Forgotten But Not Lost

14

As it had turned out, what Orion had taken for being an especially large supply shipment, due to its larger convoy, was actually the escort for one of the Orc's top soldiers which was visiting the frontline. The massive Orc's name was some nonsense in Orcish that was too hard to pronounce for the humans, but it apparently translated into something along the lines of the 'Unstoppable Purple Pony'… No seriously.

It was an incredibly skilled and powerful warrior who had taken the lives of dozens of unfortunate souls. The team got a lucky break when they had found him so drunk that he was likely half blind rather than his normal levels of skill and dexterity.
Orion's profits were far below the one thousand gold coins they had hoped to gain from the venture, but the three hundred gold was still a sizable profit for them. Three human soldiers died in the fighting and another lost a limb. For fighting two hundred normal Orc soldiers and one Monster Rex, they got off easy. Still, some felt like the cost was enough not to celebrate and held a mourning for those who had died.
Typhoon Rocks agreed that the killing of the Unstoppable Purple Pony, no seriously, was a team effort and that the profit for it would be divided accordingly. While Tsuga and Kuro went around trying to figure out how much the bounty on the Orc's head was and how much they could pawn off his armor and weapon for, Shirou and Rin returned to the barracks. Slightly winded from a long day of gathering the loot from the battle.
It was a mixture of warm and awkward welcomes that greeted them. Many of Shirou's team gave him strange looks as he dragged behind him a wheelbarrow full of weaponry and armor that he had gotten off of the bodies of the Orcs he had personally killed. Kuro had offered to get it all exchanged for him, but Shirou had opted to keep everything that was still in usable condition.
You never know when you might need a few dozen swords. He could change his mind later and sell the entire wheelbarrow's worth for a gold or two if he really needed it. He could also give some of the armor to their Warriors if there was anything that fit.
Okay fine, Shirou was a hoarder.
Finally, after dinner had been sorted out and Megumin had been tucked into bed, Shirou and Rin found themselves alone in the kitchen, Rin more than ready for her explanation. "Alright, we are alone now. So, spill the beans, how did you know so much about the monster's weapon and armor?"
Shirou closed his eyes and took a deep breath. He had a long time to think about how he was going to explain it all. "I didn't really know as much about the armor as the weapon, but since the material was the same I could fill in the gaps in my knowledge. As for how I knew so much about the weapon, I know everything about every weapon I have seen since we woke up in that cavern together two weeks ago. I'm not sure how or why it works, but every weapon I have seen, I gain an understanding of its physical make up, its history, the skills and techniques that have been used by its wielders."
Rin's face shifted though many expressions as she tried to comprehend what Shirou had just told her. Before it settled an a very serious expression. "You know… all of the techniques. From all of the Guilds."
"All the ones that stem from weapons and have been used by people who's weapons I have seen." Shirou said with a nod.
"Does that include blessings and curses that directly use weapons as a medium?" Rin asked, Shirou again nodded his affirmative. "So, we got our Paladin after all. He just can't use those skills where people can see it, else the Guilds will be all over his ass." Rin frowned at Shirou. "You did know that, right? That is why you've been keeping this a secret."
"Yes. Though it also felt natural to keep it a secret. Like I had been before we ever got to this world." Shirou explained.
"I see." Rin said, narrowing her eyes in thought. "So, it must have been a skill you had in the old world and had used so much that it became second nature to do it, and you just continued to use it even without any understanding of how it works."
"That is a good summery of it." Shirou admitted.
Rin was silent for a few seconds as she processed all this, and then silent for a few seconds longer as she considered sharing her own secret. Finally, she decided it would be for the best. Shirou was a useful and reliable person, and it was best to be open with him now to gain his trust for later.
"Since you have been open with me, I'll be open with you." Rin said, surprising Shirou a bit. "When we were running from the goblins, I used a spell that I am pretty sure was from our old world. That spell, as well as several others, came to me in a moment, and then after I used it and the danger passed, I couldn't remember any of it. I'm not entirely sure what spell I even used or what it did. Whatever it is that is blocking our memories covered it up soon after I stopped channeling my magic. I've experienced the feeling again one other time outside of combat, but again the memories of it are hazy at best."
Shirou thought about it and nodded. "Yes. When I first started looking at weapons in this world I had the feeling that I knew all of the weapons I had seen prior to coming here as well, but I couldn't remember them. Gave me a horrible headache until my mind just stopped trying to remember them." Shirou said, looking out the window up at the sky. It was nearly a new moon, so the sky was almost entirely black, with only the slightest sliver of the red glow in it. "I wonder if any of the others have hidden abilities that they had been keeping to themselves."
"I don't think so." Rin said, shaking her head. "The two of us are different from them."
It was true enough. Even more than just with unusual talents, they were different from the others. While they had been a part of the group, they could both feel that they were somehow separate from it. Megumin looked up to Shirou and Sara looked up to Rin, but they didn't really bond with any of the others, and even then, it was admiration and provided about as much sense of companionship has owning a pet. They saw as the rest of the boys and girls talk, fight and getting to know each other better, but they were separate from it all.
The strangest thing was, while they recognized this, they didn't really feel lonely. It was like this was just how things were supposed to be. They were supposed to function within the group, without really fitting in. They had felt more companionship for Rock's group of misfits after just an hour, than for their own group of Rookies who they had been with for two whole weeks.
The only exception being with each other. It was if the two of them were a completely different species to the others.
There was a knock at the door and Kuro came in, a huge grin on his face and a large bag over one shoulder. "Hey kiddos. I'm here to give you your share of the profits." Kuro said, dropping the bag down on the table. Rin choked as the thing fell over and more than a hundred golden coins came pouring out, with more still in the bag.
"W…what the hell!? Just how much was the bounty on that guy!?" Rin stammered out as she stared at the coins.
"Not nearly this much. His ass was worth a hundred gold pieces. A sizable bounty, but it was his armor that brought in the serious coin." Kuro said with a smirk. "You should have seen it when we brought the stuff to those thrice-damned dwarves. The little guys were divided between fits of orgasms over the uniqueness of it and rioting when they heard that it was Kobold made. Dwarves absolutely hate Kobolds and the idea that a Kobold made something that they couldn't. Four different companies started a bidding war over the thing. Some of them even draw axes on each other."
"Just how much did it sell for?" Rin asked, her eyes never leaving the large pill of money.
"Twelve… thousand... gold." Kuro said, emphasizing each word. "This is your cut. The original agreement was ten percent for Shirou's help, but since the little missy decided to come along, we bumped it up to fifteen. Would have made it twenty… but Rock was still mad about the beer."
Rin did a little bit of mental math and concluded that she was looking at eighteen hundred gold coins. She felt a little light headed. "That armor couldn't possible be worth that much money." Rin said, her voice a little hollow. "Are those dwarves insane?"
"Actually, it just might have been worth that much." Shirou said scratching at his chin, his eyes also boggling from the sheer amount of money. "Cold iron is an extremely rare material that can only be harvested from meteorites. As for rainbow pyroxene, it is a mineral that can't even be found in this world. The only thing stopping it from being worth even more would be the difficulties of…"
"What do you mean it can't be found in this world?" Rin said, snatching onto Shirou's words.
Shirou blinked for a moment before realizing what it was that he had said. "Rainbow pyroxene is a mineral formation that requires a certain type of mana to be present in order to form properly. It can only be found underneath the deserts of the Dusk Realm, another world that exists beside Grimgar, and is untouched by the gods. Making equipment out of it is difficult due to the fact that if you melt it down, it loses its structure and turns into just normal metals. The Kobold's binding magic is required in order to shape it without destroying the crystal structure."
"Dusk Realm? Kid, that's just a fairytale. Place doesn't really exist." Kuro said giving Shirou a questioning look.
Rin, realizing they were getting too close to talking about HOW Shirou knew all of this, quickly switched gears. "I can't believe you brought all of this money here, to the slums, in a sack. Why in the world didn't you just leave it for us at the bank?"
"Huh, if I did that, then I wouldn't have been able to see the looks on your faces!" Kuro laughed with his wide grin. "The way your eyes boggled when I tipped the bag over, that was worth far more than the money."
"No it wasn't!" Rin snapped at the man and started to rub her temple in frustration. "Why do I have to be surrounded by a bunch of weirdos?"
Kuro laughed at them for a bit longer before getting up and leaving. Shirou and Rin gathered up all of the money and hide it away, Rin swearing that the first thing she would do the next morning would be to take it all to the bank and hope that Yorozu didn't gawk at her too hard for walking around with it all.
"That's… a lot of money." Shirou said after they had finished hiding it away. "Enough for all of us to live off of for years if we use it right. Even if we did splurge on top grade equipment and skills for the whole party, we would still have money left over to take care of daily needs for a good long time."
Rin remained silent at first, but then shook her head.
"Archer, even if we did that, it wouldn't solve the real problem." Rin said quietly, surprising Shirou. "We might have enough money in order to sustain our own group forever, but what about the next group who will come out of the tower in another two weeks? What about the group that will follow them a month after that? More and more people will just keep coming, getting dragged away from their home world and forced to either fight or die in a war that should have nothing to do with them."
Shirou didn't say anything. He had only been thinking about how to keep his group alive and moving, but with just a few words, his perspective of the world had been shattered. Just like when he had heard Megumin cry, he wondered how he had never been able to notice this before.
"'How did I never see the bigger picture'?" Rin said, as if she could read the boy's mind. "Archer, there is something wrong with this world. Something is manipulating our thoughts and actions as well as our memories and trying to make us just struggle on and fight with only considers for how to survive in this world without any thought for the bigger picture. I don't have any solid proof of its existence, but I believe that whatever it is, it is responsible for our missing memories, for how we are all so focused on personal survival, the reason why so few of the older soldiers are willing to help the rookies. Think about everything that has happened, and not just our reactions, but everyone's reactions to it."
Shirou did think about it. He didn't say anything for a long time as he puzzled over every single action he had seen himself and everyone else take since the moment he had woken up. There was no solid evidence to support Rin's claims, but from everything he had seen so far, he had to admit that her conclusion seemed right. There was something seriously wrong.
"What do we do?" Shirou asked her, convinced enough that what she was saying was accurate. Rin visible breathed a sigh of relief, apparently, she had been afraid that he would not see things her way. After all, what she was most likely about to suggests would be spending the money that they could use to insure their own survival on a very different set of priorities.
"The only way this is ever going to end is if we figure out a way to send everyone who is brought here back to their own worlds. To do this, we need to set aside a large research fund. Something that we can tap into without the others knowing about it. I've already planned on checking out the Forbidden Tower in order to try to find hints about how we got here in the first place. This 'Dusk World' you mentioned could also provide us with some kind of clue." Rin said as she started to lay out her plans. "First, I am going to learn how to manifest an Elemental. Elementals are connected to the world, so they might be able to help me understand whatever happens when people are brought here from another world. In the meantime, we will need to figure out a way to get the information we need on demand, rather than waiting to stumble upon rumors. Gathering this information will take time and man power, not something that we can do alone."
"Are you talking about starting up an organization?" Shirou said, his eyes widening as he realized just how big of a task this would be.
"Yes. I know it will take a lot of money. Probably even more than we just got already. But this is the only way I see us managing to make a real and permanent difference." Rin said with a nodded.
"Well, you've given this some thought." Shirou said, scratching his own head.
"I have been thinking about it since the day we got here." Rin admitted. "I didn't think I'd be able to move forward with it for at least a year though. We just got a lucky break."
"Well then, since you already have everything planned out, does this organization of yours have a name?" Shirou asked as a joke.
He didn't expect Rin to smile and say yes. "I've thought about it and choose something ironic." Rin admitted, looking up again at the night sky and the sliver of red moon. "The volunteer army is called the Crimson Moon Reserves. I always laughed at how ironic it was, since the moon here is the symbol of how we were all left with no choose but to join. So I am picking an equally ironic name." She then turned to him with a wide smile. "Our research organization to help us all try to return to our own world will be called 'The Tower'."
That night, Shirou found himself yet again on that beach within his mind, surrounded by swords and with a wolf head nearly half as big as he was resting in his lap.
Eldritch made a soft purring sound deep in her throat as Shirou rubbed her neck absent mindedly as the waves of the sea washed up against the shore, producing neither sound nor spray. "I think this is one of my favorite places." Eldritch said in her honey rich voice.
"Thank you for the complement." Shirou said to the goddess, though he wasn't quite sure if she meant it as one.
"I've never seen a soul quite like this one before you. So vast and deviant, I can barely tell it is even human. It reminds me of the souls of Worlds, like Grimgar and Parano, more than that of a human's." Eldritch said shifting her head in order to look up at Shirou with one of her ruby eyes. "In such a short time, you've adapted so well. It makes me wonder what this soul world of yours was like before Grimgar's Counter Force suppressed your memories."
"Counter… Force." Shirou said, the word felt familiar, but he couldn't really grab hold of what its familiarity was. "Wait, you mean Rin was right about their being a force that was manipulating us?"
"Yes, there is." Eldritch said with a chuckle, pushing her head into Shirou's stomach, in a way to inform him that he was not to stop rubbing her neck. "That mate of yours is very clever. I don't think I have ever seen a human realize they were under the influence of the Counter Force so quickly."
"She isn't my mate." Shirou said with a sigh. This was a tease that Eldritch had often used on him. By her logic, he was the Alpha Male of his small pack and she was the Alpha Female. Therefore, it was only natural that they would be mated. "So what is the Counter Force, and what does it want with us?"
"*Purr* The Counter Force is the main tool of Grimgar, the divine will of this World. In times past, it felt the intrusion of the Crimson Moon and the creation of the Undead and saw them as being an existence that didn't belong in this world. So Grimgar uses the Counter Force in order to manipulate living people into fighting against the Undead." Eldritch explained as if none of it was really relevant. "A few years back, things escalated when the Crimson Moon created something in its own image and sent it to Grimgar. I believe you humans called it the Undying King."
"That would have been hundreds of years ago." Shirou pointed out to the White Goddess.
"Is that a long time for you humans? Sorry, I forget sometimes." Eldritch asked, pretending to be surprised. She enjoyed the high and mighty act. "Anyways, the Undying King started to kill the living in large numbers and converted them into the undead. In order to counter this, Grimgar started to bring humans in from another world. He would drain them of their memories and leave them with no purpose save to survive this world by killing all of Grimgar's enemies. With subtle guidance from the Counter Force, these people would often become great heroes and help shape history. Either that or they would die because they couldn't adapt quickly enough. I was never quite sure what logic the Counter Force uses for decided who it will pick to be its next prey… I mean champion. It has always seemed pretty random to me."
Shirou thought about what the Goddess said for a second before asking her a question. "You said that Grimgar started to summon people in order to fight the Undying King. But the Undying King is dead and gone. So why are people still being summoned?"
Eldritch started to chuckle. "I would think that should be obvious. Because the Undying still hasn't died. Not forever at least. And the World itself can still sense it. It won't stop until all evidence of the Crimson Moon's influence has been erased from its World."
Shirou's hand stopped and Eldritch looked up at him again. "Why are you telling me all this? I doubt that you routinely tell all of your followers everything like this."
Eldritch stood up before putting one of her giant paws on Shirou shoulder, pushing him to the ground hard as she leaned over him. Shirou was too shocked by the action to think of a response. "You're right. I don't. Because they can't do anything about their situation but struggle to survive. Best to let them live in happy ignorance and just give them whatever peace of mind I can. However, you and clever girl just might have what it takes to really figure out a way to return to that safe other world of yours." Eldritch said as she tilted her head in that one way she did when she wanted to make it look like she is smiling. "And when that day comes, and you have the chance to leave this world forever… I hope that you will stay. Not because of the Counter Force, but out of your own free will. I want you to stay here, with me, as my Guardian."
Before the boy could think how to respond to such a declaration, Eldritch bent her head down towards him… and gave him a long, wet lick, starting at his stomach and going all the way up to the top of his head.
Shirou bolted up in his top bunk, his forehead striking against the ceiling as he did so. He grunted, holding his palm against his head. He could hear Eldritch's rich laughter in his ears as he swore to himself.
He really hated when she did that.
Rin picks an ironic name and doesn't realize the irony that she picked a name close to the Clock Tower. DOUBLE IRONY!