Valkyria Squadron

Ch95: Call For Support



Call For Support

Following a little more in the same direction as always I finally managed to find the city that I had been looking for so much. The city of Florin was situated in what appeared to be the middle of a mountain surrounded by large ravines in a mountain range.  The place was full of ups and downs, cliffs and walls, it doesn't seem like a very nice place to live for people who hate stairs.  The main part of the city is connected to the neighborhoods in the other mountains around it thanks to its bridges. The upper part of the city that is in the highest part of the city seems to be where the important people are, the less fortunate people at the bottom as always, in an area where the sun does not seem to arrive very often.  But at first glance, there was nothing that could tell me that there was a dungeon in this place. The access bridge to the city is guarded by a large number of guards, they are also divided into three parts, so that although the first one passes there are two other defensive lines. If I want to access the dungeon, I can't become a monster that forcibly makes its way there. I need to enter the city in a more subtle way, without anyone noticing, then camouflage myself in some way with the other residents and obtain the adventurer's permit. The good side is that from here I can see the church, it seems that it is quite easy to arrive there, so it will not be a very big problem to communicate with Tamamo, I think. 

Tifa, the fairy that is accompanying me has not been calm since the silhouette of the city appeared in her sight, she is much more nervous than me, but at no time has she been complaining, it seems that she is really committed to the cause. She asked me how we would enter the city without alerting the guards. I replied that it is probably much easier to wait until it is night and to enter through the city where the church is, I will simply have to cross the wall. In this way, I can kill two birds with one stone.  She seemed to be surprised when I suggested that I climb the wall, as she said that with my body it did not seem possible. But leaving that aside I have full confidence in my climbing skills, after all, Nanami's own guards, the dark cloaks,  almost killed me several times with their hellish training.  Now I could sleep climbing a wall in the middle with one arm if I wanted to.  The problem will be the guards at the top, I have to watch them see how they behave to find the best place or time to enter the city.  I pulled out my pistol and checked the magazine, 8 rounds remaining, along with the other 15 round magazine. A firearm in a world like this is a great advantage, but bullets are a limited resource that I cannot afford to waste. Aside from Avalon, I have a short sword and a dagger from the things I've collected so far. I also have a messenger bag where at the moment I have nothing stored, but that I can use to hide Tifa if we run into other people. 

As for my appearance, I have no idea what I'm going to do about it. It seems that beastmen are marked as enemies by humans, but if I have to register with the adventurer's guild, they'll most likely check me out, so I can't just hide under a hood all the time.  I asked the fairy if she had ever seen someone like me and to my surprise, she answered yes. She mentioned that when it was trapped in the bottle the merchant tried to sell it to another beastman, but he did not have enough money so the sale was canceled. It was a couple of days ago, so it seems in a way that not all beastmen are seen as enemies of humans, but I'd better be careful because I don't know what the background is. I asked Tifa how it was that the beast-man was dressed and she told me that in a very curious way because he seemed to have "funny" clothes because he was the only one of the big people who dressed that way. It could be that the subject that Tifa mentioned could be that he came from a distant country to the other side of the continent and that is why they did not consider him an enemy, or at least that is my theory. What Tifa basically described was a kimono like the ones Tamamo wears all day, but I don't have the slightest idea of where to get a kimono or how to use it, damn I had to have accepted that time Tamamo tried to force me to wear one.

In a forest on a mountain just behind where I was I found a fight in progress. In it, there were 3 adventurersWow, that was a good attack, now there is only one adventurer left. She is fighting with her big sword against a  winged snake with what seemed to be an extremely deadly venom. It didn't seem like she was able to defeat him, not after seeing how easily her teammates died.  One of the dead adventurers is wearing just a hood like the one I wanted to wear. Maybe if I help her, she doesn't care if I take that as pay. Also, that snake reminds me a bit of a dragon, and seeing that alive offends me personally. I don't want to leave things like that loose around. Since it's a dead dragon bundle along with a free hood it's pretty cool to pass up. 

I came out of my hiding place and started walking towards the adventurer and the creature.

"On the fucking floor, motherfucker" I shouted to the snake.

But the snake, although he turned to see me, did not pay attention to me or did he listen to what I said. Shit that I did not expect that.

"Well we can do it in the traditional way too, I also prefer my prey try to prolong his death"  I said unsheathed my short swords.

The snake gave the adventurer a blow to his tail that sent her flying directly against a tree. I ran forward and threw a sword directly at one of his wings, which penetrated and stuck there. It seems that with that I managed to attract the attention of that thing The snake opened its mouth, it seems that it wanted to throw poison, and seize the moment and started running backward, seeking refuge among the trees, which began to climb as fast as I could. The snake began to look for me among the trees, without realizing that with that I had greatly reduced its mobility,  and with that, it was already mine, I had already won. With the sword that was left, I threw myself towards the other wing that I had without damaging and cut it making a huge wound on its wing. I held his back and with the other hand, I took the other sword and did the same again. His wings had been completely useless, and his whole body tangled in the branches of the trees, and although he tried to retreat trying to attack me desperately, he could not match my speed jumping. In one of his attacks I managed to lose my sight and came out behind a log, I stabbed him in the eye with one of my swords and when he opened his mouth in pain I attacked his brain by putting the sword inside his mouth and then attacking the top of it. The stupid snake was left dead several meters from the ground tangled between the branches. When the battle was over, unfortunately, I could hear the little fairy vomit inside the bag. 

I climbed down from the tree and went to check on the adventurer. She was injured and it seems that she needs a while to move, but nothing was serious, only the pain of the impact itself, the armor had saved her from something worse. Although she was looking at me, because of the pain she could not move, which was even more useful to me, because in this way she could not attack me. But just in case I decided better not to spend too much time there and went for my true goal, the hood. Which although it was for a man of almost two meters and therefore it was too big for me, I was not worried because I could fix it myself by cutting a little of the fabric.  The adventure shouted that please do not take the swords, thinking that it would be better not to cause problems that would chase me in my future, I just raised my signal with a friendly gesture and I left there. I was not afraid of the adventurer's safety because we were still quite close to the city, it would only be a matter of time for someone else to discover her, or she recovers in a while and will walk on her own, the real question is what a monster like that was doing near the city.

The rest of the day I was waiting in the bushes outside the wall waiting for night to come so I could make my move. When the afternoon was gone and the night began, the full moon appeared, there was so much light that it could be seen almost as if it were daytime, which helped me vastly to see where the easiest place to climb was and with fewer guards. For their part, seeing the night so bright, they also took it easy because there was no way that someone planned to sneak into the city with such conditions, only an idiot would do something like that (AKA me).

Then at the point that seemed to be midnight I saw how the guards were changing shifts, it was time to act. As soon as I took the first step there was no turning back, but the strangest thing was that just at that moment a cloud settled on the moon, making everything turn quite dark for a moment. I ran as fast as I could to the wall and started climbing as fast as I could. I was so focused that I even began to remember those moments when Nanami took me to practice in those horrible training rooms or hit them with the cane, I still don't know how I didn't fall off the cliff the first time they pushed me. Remembering moments when I was mostly useless, they distracted me so much that suddenly I was already on top of the wall. The downswing was much quicker when all I did was jump with Avalon.  Inside the city I was in the middle of an alley, there was no one because it seemed that everyone was asleep. Taking advantage of this, I kept running to go more inside where surely the guards are less vigilant.  In order not to get lost, I climbed to the roofs and from there I simply ran between them, as it was not as difficult as doing parkour in New York in the middle of a battle.  Since the church was quite large it was an important point of reference, so I decided to go there now that there should be no one at this time to be able to make the call home. 

I managed to enter through a window and as I thought there was no one, I told Tifa that I was going to try to talk to someone and I did not know what would happen, but just in case I told her to stay in the bag and let me know if she noticed people approaching.  If I remember correctly, Stella began to pray to see if they would revive me in the callcenter, so I thought I would try hard and close my eyes and concentrate. For when I noticed it, I felt I was alone in front of a small altar and a huge giant space with nothing, only darkness in front of me. But the next second, everything suddenly disappeared and I could see a vast ocean of clouds. White pillars and gold ornaments everywhere, it looked quite like the central district of Heaven.  From a ray of light that came from the sun under a woman, she wore a long white robe like the cloud, crowned with poles, and in her hand, she had a pomegranate. The closer she got the bigger she got until I got to a point where I only seemed to be the size of one of her fingers.

"Hello my daughter, rejoice because your prayers have been heard"
"I the goddess of light have come to instruct you in your step towards glory"
"You have been chosen as the savior and sent as the will of the gods, your name will be engraved in the history of the world as it will save it from these lands"
"With my help we can cleanse this world of the demons that threaten humans"
"With the blessing that I give you, you will be able to ....."
 
" I already understood, can you stop talking?"
"I haven't said a single word yet!"
"By the way sorry for asking but aren't you Hera? What are you doing here?"
 
"Wait a minute! How did you realize that !?"
"..."
"!!!"
"Cesar!? "
"What are you doing there!?"
"That you had not returned to earth?"
 
"Well yes, but someone made a mistake and ended up here, so I'm on my journey trying to get back."
 
"Let me guess, it was the stupid Goddess of this world"
"That rookie has been nothing but disasters since she started, she is a headache for others and only increases my workload even more"
"But now I understand why she was summoned to the disciplinary department"
"Because of her now I have to do her job here until she comes back or they bring in a substitute"
"I haven't taken a break for almost two thousand three hundred years"
"I no longer remember what sleep is"
 
"What the hell, haven't you been retired?"
 
"That's what I tell myself"
"But how stupid I was to have married that idiot"
"Are you going to believe me that even after the divorce I still have to work to try to help him pay the infinite amount of child support!?"
"The stupid judge even claimed that it was also I am an accomplice for not stopping Zeus!"
"Tch"
"Never marry an asshole who's known for trying to date everything with boobs"
"You know, now that I think about it, you wouldn't be safe if it weren't for the fact that they have him under permanent surveillance while he works to serve his sentence"
"But enough talking about the garbage"
"What do you want?"
 
"Well they told me I could talk to my wife, that's why I'm here"
 
"Who? Tamamo?"
"But she hasn't been back to her desk in a thousand years"
"Just looks there!"
 
Suddenly the image of the sky fades and in its place is replaced by a mundane, typical office environment. People using computers, ringing calls, people lining up at a printer, a long line at the coffee machine.  Athens herself was wearing a headset and office clothes, in her writing that still looked huge, she saw an enormous amount of cans of energy drinks and coffee.  But among all the modern office environment there was a desk quite different from the rest, as there was a small table at ground level adorned with clear Japanese patterns, there was a pillow on the floor that seemed to be the chair, a couple of rolls of paper and a Brush to write, that together with the enormous amount of dust and cobwebs if they seemed to indicate that its owner had not returned for a thousand years. Ir had really been left behind in time. 
 
"Hey, it would be too much to ask if you could give me a couple of tickets to the end of the year festival on your island?"
"If I can get one of those I could maybe take a 2-week vacation"
"Please help me! I need them!"
 
"Why is everyone there talking about that party?"
"Okay, tell my father that I promised you two, but first I need you to contact Tamamo"
"You can do it?"
"I think she should be at my mother's house in Japan"
 
"Seriously!?"
"Thank you very much, I will redirect you to her right now"
"..."
"Hello, Martha?"
"Yes, it's me, I need you to give me Tamamo's number"
"..."
"..."
"Yes, the fox goddess"
"..."
"Yes, the one with the cursed stone"
"..."
"That's it, thanks"
"Ready I'm calling, thank you very much for the tickets, I'm going to call your father right away"
"Bye!"
 
The world turned dark again.
 
"LATE! SLOW!"
"JUST LOOK AT THE TIME YOU CALL!"
 
"AHHH!" I screamed from the fright of seeing Tamamo's face in such a large size.
 
Tamamo was sitting on the armchair in the living room, she had her arms crossed as well as her legs, she had all its tails uncovered and fan-shaped. I was watching her from below and what seemed to be the small table in front, the one we used to put food on while we watch TV. Everything around it seemed to be the living room of my house as I remember it, except the proportions, because it seems that everything is huge as if I were the size of a small fairy.  In the background, I could see Lisa trying to free herself from the wall as she was tied up by tape. 
 
"Hi Honey, how are you?"
 
"You have any idea how concerned we are about you!"
"Your mother hasn't stopped calling people"
"Maria put up posters with your face."
"Our daughters haven't slept for two days searching the internet"
"We had to tape Lisa to the wall because she was going to look for you."
"Do you think that just talking casually will save you?"
"What do you have to say in your poor defense?"
 
"Wait a minute this is not my fault!"
"I swear to you, a Goddess of this world did not invoke me by mistake!"
"Do you think I like to get out of the house?"
"Just look at how I'm dressed, I had to sleep outside like this!"
"I am just another victim!"
 
"It's not because of what happened to you that I'm angry!"
"It's because you didn't contact me before!"
"Do you have any idea how terrifying it was to see that you suddenly disappeared without a trace?"
"All I had of a clue was Lisa screaming, the angels took it"
"What do you think I thought about the magic trail if it matched that of another Goddess!"
"I was about to go back to heaven to fight her!"
 
"I'm sorry, but I couldn't make it to a church the first day, it was too far from where I fell"
"But look! I'm good!"
"You can be calm now!"
 
"Okay, I forgive you if you can come back let's see a movie at the cinema"
"Apparently people have a habit of going with their partner to the movies and watching a movie together"
"This is new of several superheroes together that I would like to go see"
 
"Hey Tamamo who are you talking to?"
"The house phone is there and you have to pick it up first"
 
"!!!"
"Ah Okaasan!"
"I'm talking to Cesar right now"
"It already appeared, it seems that it is in another world by mistake"
 
"Another world?"
"Like the one at the time of the birthday party?"
"How are you talking to him right now?"
"Can I talk to him too?"
 
"A human cannot do the same as a Goddess, but if you lend me that mirror I think I can do something about it!"
"Seeing you guys in that city talking on the screens gave me the idea to do this!"
 
Tama managed to use a mirror as a way to video talk, so I could see everyone else and they could see me too. I mentioned what happened to me and that it would take me to return, but that I would try to do it as soon as possible. Since they had managed to confirm that I was fine, I told them that they could continue calmly while they awaited my return. As for Tifa, the fairy decided not to introduce her yet, as she seemed to be asleep inside the bag and I didn't want to cause more problems than they already had.  My mother and the others made me promise to call them every day to keep them informed, but even though I think it would be impossible to go back to the church every night, Tama said that she already knew where I was, so I could just talk to the moon and she could hear me. Talk to the twins and remind them that they continue to keep our promise. As for Lisa, I had to talk to her for a long time to make her understand that I was fine and that it was the cause of a mistake, nothing serious had happened, and that I did not want her to make a fool of herself just because of that.  She even promised me that she would try to behave while I kept my promise to keep her informed.  Finally, I talked to my mother about how long it might take and that I would find a way to try to get back before the start of school. She told me that she had been very worried about me but that deep down she knew that it was not serious either, that it would just be another of my unfortunate adventures and that she was impatiently awaiting my return.  Inside, I wanted to cry, because I think it was the first time that I spoke in this way with them, because during the war against the dragons or the continental one I never spoke with my family or heard that they were waiting at home for my return.  I was glad to hear their words of encouragement as well as their faces full of hope, I could not disappoint them, I would go home again regardless of the price, I could not fail, I could not allow it. 
 
When I finished speaking I felt as if I had suddenly woken up, like when you feel that you fall and just before the blow you wake up lying in your bed. The effect was so strong that it almost left me completely disorientedWhen I recovered I could see Tifa worried trying to pull my cheeks, she told me that someone was coming to check for the noise I made. I did not know if what she said was true, but I was not going to stay to find out, I ran again towards the wall of the church and climbed as fast as I could towards the window through which I had entered. I spent the rest of the night resting a bit on the roof of a tall building, where except for the rain nothing would bother me. 

Tip: You can use left, right, A and D keyboard keys to browse between chapters.