Orochi the dragon was watching Alesha on the screen in his private viewing booth when he snarled in distress, thumping his tail. He was angry. The restrained Hero had stopped screaming several days ago, but the black-clad people kept regularly feeding her that strange, burnt-orange liquid. The King visited several times to oversee the process himself, giving instructions and correcting their proceedings when he felt they had erred.
Orochi felt powerless. He usually enjoyed Zorhellian's games, but for some reason, it hurt his heart to watch the cruelty that was being exhibited against Alesha. She had done nothing wrong! In no way had she drawn the ire of the King or the Kingdom; none of her actions would justify her being treated like this. What was worse is that even the King acknowledged that fact. He knew there was no justice in his actions, yet he did it anyway. Of course, as a viewer, Orochi was privy to the King's plans. He knew why the King was doing it. He'd watched the King come up with this scheme with his advisors, listened as they devised how best to ensure its success, and observed as they carried it out. It made him feel so useless. He couldn't do anything to interfere, even though he wished he could.
Orochi knew it was complicated. The King was using convoluted, adult logic that Orochi found difficult to follow to justify his decisions. Still, he didn't get it. What could possibly be more important than Alesha's happiness?
He wasn't self-aware enough to see the flaws in his reasoning. Of course the King wouldn't care more about Alesha than his Kingdom; when it came to deciding between the two, it was only logical that the King would choose his Kingdom. He had his duty to think about. How could he let some random Hero that couldn't even function properly as a Hero get in the way of that?
The other thing Orochi wasn't self-aware enough to notice was his own moral inconsistency. Did he care about what happened to anyone else? No, he did not. He would have rather the King chose anyone other than Alesha for his plans. Had it been any Hero other than her, Orochi would've laughed it off as nothing important. He might not have bat an eye even if it had been his own Uncle, Zorhellian, who had been victimized like that.
But Alesha? It made him angry to see her abused in such a fashion. His claws dug into the seat cushions and smoke billowed from his nostrils.
Later, after the smoke from his breath had set off the magical sprinklers installed in the venue, his Uncle gave him a very stern talking-to and a temporary ban from the facilities. It was this temporary ban that made Orochi miss what happened next.
----
As time passed, Alesha felt her mind begin to sink somewhere deep. She stopped being able to count how many times she was fed, then lost the ability to read the skill notifications when they appeared. Eventually, she could no longer perceive, even distantly, the pain of drinking whatever acid they kept feeding her. A while after that, she was no longer capable of even the simplest thought. If she were, she would have wondered if her body was able to function at all anymore. By this time, however, her mental faculties had regressed so far that she no longer had the intelligence to recognize her own name.
Rogork kept singing, though she could no longer hear it. [~London bridge is falling down, falling down, falling down, London bridge is falling down, my fair lady! And then it's gone and fallen down, fallen down, fallen down, and then it's gone and fallen down, my fair lady!~]
----
King Julius, ruler of the Kingdom that had summoned the Heroes, strode briskly down the hallway of the secret facility. This facility had been constructed entirely by magic underneath the castle grounds. It was here that he had deceived Alesha into plundering Han's Gluttony skill and it was here that she had been detained for the sake of his plans. During the first couple months of her imprisonment, he had hardened his heart towards her agonized screams; for several weeks since then, however, that had no longer been a necessary measure. What she had become was no longer capable of emitting sound.
His heart thumped with nervous excitement in his chest, accentuated by every step he took. Finally, finally, the ritual was completed!
About a year ago, seven months before the Heroes were summoned, agents of the Kingdom belonging to the secret organization "Whisper" had infiltrated the Demon Kingdom and stolen research about a kind of weapon developed to counter Heroes. These weapons were called "Cursed Weapons." Rather than afflicting the wielder with a curse, they were named such because of the process by which they were made. Using a complex blend of alchemy and magic, living beings were transformed into magic-infused metal, which metal, because it was inhibited by a cursed soul, was still in possession of the skills they had while alive. The process of turning someone into this cursed metal drastically reduced their stats and erased any sentience they had -- and though they were no longer alive, they were also neither dead nor undead. They were "cursed." After turning the person into metal, a specially-designed magical spell was then cast to alter the shape of the metal, forging it into a weapon suitable for the shape of the soul that was trapped within.
That was where the King was headed now: to see the final product of project Bana Laoch, which was the name by which he and his advisors had decided to call his plans. The meticulous preparation, the worrying and the waiting, all of it was done now. All that remained was to see the crafted weapon and give it to his chosen person. After this, he and the alchemists, mages, and other agents he'd assigned to the project would be able to rest easy.
It was about time, too. The Heroes had been gradually diverting from their original goal, getting sidetracked with acquiring personal satisfaction through various means. That had been encouraged, in some ways; particularly where it came to inciting the men to form harems. Natives of this world had a very hard time acquiring skills and were never born with them. The same was not true, however, for the Heroes' descendants; therefore, the more women in the Kingdom that got pregnant with the Heroes' children, the better. At present, over 20 women had already successfully seduced Heroes, gotten pregnant, and signed up for support from the Crown.
When it came to other kinds of self-satisfaction, though, the King was much more worried. Some of the Heroes had been greedily pursuing wealth or drink, while others simply flaunted their power wherever they went. The brutality he'd predicted and feared from them was exhibited by many of the Heroes. The Necromancer Keenan had recently gone rogue and was now roaming the countryside with an ever-growing army of undead. Unfortunately, the Kingdom's current forces were unable to do anything about the fact. The other Heroes weren't able to do much about it, either; or perhaps it was more accurate to say that they couldn't come to a united decision about whether to do so or not. Their division (and resulting delay in action) was costing the people of the Kingdom greatly.
With the completion of project Bana Laoch, however, he hoped to give the Heroes a much-needed push in the right direction. After that, he would accelerate their training, have them defeat the Demon King and finally send them home. Things would get troublesome if too many of them tried to stay; but that was another purpose for having crafted the weapon.
Whoever he gave the weapon to would have power enough to rival the Heroes. Further, because the main ingredient for it was the Hero Alesha, the weapon would possess both the Plunder and Gluttony skills, so the wielder of the blade would progressively get stronger over time. In the hands of the right person, it would be a powerful insurance against the Heroes.
The King and his agents had taken great care to acquire the blood of many powerful beasts to feed to Alesha before she was too metalised to digest it. Such beasts were chosen strategically for the skills they possessed. Then, by using Appraisal on her after each meal, those assigned to project Bana Laoch were able to keep track of what skills she'd successfully acquired. There had been a few unexpected developments. This was due to the fact that, since she was drinking blood fed to her rather than biting the skill holder directly, skills were chosen randomly from those possessed by the monsters. One particularly severe mix-up occurred in which the blood of a creature that should never have been fed to her was included in her meals, which resulted in her acquiring a very dangerous monster-specific skill that could negatively influence the wielder's behavior after the weapon was completed. The person responsible for that had been sentenced to a month in jail as punishment.
Ceasing his contemplations and breathing deeply in front of the door to the room in which the completed weapon was waiting, King Julius prepared himself to see the fruits of project Bana Laoch.