Forgotten But Not Lost

29

Shirou lead the party of rookies back to the barracks, brewed them a pot of tea and put out some snacks made mostly of dried fruits. Seeming to sense that food was about, Niko joined them, though she had yet to say anything to any of them.

Manato was grateful. He had expended even more energy than he had the day before. He wasn't sure if he would have been able to handle another fight. While he was skilled with his staff and could probably have held his own against another goblin, as a healer his stamina was far more limited. Four of his seven [Cure] spells had been spent in that single fight against one lone goblin. He would need to improve himself somehow, either help insure that his party didn't get so injured by helping with the fighting, or by increasing the number of times he could heal them in one day.
"Are you going start talking about what you meant before, or not!?" Ranta demanded. Though his words were strong, he was still visibly shaken. Everyone was on edge, save for Yume, and Shirou making them all wait to hear what he meant wasn't helping.
"There are many places where your party needs to improve. You all need to learn how to position yourselves so that you don't put your bodies between your ranged supporters and your enemies. Because of where you were standing, Yume was left unable to take any more shots once the melee started, forcing her to switch to melee herself." Shirou said calmly.
"Who cares, she couldn't shoot the thing anyways." Ranta said with a shrug.
Yume scowled at him. "Yume would have been able to hit it just fine is stupid Ranta didn't ruin our surprise attack!" She snapped at him. "Hitting a moving target is hard, and Yume hasn't had much practice with doing it."
"So in other words your useless. I can't believe you never had this boobless girl practice with moving targets." Ranta scoffed.
Yume stood up from her seat and three seconds later she had her bow in hand with an arrow notched and pulled back. "Ranta is right. Yume does need practice with moving targets. Why doesn't Ranta start running."
"H…hey! That's not funny!" Ranta said, backing away from the girl and raising his hands up in surrender. "I didn't mean anything by it! Can't you take a joke!"
"Yume, that's enough." Shirou said, telling the girl to back down.
"But senpai, Yume doesn't like it when Ranta calls her boobless. It hurts her feelings ~yan." Yume whimpered, as she lowered her bow, much to Ranta's relief.
"I don't care. I won't have you killing people in my kitchen. Take it outside if you must." Shirou said, his tone a little too serious.
"What!? Your only problem with her killing me is that it is in this stupid kitchen!?" Ranta shouted in shock.
Shirou stopped moving for a second and he slowly looked over at Ranta. Everyone paled as an indescribable feeling washed over them. Shirou's already tall six feet seemed to inflate until he was the size of a mountain, and his gold eyes shone with cold fire. "Let me make one thing clear. This is my kitchen, and I will not have you dirtying it with your blood. Understood?"
"Pay your respects to the Master of the Kitchen." Niko said in a voice fitting a Priestess, getting to her knees and bowing down before Shirou.
"I understand Master. I will not dirty the Master's kitchen with my worthless blood." Ranta said quickly, joining Niko in bowing before Shirou. In the back of Manato's mind was a part of him that wanted to laugh at how a Priest and Dread Knight were setting aside their differences and worshipping a common idol. But that part of him was far too scared to let itself be known on the surface. Though he seemed to be doing much better than his teammates.
Then, just like that, the feeling vanished as Shirou returned to his cooking. "See that you don't."
"What… just happened?" Moguzo's slow and dazed voice asked.
"I don't know, and I don't want to know." Haruhiro replied, shaking his head.
"I… I thought I heard the growl… the growl of a wolf." Shihoru stammered, looking as though she was about to pass out. Yume put her arms around the other girl.
"Just ignore it." Yume said as she comforted the little Mage.
"Haruhiro needs to become more familiar with sneaking around in the forest and moving into enemy blind spots. Shihoru has to stop closing her eyes when she casts a spell. Moguzo hesitates too much about approaching the enemy. All of these things and more are problems with how your team functions. However they can all be fixed with experience and a little team training." Shirou said as he wrapped some ground pork into warm dough while a steam cooker was slowly being prepped over the fireplace. "But more important than any of that, your solo Priest should not be occupying the frontline."
"What? But Manato is our best fighter. He's really good with that staff." Haruhiro said, shocked at Shirou's suggestion that Manato didn't belong on the frontline.
"True, he is skilled for a Rookie. However he isn't skilled enough to be a frontline Priest." Shirou said with a shake of his head. "Tell me Manato, did your mentor ever tell you what the death rates are like for Priests?" Manato swallowed slightly and nodded his head in response.
"Death rates?" Shihoru whispered, her eyes widening in fear.
"All monsters with even the slightest bit of intelligence know exactly what a Priest is. They know that so long as a party has a Priest, they can keep fighting after injures. Both Ranta and Haruhiro should have been knocked out of that fight fairly early on and were only able to continue fighting at full strength because they had a healer." Shirou started to explain. "Because of this, monsters always target the healer first whenever possible. They will be the target of every slash, and every arrow. This is why the survival rate of Priests during their first year is one sixth the rate of the other Guilds. This is why there are barely enough Priests to go around, even though the Priests guild gets the second to most recruits out of all the Guilds."
"I… didn't know that." Moguzo said in shock. He had thought that the Warrior's Guild was supposed to be the rough one, but at least the Warriors Guild have effective armor.
"Are there really no frontline Priests?" Haruhiro asked his normally half lidded eyes widened in shock.
"There are only three surviving frontline Priests who have been a part of the Crimson Moon Reserves for more than a year, and all three of them were originally extremely skilled Warriors with years of frontline experience, and even they have to be careful." Shirou continued. "The problem lies in the fact that if the Priest becomes too severely injured, they can no longer perform the magic required to heal themselves. Even if one of you got slashed across the throat, if Manato reached you in time, you would have a good chance of making it out alive. However, if he was to take a stab to the gut, or to his arms and couldn't complete the words or hand signs needed to perform his spells, he would be as good as dead."
Manato's shoulders slouched as he heard Shirou's explanations. "Even if you say all this, its not like I have much of a choice. They need my help." Manato said a little guiltily. All the others looked on in shock before their eyes also fell, equally guilty looks on their faces. This was only a problem because the rest of the party was weak.
"…If you are going to continue to fight on the frontline, then there are a few things you will need to do." Shirou said, surprising the boy. "First and foremost, you must never leave the city dressed as a Priest. You might as well paint a bullseye on your back. Wear the white and blue in the city if you want, but outside hide what you are. I will provide you some light armor, but you will need to buy the leathers to wear under it. Moguzo should know which ones you will need. If you require money for it, I can provide you with that as well. Second, focus more on avoiding damage rather than dishing it out. And finally, you will need to find your party a second Priest. One who can assist in the event that you yourself are injured."
"But… can we really find another Priest who would join us?" Moguzo said, his face creasing with thought. "I thought you said there weren't enough Priests to go around."
"I think I might know someone. She's a bit of a drifter and never stays in one party for long. If she is between jobs right now, she'd probably be willing to join up with your group." Shirou said as he finished making the last of his dumplings. "It's up to you though."
"No harm in trying." Manato said, trying to sound more confident than he really was.
"I'll ask Tokimune to get me into contact with her and I can meet her tomorrow night to see if she is interested." Shirou said with a nod.
"Hey wait a second! Why is Manato the only one getting armor!?" Ranta objected.
"Shut up. Shirou-senpai is already being generous enough." Haruhiro snapped at Ranta.
"Actually, I will provide all of you with armor. Just give me a second." He said as he deposited all of the dumplings he had prepared into the larger steamer and adding a little more water, causing the amount of steam to increase. "They will need around forty minutes to finish. That should be enough time for you all to pick out what you need."
"Is forty minutes really enough time to go to the market?" Yume asked.
"We aren't going to the market." Shirou corrected her.
"The Iron Keep." Niko said quietly.
"The Iron Keep?" Ranta repeated with a raised eyebrow.
"Please don't call it that."
"What the actual crap!?" Ranta shouted as Shirou unlocked and opened up the shed in the back of the barracks to reveal a treasure trove of armor and weapons. In the center of the room was a small anvil and what looked like an improvised fire pit.
"I've made a habit out of collecting any functional weapon or piece of armor off of the enemies I kill." Shirou said as he gestured towards eight large barrels full of swords. "Most of the swords are in the barrels, knives and bows are on the shelves, and spears and staves are in the back behind the tool cabinet. There are some hammers, shields and maces, but you probably don't want those. Pick whatever you like and then I'll show you the armor I've been preparing."
The team looked unsure of themselves at first but then Ranta went over to one of the barrels and started to dig through it searching for a long sword that would suit him. After that they went in one by one to take a look at things until only Shirou, Niko and Shihoru weren't checking out the stock, since Shihoru was a Mage, there was little she could do in terms of equipment to improve herself.
"Did you… did your party really kill all of this yourselves?" Shihoru asked him, a bit of awe in her voice.
"No." Niko said, shaking her head. "It was all Shirou."
"Wait, you killed all of it yourself?" Haruhiro said his eyes widening more and more as he looked over the impressive collection of knives.
"Yume not surprised." Yume said as she picked up one of the bows and tried to string it. "Senpai is really strong."
"He was able to shoot that knife out of midair." Manato said comparing one metal staff to the one he had received from the Priests guild before eyeing one of the spears. "I can't even imagine the level of skill required to do such a thing."
"You've only been fighting for four months. Just how many monsters have you killed?" Haruhiro asked.
"About… four thousand…ish." Shirou said, not sounding too sure himself. He knew he averaged around sixty to eighty on his days off with Kuro... and then there were the hoards that Megumin kept summoning with her explosions... and those times that Rin decided to trip all of the Kobold's alarms so she could see how they would react... so it was actually probably closer to the five thousands range. The number of times the Orcs had to send reinforcements to help bolster their numbers, it was amazing they hadn't just given up on Fort Dead Head all together. Honestly, he didn't know where they all came from, or why they thought that the fort was so valuable. Between him and the other members of Typhoon Rocks, they had slaughtered two or three whole legions worth of Orcs in those four months… and stolen quite a lot of beer. "I didn't take equipment from all of them… and I don't still have all the equipment I ever took. Some of it has broken and I gave things away to other rookie teams over the months."
"Four thousand… that's insane." Manato couldn't help but say aloud. The six of them had barely taken out one measly goblin in two days, and Shirou had killed thousands of monsters in just four short months.
"I suppose. I never really thought about it." Shirou said, looking away from them.
"This will do!" Ranta said as he practiced waving about a long sword he had found. It was broader towards the end and didn't end in so much a tip as a jagged peak. The metal was a darker color, marking the blade as wrought iron instead of steel, and kobold made. Shirou immediately registered it as one of the blades he had taken from a Kobold fighter. A high-quality blade, considering the second-rate material used and the lack of magic would mean that Ranta would have to routinely sharpen it. Though Ranta probably didn't know any of that. Knowing him he only picked it because it looked cool.
Both Haruhiro and Mozugo picked steel weapons. The dagger Haruhiro picked was of a similar size and make to the double-edged dagger he was using before, only in much better condition. The great sword that Mozugo picked was a large single edged weapon with more weight towards the tip, the kind preferred by the Orc Berserkers. Yume picked out a short bow similar to her old one, though in much better condition and made from rosewood instead of oak. While oak was a perfectly good material for a bow, rosewood was its superior, though human craftsmen had yet to learn that fact. Shirou wondered if Yume could feel the difference in the woods or if she just liked the deeper colorings better.
Finally, Manato took up a bronze spear, one slightly longer than his old staff. "I'd like to see a goblin shrug off a hit from this." Manato said, giving the weapon an experimental swing. He must have taken the earlier goblin just ignoring the bash he delivered to its skull rather personally and chose a bladed weapon to make sure that such a thing didn't happen again. Spears were rarely used by members of the Crimson Moon Reserve, but they were still good weapons.
"Since you've all picked out your weapons, Ranta, Moguzo, here are some pieces of armor I've got for you." Shirou said, lifting a pair of helmets, gauntlets and some kind of metal skirts that Manato didn't know the name for. "These were all pieces of Orc armor, so I had to resize them a bit. Tell me if anything doesn't fit right."
He resized them? Did he mean he knew how to use a forge too?
The two boys looked surprised, but they came forward to try the armor pieces on. "It fits." Moguzo said, rather surprised as he got the helmet on his head. "It fits really well. How'd you know what size to make it?"
"I'm pretty good at eyeballing things when it comes to weapons and armor." Shirou said with a soft chuckle, as if he had made a joke.
"This thing looks so sick." Ranta said with a wide grin. The helmet he had been given was black with a face mask to it that looked like a skull, due in part to the empty spots where the Orc's tusks would normally be jutting out. "A skull helm for a worshipper of Skulheill! It's like it was meant to be!" He said as he shoved the thing down on his head and closed the mask shut.
"At least we don't have to look at his face anymore." Shihoru mumbled, getting a snort out of Haruhiro and Yume. Their shy little Mage wasn't so shy about how much she disliked Ranta.
"Alright, get your stuff put away and then we will have dinner. Tomorrow I'll start your training." Shirou said as he made his way towards the door.
"Training?" Manato said in surprise.
"Your teamwork training. Up until now, all of your training has been centered around individual skills, but if you want to survive out in the field, you are going to need to learn to work properly together." Shirou said. "It will just be a few exercises about positioning and movement."
"Oh, well that doesn't seem to bad."
Generic Orc 1: The Tarks sure have been raiding our forts a lot lately.
Generic Orc 2: I know, but they don't really seem interested in taking the fort.
Generic Orc 1: I just hope they don't come during our shift.
Generic Orc 2: I now rig... wait... do you hear that?
Singing:
We are here to drink your beer
And steal your rum at a point of a gun
Your alcohol to us will fall
'Cause we are here to drink your beer
Generic Orc 1: Oh lord, help us.