.
The Mines wagon was just that. It was just like a farm wagon, although it had box sides instead of a simple flat bed. Most of us sat on the floor, leaning against the sides, but agile Brigitte stayed perched on the side, where any rational person would fear getting pitched over onto the road from the incessant jostling.
Everyone was worn out, so there was very little talking.
As we neared the end of a ride that had mostly occurred in silence, Ryuu had the balls to tell me, "I don't need to thank you for saving us. It was your fault that we lost in the first place."
What?
"Mr. Kowa, exactly how do you imagine that?"
I think of him as "Ryuu" because that was how he was called in the narrative of Isenai, but Tiana had always addressed him by family name. It was considered courtesy in Orestania to use a commoner's family name if they had one.
"It was your fault we had to tell you to leave. If you hadn't been untrustworthy, we would not have been shorthanded. We could have beaten that thing with your help!"
I assumed 'that thing' meant Jurmat. I had been astonished to learn that he was the culprit who separated the party and performed the petrifications using monster mimicry. The flame weapon he had used on Arken may have been mimicry as well.
I had come to believe it had been Trisiagga doing these things, but it seemed Jurmat had been tougher than my battle with him would suggest. Trisiagga had not done that much better against me, but I had been lucky with her. She'd been caught by surprise twice now.
For most of the time that Tiana was in the hero's party, she had held her tongue when Ryuu got stupid, but I couldn't do it. Possibly because Arken wasn't there to take him aside and explain why he was wrong.
I snapped when he blamed their problems on me. "I can only take responsibility for things only up to the point where we parted ways, Mr. Kowa. The consequences of your actions afterward are your responsibility."
"We were short-handed because of you!"
"You were short-handed because of you, Mr. Kowa. I did not fire myself."
"You were fired because of what you did!"
"I was fired because you overreacted!"
"Does that precious king of yours agree that I overreacted? I had Arken send a report home about you!"
I had been listening to abuse all day, but when he spoke so casually about Uncle Owen, it was the last straw for the Tiana side of me. I sprang up in the moving wagon, hand on my sword's hilt. Her side of me was ready to draw, but I simply demanded, "Speak with respect when you speak of His Majesty, commoner!"
Ryuu started to stand, but a giant hand landed on his shoulder and pressed him back to his seat. He turned to glower at Graham, but the big man was now angry at him too. "He's my king too, Hero. You will call him 'His Majesty'."
Graham's attitude toward me had improved after watching what I had willingly gone through during the two unpetrifications that he witnessed, but I was a little surprised that he was backing me up. Wasn't this the guy who called me 'Vampire Bitch' not that long ago?
Ryuu's lips pressed together for a moment, but he relaxed and nodded.
"Sorry," he said... to Graham, before turning back to me. "What was His Majesty's opinion about your firing? Of course, he supported me, right?"
After staring him down a bit longer,-- while wondering how he could so arrogantly put words in the king's mouth, and from where exactly he was getting the words he was putting there,-- I relaxed and sat, thankful the wagon hadn't hit a bump bigger than what I could handle while I was standing. "No. He said you lack leadership skills, Mr. Kowa."
"Lack leadership skills?" he echoed with astonishment.
"I refuse to debate my king's words, Mr. Kowa. He said what he said, and that is all the discussion his words require."
He scowled at me for several seconds, then said, "What is going on, Tiana? You're like a completely different person."
A chill ran up my spine for a moment. Can he tell? He's a fellow Earther, after all...
I decided to pretend his words didn't bother me. "Last time I was with you, I was bound by my oath to follow you and respect your commands, as directed by my king's command. This time, my king has sent me here to rescue you, not to follow you. I am not obliged to defer to you this time. Perhaps that is the difference you see. I am the king's knight, Mr. Kowa, not your underling."
"You're also a lot more powerful than you used to be," Brigitte noted, her eyes narrowing slightly.
But Graham, who had once seen the old Tiana as a nuisance, surprised me by defending me. "You're talking like a fool now, Brigitte. We watched her take down a dragon, remember?"
I saw Ceria's eyes sparkle after he said that. I also saw one of the Mines employees up in the driver's box glance over his shoulder at me in astonishment.
My sharp hearing can be fun sometimes. I overheard him as he leaned close to his partner driving the wagon and whispered, "So she's a real one?"
"Shut up and don't make eye contact!" was the reply.
Brigitte grumbled, "Well, Ryuu actually finished it off..."
"The thing was already dying," Graham retorted. "What is it with you women around Ryuu?"
Ryuu's frown deepened as he contemplated me. "So you were holding back all that time while you were with us, weren't you? Were you only going to get serious when I got into trouble?"
Brigitte humphed. "I bet the idea was, if she actually used her strength, she'd be doing it all and you'd never get stronger. That's right, isn't it?"
She had directed the question at the end to me, like a challenge.
The fact was, Tiana had indeed held back to make sure it was Ryuu's show, as she had been ordered. She hadn't held back quite as much as these guys now seemed to think, but I wasn't going to tell them that. It would require explaining that I had leveled up and more importantly, explaining the means by which I had leveled up.
I simply answered, "The king ordered me to support Ryuu."
"I feel like the longer we know you, the more fake you turn out to be," she grumbled.
"Fake?" I retorted, a little hurt.
"When we first met you, you gave all of us the impression that you were a clueless young thing who barely qualified as a fairy knight and was magically inept. Then, every once in a while you would let clues slip that you were more powerful, like defending that halfling village all by yourself. And saving our ass when that dragon turned out to be too much."
I remembered that the fan discussions about Tiana online had been the same. They had started out with things like, 'she's just a weakling harem character' to 'wait, why could she do that? Wouldn't she have to be awfully strong?' and evolving to the point where they were saying, 'maybe she's actually super-strong and the king has her secretly acting as Ryuu's bodyguard?' Finally, they reached the point of, 'Maybe Tiana is the real hero, and Ryuu's just camouflage for her?'
Frankly, Robert had been one of those people thinking that last one.
Uncle Owen had indeed specifically ordered her to stay back and let Ryuu get stronger, but not let him get killed. So I couldn't contradict Brigitte now.
I told her, "The augurs say he is vital to the kingdom's future. It was my job to keep him alive until he was strong enough for the future. That's all I will say."
Really, they could keep sulking as much as they wanted. I knew they were mostly just trying to come to terms with the fact that the person they drove out had just saved them.
We crested a hill and the town walls came into sight. This was a different gate than the one where I first entered the town. It faced neither toward nor away from Orestainia, but instead opened toward the hills. The lines of sight were nowhere as long as the other directions.
In fact, it was only a hundred paces or so to the gate when we came over the top. Which gave us little warning of the small army that was waiting there to receive us.
Opinion of Graham improved even further! He's getting tired of Ryuu's bullsh** and is noticing how things aren't right in the people around Ryuu. If he keeps this up he may escape Ryuu's MC halo entirely and I actually might have hope for him to turn into a cool character. I wonder if he'll eventually be friendly enough with Tiana to affectionately call her something like the "Crazy Fairy Vampire B**** who can kick anyone's ass" in a friendly ribbing sort of way like Ceria and Bruna tease each other...and Bruna could keep a good lay around for when she needs a "snack"
Opinion of Ryuu dropped even further, the ungrateful little twit. Good to know people back on Earth were already realizing Tiana was the real MC and Ryuu was just a decoy. I kinda wanna see a snippet/little aside section of people's reactions to how the story continues back on Earth-and how the clairvoyant author will portray things. We know he follows Ryuu rather than Tiana, so it would be quite interesting to see how things look from the author's perspective.
Opinion of Brigitte is mostly the same-she seems to have fallen into the MC Halo aura Ryuu and doesn't always act logically, but she's at least not actively going out of her way to make things worse for Tiana like Ryuu is
So Jurmat is the one with monster mimicry rather than Trisiagga? Very interesting...that implies it might be something Tiana could learn too which would be really cool. It seems like Jurmat might be an artificial/partially successful attempt at making a strega/stregone?
Those mine wagon drivers are clearly in on the conspiracy. For the ending...I wonder how stupid Ryuu is going to be during this upcoming conflict, and what Brigitte and Graham will do
You know what? T should make Jurmat a blood slave. Just saying, if she did that. Good LAWD. How much more powerful would she get with access to HIS magic? Sweet Baby Jebus.
@Bigdsweetz she might not need to, I'm not sure how much of Jurmat's magic is intrinsic or not, but it's possible that Tiana could awaken/get it herself without needing to learn it from him if that magic/skill is something intrinsic to the strega. Like Tiana got that new instinct/drive to learn more magic while learning from Ceria, there could be other hidden skills/instincts waiting to be awoken
The worst part about Ryuu is if he's read even a few isekai novels, having a half-monster/vampire/other non-standard humanoid companion is a normal thing for a hero. Yet he still blames her for not outing herself and directly disobeying her actual king, a man she actually loves and respects as not only a ruler but family as well. He definitely thinks far too much of himself. It's nice to see others actually calling him out on disrespecting said king.
It all depends on what isekai novels he read. There are plenty where the MC is an ass, has no respect for his companions, the girls are only harem material and the male companions are there only to die and give the hero five minutes of angst and a revenge boost to his powers.
it's definitely a turning point for everyone else in the hero's party-Graham is clearly fed up with Ryuu's idiocy, rudeness and arrogance *and* he saw what Tiana put herself through to free him and the other two which has earned her his respect. Brigitte seems to be teetering in and out of the MC halo Ryuu has-she accepted Tiana's apology without much fuss and isn't making things worse for her, but she's still not thinking clearly regarding things around Ryuu
I think Ryuu is too caught up in the "hero" thing-most of the people around him have either played along because they were ordered to or are caught in the MC halo, so he hasn't really had anyone to kick him out of his stupidity. And since Tiana is no longer there to cover up his mistakes and clean up his messes, things are falling apart around him and he doesn't know how to handle it. If one of the angels from the various afterlife Departments directly confronted him about his stupidity it's possible he would remember things like that, but until then he doesn't seem likely to change.
Also like Jago said-there are plenty of isekai novels where the MCs are just absolute psychopathic degenerates that the world in the novel just bends to their every whim and their flaws and f*** ups never directly come back to harm them, but only those around them. Think stuff like an arrogant MC in a sect that pisses off some stronger sect (when it's unprovoked rather than just defending themselves-something like "I refuse to give X my treasure just because he's from a bigger sect and wants it" is fine, something like "I pissed on X from a bigger sects head because he looked at me funny" is not.) gets everyone else in his sect killed and swears revenge on the stronger sect, having learned nothing. Repeat ad infinitum.
@MarkofWisdom It is one of the reasons why I don't like most wuxia. The need to always demonstrate who is the superior guy. Even when the characters are friends there is almost always the need to determine dominance through confrontation and often humiliation.
The other thing is the lack of proportions between the perceived offenses and the following punishment/vengeance.
@MarkofWisdom
For Brigitte accepting the apology, it might be less because she actually meant it and more like the knowledge that whether she likes Tiana or not, Tiana is the daughter of a duchess and she's just a commoner. Commoners know that pissing off high nobles especially ones with very, very powerful parents, is not a good idea. Spurning the apology and spitting on Tiana's honor would not have helped her any.
@yseris even if it wasn't a sincere acceptance of Tiana's apology, Brigitte is a heck of a lot smarter than Ryuu is and she isn't aggressively antagonizing Tiana or blaming her for Ryuu's failures (yet?)
@Jago Yeah, I went on a reading spree reading a lot of those a while back and noticed the patterns and got tired of them. It was a nice surprise when the MC wasn't a raging sociopathic lunatic jackass, which is kinda sad/pathetic to think of really. There is also the common, though not unique, issue of plot/character degradation after a certain point when it's clear the author has no idea what they're doing or where the plot is going-they've run out of what they planned on doing for the story but either want/have to continue it for whatever reason.
Probably the most obvious examples are after book/arc 1 of one of those novels ends and they ascend to the next level area/world/plane of existence and everything basically resets and almost everything from earlier in the novel gets chucked out of the worldscape-all those countries, locations and history the author spent the story building up and exploring? Gone, except for maybe an occasional footnote somewhere where they run into someone from the previous world. So you end up with small areas described and everything else being a big blank since the author has shifted scenes from the initial world they made.
I remember one series, not which one but I remember reading it, where the pattern was so obvious and predictable that there were jokes in forums about it-
Scene 8493894-now in new area after having become top dog in the last area, MC is now considered worthless trash that no one knows/everyone hates and Arrogant Young Master from the Pompous Arsehole Sect wants to mug/kill/humiliate the new guy for no real reason. MC snarks back and AYM says that as the young master of the Pompous Arsehole Sect he is going to kill the MC for his arrogance/backtalking/not bowing before AYM's magnificence. Fight scene. Lackey 1, (and maybe lackey 2 if the author is feeling like spicing it up) says to AYM that they will handle it, jumps forward and attacks MC but is beaten in a single move and spectators have exactly three lines of dialogue exclaiming their surprise at how powerful MC is. AYM insults MC more and berates his incompetent lackeys before going into attack MC himself. MC dodges/deflects AYM with ease and there are 3 more lines from the peanut gallery about MC's strength. AYM gets more mad at MC and pulls out some super move that the MC either dodges again or returns fire and beats the AYM in a single move. 3 more lines from peanut gallery. AYM then basically s**** himself and tells MC that MC can't do anything to him because he's from the PAS and they'll hunt down MC and everyone he knows and loves if MC touches AYM, or runs away saying he'll have his revenge. MC proceeds to either attack anyways, killing or crippling AYM, or leave. 3 more comments from peanut gallery saying MC shouldn't have done that and that PAS will hunt them down.
Scene proceeds to someone 1+ generation(s) higher coming in to attack MC because they beat AYM, possible stopping MC's attack to finish off AYM, or as revenge for MC killing/crippling AYM. AYM Sr. insults MC more and says they shouldn't have opposed the PAS, even if AYM started it, and attacks MC. MC dodges/deflects AYM Sr.'s attack, to AYM Sr.'s surprise. 3 more lines from peanut gallery. Internal (or external) monologue from AYM Sr. about "needing to pull up troublesome weeds before they grow and how MC is/could be a threat to PAS". AYM Sr. doubles down and attacks MC with a stronger attack, but MC dodges again or survives. 3 more peanut gallery comments. Scene proceeds to either MC killing AYM Sr. and triggering AYM Sr. Sr. to come and attack (and 3 more comments) or getting away (and still getting 3 more comments from the peanut gallery before AYM Sr. gets pissed and blows up some random person in the peanut gallery, shutting everyone up) and being hunted down by the PAS. Repeat until PAS sect is entirely wiped out. Then move on to new area and repeat it from the top
@MarkofWisdom So true.
From what I get, part of the problem is that they get paid by word count, so there is a lot of padding and stretching of the story as long as it has success.
If you read manga, Dragonball has the same problem. The first arc is very good, then there is plenty of episodes of "new powerful enemy beats Goku, training montage, new mega move, the enemy is defeated", rinse and repeat. Then the last few chapters give the ending that was originally meant to happen several hundreds of pages before and the quality rise again.
New tales in the same universe, even with the same characters are nice to read, but not when you need to play a continued game of upmanship.
@Jago It was quite entertaining to write that post, detailing the formula for that series. I remember it now-Battle Through the Heavens-never finished it but got a fair way through. Stand out hilarity from that series was there being a consistent precisely 3 peanut gallery comments after every move in a fight/snark, seemingly immortal cockroach enemies that the author never let die, and enemies always getting saved at the last minute or the MC forgetting to kill his hated enemies and them being saved once he remembers he should have killed them/be killing them-
worst one was late in the story were they were in a sealed separate dimension as part of some group training/hidden world exploration competition-so no miraculous escape warp into another realm/location, no hidden seniors coming to save them, no surprise BS reason to have the AYM get away yet again. The MC was running from the enemies for a long while but as soon as he managed to corner them and was about to actually kill them a "random" spirit hurricane popped up out of nowhere and stopped him from doing so. Later in the arc after he got the arc power up and was stronger than everyone else around and could easily crush everyone there he neglected to actually try killing his enemies while he had the chance, staring at the wall in wonderment at how pretty the wall was. When he finally remembered "durrrrrr, oh right I should kill them while I can" the sealing of the hidden world immediately ended and the AYMs were rescued yet again. I stopped reading after that.
The one that pissed me off the most in any of those stories I've read so far was a different one with similar repetitive plot contrivances and points just having new names but the same song. The thing that got to me was in an arc where the MC had finally built a positive reputation in a region via a sect he joined and helped strengthen there was an arc with a hidden world competition. Usual idiocy happens of them all trying to kill each other. One "honorable" person among the rival factions was friendly with the MC but followed whatever his senior told him to do, and was stupid enough to reveal the MC has a space treasure after the MC had used it to save the moron, causing the senior to want MC dead and steal his stuff. More standard idiocy continues until many people are killed off by a plot by that senior to resurrect some demon so they could get power. Honorable moron disapproves of it but doesn't try to stop it. Blah blah blah, MC continues along and managed to save some people then big demon resurrection happens. Total sh**storm and MC manage to kill the demon and fatally wound the guy who plotted it. Before MC can finish the guy off though, dumbf*** moron pops out of *nowhere* and takes a sword blow from MC that would have killed the arc villain, saying he hates what AV did and regrets not being on MC's side but he "had to save his senior". AV backstabs moron and drains his life so he can escape, rendering everything pointless and all those people died for nothing. MC managed to follow the villain and nearly kill them before some other BS saved them, I can't remember what. The crowning piece of s*** in this complete clusterf*** was the villain going "haha lol you can't kill me. I'm already warping away. Also I have this magic bulls*** soul brainwashing magic that has never been mentioned before or after that makes everyone think you were the one that did all my evil and I was the good guy." This basically rendered like....300+ chapters and multiple arcs pointless-MC is now hated by everyone who think he is the devil incarnate, he has to leave the sect so they don't get dragged down with him, and everyone in the region starts trying to hunt him down. Later on there were even some people who realized "wait MC didn't do it, but he's already killed some of our guys who were trying to kill him. What, try to make peace like some of the other groups managed to do so? Hell no! So f*** it, double down and keep trying to kill him! He must be destroyed because he hates us because we tried to kill him based on those stupid lies!" and continued to keep going after the MC until he wiped them out. It still irritates me when I think about that stupidity. Made me drop the series entirely.
The kicker in all of this was the series started out pretty good and was mostly comedy based-stuff like a talking dog farting on enemies to make them faint so the MC could run away. That all flipped around some point in the second "realm" arc/volume after the first world arc/volume ended (after ~1200-1500+ chapters or so) and the author seemingly developed a raging hate boner for their MC and turned the story into one where MC would suffer endlessly and be humiliated at every turn for no reason aside from having the MC suffer. Comedy was pretty much dead and it was constant drama and enemies always winning or the MC winning Pyrrhic victories. Can't forget the love interests consistently getting kidnapped, brainwashed or otherwise stolen for multiple hundreds or thousands of chapters. I didn't read it myself but apparently in the third world arc the third love interest spent like....at least half of the entire third realm arc/volume (500+ chapters) brainwashed in multiple ways and kept getting possessed and stealing stuff from the MC. Once that girl got saved for the umpteenth time the second love interest got possessed and did the same crap. Then girl 3 got possessed again and got kidnapped yet again. Also the love interests of his friends also kept getting possessed and/or kidnapped, and his disciple's love interest got r**** and killed, causing the disciple to kill himself.
I remember the Dragon Ball thing and the escalation getting out of hand. Power levels meant something back in Dragon Ball but were worthless past the very start of DBZ because of how stupidly inflated they got. It reminds me of some wuxia/xianxia where the numbers get hilariously absurd late in the story-taking a train somewhere late in the story takes like multiple decades to reach it's destination, they stare at a wall for 50000 years to try and comprehend the meaning behind a squiggle, people fighting each other for literally thousands of years without stopping, and other stuff like that
@MarkofWisdom All of that is basically why I stopped watching Dragonball Z and its future incarnations. It's also why my brief foray into Wuxia/Xanxia novels ended after I noticed the fifth one was a near carbon copy of the first four, doing absolutely nothing new. With the DBZ thing, at some point fights would have to get to the point where Goku vs anyone would simply shatter the universe due to the endlessly scaling power involved.
@Jago I suppose that there are many isekai novels where the protagonist is an arrogant waste of human flesh, or is simply handed power while the world bends over to justify them so he very well could actually just assume that's what "should" be happening here since he's the hero. Thinking about it more, he very well may have only read such stories.
@Oopsibwokeit Childhood nostalgia and fond memories are most of what I liked about DBZ, and the fights were decent enough for when I first watched them. I can still enjoy watching it/later series if I make sure not to take it seriously. DB Super and later Z are silly though-universes could have/had been destroyed in the fights and entire timelines wiped out. Power levels are worthless and it's just a d*ck measuring contest where X person is stronger because the writer says they are...until they suddenly aren't as strong.
I think I remember seeing some people say one of the biggest disappoints they had in the series was what happened with Gohan after the Cell arc-he was supposed to take up the mantle of Earth's defender and find a balance between training and school stuff, but they apparently just decided he'd be an idiot and ignore training completely despite knowing more threats could and would come to Earth...and Goku was still dead at that point (again) so he was the frontline defense of Earth but decided "lol nope, not my problem", undoing a lot of character development. They were similarly disappointed at Vegeta's character development and respect for Goku getting undone in GT/Super and of them denying Vegeta the chance to be the hero in the Resurrection of F movie by having Frieza pull some BS move out of his arse to blow up the earth and Whis just doing a time reset to let Goku get the kill (again)
@MarkofWisdom Sturgeon law applies to web novels too (the first version I read was something like: Sci-fi critics "90% of all Sci-Fi is crap", Sturgeon "90% of everything is crap").
I recall one of those Wuxia novels. I stopped when we were informed that the world where the MC was reincarnated and where his friends lived was meant to be consumed as a single hit power booster in an emergency, and he had no problems with that.
Two new chapter this night, time to read them.