Tree of Aeons

This was some time ago...

Around Year 83, Month 8

Harris, Becky and Mirei wasn’t having a good time. If anything, the past few months has been absolutely terrible. 

With demons crawling all over the continent, there was no journey that was ever safe. Almost every night, when they camped outside, they would be attacked. At first, it was stressful, but now, all 3 of them are now around Level 60. Thankfully, Becky’s class as a [summoner] meant she has a magical guard that kept watch, while all of them rested and slept. 

“I wish we had nice beds.” Mirei’s number one complaint, almost every other night, was the lack of comfortable beds. Coming from another world, the significant decline in mattress quality was really getting to her. “It’s absurd that the people in this world accept this bullshit.”

They sat around a makeshift campfire. A lightning elemental was helping to barbeque the roasted meat. 

“Let it go. At least we’re not hungry.” Harris nodded. They didn’t like being hungry. They were hungry on some days, when they went through areas that are so devastated there was absolutely nothing to harvest or hunt. “Anyway, it should be any time now.” The two girls came and sat on the logs next to him. They were friends, after all. 

And the magical orb appeared again. [Hero Chat]. 

“Hey guys. Everyone okay?” Astra asked from the other side of the screen. They could hold the chat for about one hour, so that meant they could really catch up. “Oh hey Harris, are you guys going to challenge the demon walker?”

Harris nodded. “We’re supposed to rendezvous with an army from Salah. Apparently it’s part of the coalition army from this continent. But my scouts tell me things aren’t great, the terrain around the demon walker has been absolutely wrecked by all the [blood rituals] that were used against it, so approaching it isn’t that straight-forward.” Harris’s summoned force is essentially an elite army in itself 

Another voice came out. Harris identified her as Helen, and she’s in the north. “Yeah. We’re trying to convince the locals to stop using the [blood magic], because it’s making our attempts to approach the demons a lot harder. A few routes have been made unusable because of the [blood magic] used to bombard it. But it’s quite hard to get that message across, because the guys that fire the damned [blood magic] are not here anymore! It doesn’t help that the Kings used some kind of [charisma] or [charm] skill to convince all these guys to sacrifice themselves, and these guys have far too large an ego to accept that their decisions are wrong.”

Mirei looked and pointed. She noticed Helen’s background wasn’t... outdoors. “Are you guys in an inn?” 

Helen laughed at the question. “Hell Yeah! Check out my lovely bed! I can’t freaking stand camping outside. Thankfully we found a small town with an inn! That’s still standing! You cannot believe how few and rare independent inns are in this world, since all these traveler’s inns are absolutely defenseless!”

It was laughter all the heroes shared, but all of them felt bittersweet. The pain of lacking proper rest and sleep is apparent to all 12 of them, even if the magic and drive from the god’s blessing did constantly spur them on. 

“Alright, alright. We got 50 minutes left. Let’s start the recap. I’ve recently hit level 60 too, and I’ve unlocked an [avatar].” Astra was the one said. “It lets me create three ‘copies’ of myself that I can send elsewhere to do things, and it can cast all the spells I can, except those using [star mana].”

“We’re all multi-unit heroes, aren’t we?” Everyone had a summon or ‘companion’ force of some kind. Harris had ‘scouts’ and ‘living armors’, Becky as a pure [summoner] had the most expansive force. She could single-handedly summon 1,500 ‘magical soldiers’ to battle if she expended all her star mana. 

“Fitting, since we are facing a ‘war’. Anyone else not level 60 yet? Any interesting skills? Any new demon-units we should be afraid of?”  

“I fought the demon-general you mentioned. Not as hard as I was made to believe.” 

“The locals generally exaggerate their strength. I reckon it’s a level 50 threat.” 

Harris frowned. They haven’t been having easy fights. Were they doing something wrong? “Huh. Only one?” They fought a battle with 6 demon generals. 

"Yup!" 

“Uh... anyone have any clue where the demon king is?”

“Quite sure it’s in the Southern Continent.” Astra responded. “But I think it hasn’t moved at all since it came to this world. I think it’s... churning out walkers.”

“Oh. Does that mean all of us need to head to the south?”

“Eventually, yes. Once we can get past the walkers on our continent... But who knows, maybe the demon king will move. I heard they say the demon king moves from.place to place for previous generations.”

"Uh... that’s a future thing. Let’s focus. So... on the walkers...”

Everyone looked worried. At this point they have not fought anything that powerful. 

“Any tips for facing the walker?” Harris asked.. “Anyone fought one since last week? There’s one near you, Astra?”

“We’re hoping you’d set the example, Harris. We do have plenty of walkers down here in the south, but somehow, they travel in pairs, so we have not yet attempted to fight them. You’re facing one along, and that’s probably the easiest fight available.”

“Hey!” Mirei called out. “Why do we have to be first?”

Awkward silence. Harris frowned. Becky sighed. All of them received overpowered abilities and blessings from the gods, and here they are, arguing who should face the demon walkers first. 

“Never mind, never mind. Time to share some knowledge.” Astra needed to save time. “Did you know some kings have a [protective presence] ability that allows the use of [message] spells in their domain?” One of the other heroes on the Eastern continent spoke. “But it only works for [messages] within the domain. I think there should be other kings or leaders with similar powers.”

“Oh,” Harris wasn’t that interested, but he wondered whether that’s how Aeon looked after his own domain, but that didn’t seem to be the case. “Astra, what’s the range of your [avatars]?”

“Huh?”

“Becky’s squadrons can’t stray more than 10 miles from her. What’s yours?”

“I... I haven’t tested.” Astra flushed, and he wrote it down somewhere. “I’ll get to it.”

“My [birdmen raiders] have a range of about twice that.” Another one spoke, Simone. “I suppose the range depends on the unit type.”

“Makes sense.”

“We should test it.” Harris said. “We should be careful. The Demon King knows where we are.”

“How does your source know that? I’m starting to suspect that source of yours... is a former hero.”

“She’s not human. She can’t be.”

“Is that a rule?”

“We’re all human, right? And the previous generation was all human too. It should be a rule. Why else did the gods pick us?”

“I still don’t think it’s a rule. I need to check the records.” One voice spoke. “The locals say there are non-human heroes. Long, long time ago.”

Astra cut the discussion off. “Alright, we need to save time. Have you guys thought about the walkers? What’s your strategy?”

“Destroy the aura spires, chop the head off, and aim for the humanoid core. Beware of energy blasts and beams from spires and heads.”

“How do you know that?”

“Uh... previous records? Apparently the city we started in defeated a walker before.”

“What?! You guys totally lucked out with your start point. We’re clueless about demon walkers. Let us know after you fought it okay?” Astra asked. 

Becky and Mirei looked at each other. There was a subtle bitterness in that statement and they all felt it. They didn’t feel like they had a good time fighting through demons.

The [Hero call] ended shortly after. 

"Y’know, this hero thing isn’t as nice as the gods put it." Becky sighed, she ate one of the barbequed meat from the lightning elemental. It wasn’t that great. The lightning elemental had no taste buds, and no sense of smell to estimate how cooked the meat was. 

Harris too chewed on a rather burnt meat, and said rather bluntly. "The gods screwed up and we, the earth-ers are the emergency response team."

"I expected to be a princess. Instead I’m a demon hunter. Not the fairy tale I was hoping for." Becky ranted. "But someone’s got to do it, and it sure looks like we are the only ones anywhere equipped to deal with it."

"I was told the food is exotic." Mirei sighed. But exotic also meant... weird and often, untasty.

All of them collectively sighed. A part of them tempted by the rewards, they felt like hamsters chasing after dangled food. 

"So... should we still attempt to fight the walker?" 

That question made all of them pause. They reflected on the damage demons have caused the lands they have seen. 

"We have to." Mirei said, her mind filled with the scenes she witnessed. All the deaths and destruction. The crying and weeping. 

"We should."

Harris shook his head. "Lady Mika said it in very clear terms that we can die. We are sure about this?"

"Yes." 

Harris nodded. He felt it too, like a calling, to fight the demon walker. It’s almost as if he is being summoned to it. 

-

An army came, 10,000 strong. Not much, but it was all the coalition could spare, with multiple other battles happening throughout the continent. A group of 30 rode forth to meet with the 3 of them.

“The heroes?” An older looking man asked. Harris nodded. 

“Yes. We... we are the reincarnated ones.” He wasn’t sure whether he deserved the ‘hero’ title just yet. 

“Great.” The older man dismounted, and walked towards them. He offered a handshake, and Harris took it. “I’m Commander Akbar, and I’m here on behalf of the coalition force. It’s a small army, but even this took a whole load of persuasion.”

Akbar shook both Becky and Mirei’s hands.

“I was told the three of you plan to attack the walker, and relieve the pressure on Gila.”

“Indeed, but... we’re not sure how.”

"Our intel said the demon walkers have projectile attacks from its main head, and lesser beam weapons from some of the spires. The army will split into smaller forces and attack the demon walker from all sides, this way the ’head’ can only aim at one group at a time. An elite force will stay with you and cut a path for you to get close. Can you disable the head? Once you do ,we can start channelling the longer-time spells like our [siege fireballs], since our mages are relieved from shielding duties "

Harris nodded. He had a massive shield ability. It should do. 

"Sounds like a lot of people are going to die."

"Or do you want to... tunnel?" Akbar asked. 

Harris paused. "What?"

Akbar brought a group of thirty humans, they looked very much like miners, they had large pickaxes and shovels. 

"Oh." They suddenly got it. 

Akbar’s battle at New Freeka really seared into his mind, and he thought of emulating the tunnels used by the giant beetles. 

"This..." All three heroes nodded. It was far less risky since it was not an open confrontation, but that is hinged on the demon walker being unable to detect their presence. 

"It’s worth a try, don’t you think?"

Harris, Mirei and Becky nodded.