Hello, this is my first time writing a fanfiction. If you notice any errors, please feel free to give me constructive feedback. English is not my first language, so if you notice any mistakes, please mention them in the comment section at the end of the chapter. Let's begin the story!
Word Count: 4400 Words
Note: Just a reminder that I've changed the Guild Auxiliary chapter. I've made some changes to it. I've removed a couple of NPCs and added a few.
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Kai stood up when his mother had embraced him after Mr Fool had resurrected her. He stood there motionless and let himself be embraced by his mother. The emotions he felt seeing his mother come back to life were indescribable.
He had, had his share of emotions and had calmed down from his emotional turmoil. Yet his mother refuses to let him go. She was crying her eyes out.
Kai was nervous about offending Mr Fool, so he tried checking for HIS reaction ensued by the whole drama.
Mr Fool was seated on an even Grandiose Throne than the one behind him looking at them calmly. He had a neutral expression.
Just when he thought of speaking to his mother he heard a voice in his head. He turned around to see for any reaction from his mother or the Fool. Seeing the same neutral expression of Mr Fool and his mother still crying. He was sure of it. He was only he who could hear him.
Unsure of what he was hearing or who it was, Kai spoke to the being conversing with him via what could be telepathy.
'It might be rude of me but who or what are you? And how do you, Mr Fool?'
Hearing his question the being sighed,
'Weak descendant? Wait! So, you're supposed to be an ancestor?'
'If you are my ancestor then what are you doing in my head?'
'Wait you are dead! So, I'm talking to my dead ancestor. Then you know our condition and if you were as strong as you speak then why did you not save us till now? Because of this family curse, the locket. Many people died, my father died and even my mother could have died if not for Mr Fool.'
Kai was in emotional turmoil, thinking of the lives lost because of the locket.
Before Kai could continue his talk with his supposed ancestor, he felt his mother's grip loosening. She had stopped crying.
Seeing that she had calmed down, Kai was going to introduce Mr Fool to her when she turned around to thank Him.
"I don't know who you are but I'm grateful to you for saving my son's life and mine. You must have used many precious items of yours to heal me. Though we are not rich we promise to repay you."
Sayuri tightened her grip on her son as she spoke to the mysterious man sitting on a Throne from god knows where it came from.
Now that she looked closely there is also a similar but simpler throne compared to it behind her. With a Car parked in her living room and a side wall broken down. She couldn't imagine the extent of damage caused by the car.
"You do not have to worry about the payment. For protecting your son and resurrecting you. I've already received my payment."
"Resurrecting me?"
Sayuri spoke aloud confused, when she looked at her son.
"Ma you were dead when that man shot you. I'm sorry"
Sayuri unable to see her son's saddened face, got down as she hugged him, consoling him.
"It's fine. Everything is fine Kai. Ma will take care of it."
"I'm sorry Ma but I gave the Fool's Locket to Mr Fool for resurrecting you and to protect us."
"Mr Fool?"
Kai's face distorted as he heard the warning from his ancestor. He had remained calm but his mother did not know of anything. She did not know who Mr Fool was from what he heard from Zarios. He was able to conclude that his ancestor was a devotee of Mr Fool.
'He discarded or didn't care for his descendants' death as much as he cares for Mr Fool. If mother were to disrespect him, he wouldn't hesitate to kill her. But I am not sure if he can?'
He got out of his thinking when he heard Zarios talk. More so since he warned him. Scared for the meaning of it, he looked at his mother who was on her knees, kneeling in front of the Fool.
'I understand so please forgive her. I'm sure she didn't wish to disrespect Mr Fool. I won't challenge your authority again.'
Sayuri who had suddenly experienced force, forced her to kneel. Looked up at the Man in Suit calling himself The Fool still seated at his Throne with the same indifferent expression plastered on his face.
She was worried that she had offended him when she felt the grip on her wrist tighten. Her son was trying to convey something to her is what she felt.
She wondered how she could tell. Moreover, the force she felt was real and just wasn't a weakness from blood loss. She was sure of it, she did hear someone command her to kneel before she had taken a knee.
She despite the fear of the unknown, remained steadfast for her son. She was afraid of the Man this Fool was.
Wondering how she could get her son and herself out of this mess, she remembered him mentioning about already receiving the payment.
If what he said was true then, if she had truly died and he had resurrected her. Resurrected her, something that is believed to be impossible even in ancient times when magic was dominant.
Resurrection is a miracle that is thought of to be impossible, if performed despite the odds it always has a price. 'Could this Man be a Daemon impersonating a Human to fool them.'
Just when she thought she could not get in any more trouble, she saw the Man pull out a locket from his pocket. The Fool's Locket, something that had been in her family for so long, was the most important treasure of the family.
It was also believed to be cursed. Many of the family members had thought of destroying it yet they had failed. Now, none of them wished to hold on to it.
After all, it brought omen on all those who held it. Yet, it was different for her. She never faced any bad omen holding on to it and neither did her son.
She despite the wishes of other family members held on to it, after all, it was the last creation of her father.
She sighed as she thought of the consequences of facing a Daemon in a fight for the locket but she couldn't put her son in harm's way.
She turned to her son, looking for answers if they existed. She was in a dilemma.
It shocked her to find her son refusing to look at the locket. His eyes wandered around trying his best to not look at the locket.
As she was wondering about her next steps, what Kai spoke shocked her to the core.
"Ma, the dream of our family has come true. The Locket has fulfilled its purpose of reaching outside the Root."
"Outside the Root?"
It confounded her for how her son knew of it. He was but a child who would turn thirteen next month. After all, she had done her very best to hide the World of Magecraft from her son. He was supposed to be oblivious to the existence of Magic.
'That bastard brother of mine must have told him. I should have never left my son in his care while I went to work.' Despite her situation, she had to calm down. If what her son told was true then she was in the presence of The Being from outside The Root.
She had to behave unless she wished to incur The Being's wrath.
She can later ask all her questions to her son at a later time. Just when she thought of addressing the being, she was brought out of her thoughts by the sound produced by the rapping of the Fool on the armrest of the Throne he sat upon.
"This is an interesting item. It might be of great value to you. By the looks of it, you wish to undo the deal for the locket. You are in a conflict wondering about your course of action. So, what do you wish to do?",
'Huh! It feels bad to take away an item from someone of their stature. It feels like I'm ripping them off, a deal done at the point of blade. Am I blackmailing them by asking out loud? Hmm! Seeing the love between them did remind me of my mother. Now, I feel like a villain snatching away or tolling away taxes on poor and vulnerable people. It just doesn't end there, it makes the situation worse that they only have each other.
Despite his mother dying, the boy did not call his father even once or remember him.'
Bruce not sure of their situation had Shadow Demons check out the house and asked them to extract information from the one he killed at last.
He had purposefully waited for him to get out to take him out. So his disappearance wouldn't be observable by the kid.
'And they were quick. This locket is supposed to be a false Holy Grail. Hmm! I wonder what it is but I can't very well do some research on it in front of them. To them, this is a very precious item. Similar to the kid, it must mean a lot to the woman also. As he called it a family heirloom, it must have been passed down to the woman from her parents. She gave it to her son. So, it's understandable that she doesn't wish to part with it. Now, what to do? I don't wish to kill them for it. Maybe erasing their memory but that doesn't feel right. What to do, indeed?'
As Bruce was contemplating his action, Sayuri was unsure of her answer. She did not wish to part with it but her son was more important to her. At least she thought that was the case but the memories of her father and how he had alone taken care of her in-between his research made her doubt herself.
After thinking of the problem, she had finally concluded. 'Kai is more important than a locket. I'm sure that's what father would say. It might be his lifelong worth of research but Kai is my son. I should give it up. I'm sure now that his dream has been fulfilled, he won't mind if the locket is gone.'
Sayuri had made up her mind and was going to speak but Kai had beat her to it.
"I'm sorry Ma, but I wish to offer that locket to you, Mr Fool. I hope that you won't hate me for it, Ma?"
"I could never."
His mother replied tightening her grip on him.
"Good. Now, that you have decided. I'll take my leave."
Bruce looked at Kai as he thought back to what he said. 'Offer the locket huh! An interesting and odd use of words. But never mind, it must be my presence that compels them to worship me. What the fu*k did you add to my lore, World? Or is it Cthulhu's lore affecting me similar to how I can use his Wish in my base form? I'll have to look into it more, at a later time of course. I'll just leave my future self to deal with it.'
Bruce after mulling over his words kept the locket back in his pocket and nodded at them.
He got up from his throne and following him, the Throne disappeared in specks of light.
'Now that I have saved them once. It won't be the End of Acidic, Acidity family or whatever their name is. This locket should be a powerful magic item that has been protecting them so far. If they were to go and die later, it feels like everything I did here would be a waste. I could give them an item to protect themselves. Anything from the Gate of Babylon is out of the question. They are one of a kind and are impossible to replicate in the New World. I could give them a Sword maybe they protect themselves. I don't have any Magic Artefacts that have both attack and defence properties. A Sword with attack and defence, one that is not too precious to give away. Which one should I give? I could give them a gun but Japan is strict against Gun Regulation, whereas a Sword could be passed off as a family heirloom. The woman and the kid both have very little amount of mana. But comparatively, the kid has more mana than Shirou.
But the problem is I don't have many weapons to choose from. Most of them are stored in The Guild.
The ones that I have are either World Items or Top Divine Tier Items.
The weakest sword, it is. This should do.'
Kai and Sayuri were worried about his silence when they saw him draw a black obsidian sword from a dark portal. They were worried about his answer.
They knew that if he did wish to kill them, he wouldn't need a Sword to do the job.
They watched him on their toes for what he would do with the sword.
'This should be good enough. Despite its base material being Caloric_Stone, it is quite mediocre. Among Divine Tier Items, it is at the bottom. There are many legendary and mythical tier swords in the Guild stronger than this Sword. I've after all used all the data crystal to fill in the flavour text of this Sword. The Sword of Blasphemy, or simply called Error.'
Bruce inspected the Sword using an Appraisal spell for confirmation before he handed it over. The Sword belonged to a personal project of his where he experimented with the Lore and Flavour Text of items.
This sword had been his test subject. He had made it have all the prowess of all the twenty-two pathways of Godhood from Lotm.
Despite writing such extensive lines of lore for it, it still didn't reflect in its Item Sheet. He had already verified it using the World Item, The Ravens of Knowledge.
'So, only abilities and knowledge are reflected through the flavour text and lore. hmm! Everything has a limit and even if they work as stated in Flavour Text, it works as long as it is against lower life forms.
If the Sword's flavour text spoke of how unbreakable it is and its hard properties. The flavour text holds for only players at max. When a World Enemy or stronger enemies come into the picture they break at the first opportunity.
I've already broken a Sword using Gleipnir. It was another sword from the same project. It was stronger than this sword, speaking in terms of in-game abilities.
It was also filled with lines speaking of its strength and durability. Its body was supposed to be unbreakable and yet it broke.
Hmm! It is similar to how World Items despite being equal to Worlds in terms of existence hierarchy get singled out by Wild Magic. They are supposed to be the remnant of the Worlds of Yggdrasil that have been devoured by the World Devourer. There is a limit to the energy that brings these Game or Virtual Items to reality. The power of the ritual of the Dragon Emperor should have a limited scope and power to what it could fulfil. There's no way a trash item with millions of lines of flavour text could ever beat an indestructible and all-powerful World Items in the New World.
There are rules that it follows.
I'll think about it later, for now, I should give it to them.'
Despite the Weapons and Items brought to this World with The Root or The Swirl of the Root. They followed a hierarchy that Bruce failed to check out. World Items had more powerful Lore and influence of the Yggdrasil that would beat any weapon with millions of lines of Flavour Text.
The game rules beat or took more priority and influenced the items than the flavour texts of the said item.
Bruce sighed as he saw the Error, and swung it once with his right arm.
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Kaleidoscope Realm [Just a Name]
Kischur Zelretch Schweinorg was not having the best of times. It was but a minor negligence from his side that he missed a World Shattering Event.
He would always check through the Worlds during the Holy Grail War to observe the event. It always intrigued him, and he wondered if they would ever connect to the Swirl of The Root. It was also a favourite pastime of his. What could an Apostle of the Dead do for entertainment?
It was a fatal mistake, something major had taken place in one of the worlds. He flipped through parallel worlds trying to find the origin of the disturbance and yet failed to do so. Zouken Makiri was killed in one of the Worlds and it erased him from all the parallel worlds. He tried searching for his soul yet his soul had been erased.
He usually would never visit Daemons or Outer God's servants for his task but he was left with no other choice on this one.
After meeting an Ancient Daemon who also happens to be a Primordial Demon from ancient times residing in an isolated dimension and a servant of an Outer God who resides outside the universe for his worries.
They wouldn't bat an eye at his problem but they did move at the prospect of him giving them an item that they had been seeking for a very long time. From his standing in the Mage Association, it was but a simple task for him to get them what they wished.
Yet after meeting them both, they had the same answer. Zoeken's source and origin had been erased and hadn't returned to The Swirl of The Root.
It worried him for there was an Entity capable of it. His first guess had been the Outer Gods but the servant of theirs that he met denied him of the hypothesis.
He had been going through parallel worlds, searching for the source. Though Zouken had been erased, his influence before erasure remained despite his being erased throughout the timeline.
'He is dead in the future, past and present throughout all the parallel Worlds. Yet his influence exists in the past, present and future of all the parallel worlds. Is it a true magic at work? Only second magic is capable of performing anything remotely close to what happened.'
It would have intrigued him, but what drew his attention most was the relation between his second true magic and the entity.
It had been as such and he would have continued his work if not for a miracle performed in one of the parallel worlds.
Kischur Zelretch Schweinorg stared at a crystal, his attention had been drawn to a particular child being hugged by a woman who could be his mother.
'They are his descendants. Centuries have passed since his death and the blood purity has been diluted. Yet your fire lives in the blood of your descendants Zarios. A Man, a human who put fear into the hearts of the Ancient Demons as you incinerated them.'
Zelretch wondered as he looked at where the child was looking at. A Man in a suit stood facing them.
It confounded him, he couldn't sense anything from the Man. He looked neither a living nor undead nor a spirit.
He could neither sense any mana from him. The Man was cloaked, he couldn't see anything of him.
Despite having a crystal clear view of him, he couldn't see anything of him.
"Worms"
His face is formed by worms. Zelretch looked closely again, the worms made his face. It was as if the whole body was a patch-up of worms.
'Zouken used them to elongate his life but these are different. I've never seen this type of them. They are oval with a single big eye in the centre. Also, there's a symbol in that irises.'
It was for a brief second but Zelretch felt being watched by someone. His hair stood on end, he felt goosebumps.
It was not a first for him, he had faced many formidable foes. Each is stronger than the other.
The most memorable one for him was the Battle where he gained the Second True Magic.
Zelretch calmed as he checked for any intruders in his space and for being's spying. After making sure there was no tampering with the space, he looked at the man to find out more about him.
He had been aware of the Magic that the Zarios's descendants had been working on. They were fanatics in their research, searching for beings beyond the Root.
'Which is an interesting subject but it is impossible for there to be anything above Omnipotence, Omnipresence and Omniscient.'
He thought back to their research as he turned to the Man. Trying to read what the symbol in those eyes could mean? After all, all the eyes in every worm had the same symbol.
He thought of making a note of it on a piece of paper to research it at a later date. It was then he felt it.
He looked back up at the Man, all those eyes were staring at him.
He had been so lost in the symbol that he had failed to observe a Sword in the Man's hand.
It was swift.
He heard the sound of crystals shattering.
To only see a Sword making a beeline at him. The obsidian sword sliced through him, making a vertical cut. Yet when the sword came to a rest, not a drop of blood stained the floor.
The Sword which Bruce had named The Sword of Blasphemy, or as he simply called it The Error.
The Error had thousands of lines of flavour text and lore written into it by Bruce in his free time. He had World manage the Guild during the raids.
While he typed away on the keyboard filling in the flavour text for the weapons he made. It was his one of the beginning test subjects but not the first weapon where he elaborately created lore for it.
Neither was it the strongest.
It might have been for the fact that he was ready to part with it despite having spent a lot of time on it. He wasn't the best power building or power system builder.
Neither did he remember every sequence of all the Pathways.
He had made explicitly made sure to leave more concise and detailed lore and prowess of the Lord of the Mysteries Pillar.
Especially the Fool's, Error and Door's prowess.
With the rest there existed very little explanation that Bruce could very well have forgotten.
{The Sword becomes One with the Wielder of the Sword. It is a weak sword but it can project the being's strength on itself. The Wielder and the Sword become one where it is impossible to destroy the Sword unless killing them both.}
With it, the lines of the Error pathway allowed it to devour and steal, absorb all that is Kischur Zelretch Schweinorg. His destiny, prowess, body, soul, magic, mana and everything.
The Sword even absorbed the infamous Jeweled Sword of Zelretch which was stored in his pocket.
The Almighty Pillar allowed it to locate the Space, his home as The Lord of the Mysteries Pillar let it make its way through the space.
In the end, Bruce was not a simple Yggdrasil player stranded in a different World. He was a reincarnate wearing ROB's Suit and Cane. The Cane and the Suit were One with Bruce, the Sword was just an addition.
With the power of Cane, the Space. Zelretch's house was penetrated. It also boosted it to be an unbreakable Sword that could cut through anything. With ROB's will in the Cane, the Sword's lore came true surpassing the very Root.
Bruce as the Lord of the Mysteries had become One with the Suit & Cane and the Sword as per the lore. It was all it took to bring down a Dead Apostle.
The Sword had gained sentience becoming one of its kind. Kischur Zelretch Schweinorg's death had birthed a Sword that might one day grow powerful enough to slay The Root.
The lore of the Sword unravelled as they corrupted and cracked the dimension, sending it on a course of destruction in a day.
Kischur Zelretch Schweinorg realised it before he suffered a similar fate as Zouken, His descendants had succeeded. They connected to an Entity from beyond The Root.
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**The End**
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