NOVEL NEXT Episode 008: Save the Hero
Special Mission Request
Addendum
Please, someone, anyone, please, save Rodan! The nobles of the kingdom have conspired against him and have sent a dangerous assassin after him. They’ve concocted a plot that will find him separated from his companions in the slums. He will die tonight if nothing is done! Please! Someone! Please, I can’t let Rodan die! The perpetrators—they ar—
***
At the <Observatory>, frantic and anxious—
I slammed the telescope’s console. “There’s a character limit? Why did gods take the most annoying features of social media? And why didn’t this woman give us actual information instead of repeating herself?!”
“Fainn! Be kind! It’s not like she had a keyboard she could type her message into! That was the cry of her heart! Not the speech of her mind!” Svilran yelled as she squeezed my shoulder. “Transmitting information from another world takes A LOT of that deity’s energy. If the messages were any longer, there would be disastrous consequences. Even the goddess whose wish reached us may have lost many years of her life.”
I swung my head so fast my vertebrae cracked. “Whoa, really?! She lost years for that?!”
“Yes! She was prepared to sacrifice herself in order to save the hero! This isn’t something to be taken likely. Everything people do outside of the ordinary process has a price! That’s what makes these lives meaningful! And this poor goddess—“ Svilran sniffed loudly as she tried and failed to hold back tears. “She begged and pleaded. I can feel it in this message. She’s casting this wish into the cosmos with all her strength. We might be the only ones who could hear it...”
I looked at the Mission Screen and at the new section—the Special Request section. This section came to be when the wish of an actual being reached us. As Svilran said, this was ‘out of the ordinary.’ We had the systems to receive it, but it was not something we could always expect. On our side, it seemed the character limit was done to prevent the world in need of help from self-destructing by wasting energy. This was also the relatively trippy part—from what I understood, the Special Request section on our end existed to regulate a god’s ability to wish... I got the sense that without us to receive the message, things would turn out nicely for the Imaginal World... At the time, I had many questions about how the Hero Hub could become a regulating body, but Svilran was too concerned with the matter at hand.
Anyway, we also had a timer that told us when the Mission would fail now... Neither Svilran nor I knew why exactly the timer appeared. We wanted to think the goddess’s wish led to it, but we were flying blind here, like always.
Regardless, as the situation stood, the goddess’s wish reached our Mission Menu and caused a change. The Hero’s life was in imminent danger, and now, Svilran and I could only watch.
***
The Hero, Rodan
Within the world named Srellus, exists a kingdom—Luxoria. Here, on this night, a nefarious plot was afoot. The Anti-Royalist Terror group, Sons of Libus
, had long been embroiled in a bloody conflict with the said kingdom.The Hero Chosen by the Goddess, Rodan Herner, and his party caught word of an impending attack by the Sons of Libus. Magic explosives were set in many locations around the kingdom’s densely populated slums.
An apparent turncoat of the Sons of Libus was the one who brought the information to Rodan’s group before succumbing to his wounds.
Desperate to foil the wicked plans, Rodan and his party split up, and with the help of the kingdom’s archmage, each set off with the magic formula required to diffuse the magically set explosives.
Now, Rodan was face to face with the complex magic circle that would soon go off. He applied the counter formula as instructed and successfully neutralized the hidden explosive in the secluded alley.
“Whew”, said Rodan as he wiped the sweat from his brow. The blond and bright-eyed, handsome young man finally breathed a sigh of relief. He got up from his crouch and stretched.
He wasn’t very armored, having run to the slums in just his under-gear—a black steel-silk shirt and reinforced trousers. His holy sword hung on his hips, but that was all he had to defend himself with should something go wrong. Unfortunately for him—
“Hehehe, good job, Hero~”
—trouble was waiting for him.
Rodan turned and pulled out his sword. He pointed it at the hooded figure wearing the oily black light armor. The newcomer’s hands were free, but an obsidian-black shield was strapped to his left arm.
“Who are you? A Son of Libus?” Rodan asked.
“Mercy, no. Those boys are only good for taking the blame. Me?” The figure grabbed the top of his hood. “I’m much worse.” He knocked the hood back to reveal wet long black hair with green tips. His face was pale, and his black lips were striking.
Rodan squinted. He still didn’t have the faintest inkling of who this man could have been. Still, his sword was steady.
“I’m trying to stop explosions from going off here—“
“I’m sure you are.”
“Let me pass.”
Rodan asked, not because he was hoping for a distraction, but because he had the incredibly accurate sense that he couldn’t just run. The man before him was dangerous.
“Sorry, no can do, Hero. You and I have business.”
“What business? I don’t know you!”
“But I got paid to end you.” The man licked his lips with his green, bumpy tongue. “And I’m a professional. I can’t just say no to good business.” He shrugged. “Fighting a Hero’s a nice perk too.”
Rodan snapped his arm up. “Firebolt!”
A ball of fire whipped up within the moment and flew toward the assassin with incredible speed. ‘Firebolt’ was one of the quickest spells to cast—not many in the world could react to it appropriately.
“Hehehehe!”
The man before Rodan was one of the few. His hand went up, and a purple vortex appeared in his palm as purple veins spread out over his armor.
“Thanks for the meal, Hero!”
The man sucked in the Firebolt, consuming it until the only magic that could be seen was the swirling vortex on the surface of his palm. Rodan shuddered at the sight.
“The magic-devouring arm...” Rodan went paler as he recalled every detail attached to that arm. “One of the *19 Ill Stars*—Dreks, the Magic Eater.”
“Ill Stars?” Dreks shrugged. “Never heard of it. Is that what the gods call me behind my back?” He grinned as his eyes became crazed. “That’s rude, don’t you think, Hero?!”
“DREKS!” Rodan roared, his heart overwhelmed with rage. He fired another Firebolt at Dreks, who just swallowed it up. “You attacked Homa Village!” Rodan slashed at the assassin, who leaped back effortlessly. “You killed those villagers!”
Rodan slashed again, and Dreks sidestepped. “Oh? Did I? Must not have been a memorable job—“
Rodan’s speed increased, and he roared. “Dreks!”
Dreks prepared to not run—the next attack was one he had to withstand. ‘Make a statement,’ he had thought to himself.
Rodan swung his sword and roared. “You killed my mother, you bastard!”
Dreks met Rodan’s sword with his shield and sneered from behind it. “Your mother? Was she beautiful?”
