We left Blutgang under the dwarves's watch the day after I'd made the very foolish mistake of powering Penny up when she had needed nothing of the sort. Or rather… they sent us off. To be honest, I wanted to relax in Blutgang a little longer, but Anko was with us. I couldn't very well have a country accommodate their aggressor for so long, so we had to leave quickly. The fact that they'd even let us stay for a full day was a huge favor.
Normally, I'd expect to be rejected immediately.
As for Anko herself, she'd been almost surgically attached to my arm ever since she'd woken up.
Well, personally, I was fine with this as long as Anko was happy, since she'd been left alone so long that she'd gone berserk. This didn't seem to fly with the other Twelve Zodiac's Guardians outside of Wendy, and the stares I could sense behind me were a little painful. Fiona seemed unhappy, and Tayuya was glaring so many daggers I could swear she was trying to curse someone to death. Penny had a gun in her hands the entire time, too, while Jaune lamented loudly, "I was only recently reunited with her tooooo!"
Our group was getting more and more chaotic, but Honda still drove along like normal today. Our next goal was to find the Pisces of Zodiac's Guardians Ero, or Raiya. We'd heard about her from Jenny. However, there was one problem. Neither Jenny nor we knew where Raiya was, not even Haruka.
Hmm. What should we do about this?
"Aahhh, your expression while you're deep in thought is wonderful too, Lady Naru!" Anko said before tangling herself even further on my arm.
I don't really mind, but please stop talking into my ear. It tickles.
Penny must have figured out what I was thinking, since she took her literal steel arm and grabbed Anko's head to peel her off of me.
"Hey, that hurts! What do you think you're doing?!"
"You will stop this now, Anko. I understand that you are happy to be reunited, but you are causing our master trouble. I will not allow you to continue on like this."
"Ha! And why do I need your permission to nurture Lady Naru's and my love? If you keep on going, I'll be happy to turn you into scrap just like I did with your little sisters, you know?"
"I strongly advise that you stop this. If it comes to a fight, you will be the one reduced to pieces."
Sparks flew between Anko and Penny as they started a glaring contest with me in the middle.
Fiona was panicking, unsure of what to do, while Tayuya gritted her teeth, clearly wanting to jump in and participate. Jaune, the only male around, showed no signs of stopping them. In fact, he was smiling excitedly while egging them on. Meanwhile, Wendy had already retreated to a place where she wouldn't immediately become a casualty. As for Haruka, she perfectly blended herself into the background.
"I have not!"
Okay, so 'background' was just a joke. In reality, she was just sipping on tea in the corner, not minding any of this.
Meanwhile, the atmosphere surrounding Penny and Anko had gotten even more dangerous. Eventually, Anko's hair started moving and pointed its tip straight at Penny. In response, Penny clenched her fist. The situation was about to explode.
Realizing how dangerous things were, I decided to step in between them myself. "Stop. Do you want to destroy Honda?"
"Mm… It seems your life has been saved, Anko."
"You mean yours. Right, Penny?"
Somehow, I'd managed to stop their fight before it started, but they were still glaring at each other. Wow. These two don't get along well. Fiona and Tayuya were quite friendly, but it seemed like not all of the Twelve Zodiac's Guardians got along, given the relationship between these two. Well, I suppose there had to be at least one.
For now, I decided to take the opportunity to check Anko's stats.
[Twelve Zodiac Guardians: Anko of Scorpio Constellation]
[Level]: 800
[Race]: Emperor Berserk Scorpion
[Attribute]: Fire
[HP]: 90000
[STR (Strength)]: 4800
[DEX (Dexterity)]: 3105
[VIT (Vitality)]: 6570
[INT (Intelligence)]: 2100
[AGI (Agility)]: 3800
[MND (Mind)]: 3300
[LUK (Luck)]: 5500
Oh, she's back to level 800. So, like, did she go back because the Goddess's influence is gone? Or is it because her hatred disappeared after reuniting with me? It's gotta be one of those.
At any rate, Anko's HP had gone down because she'd lost some of her levels, and she'd become unable to withstand Brachium anymore. Yeah.
Penny was right. If they fought, Penny'd win. Actually, it's kind of unfair that she wins against both Anko and Fiona, who she should have an elemental-type disadvantage to.
I was once again made to recognize how ridiculously powerful Brachium was. Just that single skill made Penny a top candidate for the strongest, though I suppose that was only natural.
However, Anko was also the same in the respect that stats didn't tell her true strength. Her bread and butter lay in poison attacks, so in extreme terms her stats weren't all that high. On top of that, her ATK stat had been boosted by Berserk in addition to the extra levels when we'd fought, so her stats right now seemed like they belonged to a completely different person. Anko also had high LUK, so she critted often. Without Brachium, Anko would probably defeat Penny.
I guess the most fearsome one of all is the Goddess for being able to power-up Anko until she could tank Brachium and beat Penny. The Seven Maidens of Midgar got the same power-up one thousand years ago; of course I wasn't able to win.
"So, Lady Naru, what do we do now?"
"For now, We have no choice but to focus on those whose locations We know. If We remember correctly, there should be Zodiac's Guardians in Alfheim, Helheim, and Muspelheim."
Out of those three, Alfheim should be the easiest to get to.
Alfheim, otherwise known as the fairy paradise, was actually inside humanity's sphere of influence and was the closest geographically. On the other hand, Muspelheim was outside of humanity's sphere, and Helheim was underground. Most importantly, the twin Gemini guardians were in Alfheim. They were a unit of two people, which meant we'd get two people stronger when I got them back.
While I considered the situation, Honda suddenly stopped, cutting my ponderings short. What happened? It's rare for Honda to stop by itself.
"We stopped. What happened?"
"What's wrong, Honda? Did something happen?"
"Y E S, B O S S."
I looked out the front window. A huge crowd of people was around a kilometer ahead of us. It didn't seem like they'd noticed us, but a steady stream of beastmens, humans, elves, and others were all heading towards the same place. Looking up at the sky, I even saw flugels heading for the spot. It was obvious that they'd come for some sort of shared purpose.
"Haruka, is something happening up ahead?"
"Uh, given this area and their direction… Ah, it's Draupnir."
"The beastmen country? But there are other races here too."
Haruka only cocked her head and hummed in reply to my question. Apparently she wasn't sure either.
Anko stepped up in exchange. "Ah, that's because the country is holding a hunting festival nearby, my lady. It's a truly meaningless contest of strength between a bunch of nobodies. Monster Tamers release a bunch of monsters at once, and people compete to see who can hunt the most."
"Oh? It's surprising you knew about this."
"Yes, well… After I destroyed Blutgang, I was planning to use this hunting festival to spread monsters throughout this country to attack it."
"Oh…"
Damn. It's seriously a good thing we managed to get Anko back when we did. If I hadn't, she might have pulled off the worst hat trick ever and destroyed not only Hrotti but Blutgang and Draupnir too.
Anko wrapped herself around my arm as if she weren't feeling any guilt over it. She probably wasn't, actually . When she looked up from that position, she happened to see Haruka. "By the way, who's the redhead? And also that flugel girl."
"Now?!"
"The flugel girl is Wendy. She's inherited the position of Kushina as the Virgo Guardian. Kushina is dead, you see. The redhead girl is, the 'Background.' "
"Hey, wait a second! Don't just casually slip in those lies, Penny! I don't have any such titles!"
"Did we have a 'Background' Zodiac's Guardian? Well, whatever. Nice to meet you, Background."
"Please stop calling me that!" Haruka looked over at me, half in tears.
I clearly understood from that look that she was silently begging me to do something.
"Yes, it's true that a shining star can't be in the background. So why not be the space that brings out a star's shine…? A background is also necessary for a tale of conquest…"
"Big Sis?!"
"Oh, isn't that great, Background? In a sense, you're more important than us the stars, you know? You're the space itself."
"But I'm not happy at all!"
It was about time for his half-in-tears to become full-on tears, so I decided to stop the teasing there. Well, it did seem like Anko had actually just misunderstood.
"Still, a hunting festival…"
To be completely honest, the festival held absolutely no interest for me. It felt kind of self-aggrandizing, but Anko was right. At our level, a festival like this was not worth it. It was kind of like a no-life gamer who'd perfected a game watching newbies diligently grinding. Honestly, if I had time to waste on the festival, it'd be put to better use just going around trying to find and loot items. I didn't even have an ounce of desire to participate.
I didn't know how big Draupnir was, but with my speed, it wasn't impossible for me to go around the entire capital and clean up all the monsters myself. The same went for the rest of my party. If any of them participated, I could just see the overkill in the near future. But I was still considering allowing that overkill to happen.
"This seems like a worthy distraction. Wendy, you participate."
"Huh? Me?!"
Wendy was the lowest leveled of all of us. Even then, she was still level 300—an incredible amount of strength for this current era. It would still be overkill for this event, but I wanted her to build some confidence, even though I felt a little guilty towards the other participants.
Wendy herself probably hadn't realized just how strong she was. After all, she'd spent her entire life holed up in a forest being raised by Kushina, and when she finally left, she was surrounded by the Twelve Zodiac's Guardians. She had completely gotten it into her head that she was weak.
There was a saying that went "a frog in a well knows nothing of the ocean." Originally, this was meant to say that a frog, or person, who was proud to know everything in their little well of a world didn't know of anything beyond it, like the wide ocean. Nothing in that saying specified how big the well was, though. That frog could very well have been a monster over a meter in size. However, the frog in the well still didn't have any means to realize just how big and how strong it was.
This applied to Wendy perfectly. I needed to get weak frogs from outside the well lined up in front of her to show her just how strong she was. I didn't want her to get full of herself. But at the very least, I wanted her to start having enough self-confidence to match her strength. In my mind, that was one of the duties given to me when Kushina entrusted me with her child.
"You wish to win the hunting festival, Lady Naru? Then leave it to me. I'll soak all the monsters and the other participants in poison."
"If you allow me the honor, I can make all the beastmens and the entire capital sink into the depths of fear and despair…"
"My Brachium will cover the entire capital…"
"Uh, I can use my Mesarthim constantly and…"
"Wh-what?! Then I'll slam a meteor into the capital…"
"N O O O?! It's only me who doesn't have a large-scale attack?! I can't win!"
"All of you are barred from entering."
Why the hell are you guys trying to one-up each other in violence? You know that the capital isn't a monster, right? And that if you bring down the capital, we can't win?
"Well, anyway… These fools don't need to enter. You'll be more than enough to win without them."
"Um, but I don't have any large-scale attacks like they do…"
"And that's why they don't need to participate. A hunting festival doesn't call for that sort of thing in the first place."
Thanks to the idiots's weird contest, Wendy was barreling headlong into a misunderstanding, so I made sure to correct it. A hunting festival was a race to see who could hunt the most monsters the quickest. It wasn't a place to indiscriminately fire large-scale attack skills. Though I was guilty of doing just that in the game when friendly fire was off…
I pat Wendy's head. "How about it?" I'd like her to use this opportunity to gain some confidence. That was the truth. It was too sad that she severely underestimated herself and blinded herself to all her talent and ability because she was surrounded by such monsters.
"Okay. Then… I'd like to try."
"Good. Take it easy. Don't feel too pressured to win."
With that, Wendy's participation was decided. All we needed to do was head to Draupnir.
I gave Honda orders to change course.