These Tragic Souls and a Sword Reborn
in an Intergalactic Space Opera
Chapter Intro: Join Ryuu, Shirou, and their team of newly named goblins and house-elves, as they traverse the Planet Dungeon. Their goal: scout ahead, gather data, find a luscious forest or grassland biome, and kill the first dungeon boss. Easy! Easy??
Story Starts
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Book 1 - The Empty Twin
Ch 2.3 Fray into The Planet Dungeon
[Part 3 of 5]
~Flashback~
~=Illyasviel Von Einzbern=~
"Okay, to summarize we'll have house-elves, centaurs, goblins, and merfolk to help us get started with developing the planet." Hermione said as she wrapped up her presentation. "Do you guys think we should start the process of removing the others from stasis?"
"Maybe we should secure our food source first, our food reserves while vast might not be able to cut it if everyone suddenly were removed from stasis." Rose interjected. "The initial cultivation of fruits and vegetables might take awhile but once it starts producing we can easily match the demand. I haven't really done the calculations on the wards for soil optimization, humidity and temperature control, and magical growth serums; I'm no herbologist but I'm sure the centaurs and house-elves can help us with that."
"Okay, that's good, how about animal farming?" I asked.
"We can start that but at a limited scope, we also still need to grow the produce we'll feed the animals. Maybe we can find nearby islands where we can cultivate the crops for animal feed and once that's set up we can start with animal farming. We can also ask for help from the merfolk for seafood." Rose explained.
"The main problem is none of us are experts in developing a planet, we can do isolated farms in the meantime. Maybe we should do an isolated warded area for the sealife. We'll start the process of removing the stasis charm on select experts today, but the problem is the length of time where a stasis charm is fully removed is equal to the time they are placed under and by my estimation most of those who has background in development or anything relevant to our current predicament were under the charm for about a year now."
They explained that the stasis charm, while relatively safe, takes a toll on the individual when it's removed suddenly; hence the reason why the gradual release of individuals from said charm. This isn't the same stasis charm they used on the food prepared by Shirou and the others.
According to Hermione the stasis charm involves the combination of a ritual, where the individual is placed in a self contained bubble where time moves at a really slow state that it's practically frozen, and a potion called the Draught of the Living Dead.
The Draught of the Living Dead is a particularly strong sleeping draught which puts the imbiber into a death-like state akin to suspended animation. When asked why they couldn't just use the potion; they said that they didn't know how long Project Noah would reach its conclusion.
The death-like sleep from the draught will not be enough as the body will eventually need calories for it to live and if they are put in that suspended animation state without the stasis charm, motor function shall eventually degrade.
The reason why it takes time to remove them is so they can slowly match the flow of time in the bubble with the actual flow of time. The bubble is pierced once both time flow matches; after that they'll use the Wiggenweld Potion to counter the effects of the draught.
"In the meantime why don't we depend on the dungeon for food? Monster meat is usually edible and several of us do have the Appraisal skill." Ryuu explained as Haruka highlighted those who have the Appraisal skill.
Lefiya, Haruhime, Haruka, Marin, Hermione, and Ryuu invested in that particular skill.
"Once we also know what poisonous materials look like our Structural Analysis could also assist with the identification of edible meat." I volunteered, "That spell can also help with breaking down the monster for materials and food when it has special glands or organs that mustn't be pierced."
"Okay, we'll be hitting two birds with one stone with that idea. We do need to alleviate the pressure within the dungeon. We can form a team mixed with goblins and house-elves to help quicken the process." Hermione supplied.
"When do you think would be your best estimation on our first harvest?" Rin asked with a worried face. "And if we used your reserves how much of it do you think will be used before our first harvest?"
"By my estimation the first harvest will take anywhere from 3-6 weeks, we probably wouldn't hit 10% of our reserves even with the goblins, house-elves, and centaurs out of stasis; 20% at most." Rose supplied as she tapped the corner of her lip as she pondered her thoughts.
"Though we might need those reserves later on."
"How about we form two groups?" I said as I formulated an idea. "We can have a large group slowly but methodically clear each floor, we can maximize the materials and food we can harvest from this; plus full clearing a floor will greatly reduce the energy within the dungeon. Especially if we do this everyday and we gradually increase our floor numbers."
"From what I understand, Planet Dungeons usually have different biomes. If the biome after the first boss contains vegetation or plant like monsters we won't need to rush the cultivation of crops; we'll be able to optimize production on those instead." I added.
There was a pause as everyone pondered my suggestion, Haruka was still taking notes as she also wrote down bullet points of my suggestion on the board.
"I think Illya's suggestion warrants further exploration, though we should form 3 groups instead. The first would be of course the group which systematically clears each floor everyday." Rin suggested acknowledging my point when Rose added.
"We can divert a large legion of goblins and house-elves into this group and once we finally reach a floor that offers us the vegetation and we have increased the food harvested from the dungeon we can also slowly remove the other house-elves, goblins, centaurs, humans, and other sentient beings from stasis so we can increase the speed on which we can clear floors."
"Yeah, the goblins also have trained trolls and giants right?" Hermione rhetorically asked, "We can eventually remove them from stasis as well; and once the cultivation of the crops are established we can divert some of the centaurs into helping as well."
"The next team should be a small, very mobile task force that can hit hard and fast." Rin interjected as she directed her gaze towards Shirou, which he quirked an eyebrow at her in return.
"Their main goal is to breeze through floors, collect data on the monsters on each floor, collect data on the first boss, and finally find a floor where vegetation grows that we can use as a substitute to our reserves."
"Maybe a strike force of 2 or 3, they don't even need to harvest the monsters, they just need to scout in advance and gather information. They can make detailed after action reports on each floor and the first boss and relay that information to our main clearing team later." Rin concluded.
"Regarding the need to make detailed reports, we have magical devices called Penseives where we can extract a copy of your memory for everyone's viewing pleasure. This'll lessen the time they need in making action reports, they can just add their opinions while everyone is viewing the memory." Hermione suggested.
"We can also assign a small regiment of house-elves and goblins to follow the small strike-force, house-elves can easily teleport around and they can most probably transport the goblins with them. That way we can still harvest any monsters the scouting group kills, plus they'll be facing the first boss, it'll be a waste of resource and effort if the dungeon just reabsorbs the monster." Hermione added as she paced a bit, held her chin, and furrowed her brows.
"We can also take note of the boss' spawn time, if we let the dungeon reabsorb the body it might corrupt the initial information we collect. We can optimise the schedule when we need to attack the boss when it respawns."
Haruka is still at the side taking note of the minutes and adding bullet point summaries on the board of everything suggested. She calls everyone's attention to what has been discussed so far as she pauses to see if there are any disagreements or further suggestions.
"I guess the 3rd group would be responsible for developing the area?" Haruka asked in which everyone acknowledged this with nods and affirmatives.
"Umm.. I think we still need to rotate people between the 1st group and 3rd group and everyone must participate in most of the boss battles. We really don't know what type of danger is at the bottom of the dungeon, plus we'll need to train our teamwork." Lefiya chipped in with both Ryu and Haruhime nodding in support.
"Once we reach deeper floors the boss and the monsters would need a lot of cooperation, collaboration, and an understanding of each other." Ryuu supplied, "The first boss will probably not pose any problem so I volunteer to be in the 2nd group."
"I'll help with organizing the first group." Lefiya volunteered, "Back in our previous reality Ryuu could probably now solo up to the boss at the 37th floor plus she's very mobile. Reaching past the first boss will probably not trouble her."
"As a sort of precaution can we assign one of your teleporting house-elves as a dedicated escape contingency?" I said, directing my question towards Hermione's group.
"That can be easily arranged, we can assign 2 house-elves for that job. The 2nd house-elf shall be there as backup and shall be responsible for coordinating with the group of house-elves and goblins tasked to harvest the monsters the scouting group will kill."
"Good, as an added precaution Shirou you should accompany Ryuu." With this suggestion you can see Ryuu somewhat flinching at the idea.
Exchanging understanding glances with Rin, we both shrugged as we'll nip that problem in the bud by tomorrow at the latest. So far only Ryuu and Haruka have been the only ones who have shown wariness around Shirou.
Sighing as I somewhat feel guilty, ever since I found out what my father unintentionally did to Shirou. Rin and I had a heart-to-heart with Archer when he volunteered to donate his arm to Shirou, after Shirou saved me from an explosion.
At first we were wary of Archer as he did not hide his contempt for Shirou and has been trying to kill him throughout the war. This was the main reason why Rin dropped Archer immediately. Serendipitously, another servant, Medea of the caster class, just escaped her master and made a pact with Rin.
Anyway, we found out that Archer was Shirou's alternate future self who mistakenly doomed himself by becoming one of Alaya's counter guardians.
He explained about his rebirth where his first memories are of the cursed flames, birthed from the corrupted Holy Grail; that the only way to survive and save himself was to shed every aspect of oneself; that even with the sacrifice it didn't even matter in the end.
He described in vivid detail the light that blanketed his vision; just when he gave up; just when he lost all hope; just when he was ready to die, he was saved by that man who was both crying and smiling, as repeatedly utters the words "thank you".
He ponders to himself whether he'll be able to eventually smile like him. That memory, combined with his survival guilt, the change of his nature due to avalon, and finally the curse Kiritsugu unintentionally placed on his adopted son.
The curse, a promise made by a broken child to his dying adoptive father, to his hero, to the most important person in his world; a promise that he will save everyone, unlike how he ignored the dying during that fire, a promise to become a hero of justice.
Underneath that bright moon light with his final words of "I can be at peace now.", an acknowledgement towards his son's promise; with his dying breath the curse was cast.
Years later, with all of his close relationships broken Shirou unrelentingly pursued his dreams. One day, after one tough mission he was forced to face his physical limitations. Feeling frustrated at how weak he is; how he is not even strong enough to save the ones near him, a being of immense power reached out and offered him a miracle in exchange for a contract.
He shall be granted the strength to save those around him. Without any hesitation he accepted this deal only to be later betrayed by those he saved. He was later sentenced to be hanged, sealing his fate. Eternally as humanity's saviour, but a saviour in the worst way, he was humanity's janitor; with a mountain of corpse piled higher than any mountain; with blood shed that could replace all the water in our planet's oceans.
His eternal contract was made with Alaya, the collective will of humanity; and humanity's main will is to survive. His dream of becoming a hero was achieved, as his only existence is to ensure the survival of mankind. Unfortunately for Shirou, mankind is humanity's number one enemy.
This existence broke Shirou as he saw his ideals were perverted right before his eyes. Kill one to save 5, kill a hundred to save thousands, kill a thousand to save millions. This eternal cycle of death and destruction pushed him towards a wish.
A wish where he could create a paradox to undo his existence. His plan was to participate in countless Holy Grail Wars so that somehow he might be summoned in his previous timeline, where he would kill his younger self to erase his current existence.
Fortunately, our Shirou escaped this fate as his ideals were already prematurely broken when he had to choose between saving a person he loves or saving the world. Unfortunately, due to Archer's arm being grafted upon his body, with the help of Medea and that horrible priest, he experienced all of Archer's memories further breaking everything that made Shirou, Shirou.
The reason why some people are instinctively wary of Shirou is due to his nature. Shirou is a sword incarnation due to the alignment of both his origin and element. This means he is essentially a sword given human form. While he grew up as a human and functions like a human there's still something off about him.
It's like even if you study a certain country's culture for years and move to that country you still can't compare to the locals. No matter how good you are at trying to mimic how a local behaves, some people can easily point out that you are a foreigner.
This is further emphasised by his ability to materialize a reality marble, this is an ability so rare in humans because it takes a daemon's alien common sense for you to develop this. Even Dead Apostle Ancestors take centuries for them to develop a functional one and Shirou was able to project one at the age of 17.
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POV Change
~=Marin Kitagawa=~
With a slash I cleanly decapitated a large flightless bird with a lizard-like tail. Exhaling loudly as I survey my surroundings. "Good, looks like that was the last of them." I said out loud.
"Mistress Marin." I eeped loudly as the brownie surprised me by suddenly teleporting beside me, this was followed by 3 more pops as a small group of brownies and skrattes started breaking down the downed monsters.
"Wabky right?" I asked the excitable brownie.
"I being Wadry mistress, Wabky is being my brother." The brownie corrected me. "We being done with this floor."
We are currently at floor 18 of this planet dungeon, and all time high for us. We really pushed ourselves today as our previous record was only until the 12th.
Our current goal is to explore the next biome for food sources that are plant-like, we plan on setting up camp on the 21st where we'll be staying overnight. This is also to give both Illya and Gabrielle ample time to experiment with their idea of making a beacon for portkey travel.
According to them a portkey is an enchanted object that can teleport you and whoever is touching the item to a set location. Unfortunately, they can't currently use this due to being unfamiliar with this planet's trajectory through space.
"Mipsy, be telling us that Shirou and Ryuu succeeded in taking down the boss monster. They be setting up camp and preparing dinner for everyone on the 21st floor"
I exhaled a sigh of relief with the good news as Syr was approaching us from down the hall.
"Just one more floor and we could all rest." I declared as I looked at the C-shock watch I was wearing.
While this watch doesn't accurately tell the time of this planet, as the days are longer here compared to our previous reality. I mainly use this to take note of how long we have been dungeon delving and by my calculations we have been doing this for about 13 hours.
"Let's hope that the 19th floor isn't that troublesome as I am already feeling a bit tired." Lefiya said behind me.
"Oh good news," Syr said upon reaching us, "I already scouted ahead and according to the house-elves Ryuu and Shirou already full cleared that particular floor due to them being swarmed."
"The monsters on that floor have not spawned yet due to the damage done by bothe Ryuu and Shirou."
"Good," Lefiya said. "We can now head straight to the 21st and rest for the day."
"Oh and also great news, the next biome is grasslands."
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END