An Unborn Hero

Obviously, not every elf in the Vale had learnt [Magical Girl Transformation]. There were those whose occupation didn't allow it, or that otherwise had too little mana. Then there were those who were only a single new skill away from death, or who already had a youthful appearance or were otherwise happy with their ages, or those for whom the gender restriction was a deal breaker. None were unhappy about the clothing, though, even if they did want a little variety—green and leafy matched elvish fashion perfectly.

Finally, there were those who wanted to learn it, but hadn't yet managed to pick it up. While spells were a lot easier to obtain than regular skills, proper pronunciation and image were required, and Mystery's alien mindset took an active imagination to understand.

But, even if it had only thus far been learnt by a minority, the spell could be cast on others. Hearing Mystery's condition from Rrillandral, the [Monarch of the Vale] had made plans to save her. Thanks to their isolationist tendencies, outsiders viewed elves as aloof, if not outright selfish, but that wasn't completely fair. They had their reasons for keeping outsiders away from the Vale, and they naturally took a long-term view of decisions due to their agelessness, while humans focused more on the short-term, leading to a mismatch of priorities. But even from a selfish perspective, protecting the [Hero] made logical sense. The goal of protecting the Vale from the flames of war was best served by ensuring the war ended quickly and decisively.

On the other hand, just because he wasn't as selfish as others assumed didn't mean the elven king wasn't fully prepared to mislead, omit or lie as required. Keeping the [Hero] stable until the demon lord was defeated was vital, and such an end justified many means.

"An entire city of magical girls?" asked a confused Mystery, relying on the monarch's [Telepathy], which seemed to solve every issue she had with it. No needing to speak slowly, or even line of sight.

"Yup. Would you like to see?" he replied, using his [Share Senses] sub-skill to share with Mystery what he was seeing.

"That is... rather uncanny," thought Mystery, viewing the array of uniformly dressed elves.

"Hey, we only heard of the spell a few days ago. Elves may have good affinity with magic, but give us some time to develop our own personalisation."

"Sorry. I didn't mean to think that aloud."

The monarch treated Mystery to a psychic grin.

"That's pretty uncanny, too," grumbled Mystery. "How are you doing all that?"

"Let's just say that my level in [Telepathy] is considerably greater than yours. But more seriously, my daughter tells me you're worried about a few silly little things, and that you might appreciate some reassurance from a third party."

"Silly little things?! I've dragged kids into a war!"

"Have you? Really? Who did you drag, then?"

"Uh... Everyone?"

"Everyone? Sheesh, with a head that big, how do we not see it bulging from Kellela's belly?"

"You know what I mean! Rose, Mum and Dad, Grace."

"Rose, I believe, was attacked by a demon, and it was only your intervention that saved her life. Your [King] offered her a place at the royal academy immediately afterwards, which she turned down because she wanted to stay with you. If anyone dragged her into the war, wasn't it that demon? Likewise, shouldn't the goddess who reincarnated you take the blame for your parents being dragged into it? It's not like you had any say in the matter. And Grace has no-one to blame but her father."

Mystery pondered, but that was certainly true. "But did they only decide to go along with my stupid ideas because of the mind control? I completely messed up their lives. Especially Grace."

That question treated Mystery to a mental scoff. "Mind control? What conclusions have you been leaping to, little lady? There's no mind control involved with the [Hero] occupation. It's more like people intuitively know you're there to help, and assume the best of you instead of the worst. And you certainly didn't mess up Grace's life. If anything, you freed her."

"Freed her? But she..."

Mystery's denial was interrupted by the [Monarch of the Vale] once again using [Share Senses], this time showing Grace's grinning face. Seeing her actively enjoying herself was something of a novelty. Normally, when Mystery saw her, she'd looked serious.

... Except recently, with Rose. Particularly when they were dancing together. Or sometimes even when they were just talking.

"Don't ask me what she's thinking, but she pulled that expression after Rrillandral slapped me. Probably imagining casting [Magical Girl Transformation] on her dad."

"But that doesn't change the fact that I treated everything as a game!"

"Then tell me, what should you have done? You took the most powerful asset you had available, and with it, saved thousands of lives."

"Saved... lives?"

"Thanks to you, two arch-demons are dead, along with two greater demons and a lesser demon. An entire army of monsters was obliterated. Monsters that would otherwise have eventually spilt into the surrounding kingdoms. Now the demons are focused on you to the exclusion of all else. Who would they have killed if they weren't? And on top of all that, there's the six elves."

"Six elves?" questioned Mystery. "What six elves?"

"I'm still talking about saving lives. Do you know what the leading cause of death for elves is?"

Mystery pondered, suspecting a trick. She knew plenty of Earth stories about elves, but that didn't mean any of them applied here. Yes, they apparently lived in a big forest and didn't age properly, but what else?

"Cancer?" she guessed.

That caused a psychic guffaw.

"Oi! It was a serious guess."

"Indeed, but one that only someone from a world without healing magic would make. Never mind though, I'll tell you: suicide."

Mystery didn't respond.

"Boredom is an insidious ailment for an immortal. Some people—my dear daughter included—go to greater and greater extremes to seek out stimulation. Others... simply grow tired of living and decide it's time to find out what comes next."

Mystery continued to not respond, her mind spinning as she tried to figure out where her conversational partner was going.

"Here in the Vale, we average two suicides a day. We've had none whatsoever since your spell started spreading. It is interesting. You are interesting, and as a result, you've directly saved lives. All because you have a strange obsession. An odd concept, I know, but there you go."

Mystery's mind blanked as she tried to process the fact that her ridiculous obsession had apparently zeroed the elvish suicide rate.

"On top of that, if you lacked [Magical Girl Transformation], how would you have saved Rose?"

"If I hadn't got my parents chased out of the capital, I wouldn't have needed to save Rose," pointed out Mystery.

"Okay, suppose you did nothing. You lacked your memories and behaved as a normal baby. Rose moving to the border region with her family was nothing to do with you; she'd have been there anyway. And, in a couple of years, after the demon lord hatched and started dispatching demons to war, what would have happened?"

"I don't know! How could anyone know that? Given Rose's parents, they probably would have taken her away from the forest."

"If they had time, perhaps. But equally, they could have been caught up in the demons' initial attack. She could have died, or she could have fled. She certainly couldn't have fought on the front lines once stronger monsters started pouring out. But if she fled, would she have felt guilty about it? Would she be content if she died fighting to save others? It seems to me that you've wasted your time moping and neglected the most important thing you should have done."

"And what's that?" snapped back Mystery.

"Asked them!"

Mystery, having grown used to life unable to communicate, pondered. "Fine," she admitted, employing [Astral Projection] to pop out of Kellela.

She found herself surrounded by her party members, except that for some reason there were two Rrillandrals, one already in Leaf Green form and the other considerably older than she should have been. She didn't have time to wonder about that, though, because everyone burst out into cheers.

"Thank goodness. We were worried about you!" exclaimed Rose.

"Seriously? You chose a couple of days after I gave in and embraced your madness to start having doubts?" complained Grace.

"Mystery..." said Kellela simply, reaching out a loving hand towards her, her continued efforts to learn [Sense Soul] having finally paid off during Mystery's latest indoor stint.

"Come on, let's show her what we've been practising," said Hayedalf.

The four were joined by the non-transformed instance of Rrillandral, who all proudly shouted their cheesy transformation lines while performing a well-coordinated group transformation sequence.

Mystery was so overcome with emotion that she completely failed to remember [Astral Projection] was supposed to be off limits.

"I'm telling you, the [Hero] left the city hours ago!" insisted Xry'kl, having rushed all the way back to the forest, worried the teleporters of the humans would result in his message arriving too late to matter.

"And yet the sentries I've stationed around the full border of the forest have reported nothing," commented Xander.

"All I know is that she left the city. Perhaps she went somewhere else? Given Lilith's attack, maybe they thought she'd be safer in a different kingdom."

Xander remained silent.

"It's worth trying to find her," opined Dreobeth. "We should send out those capable of disguise to obtain information on their plans."

"I agree," sighed Xander. "A task force capable of interaction with humans, collecting whatever intelligence we can. It's unlikely the [Hero] is somewhere poorly defended, but knowing timescales or directions of attack would prove..."

What they would prove was left unknown, because the growing demon lord chose that moment to interrupt. The miasma around the egg danced almost gleefully as it devoted its attention to the kingdom that had proven such a thorn in its yolk. How many of its inhabitants had taken part in the slaying of demons recently?

As the demon lord grew, a nascent intelligence was beginning to form, and it had overheard some very interesting details.

"Unprotected," it declared gleefully.

"I wouldn't say unprotected," muttered Dreobeth. "I swear our master sometimes forgets that any human other than the [Hero] exists."

"Purge," came the order, ignoring Dreobeth's grumbling.

The writhing ocean of monsters surrounding the egg all turned to face the direction of the offending human kingdom, and began walking, slithering, crawling or flying between the trees. With the enormous number of monsters, a complete exodus would take significant time, but nevertheless, it was immediately obvious what was planned.

Dreobeth swore. "Master! The [Hero] will be coming here. Maybe soon. You must protect yourself!"

The embryonic demon lord didn't respond, its will bent on the destruction of the humans that had slighted it.

Miasma was to mana what oil was to water. Chaos to order. The two simply didn't get on, much preferring to balefully glare at each other from a distance rather than get up close and personal. That made scrying into the demonic forest with mana-based magic a difficult proposition.

Nevertheless, when a tide of monsters easily a hundred times the number that had assaulted Hayedalf's farm started flowing towards Flinel, they didn't remain unnoticed for long. Karn's Vigil, and other fortified towns like it, began evacuations of non-combatants immediately, which of course required an explanation of why an evacuation was suddenly being ordered.

"Well... this sucks..." complained Platus, mournfully staring into his beer in the adventurers' guild, where he and Melody had returned once they'd seen their daughter off to the Vale of Myllearn.

The place was packed, but was practically silent. Adventurers were theoretically allowed to join in the evacuation, unlike the army, but peer pressure was a powerful force. Everyone knew what was at stake, and anyone fleeing knew full well that the others present here would never welcome them back.

"Every monster we take out is one less monster Rose needs to fight through to reach the demon lord," pointed out Melody.

"True, but it would be nice if she had a home to come back to once she's done."

"Then we'll just need to make sure she has one."

"And how are we going to do that?"

"You know, there are quite a lot of mages around here..."

"So?"

"What if every iron or bronze ranked adventurer was suddenly silver ranked and had an unlimited supply of ammunition?"

Platus furrowed his brows, wondering what Melody was getting at. "Would be better if they were mythril ranked, but dreaming won't achieve anything."

"Oh, I'm not dreaming. You know how excited Rose has been over her new powers. When she learnt the spell herself, she took great pleasure in explaining every little detail of her image, and how she did it. The monsters are still a couple of days away..."

Platus pulled an interesting set of facial expressions as it dawned on him what Melody was suggesting. "I think you should pay a visit to the guild master."

Mystery (Human)

Age: -9 months

Occupation: Hero (L)

Skills:

- Soul's Eye (U) (36/100)

>> Sense Vitality (U)

>> Sense Soul (R)

>> Sense Mana (U)

>> Sense Light (C)

>> Sense Sound (C)

>> Pierce Illusions (U)

>> Sense Miasma (R)

>> Multi-focal (R)

>> Sense Spirit (R)

- Astral Projection (U) (23/60)

>> Sure Navigation (U)

>> Uncontainable (U)

>> Tether of Will (L)

- Robust (C) (21/40)

>> Hardened Soul (R)

>> Secured Mana (U)

>> Pain Tolerance (C)

- Stealth (C) (3/20)

>> Camouflage Vitality (R)

- Magical Girl Transformation (R) (21/30)

>> Age Correction (R)

>> Gender Bending (R)

- Light (C) (12/20)

>> Heterochrome (U)

- Increased Attributes (C) (10/20)

>> Mana Storage (U)

- Investigation (C) (4/10)

- Cosplay (U) (4/10)

- Mana Absorption (U) (4/20)

>> Drain Mana (U)

- Translate (U) (6/20)

>> Two Way (U)

- Telepathy (U) (11/40)

>> Reciprocity (U)

>> Empathy (U)

>> Guarded Mind (U)

- Lightning Bolt (U) (3/10)

- Fireball (U) (4/20)

>> Multishot (U)

- Wall of Light (U) (1/10)

- Energy Resistance (U) (1/10)

Achievements:

- Early Bloomer II (R)

- First Skill (C)

- Journeyman (U)

- 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 III (E)

- Monster Slayer V (E)

- Curiosity (U)

- War Veteran (U)

- Royal Audience (C)

- Diligent Hero (L)

- Studious (C)

- Pioneering Guider (E)

- Royal Pervert (R)

- I Couldn't Stop Breaking The System, And Now I've Been Smited (E)