered out and disappeared when it made first contact with a skeleton, forcing him to resort back to his sword for a while.

The same result also occurred when he attempted to overlay his projection with his sword.

For a last attempt he also tried manipulating as much prana onto his hand as he could before throwing it at a skeleton, but it was highly inefficient, quickly dissipating as it flew. Releasing it at close range simply knocked back the skeleton as well, as if he had thrown a punch. A very exhausting one, at that, not to mention it had blown him back as well.

Who knew magic could be so inefficient?

He was probably using magic the wrong way, but at the same time it’s not like he had a proper teacher. Thrycius may be teaching him, but it was also true that Thrycius had long admitted that he was just a storyteller, not a teacher.

Zheiro gathered his breath as more skeletons approached.

There wasn’t much time to rest out here, so he would just have to keep trying.

It wasn’t until much later that he finally made visible progress.

One of his Projections, yet another knife, had managed to maintain shape as it sunk into one of the skeletons without physically cutting into the bone. There was some resistance, but it was still something.

Zheiro would have continued pushing the knife through, but as expected the skeleton attacked in rage, forcing him to abandon the Projected knife, which quickly dissipated yet again.

Still, progress was progress

It turned out that concentrating too much prana caused it to become too dense, able to physically damage the skeletons, and too little would cause the prana to simply lose control and sputter out when it came in contact with the darkness within the skeletons. In other words, this task was actually a test of his ability to precisely control his prana output while in combat.

A rather difficult task, but another week later and Zheiro finally found himself looking at a normal skeleton lying on the floor, the grasp of darkness forcibly ripped away from it.

Zheiro collapsed from exhaustion, quite sure that the area was already clear of enemies for the moment.

“Hmm, not bad,” a familiar voice suddenly rang out.

“Wha-!” Zheiro shrieked in surprise as he instinctively leapt to his feet, his sword ready, before he realized what he was doing. “Thrycius, don’t scare me like that!”

“Ha ha ha! Really, Zheiro, you’re completely overworking yourself. You’ve been too tense lately, so it should be good to take a break every once in a while,” Thrycius commented with a laugh as he glanced over at the skeleton lying on the floor. “Still, I won’t deny that you’ve certainly achieved results today, judging by the skeleton here.”

“So, did I pass?” Zheiro asked, lowering his sword, relaxing.

“I did ask you to take down some skeletons, not just one—but considering the amount of progress made in such a short amount of time, I’m already satisfied with this.” Thrycius said with a grin. “Besides, it’s not like you wouldn’t be able to replicate what you did just now. So yes, you pass.”

“So, how many points did I get?” Zheiro asked, curious.

“Oh? I’m surprised, you’re already asking for how well you did.” Thrycius laughed. “Are you really that curious?”

“Well, yeah,” Zheiro admitted. “Although it’s your explanation afterwards that I usually look more forward to, because that’s when you tell me what I can do to improve.”

“Oh? That’s a wonderful mindset you have there, Zheiro. Very well! I shall tell you: If I had to score your efforts here today… I would give you a 15.”

“Out of a hundred? That’s a pretty terrible score.” Zheiro lamented, once again sinking to the floor. “How did I pass with a score so low?”

“I’m not scoring your success rate, I’m scoring what I think of your only success, which was enough to pass the test—in other words, I am simply scoring you based on all possible outcomes that would still pass my test.” Thrycius answered with his usual slight grin. “Now, as for what you were looking forward to: your control over prana is still quite rough, not to mention that you pretty much used brute force to remove the darkness from the skeleton. The skeleton might look untouched to you, but if you looked carefully you actually nicked its bones quite a number of times. I won’t deny that I did say it was okay to use brute force, but in the future I will expect more finesse from an artist like you. If you want to improve further, this is the first thing you should worry about. The rest, I can tell you afterwards.”

“I see.” Zheiro replied. “So, does that mean we are going to continue on our journey again?”

“Yep.” Thrycius replied with a laugh, turning around as he made his way back to camp. “So, hurry up and get off the floor so we can go.”

With an exhausted sigh, Zheiro slowly picked himself up and followed after his storytelling companion.

It actually didn’t take very long for them to gather all their belongings and leave on to their next destination. Apparently Thrycius had already known they would be leaving today and had already packed everything up beforehand, so by the time they returned they were all already set to go.

It didn’t even take long for them to leave the Monster’s Nest, and so before they knew it they were already standing at the foot of a rather large tower.

“This is the Tower of Mistral.” Thrycius said dramatically. “It would have been a pretty nice tourist attraction if it weren’t for all the monsters inhabiting it now.”

“A tourist attraction? I find that hard to believe,” Sarui remarked, crossing her arms as she looked up and down the tower, examining it. “There’s nothing here worthy enough to be considered art. The tower itself isn’t even all that remarkable. Whoever made this must be quite ashamed of themselves.”

“Would you like to see it for yourselves?” Thrycius asked. “The interior might actually be more interesting.”

“I’m not interested.” Sarui instantly replied. “Just looking at it is enough to tell me that it wouldn’t catch my interest.”

“Well, you might not be interested, but you’re also a painter,” Zheiro shot back. “But I’m a sculptor, so there might be something interesting for me inside; for example, the way parts of it may have been carved.”

“No, even if you’re a sculptor, that doesn’t change anything.” Sarui argued. “There does not appear to be any presence of true art anywhere in the vicinity.”

“What are you talking about?” Zheiro asked, confused with Sarui’s ridiculous claim. “The presence of true art?”

“As my rival, I expected you to know this already.” Sarui said disdainfully. “But I suppose I must educate you myself. Good works have a sort of presence to them. It’s what differentiates true art from everything else. A skilled artist like me can usually detect it, but I sense nothing here.”

Before he knew it, Zheiro found himself looking to Thrycius for an explanation. Usually, his explanations were much easier to understand.

“Are you confused, Zheiro?” Thrycius asked, his grin growing wider. “Sarui’s not entirely wrong, but it’s not something easily explained, either. Even if I tried, you’re better off experiencing it on your own. Don’t worry, you’ll eventually learn as you continue going down your path as a sculptor.”

Zheiro didn’t really have anything to say in response. In the first place, how could he make an argument against something he didn’t even understand?

“Well, in any case,” Zheiro decided. “I want to see it for myself. We can go inside to check things out for a bit, can we not?”

“We can,” Thrycius acknowledged. “Sarui claims that there won’t be anything interesting inside, but it’s also true that you might miss something if you don’t properly search in every nook and cranny.”

“Hmph. Such tedious searching should be left to the commoners.” Sarui grumbled. “But if that’s what it takes to convince you, then so be it.”

“You’re coming along too?” Zheiro asked Sarui, surprised. Since she already seemed convinced that there was nothing interesting inside, there wasn’t any particular reason to go in with them.

“How else do you expect me to convince you that there’s nothing interesting within?” Sarui asked, as if it was obvious. “Since you currently lack the ability to discern true art from everything else, my presence will speed up our exploration of the tower by a large margin.”

“Wait, are you saying Thrycius isn’t good enough to discern the difference?” Zheiro asked, looking at the storyteller who only grinned in response.

“On the contrary,” Sarui said, also looking at Thrycius. “While I hate to admit it, he probably has an even better eye than I do for this kind of thing. However, given his personality, if you went alone with him you’ll probably waste even more time than necessary, wouldn’t you agree?”

Zheiro couldn’t deny that. Thrycius was prone to tell lengthy stories whenever anything came up, and he himself had claimed to have all the time in the world.

“And now that she’s made her case clear,” Thrycius interrupted their conversation with a grin, gesturing towards the tower. “Shall we?”

A few hours later, Zheiro was starting to acknowledge that Sarui might really have been right all along.

There really wasn’t much interesting inside for him; any sculpting techniques that were used during the construction of the tower were mediocre at best, and they had already spent hours just trying to climb the tower.

“Are you happy, now?” Sarui vindicated as they stood somewhere in the middle of the tower. “There really was nothing interesting for us here—”

And that was when a loud roar shook the tower, interrupting her as they all tried to recover their balance.

“Now what?” Zheiro shouted, looking about wildly. The tower wasn’t going to collapse on them now, was it? “Thrycius, what’s happening?”

“Hmm,” Thrycius replied calmly, the slight grin on his face ever present as always, standing unperturbed by the shaking tower. “This was rather unexpected. I didn’t expect the Juggernaut to still be around.”

“The Juggernaut!?” Sarui and Zheiro both exclaimed in surprised.

“Wait, who’s this Juggernaut?” Zheiro continued, confused. Ignorant about many things, the name by itself meant nothing to him, but probably it was referring to something dangerous.

“You don’t know?” Thrycius asked. “The Juggernaut is a mechanical deity under Creator Maxwell.”

“A deity!?” Zheiro exclaimed, his eyes widening.

“Yep. Although, I’m more curious as to why it’s still here,” Thrycius admitted. “The Juggernaut should have already been defeated by a certain upcoming famous summoner, so I didn’t expect it to still be alive.”

“Wait, I thought you knew everything.” Zheiro asked, confused. “How could you not know?”

“I don’t know everything,” Thrycius said, laughing. “I just know what I know.”

Zheiro palmed his face in frustration.

“In any case,” Sarui interrupted, “Whoever that summoner is, and whether or not that summoner actually defeated the Juggernaut is entirely irrelevant right now.”

“That’s right!” Zheiro continued. “We should get out of here and run! There’s no way we can face something like that!”

“Well, you’re certainly right, there’s no way you and I would be able to face that thing on directly,” Thrycius admitted. “It’s way too early for you to face something on that magnitude. But at the same time, it appears that it has no intent of just letting us leave unscathed.”

“So, we’re trapped.” Zheiro said in defeat. “What should we do now?”

“Isn’t it obvious?” Sarui said, crossing her arms. “If it won’t let us go, we just have to defeat it.”

“Weren’t you listening?” Zheiro protested. “Thrycius just said it is impossible for us to defeat that thing!”

“No, you’re the one who wasn’t listening,” Thrycius said, laughing. “I only said it was too difficult for you and I to face it directly. Sarui, on the other hand, might be able to do it, but she would need support to survive.”

“What are you talking about you idiot, I already know you’re far more skilled than you let on; probably enough to the point where you could face it head on yourself.” Sarui harrumphed. “Stop downplaying your skills so much, storyteller.”

“Ha ha ha! No, no, you’re wrong there, Sarui,” Thrycius laughed. “The Juggernaut is a mechanical deity that fights with lightning, which just so happens to be my weakness, so it really is impossible for me.”

“Really?” Sarui asked, completely skeptical. “Well, no matter. If you’re going to keep insisting, I’ll just have to kick that deity down a notch and force our way out myself.”

“Ah, hold on,” Thrycius said, grabbing her arm before she could leave. “We might not be able to face it head on, but we’ll support you. And to do that effectively, we’ll need a plan…”

“Ah, Ixia, are you in?”

Ixia didn’t even bother glancing up at the door as she carefully set aside the clothes she had been working on today. “Come in,” she replied, taking a relaxed posture on her chair.

The queen gracefully entered the room, shutting the door behind her, before suddenly spinning around in a light dance as she made her way over to Ixia.

“Well, someone’s in a good mood today,” Ixia commented with a slight smile.

“And a certain friend sitting before me decided not to bow to me today, so I’m in an even better mood!” The queen replied, taking her usual seat. “More importantly, I heard you were learning magic from the court magician. Is this true?”

“Yes, that is true.” Ixia confirmed with a smile. “I’ve started learning magic only a short while ago. Are you interested?”

“Interested?” The queen asked. “Why, of course I’m interested. It’s magic! Something that allows us to go beyond the normal realms of possibility! Doesn’t it excite you?”

“Hmm,” Ixia thought about it. “To be honest, it does interest me a little, and while I did agree to learn, I’m actually not sure what I should do with magic. In the first place, I still have much to learn before I can actually do anything with it.”

“Is that so?” The Queen asked. “I was hoping you would have been able to demonstrate a bit for me, but oh well.”

“Ha ha,” Ixia laughed. “Maybe once I’m actually able to do something I’ll show you what I can do.”

“Promise?”

“Yeah, I promise.”

“In any case,” the Queen continued. “Why did you agree if you weren’t sure what to do with it?”

Ixia stayed silent for a few moments as she rolled the question around in her head. “How should I put this…” She eventually said. “I wanted to learn something new and become a stronger person in mind, I guess?”

“Really? I think you are already a pretty strong person in that regard,” the Queen admitted. “After all, you’ve managed to successfully refuse my husband’s advances numerous times now.”

“That’s not very hard to do when I’ve already decided long ago that there was someone else I was interested in.” Ixia replied. “Speaking of which, how is the King doing, anyway? I haven’t seen him very often lately.”

The last time she had seen the King was when they ran into each other while she was going to visit the magician, and that was weeks ago. Considering that the King was very prone to visiting quite often even when busy, it was rather unusual.

“Ah, that guy? Lately he’s always in his study doing who knows what. He doesn’t even let me assist in whatever he’s doing like he used to.” The Queen complained. “But who cares about that old fart, at least he’s not bothering you as much anymore, right?”

Ixia felt her eyebrow twitch. “‘Who cares’, you say, aren’t you supposed to be his wife?”

“I may be his wife, but I’m also your friend, so there’s no reason for me to act politely about it, is there?” The Queen said, nodding to herself. “And it’s not like I actually hate him either, you know.”

“Is that so?” Ixia asked. If the Queen said so herself, then it was probably fine.

“Yeah,” The Queen replied. “So let’s go back on topic. Since you haven’t decided what you want to do with your magic, let’s talk about that for a bit instead!”

“Hey, hey, I still have my own job to do as well, you know,” Ixia replied, gesturing to the clothes she had been making before the Queen had entered.

“It’s fine, it’s fine. If anyone asks what took you so long, you can just say that I, the Queen, held you up for a bit.” The Queen laughed. “So let’s talk about what you can use your magic for instead.”

“Ha ha!” Ixia laughed. She wasn’t really against it in the first place, after all. “Initially, I was thinking about learning how to control time…”

And thus, for the next few hours Ixia and the Queen laughed and talked about magic, another rare moment of enjoyment for the two of them.

A/N: Double update, although it's mostly as an apology for taking so long to update.

''More filler stuff, and some progression of the plot as it leads to a fight next chapter. It shouldn't be as short as vs Luna, so look forward to that.''

''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!''

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