Telos Karma Meta Gacha

[Tsubaki POV]

Our target pulled out an engraved metal staff as I rushed toward him.

"I can't believe brats like you think they can take on their elders and win. It's time someone put you in your place."

I ignored his talking. One thing that Suko made sure I knew was talking during a fight was rarely necessary. It was a waste of time and energy unless you had something to gain from speaking.

As I close in on him, he stabs the staff forward at my stomach.

Blocking with my new naginata, I counter with a similar attack but aim the blade at his shoulder.

Recovering from his first attack, he pulls back the staff and knocks my blade away, getting a small cut on his arm.

Moving back a few feet, he rubs the cut on his arm before creating a magic circle. I move to stop him, but before I can, a monkey appears out of the circle, forcing me to block.

"Luckily, it doesn't matter if I kill you or not. Once your friend is dead, you'll be joining him. Now, monkey, get her weapon!"

The monkey attacked me again, trying to grab my weapon and pull it away, but strangely, it couldn't even make me budge.

I knew I wasn't physically stronger than a monkey, so the fact that it was utterly helpless was confusing.

Instead of focusing on the monkey, I focused on her summoner. Creating a magic circle, I used one of the spells I learned from my clan.

The spell was called Senbon Shot, which launched 10 tiny needles at the target. My enemy saw the needles coming and dodged, so I cast the spell again toward the monkey.

Seeing the glowing circle in her face, she tried pulling even harder, but when she realized it wouldn't budge, she gave up and ran to her summoner.

"Dammit, monkey! You're supposed to grab her weapon! She's just a little girl! Stupid monkey. I should've just done this myself. Stay here and throw these at her."

He pulled a knife roll from his clothes and tossed them beside the monkey.

Then, turning to me, he ran. Bringing his staff up to try and hit my throat, I used Senbon Shot once more, causing him to roll on the ground to avoid them.

I acted immediately and tried to launch fire from the naginata. Thankfully, a burst of flames shot toward his location.

Seeing the fire approaching him, he panicked. But before I could continue attacking, his summon threw a knife, almost hitting me. Refocusing on the monkey, I charged with my blade, knocking each knife she threw out of the air.

As I got closer, her throwing grew frantic, trying to keep me away as much as possible.

Suddenly, when she tried throwing another knife, nothing happened. Looking at the knife roll, she saw it was empty.

Dread crept onto her face in realization, but looking back at me, I was in front of her.

Swinging the naginata, I slammed the handle into her, knocking her against the house, before turning back to her master, who by now had recovered.

-----

[Hajime POV]

My opponent wasted no time, immediately sending a flurry of icicles at me.

I retaliated by launching several lightning bolts at him, destroying the icicles but creating a small mist cloud between us.

Taking advantage of this, I condense a ball of lightning in both hands before launching them into the mist.

The two balls disperse the mist as they go through, quickly closing in on him before he creates a shield of ice to block the attacks.

Though the ice cracked where the balls hit, it held firm before he launched the slab toward me.

Using Lighting Fist, I slam my hand through the ice, only to see several icicles flying toward me again.

I open my mouth and use Lightning Dragon's Roar to evaporate the icicles. The man, who hadn't moved until now, finally dodged, though my roar had grazed him, burning his shoulder.

Reaching up to feel his arm, he immediately removed his hand from the injury.

"It's been a while since someone has hurt me this bad. I never thought a brat like you would put me in this situation."

Magic circles surrounded him, covering his body.

As the circles faded away, ice constructs were in their place, covering himself in armor.

"This is my frost gear. Despite the name, it's a custom spell I made. You'll be lucky if you can even break through it."

Activating 'lightning rush' and 'lightning fist', I charged at him and threw my fist towards his chest.

Bringing his arms up, he blocks the attack, but it knocks him back, cracking the ice on his vambraces.

I kept up the assault, hitting him as he blocked or dodged to the best of his ability.

As he does this, I can see the injuries pile up, but he isn't tired yet. Most of his armor was cracked or destroyed by now, so I was curious why he seemed relatively fine.

Seconds later, the circles reappeared, but rather than recreating the armor, what remained fused into his body.

Now covered in ice, he summoned more circles around his hands, launching a barrage of snowballs, but they exploded when the snowball hit something.

Moving out of the way, I shot as many snowballs as possible out of the air, but with how many he made, they still landed near me, knocking me back.

This will be harder than I thought.

-----

[Tsubaki POV]

His glowing staff was pointed at me like a gun barrel.

"You don't know how fucked you are, do you!? This staff was enchanted to manipulate the wind around me, allowing me to strike nearly instantly!"

Turning to the tree he was next to, he thrust the staff forward. Glowing slightly, the staff sped up, slamming into the trunk and impaling itself through the tree.

I thought he might have trapped the staff in the tree before it glowed again, releasing two sideways bursts of wind and cutting the tree before it toppled over.

"See that? You don't stand a chance!"

As he started swinging the staff rapidly, a small tornado quickly formed around him, growing larger and larger.

Loose dirt and debris started to lift off the ground and fly around.

Luckily, I didn't need to move to attack him.

Channeling some mana into the naginata, a small flame formed on the blade. As this happened, I drew it back and swung forward, launching an arc of fire into the tornado.

As the fire hit the tornado, the two started to interact.

Despite the nature of magic, some elements prevailed over others. Like in Naruto or Pokemon, one element could counter another, though that was based on logic, like water putting out fire.

In this case, while the fire might have been strong enough to blow out given time, many leaves and sticks had joined the tornado.

The fire hit the tinder, increasing its size. A few embers even hit nearby plants, increasing the fire that had fused into the tornado.

The smoke worsened, getting brought into the tornado and removing even more air from inside the tornado.

This all happened within thirty seconds, but that thirty seconds was enough to send him into a coughing fit as the smoke filled his lungs.

When he started coughing, he stopped swinging the staff, disrupting the tornado and causing it to stop.

As the tornado dispersed, I used the opportunity to attack.

Channeling more mana into the blade, I charged at him, going for an overhead swing.

Ignoring his breathing issues, he moved his hands to block but started coughing again, breaking his defense and letting my blade cut through him.

He screamed at the top of his smoke-filled lungs, but that was silenced seconds later.

Quickly casting a water spell I used to sustain myself, I put out the remaining fires, leaving the surroundings burnt to a crisp.

Hearing some fighting coming from where Hajime was, I went over to help, only for him to finish his fight.

-----

[Hajime POV]

As I dodged all the snowballs thrown at me, I wondered how he was making so many.

The magic cost might've been low, but even the most minor fire spells take a good portion of magic to cast.

Exploding snowballs was undoubtedly a more complex spell and likely required several times more magic. By now, he had cast it over a hundred times, which was as impressive as it was concerning.

To stop this, I cast two spells simultaneously, Lightning Rush and Discharge.

Rushing at him, Discharge detonated all his snowballs, including the few he had just released, and they exploded on him.

As he started flying backward, I reached him before slamming a lightning fist down into his gut, sending him down and creating a trench.

When the dirt around the trench stopped moving, I figured he was down for good by now.

My hopes were dashed when I saw him slowly get up.

"Nice *cough*... nice try, but you can't keep me down, kid." As he spoke, a tornado of fire sprang up in the distance. "Oh? I didn't know he added fire to that trick. If he can't win now, then he deserves to lose."

Hearing that made me realize Tsubaki probably used her naginata's ability, but he didn't know.

It was time to end this, then.

Using Lightning Rush for the final time, I pulled out a weapon from my inventory—the Thanagarian Mace.

Since it can negate magic, he likely won't have a defense for it.

Running at him, I swung at him.

He formed a magic circle in front of him, creating another slab of ice to defend him, but the mace decimated it as it was made of magic.

Surprised that I had already broken through, he was unprepared to defend himself. He likely thought he'd get a second to recover, which I wasn't giving him.

As I ran into him, the mace slammed into his chest, cracking some ribs and caving it in.

Falling onto his back, he coughed blood when his back hit the ground, quickly succumbing to the injuries.

-----

Tsubaki walked over to me, having finished her fight already.

"Is it over?" She asked, clearly exhausted.

"Yeah. Now for the fun part."

"The fun part?"

"We claim our prizes," I said as if it were the most obvious thing in the world.

I felt like a wuxia character, knowing I'd be taking everything valuable from these guys and using it to strengthen myself against future enemies.

Starting with the guy I fought, his bounty was much higher than my first bounty.

[Michio Hotaru, 35, Human.]

[Killed the queen of the Oriax Pillar's Heir's peerage. Used a devil summoning paper to ask for a magic artifact before killing the devil and stealing the artifact.]

[The Oriax Pillar offered $50,000 to kill him and a devil summoning paper. Should you summon them to deliver back the artifact, they will pay another $50,000.]

Storing the $50,000 away, I took his body into my inventory to see what the artifact was.

The artifact called the Noctus Belt allowed the wearer to fuse with magic, provided the spell fit the criteria. This is how he fused himself with his ice armor.

The Oriax pillar tended to use similar artifacts they purchased to strengthen their magic even more.

Their clan trait was Starlight, which strengthened them at night. This trait sounds weak until you realize they can train it, boosting their strength massively and even boosting others to a degree.

The Noctus Belt and other similar artifacts let them fuse with their Starlight magic to increase their boost further.

Strengthening artifacts like this one were rare but not unheard of. They are generally used by those with special magics that would benefit from the fusion effect. For example, if I gave it to Tsubaki, she could fuse with Mirror Alice, turning her whole body into the sacred gear.

Actually, that isn't a bad idea.

I handed the belt to her and explained what I was thinking, which caused her to put it on quickly.

It was a little big, but thankfully, it had adjustment enchantments.

Forget $50,000, this is worth way more. At a higher level, she might even be able to summon multiple mirrors and fuse them with others.

The Oriax probably thought whoever got it wouldn't know what it was, or they might ask for concessions from them.

Seeing that nothing important was left on him, I removed him from my inventory, as well as the first guy I killed, and had Tsubaki cremate them with the naginata. I forgot he was in there, but I took the opportunity to remove him. Cremation was better anyway since it lowered the chance of someone using your corpse for themselves.

As we moved towards our original target, I was impressed with how Tsubaki had dealt with him, even more so since, if the monkey was any indication, it was a two-versus-one situation.

[Hachiro Cho, 27, Human.]

[Experimenting with curse magic on random civilians.]

[4 city heads have each offered $7,500 to kill him.]

Did he know curse magic? Did he use it on Tsubaki?

"Tsubaki, did he use any curse magic on you?

"No. The only magic came from his staff and when he summoned the monkey."

Rereading on the bounty made me realize why he didn't use it.

He couldn't.

That's why he was experimenting on others.

Curse magic was dangerous to practice with. Practicing on civilians, who were easily manipulated by magic, made it much safer than any supernatural target. Maybe that's why he wanted to work with Michio?

I guess only they would know.

Scanning Hachiro and finding nothing, Tsubaki cremated him, too, before grabbing the staff.

Looking at Tsubaki, she seemed off before I realized this was probably her first kill.

"Are you okay?"

"Yes. I'm just exhausted from the fight."

"I meant more mentally. That was your first kill, right?

She hesitated before nodding. "Yes. I'm just thinking about what might have happened to me."

Before I could respond to her, we both heard movement. Turning, we saw that the monkey she fought had woken up.

As it looked around, its eyes landed on us before widening in a panic.

Tsubaki slowly walked toward it.

As she reached it, it flailed around as if trying to escape before Tsubaki picked it up and hugged it.

"It'll be okay. The bad man can't hurt you anymore."

From her actions, I could understand that Hachiro was one of the worst familiar owners, so she comforted it. It wouldn't have been a bad familiar for her.

You could obtain a familiar by contracting a magical creature or subjugating any beast. This monkey was a southern pig-taled macaque, a regular animal that was likely subjugated. However, this macaque was special, as it had grown because of the familiar ritual.

Familiars made from mundane creatures can often mutate to develop the ability to use magic, growing larger, smarter, and more sapient than before. 

This macaque could likely use magic given a few more years if my senses were accurate.

There was also the benefit of compatibility to consider. By defeating Hachiro, like how Hachiro likely defeated the macaque, she could usurp the familiar bond if she knew the ritual for it. She was also already treating it better than he ever did, meaning it might not reject becoming her familiar, which was even better for compatibility.

After a few minutes of comforting the macaque, it calmed down and started hugging back. Seeing this, Tsubaki turned to me with a nervous expression.

"Suko-san, I know you've already taken me in, but would it be possible-"

"You want that macaque as your familiar, don't you?" It realized what I was talking about as I spoke, likely from the word 'familiar.'

"If she would like to, then yes." The macaque started nodding at her, likely saying she was okay with it.

"Sorry to be the bearer of bad news, but neither of us knows the familiar ritual. " Before they got upset, I continued, "However, I can call my aunt and see if she has it."

"Thank you, Suko-san," Tsubaki politely bowed. As the macaque saw her do it, it followed.

"It's fine. Now, let's head back. I'm exhausted."

As we returned to the inn, Tsubaki started talking to the macaque. Though she didn't understand it, she still tried to converse with it.

When we returned, Tsubaki took the macaque, now named Kimiko, to her room while I went to my room to rest.

----------

Omake: Excalibur Thief 5

[Francisco POV]

Hours later, when I got off the train, I looked around before finding something that told me where I was: Palermo.

Since I was in southern Italy, I immediately knew where to go: across the Mediterranean to Tunis.

As a Muslim-majority country, the church would have little to no influence there.

They wouldn't be able to follow me if they even knew where I was.

I could also escape further into Africa if necessary. While there were some churches in southern Africa, they were less powerful and likely wouldn't realize who I was if I was careful.

Grabbing a bus headed west, I planned to take a ferry to avoid going anywhere somebody would remember me.

An airport was likely under surveillance due to possible escapes, but a boat? Not likely.

As I eventually reached the port, I activated the shroud again and snuck on. I felt terrible since I was stealing rides, but I needed to escape and had no money. I had some in my room, but they likely confiscated everything there.

-----

I deactivated the shroud during the trip by pretending to leave the bathroom. I didn't want to have to pay attention to avoid bumping into people the whole time.

While I was watching the ocean, the waves suddenly grew to abnormal sizes, and a large, scaly beast emerged.

Looking around, I saw that nobody had done anything to it.

If there were any mages on board, they'd have likely done whatever they could to leave since fighting something like this was suicidal.

Unfortunately, I couldn't. I had nothing but the shroud, so I was stuck here.

Stepping forward, I unleashed my holy magic at the beast to draw its attention. I shot at its body, which caused it to roar at me.

Lunging forward, it tried to bite me, but I activated my shroud and turned invisible, confusing it.

While it was close to me, I shot two bursts of magic at its eyes, hitting one and hitting the side of the other, blinding it.

Taking this opportunity, I condensed as much magic as possible in my hands, utilizing the shroud's regeneration, before launching it at the floundering body.

The beam of magic pieced through the scales on its chin, through its skull, and out the other side, the body falling onto the ship, dead.

I activated the invisibility, pulled out my blender, and willed the dead sea serpent into it. The blender magically pulled it in, and the space somehow held everything.

The blender took nearly an hour, but the ship stopped moving because the serpent had destroyed part of it.

When the blender was finished, I immediately drank it and was elated by the 'smoothie.'

{ Gains water breathing, water manipulation, and a sea serpent transformation }

I take back every negative thought I ever had about this sacred gear.

__________

Author's Note:

Thanks for reading; I'll see you next time!