User blog:Thrycius/Zheiro and The Moonlight Sculptor: Chapter 19

'''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.'''

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“That…” Zheiro trailed off, as he looked at the wasteland before them. “That was really short.”

It had actually taken them only a minute to leave after Sarui had painted on their faces, and another 5 minutes to run through the forest.

To be honest, Zheiro wasn’t sure if they normally would have taken longer or shorter to get through the forest. On one hand, both he and Sarui had a lot of things they wanted to do there: for Zheiro, practice for his sculpting skills would have been nice, and apparently Sarui could find a lot of materials for her paints within the forest. On the other hand, monsters did get in their way which normally would have slowed them down, but Sarui quickly smacked them aside before ripping them to shreds and meticulously reorganizing what she could gather from their remains, apparently for later use.

Okay, maybe Sarui actually did manage to grab materials for her paints along the way.

Zheiro shuddered at how effortlessly and ruthlessly Sarui was able to do such things, however. Seeing her act in such a way, he made a mental note never to get on her bad side.

“I have to agree,” Thrycius said, nodding in response to Zheiro’s comment. “I never imagined the Nocturnal Forest to be so small. Well, most of these areas are actually a lot smaller than one might think based on the stories, especially considering that we storytellers have the right to exaggerate things for the sake of entertainment.”

“You’re a storyteller yourself, so why are you surprised about such a thing?” Sarui asked, snorting in disbelief.

“I knew it was exaggerated,” Thrycius admitted, “But even then I didn’t expect it to be this small. Is there anything wrong with that?”

“...I suppose not,” Sarui conceded.

“More importantly,” Zheiro interrupted, “What should we do now? We only knocked those assassins or whatever they were unconscious, so we don’t know when they will wake up and chase after us.”

“That actually brings me to an important topic I will have to talk to you about, Zheiro,” Thrycius replied. “But for now, if we rush on ahead it shouldn’t be too much of a problem. After all, while you two were fighting through the Nocturnal Forest I did take some effort to hide our tracks.”

“Did you, now?” Sarui asked. “Is that why you were hanging back quite a bit while we ran and fought?”

“Of course. There’s no point in running away if we leave an obvious trail behind us; we might as well be announcing to everyone where we are if we do that.” Thrycius said, laughing. “Anyway, shall we continue running? We still have some ways to go if we want to put a good amount of distance between us and those assassins. Sarui, this time you can lead the way; meanwhile, I’ll discuss Zheiro’s future actions concerning other potential assassins.”

“See that you do,” Sarui said, nodding as she readied her paintbrush for the upcoming battles against more monsters. “Not only was he rather useless when they showed up, he made a complete fool of himself. I suppose I’ll have to leave his education to you.”

“Leave it to me!” Thrycius said confidently. “Now, Zheiro, let’s talk.”

Zheiro did not have a particularly good feeling about this.

“Zheiro,” Thrycius started, casually walking as they followed behind a certain crazy woman smacking aside monsters like they were mere annoyances.

“Yes?” Zheiro replied, not sure what Thrycius was going to start talking about now as he struggled to keep up. Sure, he knew that the topic must have been somewhat related to the assassins, but he could never be sure. After all, he never really knew what the storyteller was thinking.

And how was it that Thrycius could simply walk to stay behind Sarui, whereas he had to half-run, half-walk just to keep up?

“I’ve told you once before that assassins were after you.” Thrycius simply stated.

“You certainly did… but what about it?” Zheiro asked

“I did try to teach you combat against humans using the Imperial Formless Sword Technique, but actually fighting other humans seems to be another issue for you, based on what I’ve seen.” Thrycius commented.

“Well…” Zheiro hedged, not sure how to reply. This wasn’t exactly an easy topic for him. “Yeah, it might really be an issue for me. It’s a bit scary, unlike fighting monsters. I mean, yeah, monsters are out to kill you, but they aren’t exactly human, so killing them in self-defense had been slightly bearable. Killing other humans like myself, on the other hand, is another issue altogether. It just feels… wrong, I don’t know.”

“Interesting,” Thrycius simply commented. “But that sort of feeling isn’t uncommon. Taking a life a life can be surprisingly easy, but what makes it so difficult is our own moral conscious.”

“Moral conscious?” Zheiro asked, unsure of what Thrycius was talking about.

“Basically, your ability to distinguish right from wrong. To you, peoples lives are valuable enough that taking their lives feels wrong, unlike the lives of monsters that wish to cause you harm.”

“Hmm,” Zheiro thought about it. Although he wasn’t able to explain it very well, or why he felt this way, it didn’t change how he felt. “That does seem about right, but I’m not entirely sure why exactly I think this way.”

“Well, why is not very important right now. We don’t exactly have time to get into a long, philosophical discussion to figure out why you think it’s wrong, especially when I would start talking about my own opinions about it. In any case, I’ll be blunt here,” Thrycius said. “The main problem is, this isn’t the kind of world where you can afford that kind of thinking, at least not yet.”

“Not yet?” Zheiro echoed. “Why not?”

“Let me ask you a question instead,” Thrycius answered. “It should be pretty obvious to both you and I now that there are people after your life. If you leave them alone, they will most certainly take your life sooner or later. Sarui may not always be around to save your life. On the other hand, you can always confront them yourself, but I doubt that you would be able to stop them as you are now without killing them—yet currently, you are hesitant to take the lives of others, which will give the assassins something to take advantage of and kill you instead. It is also probably impossible for you to convince your assailants to leave you alone as well. So, what will you do?”

Zheiro thought about it in silence for a while, but no matter how much he thought, Zheiro couldn’t seem to come up with a good answer.

He could hire someone to guard him, but to do that he would need a lot of zel—and that was something he did not yet have a steady supply of for which he could use to pay the guard. And as Thrycius had also said, convincing his assailants was probably out of his league—something like that was probably the storyteller’s specialty, Zheiro thought. And unless he knew who hired the assassins, he wouldn’t be able to do anything about the root of the problem.

As he continued to think, he found himself staring absentmindedly at Sarui before them smacking and stabbing monsters aside with her favored giant paintbrush as they made their way towards a building in the far distance.

“What if,” Zheiro started. “I got as strong as Sarui? Then I could disable those who came after me like Sarui did earlier, right?”

“That is true,” Thrycius agreed. “But you would have to get that strong first. As you are now, trying to inflict a disabling blow to trained fighters will most likely get you killed instead due to your lack of skill and experience. That’s why I’m saying you may have to end up killing someone eventually before you reach such a point—if you want to survive.”

“Is that why you wanted me to fight those assassins earlier?” Zheiro suddenly asked. “To get me used to killing people like them, while you and Sarui were still around?.”

“It was more trying to get you used to dealing with the fact that you do have people after you, rather than actually killing them.” Thrycius admitted. “I think it’s obvious to both you and me that you’re not quite ready to go about killing people, after all. But at some point, it is a choice that you will have to make. I hope that by then, you will be able to make the right decision.”

Perhaps they took a long time conversing, or perhaps like the forest before, the wasteland was also a lot smaller than they thought, but either way by the time they finished talking they had already arrived onto the next area, where a large shrine stood.

“Is there anything you want to do here at the Shrine of Lystia?” Thrycius asked the two of them.

“Not really,” Zheiro said. All he wanted to do was master Moonlight Sculpting as soon as possible, so detours weren’t really necessary for him. He had already learned his lesson previously with the Tower of Mistral; if there was no need to go in, it was probably better not to go in. Who knew what dangers and risks would lie in wait inside?

“Personally, I would like to add my own touch to it, but the owners of the shrine would probably get angry if I did so.” Sarui admitted, looking over the building. “Really though, such a holy building should not be left so dull.”

“Well, if we have nothing to do here, then let’s just skip it and go on to the next area,” Thrycius said, laughing.

And so they did.

“What happened to this place?” Zheiro asked as they made their way through the ruins that lay behind the shrine.

“This area is called the Destroyed Cathedral. Well, although it’s called that it was also apparently large enough to have been a city before. But whatever existed here before, it must have been destroyed by a great power of some kind,” Sarui answered before Thrycius could say anything.

“Sarui? You know about this area?” Zheiro asked.

“I’ve heard of all these areas before,” Sarui replied. “But I never expected any of them to be so dull, unlike what the stories say. And if I didn’t say anything quickly, Thrycius would have wasted even more of our time explaining what happened here with yet another elaborate story, something we don’t exactly have time for.”

“Ha ha!” Thrycius laughed in response. “You got me there! And Sarui isn’t exactly wrong, so I’ll hold back on explaining what happened and more about what I was going to test you about, Zheiro.”

“Do we even have time for that?” Zheiro asked. “I think trying to pass a test would take longer than listening to one of your stories.”

After all, while Thycius could certainly take a very long time to tell a story if he so wished, it had taken Zheiro weeks to master cutting through those skeletons and pass the test.

“This one is actually going to be important,” Thrycius replied. “What I’m just going to have you do is try and cut through magic attacks, utterly negating them. Originally, I was going to have you learn something else, but considering Noel probably would have left a copy of Abaddon ahead, and the assassins coming after us with a magic user, it would be imperative that you learn such a skill as soon as possible. So now the time limit to try and learn this is before the assassins catch up, which honestly isn’t much time. On the other hand, don’t worry if you fail, I won’t count it against you.”

“We have assassins behind us and another monster boss ahead, huh?” Zheiro grumbled. “This must be what they mean by being between a rock and a hard place. ”

“You’re right,” Thrycius said, laughing. “But don’t worry, we should be fine. I’ve seen you two take on the Juggernaut already, so after Zheiro learns how to cut magic you two should be fine against Demon Abaddon. And while you two take on that demon, I’ll delay the assassins, and then catch up to you two a day later.” ‘You’re not just sending us to our deaths, are you?” Zheiro asked a little worriedly. “I don’t know if we’re skilled enough to take on a demon.”

“You two are far more suited to it than I am,” Thrycius replied. “Besides, there’s no way a demon will even bother to listen to and understand any persuasion I may say. Assassins, on the other hand, will listen to some extent—and from there, my skill with wordplay as a storyteller can become extremely dangerous.”

“Is that so?” Sarui replied, not really enthusiastic about the whole thing. “Then when it’s time, we’ll leave the assassins to you.”

Thrycius simply nodded before turning towards Zheiro. “Zheiro, your task this time is to face the monsters in the area and cut through their magic attacks, completely negating them. Sarui and I will assist you to make sure you don’t get killed; just remember to apply a similar principle to the technique you used against the skeletons, and I think you should be fine. With the assassins behind us, you only have a day or two to try and get the hang of it. There will be no penalty if you fail, given the time frame. Are you ready?”

Zheiro nodded, gripping his sword tightly.

Although failure was allowed, he would do his best to succeed.

“You have come quite a long way since we first started.”

“Thank you, court magician.”

Ixia and the court magician were once again meeting for her weekly lessons. While they both would prefer having lessons every day, their respective jobs did not allow them so much time to do so.

On the other hand, Ixia advanced quickly, far faster than many of his other students, despite the lack of meetings.

“You’re really quite talented with magic, you know?’ The court magician praised. “You’ve already mastered projection at a speed beyond anyone else I’ve taught. At this rate, I’m beginning to think that your initial joke about time magic may not actually be a joke for you—but only if you continue your studies and work hard.”

‘I’m honored to hear that,” Ixia replied, lowering her head in respect. “But I only advanced this far thanks to your help and all the hard work I’ve put into learning magic.”

“Really, there’s no need to be so humble around me, Ixia.” The court magician said, giving off a wry smile. “But I suppose such a thing is just your nature. More importantly, now that you’ve mastered the manipulation of prana, we can start trying out various different branches of magic.”

“Including time magic?” Ixia asked, smirking.

“Ixia, I’m pretty sure you already know that something like that is impossible for me to teach you,” the court magician replied, frowning “And even if it wasn’t, time magic is still probably too advanced for you right now.”

“I was just joking,” Ixia said with a sigh. “So, what should we do now?”

“I think we should find out what element you are aligned with first. Going from there will be easier to determine what kind of magic would be easier for you,” The court magician replied, crossing his arms as he nodded. “Yes, that would be the best course of action.”

“Tell me more about this. What does it mean to be aligned with an element?” Ixia asked curiously. “Will it limit the kind of magic one can use?”

“I think you’re slightly mistaken about your understanding,” The court magician replied. “Everyone and everything in this world is aligned with an element of some kind. However, the element one is attuned to does not restrict them from using magic aligned with other elements. I know several historical figures that were able to add other elements to their magic quite well. However, learning the magic you are aligned with will certainly be much easier on you than any other magic.”

“I see,” Ixia answered. “Does this alignment also affect the relationships between others, though?”

“I can’t really say,” the court magician admitted, “But of evidence seems to point out otherwise. Many people in the past have gotten along just fine despite having conflicting elemental alignments. The only real issues that have shown up was during combat, but that won’t really affect us either way.”

“I see, that makes sense. Now then, shall we begin?” Ixia asked, ready to learn more about magic.

“Yes, let us begin.” The court magician nodded, preparing to use his magic.

And thus another day of learning magic began for Ixia.

''A/N: Well, here's another update. Chapter's a bit shorter than usual, oh well.''

''Not much to say, actually. Yes, we're going to be fighting Abaddon quite soon after juggernaut already, and yes, I'm starting to rush ahead in the area; well, more like the characters are forced to rush ahead right now, lol. Really, the area and the bosses they fight weren't that important in the first place compared to their goals and the rest of the story.''

And skipping the Shrine of Lystia, gg shrine xD

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

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