The Rising of the Fisticuffs Hero

Chapter 2: The Fisticuffs hero (Part 2)

Now, in response to his question, the king took the time to explain the events leading up to the heroes summoning.

Only a few days previously, the kingdom had been attacked by what people called a 'Wave', an unnatural gathering of monsters which appeared from swirling portals in the sky.  The combined might of the knight army and an assortment of wandering adventurers had just about managed to fend it off, with heavy losses.

These waves would get progressively more powerful, until everything is destroyed. The country, the cities, the entire world. This is why they are called "The Waves of Calamity". The Four Cardinal heroes were summoned to combat and ultimately stop the waves for good. The heroes had one month to get ready, which is being timed by the countries dragon hourglass, before the next wave hit the land with all of its destructive force.

"We underestimated the potency of the waves. Once we actually experienced the first one and barely survived, we realised that only The Four Cardinal heroes could counter them. So we followed an old legend and summoned your four, with an extra appearing to us as a bonus. We have no time to lose." This basically confirmed something for Cadver. He had only been given a rough idea of what the anime was about, but the description he had read matched the kings story to the letter. He had somehow been transported to the world through trying to watch the anime his friend had sent him.

"Ok, I think we get the gist of it,"  Ren spoke up, swinging his sword downwards in front of him. "But I hope you didn't just bring us here thinking we would save you for free." Naofumi turned around to stare dumbfoundedly at the other three heroes. This caused Cadver to have a quick double-take; it was now clear to me, Naofumi was the only decent one out of the other four. The three other heroes seemed too full of themselves, too confident in a situation which should have caused them to be wary or in the very least a bit submissive.

"Of course not," the snotty nosed administrator replied. "Once you have repelled all the waves, I can assure you we shall reward you most handsomely." This seemed to please the three heroes, who know seemed a bit more cocky.

"Yeah?" It was Motoyasu who replied this time. "Well it would seem we have no choice but to take you at your word."
Ren took over: "As long as you dont renege, we'll work with you. But don't think for a moment that you can tame us."
"Exactly, we won't put up with you looking down on us." Itsuki, with an aggressive expression, finished.

"Yeah... What these guys said." Naofumi sighed, as if now being forced to agree with the heroes who were completely full of themselves. Cadver crossed his arms and nodded silently. What he was agreeing with was up for debate, but he was definitely agreeing.

The king now spoke up, trying to salvage his reputation with the heroes. "If I can trust that we have come to an agreement, I would now ask for you heroes to check your status'".

Cadverus was confused and Naofumi voiced his confusion perfectly: "Wait, what's a status?"

"Yeah....." Itsuki chimed up, also confused by what had been said.

"Are you guys dense?" Ren was now looking at Naofumi and Itsuki with condescending look. "It should have been the very first thing you noticed when you got here. Don't you see the icon in the lower right hand side of your vision?" Sure enough, when he looked, there it was. A bunch of silver spots which were surrounded by a white boarder. Ren continued, "Try focusing your attention on it." Without looking up, Cadverus stared at the image before suddenly a larger opaque scene was in front of him. He, and his gauntlets, were ranked as level one. There was a ton of extra stuff on the selection bar, including skills, forms, upgrades, inventory and who knows what else.

He was broken out of his childlike mystified trance by Itsuki, who didn't seem pleased. "Only level 1? Thats rather disconcerting."
"Yeah, no kidding, who can tell if we can even fight like this."
"Hey, Mr Know-It-All's, what is this anyway?" Cadver once again butted in, intending on getting answers.
"It is status magic, unique to the heroes of legend. This ability allows the heroes to check the stats of themselves, their weapons and party members."

"So then," Cadver continued after the other heroes had finished messing with their status bars, "What's next?"
"We go on a quest I assume." Ren answered, swinging his sword testingly. "We have alot of training ahead of us."
"Yeah!" Naofumi agreed enthusiastically. "When we think we're ready we can form a party and..."

Before Naofumi could continue with that thought, he was interrupted once again by the minister who had been trying to take control of the situation. "Unfortunately, the four Cardinal weapons have a unique aura which rejects other Cardinal weapons in the area. This causes them to finder each others, and the heroes who wield them, growth. For this reason you must each form your own separate parties and gain strength with them. We shall gather the very best adventurers we have in the kingdom and they shall form your parties."

This caused the Cardinal heroes to seem worried, which Cadver realised was that they thought that together they would be unstoppable, but now they were separated and vulnerable. This also meant that they couldn't strategise or work together before the next wave hit, meaning they wouldn't be a united group. However, the minister hadn't mentioned anything about Cadverus, and his weapon described a list of combo skills with the other weapons. While he couldn't see what the skills were, he knew he would be forced to work with the other heroes to gain them.

"Since the sun is about to set rest here for the night and begin your quests tomorrow. Unfortunately, we only planned for 4 heroes to appear, so we will have a guest room prepared for the extra and he can start bright and early while your parties are being assembled." The king finally gave his verdict, shutting down any further complaints or questions. Cadver was practically dragged away by a butler to a random room down a long corridor. It was a small room with a bed and a single basin of warm water. The absolute bare minimum to live. However, since he was exhausted and the butler had already left, Cadver just accepted his sorry excuse for a life and just flopped on his bed. If only he could go to sleep, but everything that had happened kept him up for a long time after.

When he did fall asleep, it was a long deep rest, with no nightmares of his really deep and convoluted tragic backstory.
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Heya, bet you didn't expect me to upload this quickly. Guess what? Me neither! I thought this chapter would come out next year, but for some reason I ended up finishing way ahead of what planning I had. It seems some people have read this, so it must be ok.
That ending seemed to be anticlimactic to me, but that's necessary since I really wanted to get Cadverus away from the other heroes. I have two reasons for that, one is that I really don't like what happens in the anime after Malty joins Naofumi. The second is so that he came come back later to help Naofumi once all the shit goes down.

Anyway thanks for reading and I'll see you next year (maybe IDK)