An Unborn Hero

"I'm sorry, but I really need to address the ogre in the room," said Rose after they'd resumed their jog towards the assumed demon. "Hayedalf, do you still have a... you know."

Hayedalf did indeed know, but damn well wasn't going to admit it. "A what?" he asked innocently.

"... Never mind."

Hayedalf had, of course, considered the question. It was hard not to. At first, the horde of monsters had admittedly provided some distraction, and the contingent of guards had made any surreptitious self-examination impossible, but since then they'd been running in relative peace. He could make an educated guess simply from the sensations of movement, but if he'd wanted to be sure, there'd been plentiful time to carefully and naturally fall to the back of the group for a moment or two while he felt beneath his dress. He hadn't actually followed through, though, on account of his skills warning him of Mystery's watching ectoplasmic eye.

Besides, pragmatically speaking, it didn't matter. Whatever was or wasn't there was trapped inside a pair of irremovable panties and would never see the light of day.

"In that case, did anyone get a new monster slayer achievement from that?" tried Rose, changing the topic. "I got the fifth rank for it, so whatever that monster was must have been at least rank six. I only had rank two before!"

"I got it at rank five, too," admitted Hayedalf.

"Only four for me, but I did less work than you two," added Kellela.

"Can we focus on our mission?" complained Grace, who hadn't contributed enough for an upgrade at all.

"You of all people want to focus on the fact that we're running towards a demon of unknown strength, surrounded by an unknown quantity of bodyguards that may or may not include more of those dragon things? We don't even know for sure there's only one demon!"

"... Point. So, outfits for the ball tomorrow. I can't help Kellela, but maybe I have some old, suitable dresses that will fit you, Rose."

"That would be... helpful. Suspiciously so," said Rose carefully, unwilling to believe Grace had so quickly forgiven the skirt-flip.

"Not at all. With the [Hero] unavailable, all eyes are going to be on us party members," explained Grace, who indeed hadn't forgiven anything. She plastered on her best fake smile to disguise her internal hope that the palace [Torturer] hadn't chosen today to borrow that corset, before continuing, "We need to display strength and unity to everyone, lest we attract a swarm of bugs hoping to take advantage of us."

"If we want to display strength and unity, we should all just wear these costumes," suggested Rose, accidentally hitting the other reason Grace had decided to be helpful and not leave Rose to her own devices.

"No," stated Grace with absolute finality, the ice in her voice causing Rose an involuntary shiver.

"It would ensure no-one recognises me and Hayedalf," pointed out Kellela.

"What?" asked Hayedalf. "I'm not even invited!"

"Only because you didn't have the [Hero's Party Member] achievement when invitations were sent out."

"That's beside the point. No invite, no entry," he claimed desperately, despite knowing the Recorder would have picked him up already and his invite was very likely en route. His only hope was for it to not be delivered in time. Thankfully, the giant monster horde between him and any messenger should help with that.

"Maybe Mum has something Kellela can borrow?" thought Grace out loud. "They wouldn't have done this at such short notice without some sort of plan."

She stopped to consider her father's personality.

"... I hope."

"Time to drop it," said Hayedalf seriously, spotting an open ring of monsters in front of them. And, in the exact centre of the ring, stood a towering humanoid, triple the height of the girls, arms crossed as he waited impatiently. "We're here."

Zyfyl'p stared at the group in front of him, the grin wiped completely from his featureless face. Four little human girls, without a single weapon between them. Almost without a single muscle between them. Only the blue one looked like she even knew what a push-up was, and even she didn't look like she'd be competing at them on any major stage. And that was another thing; there was a blue one. They were colour coded. Wearing dresses.

The demon felt distinctly mocked, but there was no denying that the pink one was the source of the irritation he'd been sent to track down. Even if they were boring bugs, it was still his job to squash them.

And then he remembered they'd taken down a wyrm. Not only that, but they were standing before him completely uninjured! None of them were even breathing heavily. Outside appearances were unimportant; strength was all that mattered. Let them wrap themselves in frills and lace if they wished. As long as they could give him a good fight, there was no reason to care.

The only downside was that the lack of weapons and armour strongly suggested they were all mages, and Zyfyl'p wasn't a fan of mages. They were the worst for hiding behind walls and barriers, and when you did catch one up close, they tended to go squish with a single punch. But once again, he reminded himself of the wyrm. Whatever they were, they were sure to be worthy adversaries.

The chitin mask split once more as the mouth reappeared, a black tongue rolling around it as the demon salivated. His hand groped once more at the back of his neck, and this time his fingers pierced through, chitin shattering as he grabbed something within. Slowly and methodically, he pulled, drawing an enormous sword from inside his chitin shell. The blade was black and emitted a purple mist the moment it was exposed to air. The mist rolled across the ground, grass blackening and withering at its touch.

It also kept coming.

Zyfyl'p pulled out far more blade than his torso should have had room for, arm twisting in a way that suggested more joints than usually went with the word 'humanoid', and ending up with a weapon as long as he was tall, wide enough that it should have done massive damage as he pulled it out. Instead, even his neck was unblemished. From looks alone, it should have been too heavy to wield, yet he held it in a single hand.

"Come, human children, and show me your strength!" he boomed, graciously refraining from charging to give the assumed mages a chance to work their magic.

All four flinched at the challenge, while Grace practically wilted. It was obvious to all of them that the monsters—still in a large, neat ring, which was gradually closing ranks behind the girls, trapping them in—had been ordered not to interfere, but that had the corollary that the one doing the ordering didn't think they needed to interfere. And, if he turned out to be wrong and ended up dead, what was the ring of monsters going to do the moment they lost their leashes?

Rose was the first to recover, charging at the demon and materialising a sword in each hand. She made no assumption that since the first demon had fallen so easily, this one would too; Hayedalf had informed her the previous demon had been weak back when she'd first slain him. But they'd get nowhere if they didn't even try.

She swung a blade in professional silence, but Zyfyl'p parried with his wrist, the blade harmlessly deflected by the tough chitin. He countered with his own weapon, and Rose made her own attempt at parrying, but the weight of his blow was far beyond anything she was prepared for, and she once again found herself batted away. Her sword shattered in the impact, dissolving back into motes of light, and it was only the protection of Mystery's magic that prevented her wrist from sharing the same fate.

She didn't let the counterattack prevent her from summoning a new wave of swords, though, stabbing through the air at the demon.

Every one bounced harmlessly from his tough chitin exoskeleton.

"It's like the scales all over again!" she yelled as she flew through the air, spinning and landing on her feet, but her momentum causing her to continue to slide several metres away from the demon. "Hayedalf?"

Hayedalf followed up with a thrown stone. The demon—unaware of his abilities and seeing nothing more than him scooping up and tossing a stone from the ground—stretched out his other hand and caught it.

"Yes!" shouted Rose enthusiastically as it exploded. "I mean, no!" she corrected herself as the demon leapt out of the cloud of smoke, straight towards her, some minor scorching on his hand the only damage dealt by the explosion.

Carefully placed pink barriers sprung up around his ankles, causing him to stumble. Rose twirled, taking advantage of his momentary inconvenience to slice her remaining sword into Zyfyl'p's leg. It harmlessly shattered against the chitin.

"What's the point of weapons when they keep doing that?!" she complained, leaping backward to dodge a sword slice from the demon. "He doesn't even have any orifices to target. How can he see? And how is he swinging that thing around like that without falling over? Hasn't he ever heard of momentum?!"

Another barrage of enchanted stones struck the demon, each one leaving behind blooms of ice, but this time eliciting no response.

"That won't do anything unless you hit a joint!" shouted Grace.

"Rose, cut him again!" shouted Kellela.

"I can't! My swords can't slice through his exoskeleton!"

"Just give it a go. Trust me!"

The demon swung again at Rose, focusing on the single opponent that seemed to have any real combat ability, but she ducked the attack and materialised a new sword, stabbing it at the demon. Just before impact, it glowed pink as Kellela wrapped it in her barriers.

They shattered instantly on impact, and the sword soon followed, snapping in half and then dissolving back into the light from whence it came, but this time a grain of chitin chipped off too.

Zyfyl'p's mask split as his grin made a reappearance. "So, you can do it when you try. Come! Entertain me! Show me what..."

He stopped as an exploding stone impacted his face, an inch away from his open mouth.

"Dammit, missed," muttered Hayedalf.

An amused roar came from the cloud of smoke as the demon burst back out of it, still focusing his efforts on Rose.

The two exchanged a few more rounds of blows, Rose desperately dodging, but unable to deal any damage of her own. Pink light flickered around her swords as Kellela tried to help, but they were still leaving little more than scratches.

"We can't keep this up forever!" shouted Grace above the noise of magically conjured steel shattering as it struck demonic chitin.

"What do you mean, 'we'?" muttered Rose as the demon's black sword swept within an inch of her face, close enough for the purple miasma pouring from it to sting her eyes.

"Rose! Toss me some swords!" shouted Hayedalf.

"You think two of you will make a difference? If this is your level, one, two or a hundred would all be the same," laughed the demon as he released his grip on his sword, swinging the empty arm with an alacrity that belied his immense size and catching Rose by the throat.

"Urk!" she gasped as she struggled fruitlessly, her feet lifted a couple of metres above the floor.

The demon caught his sword in his other hand, then brought the point up to Rose's face, holding it steady between her eyes. "What a disappointment," he muttered sadly. "I had high hopes for you, after you beat my wyrm, but it seems those hopes were misplaced."

Rose's eyes flickered side to side as she desperately tried to think of a way out. Unable to breathe or escape, she was starting to panic.

"Swords!" Hayedalf repeated, and Rose conjured a wave of them, firing them at the ground at Hayedalf's feet.

He hurriedly grabbed one, pressed his palm against the blade, then threw it back. She caught it by the handle, immediately stabbing it into Zyfyl'p's arm. A pink light flickered as Kellela offered her aid, but as usual, the barrier shattered immediately.

The white flash and thunderclap as blade impacted chitin was new, though.

The demon stepped backward as he released Rose, who crashed to the floor, gasping for breath. Another sword impacted the demon, thrown by Hayedalf and again zapping him with lightning on impact, but this time the demon was expecting it. Without the aid of surprise, the attacks failed to have much impact.

"What is this?" he laughed. "Combining your pitiful powers in the hopes of harming me? Well, there's still a chance. I've seen three of the four. Why doesn't the last of your sorry little group chip in?"

"Oh, of course! That was what Mystery meant with that little light show," exclaimed Grace, coming to a sudden realisation. "I suppose she should know what it's for..." She treated the demon to a nervous smile before bursting with white light, the shock-wave failing to have any effect on the other magical girls or surrounding monsters.

The nearby demon, on the other hand, found himself very affected.

Spoiler

μ̵̼͉̐υ̴̡̽̿σ̷̭͓̃̀τ̸͉̤̾̆ή̶͎̱͌ρ̸̤͕̏̿ι̷̬̾͜ό̸͈ (Human)
Age: -8 months
Occupation: Hero (L)
Skills:
- Soul's Eye (U) (29/80)
>> Sense Vitality (U)
>> Sense Soul (R)
>> Sense Mana (U)
>> Sense Light (C)
>> Sense Sound (C)
>> Pierce Illusions (U)
>> Sense Miasma (R)
- Astral Projection (U) (20/60)
>> Sure Navigation (U)
>> Uncontainable (U)
>> Tether of Will (L)
- Robust (C) (18/40)
>> Hardened Soul (R)
>> Secured Mana (U)
>> Pain Tolerance (C)
- Stealth (C) (3/20)
>> Camouflage Vitality (R)
- Magical Girl Transformation (R) (16/30)
>> Age Correction (R)
>> Gender Bending (R)
- Light (C) (8/20)
>> Heterochrome (U)
- Increased Attributes (C) (7/20)
>> Mana Storage (U)
Achievements:
- Early Bloomer II (R)
- First Skill (C)
- Apprentice (C)
- Survivor of Zarklaxxos, the Arcane Infernal (R)
- I Broke The System, And All I Got Was This Lousy Achievement (E)
- Astral Explorer I (R)
- First Spell (C)
- I Broke The System Again, And Now The Administrators Hate Me (E)
- Spell Forger (R)
- Demon Slayer I (R)
- Monster Slayer V (E)
- Curiosity (U)

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