Bracelet Hero Part 4 (Patreon)

The priest scowled at Myst and Anna. "Why are you here so late?"

"Because I was hunting monsters and taking care of other business, you know that thing I was summoned for, i.e. being a hero," Myst replied with a touch of sarcasm, not seeing a point in mentioning his shopping trip for tools. "I want to link to the dragon hourglass and I want some of the dragon sand so I can unlock a teleport bracelet."

"How did you learn about that?" the priest asked.

"Every hero gets certain information about the world, give me the sand and show me the glass and I'll be out of your hair," Myst assured him.

"It's not that easy," the man argued.

"Sure it is, you do your job and I'll do mine, otherwise, I'll have to complain to someone important and then someone will complain to someone over your head and you probably won't enjoy it," Myst replied.

"Are you threatening me?" the priest demanded.

"Yeah, do your job," Myst replied, his voice increasing in volume as his patience level decreased.

"Fine, follow me," the priest grumbled as he realized that he didn't have the authority to refuse the request.

"Of course," Myst replied, doing his best not to smirk at the priest as he followed him through the annoyingly wealthy temple. He kept his face as neutral as he could despite the fact that he really just wanted to loot the place to the ground then burn it to ashes with the smug demihuman hating priests inside. 'Just remember, you can always come back and loot it to the ground later.'

Anna tried not to look at any of the creepy priests as she followed Myst through the hallways, wondering how many books she could get for just one of the gold candelabras. 'People are starving on the streets or being enslaved and you're using gold for decorations.'

Myst looked up at the giant metal and glass hourglass as his bracelet sent a beam of magic into the hourglass, connecting him to the location and giving him the option to teleport to any local waves. "And the sand?" he asked, looking at the priest.

A different priest walked over with a tiny vial filled with sand when the other priest stormed off in a huff. "Here."

"Thank you," Myst replied as he touched the vial to his bracelet and absorbed it, creating the Portal Bracelet. 'Equipment Bonus: Portal Skill: Allows the caster to set up to three teleport locations that they can teleport to with their party, locations can be changed as needed. It's not perfect but it's a heck of a lot better than I had.' He smiled. "I ran into the sword hero and told him I'd pick up his dust, can I save him a trip?"

"Of course," the priest said as he pulled another vial out of his robes and handed it to Myst.

"Thank you," Myst replied as he stuck the vial in his inventory then turned and started walking, doing his best to look casual and ignore the pink panther song that was running through his head because he doubted they'd appreciate him giving it to the shield hero which was what he was planning on doing.

Anna followed Myst, hoping they could get out before someone caused trouble because he was practically radiating smugness which meant he was up to something.

Myst was rather happy when they managed to escape the temple without any of the priests causing trouble. "Let's find an inn and get some sleep, we can leave in the morning."

"What did you get from the sand?" Anna asked in a whisper as they headed towards the less affluent section of town to see if they could find an inn.

"A portal skill, it lets me set up three teleport points and teleport to them with SP, it basically means we can teleport to the town if we need to and to other locations as needed," Myst explained.

"That should save us time," Anna admitted as they reached an inn. "It doesn't have a sign, do you want to try it?"

"Might as well," Myst replied as he opened the door. He smiled when he saw the shield hero and Raphtalia eating dinner at one of the tables. "At least we'll have decent company."

"Yep," Anna agreed as they walked over to join their friends. "Decided to call it a day?"

Naofumi smiled at Anna. "I wanted to see how much the alchemist would pay for the medical plants and I didn't want to overdo it our first day out because Raphtalia still has a cough."

Myst sat down next to Naofumi. "That's what medicine is for."

"It's bitter," Raphtalia complained.

"It's supposed to be, it keeps kids from using it when they shouldn't," Myst explained then looked at Naofumi. "We should probably compare notes on the monsters after dinner."

"Sure. Speaking of annoying things, do you have any suggestions for learning the local language?" Naofumi asked.

"I have a couple of ideas," Myst glanced at the innkeeper that was walking over. "We can cover it after we eat, I'm hungry."

"What can I get you?" the innkeeper asked with a pleasant smile.

"Steak and potatoes?" Myst asked hopefully.

"And for the little lady?" the man asked, looking at Anna.

"Same," Anna replied, looking forward to having something delicious to eat.

"Coming right up," the innkeeper replied as he headed towards the kitchen.

"Thanks," Myst offered, glad that someone seemed to be a reasonable person. He pulled one of his enchanting books out of his inventory and set it in front of Anna. "Might as well get studying so you can teach me."

"Sure," Anna replied as she opened the book and started reading the book to herself.

Myst amused himself watching the people and listening to Naofumi and Raphtalia describe their trip in the forest while he waited for the food.

0o0o0

Naofumi checked the hallway outside of his room then shut the door and looked at Myst. "Okay, what did you need to share that you didn't want to talk about downstairs?"

Myst put his finger to his lips then pulled the vial of sand out of inventory and handed it to Naofumi. "Just use it, don't shout or do anything stupid," he warned him in a whisper.

Naofumi used the bottle of sand then stared at the portal shield and the skill it gave me. "Where did you get that?" he asked, glad that Myst had warned him.

"From some people that really wouldn't like it if they knew you had it, so you don't have it. It's your ace in the hole," Myst replied. "As for the translation bit, that's my ace, it's easier when they don't know I can read."

"How did you learn?" he asked.

"I didn't, I fed my bracelet a trade language translation pamphlet. I have a feeling that my bracelets have a lot of utility skills the rest of you probably aren't going to get," Myst admitted.

"Because you're basically a support hero?" Naofumi asked.

"Basically," Myst replied with a shrug. "I'll see if I can come up with an enchantment or solution if you can't find a translation guide or if it doesn't work. Unfortunately, the lack of translation pretty much has to be deliberate, your weapon can do real time voice translation but can't manage text? I don't buy it."

"It does seem a bit suspicious," Naofumi admitted.

"Pretty much. Speaking of cheating, there's a mine in the forest that might be worth visiting, especially since one of the other heroes has a strengthening method that involves feeding it metal or ingredients to increase the power of your weapons," Myst explained.

"Let me guess, you learned about that from the anime?" Naofumi asked.

"Yeah," Myst admitted. "It's also how I know about the alchemist's cave with the dangerously mutated plant that should probably be left alone until you can find a decent alchemist to fix it. I don't qualify yet, I just barely got the skill."

"Same," Naofumi admitted. "Can you share any of your strengthening methods?"

"You don't have the coins or the material to benefit from it or the levels to trade in. I mean, we could try but you probably need your silver more than you need a plus one to something," Myst warned him.

"How much silver?" Naofumi asked.

"The cheapest is 100 silver for a plus 1 to a stat," Myst replied.

Naofumi shook his head. "That's a bit much."

"Yeah, I'm not the one that designed it," Myst complained. "I'm still working on figuring everything out. I'll be heading to Lute in the morning to find more dangerous monsters because the balloons aren't worth much of anything and the rest of the stuff in the forest is scattered all over and not much better."

"Aren't you worried about dying?" Naofumi asked.

"I have decent armor and I've been working on picking up magic, we have less than two weeks before the next wave which means we have to hit things at a run, the first wave will happen near a village named Lute or something close," Myst explained.

"Or something close?" Raphtalia asked.

"Think of it like a play based on a story, sometimes they change the details. That and I was barely paying attention to the names and my ability might be translating things literally. Either way, the monsters are going to be undead and flying bees with a chimera boss," he explained in a whisper.

"Why haven't you told people?" Naofumi asked.

"Because there are various people that want the world destroyed and they're about two hundred and forty five levels higher than us or at least they will be by the time they come out of the woodwork," Myst explained.

"Two hundred," Naofumi sputtered. "I thought they said 100 was the cap?"

"There's a ritual that breaks the cap," Myst replied with a shrug. "In case I forget, once the next wave is over you should return to the slave merchant and pick up an egg."

"What's an egg have to do with anything?" Naofumi asked.

"She's your next party member," Myst replied with amusement.

Naofumi raised his eyebrows. "An egg?"

Myst grinned. "She's a shape changing bird with magic."

"I guess one more bit of strangeness won't hurt," Naofumi mused. "Any other advice?"

"Make sure you grab the pickaxe in the mine, I got a bracelet with a mining pick on a chain, sometimes I wonder about my bracelet," Myst admitted.

"Do you have a plan for the wave?" Naofumi asked in a whisper.

"Sure, we're going to try to clear out the mine in the next couple of days and help the village so that we can build up some trust so that when we tell them that monsters are coming, they'll retreat into the mines so we don't have to worry about them. With any luck, we'll be able to keep the town from being trashed. If we can't then we're going to have some issues."

"I might have a solution," Anna piped up. "I've found a neat enchantment or drawback in the book that should help with that."

"What's that?" Myst asked.

"A monster attraction quality, you can stick it on items to improve the other quality," Anna explained.

Naofumi shivered when Myst grinned. "Why do I have a bad feeling about this?"

"Because you're not completely insane," Myst replied with amusement. "If I can increase the range that monsters will try to eat you, it should make training go a lot faster. Not to mention the waves should get a lot easier if they're all focused on you."

"What makes you think I'll survive?" Naofumi asked.

"You're the tank, I have a healing affinity, I should be able to keep you alive. If not, we can probably outrun the undead, I don't recall them being particularly fast."

"I'm not sure I trust your information, it comes from an anime," Naofumi complained.

"It's been working so far," Myst pointed out. "If I can boost your stats or your defense or give you something like a flame shield, we're in business."

"What happened to the town in the anime?" Naofumi asked.

"Some of the guards cast meteor storm on it with some of the people and you in it," Myst admitted.

"Were we getting overrun?" Naofumi asked.

"No, you were handling it just fine, they were just kill stealing or trying to kill you," Myst replied.

"Man, these guys are insane," Naofumi sputtered, trying to comprehend why you'd launch area spells into a village like that.

"Welcome to the world, these guys are dicks and we pretty much have to put up with it until we can do something about it. I'm guessing another sixty or seventy levels might cut it but there are some really scary people walking around so we're going to want to cheat as much as possible and grind like our lives depend on it because they do," Myst warned him.

Naofumi sighed. "You've given me a lot to think about, not a lot of it is pleasant."

"Pleasant dreams," Myst replied with a grin.

"Fuck you asshole," Naofumi replied sarcastically and only half seriously.

Myst smiled at Anna. "Let's go see if we can learn how to break the world with enchanting, we can visit the witch in the morning."

"Sounds good," Anna agreed, glad that the thugs had donated a decent amount to their book fund.

0o0o0

Anna glanced up from the basic enchanting book she was reading and looked at Myst who was mixing things at the desk. "You're laughing too much boss."

Myst laughed as he finished mixing his latest batch of potions. "Sorry, I'm learning to break the world. I figured out how to make a stupidly alcoholic potion that restores mana, health and SP and is basically free other than the containers."

"Which means it's basically useless to everyone other than you and Naofumi," Anna mused.

"At least until I figure out a way to increase your poison resistance to a reasonable level," Myst replied as he stuck the potions in his inventory. "One the upside, fifty five points of mana and twenty five health and SP for something that is basically free once I have enough containers to cycle through them is nothing to sneeze at. Not to mention I'm increasing my alchemy, muahaha."

Anna shook her head. "Does that mean you're going to chain cast enchants?"

"That's the plan," Myst replied with amusement.

"What are you going to enchant?" she asked.

Myst pulled a handful of small pebbles out of his inventory he'd grabbed from the forest. "I picked up a handful of rocks, there's a mana stone enchant that should give me plenty of experience and it's decently cheap, ten mana for one point of stored mana."

"That doesn't sound cheap to me, it sounds vastly inefficient," Anna complained.

"That's what the potions are for. It's not really worth it other than spending all of your mana before you go to sleep," Myst explained.

"Wouldn't it be easier to enchant something that gives you a mana battery that you can just store mana in?" Anna asked.

"If I had such an enchantment, sure but I don't…" he trailed off as she flipped to a page and pointed at it. "Let me guess, you found such an enchant?"

"Yep," Anna replied smugly.

"I really need to read the book cover to cover," Myst admitted.

"It would be a good idea," Anna replied with a snicker.

Myst gave her a look. "I would have but there was some cat girl reading it first."

"Pesky things," Anna replied playfully.

Myst's lips twisted into a smile as he shook his head. "Did you find anything else interesting?"

"Lots," Anna replied with amusement.

"Anything you want to share with the class?" Myst asked the grinning catgirl.

"Nope, you'll find it and you're still working on potions," Anna replied and went back to reading.

"Fine," Myst replied with a laugh as he brought up his enchanting menu and looked at his options. "Huh, I can curse these with monster attraction and it improves the amount of mana I get."

Anna paused and looked at Myst. "Just carrying them attracts monsters?"

"Yep, anything within fifty feet," Myst replied as he enchanted one of the stones with mana and the monster attraction quality.

"Do they stack?" she asked, wondering if they could stack penalties that wouldn't matter.

"We'll have to check." Myst quickly created another mana infused rock then checked his status. "Monster attraction (Mild), one hundred feet. That's useful."

Anna shook her head. "You're just trying to ruin the shield hero's day, aren't you?"

"If all we have to do is run through the forest once a day and we get a bunch of experience then we can do other things, like quests or crafting or wandering around lost while looking for ancient relics of power," Myst suggested.

"Those are generally guarded by fearsome monsters, like dragons," Anna pointed out.

Myst went back to enchanting the stones with mana. "I know where there are crystals that will let us turn mana into thread that can be made into cloth we can sell, it just requires increasing our mental defenses and beating a monster."

"If it's that easy, why hasn't anyone dealt with it already?" Anna asked.

Myst grinned at Anna. "Because it's in a crypt of a supposedly evil alchemist."

"That sounds like a bad idea," Anna complained.

"Probably but life is filled with bad ideas," Myst replied with a snicker.

"I'm ignoring that," Anna replied with amusement as she went back to reading.

Myst stuck the rocks in his inventory and grinned when his monster attraction quality vanished, meaning he could control the ability and thus profit from it without causing himself undue strain or possible death. 'I just need to set up a teleport point somewhere in the city so we can teleport out if we run into anything too nasty.'

He opened his strengthening menu and dropped the twenty 'skill' points he had into his enchanting skill, increasing the effect by 20%. 'I should be getting about thirty percent more out of my enchants with the bracelet and my boosted skill. Most people would consider that amazing but I'm going to need to push things to an unreasonable level if I want to survive.' He turned to look at Anna. "If you find anything for reverse engineering enchantments, let me know."

"Page ten," Anna replied cheerfully.

Myst laughed. "Okay, give me the book, you can read something else."

Anna grinned at Myst. "Give me the book on healing magic."

"Sure," Myst replied as he pulled the book out of his inventory then walked over and handed it to her.

"Thank you," Anna replied and went back to reading.

"Now you're supposed to give me the enchanting book," Myst pointed out.

"I don't remember agreeing to that, I just said give me the book on healing and it worked," Anna teased then gave him the book on enchanting.

"Thanks." Myst walked over and flopped down on the second bed to work on reading through the book and adding some of the recipes to his collection, fairly sure the sarcastic if adorable cat girl might be karma. He swapped his bracelet to his translation bracelet then started reading from the front, intent on figuring out how to enchant his gear with something beyond the basics.

0o0o0

Myst groaned when some idiot knocked on the door, waking him up. "What?"

"I want to compare notes," Motoyasu called out.

Myst rolled out of the bed and equipped his pants, taking a brief second to relish the fact that he never needed to fumble with clothes while half awake again, then walked to the door and opened it after glancing over at Anna who was reading in the other bed. He glanced at the hero then looked at his collection of companions, fairly sure at least one of them was going to sell the poor bastard down the river. "What do you want to compare notes about?"

Motoyasu grinned. "I was curious if you'd managed to enchant anything that could help my companions and myself."

Myst glanced at the hero's companions, fairly sure one of them was the princess's minion but not sure which one as it'd been a while since he'd watched the anime. "I can give you a bracelet that will increase your strength by a couple of points but I'm going to want your help clearing an alchemist's dungeon."

Motoyasu shook his head. "There's nothing there, just a magic seed."

Myst grinned as he realized the hero didn't know about the crystals in the other part of the crypt. "Which we can use to feed people in an upcoming famine."

"Are you trying to become a farmer?" Motoyasu asked, mostly joking.

Myst shrugged. "I'm basically a support hero, crafting, farming and support magic are pretty much par for the course."

"Doesn't that mean you should willingly help the real heroes?" one of Motoyasu's companions asked.

"Of course I'm willing to help, I'm just asking him to clear some monsters and bring back a magic seed, consider it a quest," Myst suggested. "If you succeed, I'll give everyone in your group some magical trinkets that should help."

"Piece of cake," Motoyasu agreed. "What else can you make?"

"I have a trinket that lets you take less damage from falls and jump higher which should help you bounce around the battlefield. I'll probably pick up more enchants while you're dealing with the monsters so I'll have plenty to share," Myst assured him.

"Just like that?" Elena asked suspiciously.

Myst turned to look at the other girl. "He's a hero with a spear, I'm going to need someone to kill the bosses of the waves and it's not going to be Naofumi, he'll be busy defending people. I'll probably be busy healing people which means we need someone that can kill the bosses."

"What about the sword and bow heroes?" Motoyasu asked.

"I'll be giving them enchanted gear for quests, it's not a contest," Myst warned him. "We need to destroy the waves as quickly as possible. If you see the shot on the boss, take it. If they do, I'm expecting people to take the shot and for you to support them. We can compare levels and quests after the waves for bragging rights if you want."

"You don't care about glory do you?" Lesty asked, trying to figure out what made the bracelet hero tick.

"Not particularly," Myst admitted. "I'm interested in keeping people alive and stopping the waves so the world isn't destroyed. I don't care if Motoyasu gets the credit or any of the rest of the heroes."

"That sounds rather pragmatic," Elena mused, wondering if it was too late to jump ship.

"Sounds boring," Lesty complained then smirked. "That just means more glory for Motoyasu."

"I don't mind claiming the glory," Motoyasu replied with a smirk.

"Someone has to," Myst replied with a shrug. "Let me know when you get back or leave a message with Erhard, I'll check in with the blacksmith when I get back to town."

"Going somewhere?" Lesty asked.

"I'm planning on hunting monsters," Myst replied with a grin. "I need to get stronger if I want to live through the waves."

"You think you can keep up?" Lesty asked with disbelief. "From what I've heard, you're about as useless as the shield hero."

"Considering his defensive potential, I'll take that as a compliment," Myst replied as he discretely pulled a pebble he'd enchanted to attract monsters out of his inventory.

Lyno scowled at Lesty. "Have a little respect for the heroes."

"The shield hero is a joke," Lesty replied with a glare for her traveling companion. "Sort of like your skills."

"Not everyone can be as impressive as me," Motoyasu pointed out as he puffed up his chest and gestured with his spear in a dramatic fashion.

Lyno turned to look at Myst. "How much do you pay?"

Motoyasu turned and stared at Lyno. "You're jumping ship?"

"You obviously don't need me," Lyno replied, more than a little annoyed that Motoyasu couldn't see the writing on the wall or how toxic Lesty was.

"Fine, train her up a bit," Motoyasu told Myst then turned and walked out.

Myst waited until Lesty turned then lobbed the small pebble into her hood. "Best of luck."

Lyno sighed as Motoyasu's group left. "Do you need help?"

"That depends, were you friends with Malty?" Myst asked.

Lyno shook her head. "I'd never met any of the royals until I got to the castle yesterday. I was expecting a serious adventuring group, he's treating everything like a walk in the park."

"I'm really hoping he gets his head out of his ass," Myst grumbled. "Do you know where we can acquire transportation?"

"Of course, any particular destination?" Lyno asked.

"I've heard rumors about some extremely corrupt nobles to the north and west," Myst replied, thinking of Raphtalia's old master and the idiot up north that had caused Rishia a bunch of issues. "I'd like to investigate and set things right, I'll understand if you want to find someone else to help."

Lyno shook her head. "I became an adventurer to help people."

"In that case, welcome aboard," Myst offered, figuring he could use the help and he was reasonably sure she wasn't completely useless unlike the rest of the Motoyasu's group.

"Are we grabbing breakfast first?" Anna asked as she climbed out of bed.

"Nah, we'll grab something on the way," Myst replied, wanting to leave as soon as he could. "I might as well abuse my inventory to store some hot food."

Lyno nodded. "If we hurry we can catch a caravan or something before they leave."

"Sounds good," Myst agreed, figuring he'd set a teleport point on the way out of the city.