An Unborn Hero

Kellela cast [Light], cycling a small orb through red, green and blue.

Mystery repeated the action, hovering in the air, her dimmer orb cycling through the same colours.

ding

For your displays of synchronised spellcasting, [Light] advances to level 6

Kellela chanted and cast [Translate].

Mystery attempted to replicate the spell, but failed. After all, despite seeing the activation phrase, she had no idea what the spell did, so the effect visualisation stage of the spell was impossible.

"This isn't going to work," sighed Kellela. "I can speak, but you can't understand me. I can cast [Translate], which will let me understand you, but you can't speak. I guess we have no choice but for you to continue learning our language the hard way."

"Try explaining it in pictures?" suggested Hayedalf.

"Explaining it well enough for her to form a proper image would be practically impossible. I'll give it a go, given how much of an overachiever she is, but I'd be surprised if it worked."

"For what it's worth, I tried to come up with some enchantment design to let an astral projecting soul make noises, but interfacing with a soul is practically impossible," supplied Hayedalf. "I'd need to change class."

"Forget it, then," demanded Kellela, knowing full well what sort of class he'd need to change to.

"I will, it's just..." started Hayedalf before his head snapped around, apparently staring through a wall.

"What?"

"Something big just ran into our wards. Really big. It's fine; I built them to withstand a charge from a herd of dinosaurs, but it's a little surprising. If there're things like that coming out of the forest, I don't know how any of the farms around here are still in one piece."

Mystery, who understood none of his explanation, popped out through the wall to see what he was staring at. By a process of elimination, she guessed it was the one part of the landscape that had changed since she'd last looked at it; the charred and smouldering pile of corpses stacked up between the forest and their furthest fields definitely hadn't been there when they'd returned from the town.

She zipped over to take a look. There were a couple of things that looked like a rhino had been cross-bred with a tank, and some others that looked like centipedes. Exactly like centipedes, in fact. Not cross-bred with anything, or altered in any way. Just scaled up by a few orders of magnitude.

"Eww. Gross," she thought, her soul vibrating in an ectoplasmic shudder. "Wait..."

She spun around in a panic, then rushed back towards the house. She'd just crossed several fields' distance without even thinking about it, far beyond the range of her old tether. It wasn't until she'd leapt back into Kellela and was safely back in her body that she was able to think rationally again.

"Wait... Is my range... unlimited now? Or rather, given the description of the skill, is it unlimited as long as I believe it is? Wow, wild! My time limit hasn't gone away though, so still best not to let Mum out of my sight. But what was with those monsters? Why did my parents move to such a dangerous place? Thugs on the street and enormous monsters running out of the forest. What's going on?"

The monsters had run out of the forest because they'd been chased, and the one doing the chasing sat unhappily on a thick, gnarly tree branch, staring out through the rotting leaves. The source of the holy mana that was causing his lord such discomfort was right there, inside the farm. The demon could feel it. In the same way as the human-aligned races intrinsically trusted the [Hero], the demon's intuition was screaming about the threat, demanding he either kill it or flee. And kill it he would be more than happy to do, if not for the apparent wall of death that separated them. The strongest monsters he could control, driven out from the depths of the forest, had crashed against it like, well, like a human child standing up to a demon. Frustrated, he stalked the border, looking for weak spots or holes in the defences and finding none.

But demons were intelligent. He recognised the farm as a 'farm'. Crops and livestock were not unfamiliar concepts. He recognised that humans usually came in groups, and that if one screamed, the tastiest of the others would rush towards the noise while the tasteless fled.

He saw the young human girl walking alone along a dirt track towards the farm.

If he couldn't pass through the wall of death, he would simply need to lure the source of the discomfort outside. He would need to make someone scream.

"Sorry?" asked the [Commander], sticking his fingers in his ears and wiggling them around to clean out the muck that must assuredly be stuck there. "I must have misheard you. It sounded like you just said you suspect the [Court Mage] you asked us to monitor is pregnant with a [Hero], and the [Hero] has learnt [Astral Projection] and is now whizzing around making a nuisance of himself."

"That is indeed what I said. Now send someone over there to convince him to stop before he kills himself!"

The [Commander] turned from the communications array to its operator. "It seems someone is interfering with our communications. Please investigate, then send out an alert to the surrounding settlements. By horse."

"Graham Thellac. We went to the royal academy together, and by the gods, if it's what it will take to get you to take this seriously, I will inform everyone here of the events of the twelfth of March of your third year, in the applied magic lab, when Stacy..."

"Enough!" yelled the [Commander], glowing an impressive shade of red. "Fine, I'll accept you're real, but you've got to understand how implausible this sounds."

"Believe me, I know," agreed the [Royal Knight]. "The number of dead ends and false leads I have chased in this case due to assuming such a thing was impossible frustrates me no end, and even now I am not certain I am correct."

"Fine, I'll send some men over. But how they'd convince someone who can't speak to stop using [Astral Projection] I have no idea. If you're right about this, the situation can't exactly be... pleasant... for the [Hero]."

"Indeed not. I would never deign to claim understanding of what the gods are thinking."

The [Commander] hung up the connection and the [Royal Knight] stalked back to his office. A retrospective search had turned up a trio of new achievements earned by Mystery, all with locations that followed Kellela, proving the name had stuck and adding credence to the [Hero] theory. As insane as it was. He couldn't completely blame the [Commander] for his disbelief.

Two of the achievements were perfectly normal, but that third... In the local language, 'administrator' was synonymous with 'god', so he'd basically got an achievement stating that the gods were pissed at him. That was... unideal. Perhaps it even explained why he'd been saddled with full consciousness prior to birth. Causality was more of a suggestion to the divine, after all, so they'd have no qualms with a punishment preluding the crime.

Now he just needed to keep the [Hero] alive for long enough to defeat the demon lord.

But as close as the [Royal Knight] had got to the truth, he still missed some important points. From his assumption that the [Hero] was male—based more on history than misogyny—to his assumption that [Astral Projection] would lead to the hero's death. After all, the worst had already happened, and the [Hero] had survived. There were more immediate problems Mystery needed protecting from than herself.

Mystery watched an interesting but dull violet wave roll over the house.

"I've not seen anything like that before. Must have been far away, though. I wonder what it was?"

Kellela and Hayedalf, who knew a scream when it echoed around their farm, jumped to their feet.

"Nothing from the wards. That came from outside our land," declared Hayedalf.

"Oh mana, you that blanket the world, make your presence known to me," chanted Kellela, activating a long-range mana detection spell. "On the road back to town. Looks like someone small, maybe a child, is under attack. A lone bandit? No, it has wings! A monster I don't recognise, and it has a vast amount of mana. Close to mine."

"Let's go," replied Hayedalf, already moving. "But don't step outside the wards until we understand more."

The demon's understanding of human behaviour was spot on. No way would Kellela or Hayedalf wait comfortably in their home while someone screamed outside, and so the pair sprinted out of their door and along the track between their empty fields. Mystery followed behind, wondering why they were in so much of a rush.

The purple wave repeated, brighter and clearer, and Mystery finally matched it to the noises Rose had made right back in the carriage, when she'd been caught by surprise by an unknown magic. A scream.

"Crap," Mystery thought, accelerating and overtaking her parents.

Thus the [Hero] was the first to reach the scene of the demon's attack on Rose. The twisted creature hung in the air, wings outstretched but motionless, obviously functioning via magic instead of physics. Completely invisible to Mystery's [Sense Soul], not because he was making any attempt at hiding, but simply because he didn't have one. A cruel smile played on his lips as he raked downwards with his claws.

Rose stood beneath, thankfully dressed in her adventurer gear, but her armour was torn, with a sleeve hanging loose. Two great lines scored her arm, bleeding profusely. Another slice marred her forehead, her blue fringe matted with blood. Her sword was chipped, but she still held it tightly in her good hand, swinging at the demon.

He casually floated backward, the sweep missing by inches. That display alone was enough to prove that he was just toying with Rose.

"Sing more for me, little human," he laughed in his own demonic language, not understood by either listener. "Our main guest has yet to arrive."

He closed in again for another attack. Rose caught one hand with her blade, but in the battle between claw and steel, the claw won out. Her damaged sword shattered, leaving her holding just the hilt.

The demon's second arm caught her across the chest, claws slicing deep into her armour and leaving a trio of parallel gashes. No blood had been drawn, but blood wasn't the demon's intent. He was there to play, not to kill. Once the one he was actually after turned up, then he would take the head of this weak human, but until then, she was merely his entertainment.

Mystery watched on helplessly. The demon had no idea of her presence, picking up only her body and not her soul, but Mystery had no moves she could make. What would a small flash of light do to the demon? Maybe it would buy another second, but how would that help? And [Magical Girl Transformation] required a quantity of mana that she simply didn't have. Based on past experience, she could give Rose a split-second boost of strength. Maybe with perfect timing that could turn the tide of battle, but what were the chances of success?

Since the demon was obviously toying with her, and her life wasn't in immediate danger, wasn't it best to wait? Surely her parents could save the day? But what sort of [Hero] would she be if she stood by and watched an innocent get hurt? The split-second would need to be enough.

Kellela reached the edge of the wards, panting as she recovered her breath. "Now what?" she asked. "I can't do anything from here!"

"Is it still attacking?"

"Yes, it's toying with her."

"It's trying to lure us out."

"... What?"

"I'm serious! Those monsters that charged the wards weren't anything that should be living at the edge of the forest, and since they failed to get in, whoever's responsible wants us out."

"But we can't just wait here and let the victim get killed!"

"I'm not suggesting we do. Just scan for traps, and... and... everything. Whatever you can think of. And keep a hand on your emergency transporter."

"Okay, I'll... Wait... There's a big build-up of mana! What is it? Mystery! It's Mystery! She's casting that spell again, but she doesn't have the mana! She..."

Kellela fell silent and closed her eyes. Hayedalf recognised her expression of concentration and refrained from interruption as she remembered the feeling of Mystery taking her mana, and struggled to reproduce it deliberately. Mystery's soul may be elsewhere, but her body was still right there, and the two were linked. Sharing mana was still possible; it just needed some effort from both ends.

A ding sounded in Kellela's mind as a new skill unlocked and the mana began flowing freely.

Something in the air changed. The expression of fear on Rose's face hardened into one of grim determination, while the demon was forced to suppress an inexplicable shudder. Rose released her broken sword, straightening up as it clattered to the ground.

The demon was assaulted by a burst of fear. Of the certain knowledge that—despite the way she was standing there injured, bleeding and unarmed—if he did not end the girl right now, he was the one who would die. He didn't delay, swinging his claws again, this time going straight for the neck. No longer toying, he went for the kill.

Rose caught his arm in one hand, stopping his attack dead, and smiled. And then punched him in the face.

The magic pinning the demon in the air shattered and he carved a deep groove into the ground as he was blown away from the formerly helpless girl. She just stood there, still smiling, her armour glowing white. The damaged sections broke away and disintegrated into floating motes of light, which danced around her while the rest of her adventurer gear warped and changed. Her armoured skirt ballooned outwards, while her greaves vanished completely. The glow washed over the rest of her skin as she took a step forward, towards the demon, her grin widening and taking on a manic edge as relief battled against terror, both emotions drowning in a tide of adrenaline.

The demon, eyes wide, shuffled backwards on the ground, lacking the wherewithal to stand and flee.

The glow faded, revealing a greatly changed Rose. Her wounds were nowhere to be seen, her skin whole and unblemished. Her armour replaced by a blue, short-sleeved dress with a conical skirt formed of dozens of petal-shaped sections, three layers deep. White, fingerless gloves ended just below her elbow, with blue floral patterns traced across the backs of her hands. White stockings rose above her knees, her heavy, steel-toed boots replaced by a pair of blue kitten heels, with small blue asters decorating the straps. A larger aster was woven into her hair above her left ear. Hair that had more than doubled in length, now reaching her waist, falling perfectly straight with no sign of dirt. Even her own sticky blood had been cleaned away.

"This outfit seems horribly nonsensical," she said, still with a crazed smile on her face as she held out an arm horizontally and opened her hand. "This skirt is going to catch on everything, hair this length is completely impractical for any adventurer, let alone a front-liner like me, it doesn't look like I have any armour whatsoever, and don't even get me started on heels."

A glowing orb appeared in her hand, rapidly elongating as she grasped it. Within a few seconds, the glow faded, leaving a pristine sword. The blade was coloured silver, the hilt blue, a short ribbon hanging from the end. The guard was made from dozens of strips of silver metal, once again arranged to look like petals.

"It is kinda cute, though," she added as demon slaying magical girl Aster Blue mercilessly stabbed the demon through his heart.

μ̵̼͉̐υ̴̡̽̿σ̷̭͓̃̀τ̸͉̤̾̆ή̶͎̱͌ρ̸̤͕̏̿ι̷̬̾͜ό̸͈ (Human)

Age: -8 months

Occupation: Hero (L)

Skills:

- Soul's Eye (U) (21/60)

>> Sense Vitality (U)

>> Sense Soul (R)

>> Sense Mana (U)

>> Sense Light (C)

>> Sense Sound (C)

- Astral Projection (U) (18/60)

>> Sure Navigation (U)

>> Uncontainable (U)

>> Tether of Will (L)

- Robust (C) (17/40)

>> Hardened Soul (R)

>> Secured Mana (U)

>> Pain Tolerance (C)

- Stealth (C) (3/20)

>> Camouflage Vitality (R)

- Magical Girl Transformation (R) (7/20)

>> Age Correction (R)

- Light (C) (6/10)

- Increased Attributes (C) (4/20)

>> 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)