Finally, after a long time waiting, a real mission came in. One that would let him stretch his legs a bit. A greater earth elemental. The thing was summoned by a mage but went rogue, for some reason it remained even after the summoning time limit ended and it started summoning minor earth elementals as it walked around and caused issues. It may not be the biggest threat to ever cross the lands but it was a start. Geographically speaking if Ran was Italy then the elemental issue would be in Hungary.
So Kenshi teleported to the closest he could get to his destination before magically summoning a horse to take him the rest of the way. He didn't even bother with Yggdrasil gates since he could magically teleport to any settlement he's visited thanks to his magic items. It took a while to get to his destination because he had never traveled as far East as he currently needed to go. Once in the capital he got directions to the crisis.
It was worse than indicated as Kenshi was brought up to a full army with artillery and cavalry set up fighting an absolutely massive number of minor and normal elementals with the greater elemental in the background seemingly commanding the army of earth elementals. If this kept going as is not-Hungary would fall to these monsters and open the Empire to attacks from Midterranus. So to keep the Empire safe these monsters would have to be dealt with.
Kenshi magically swapped his equipment to his armor of Gawain as well as the two Excaliburs; Ivory and Ebony. “Clear a path, I'm about to turn the tide in this war.” The soldiers made a clear path that let enemies through the front line. Kenshi raised both swords into the air. “Excalibur!!!” He shouted in an exaggerated fashion before thrusting down the words and creating a wave of energy from both swords. White from one and black from the other.
The magic slashes destroyed every minor and standard elemental in their paths, clearing a line of enemies ten feet thick and a hundred feet long. Unfortunately for Kenshi, the greater elemental wasn't in that path. Kenshi rolled his head back and forth. “Well at least this'll take more than a few seconds.” Kenshi started making his way to the greater elemental. As he did he easily cut through minor and standard elementals with a single slash each he easily sprinted his way to the leader of this makeshift army.
Once he was within range of the massive hunk of animated rocks, Kenshi made a cross slash while shouting “Excalibur!!!” In an exaggerated fashion once again creating an X shaped energy slash that easily cuts through the massive behemoth of rock and stone. Once that was done the man turned around and started picking off the smaller elementals with ease not even bothering to dodge any allied attacks since as long as it was day time he was effectively invincible thanks to his Mythic armor.
The battle was over in a single hour and Kenshi actually started to work up a sweat before the elementals and golems were cleared out. He took off his helmet and wiped his forehead off before shaking hands with the leader of the local army and teleporting to find his next mission. “Where's a final boss when you need one. I get being OP is part of the shtick most of the time but it's kinda boring after a while. Once I got over the fact monsters bleed it started getting fun taking out massive numbers of enemies like the player character of a Dynasty Warriors game.” Kenshi returned to the guild HQ in Ran city, the capital of the Empire where missions from every location in every country in the Empire were posted in hopes of finding a high value quest only to find some of the better ones were already completed.
“(How is someone beating me to the better quests all the time? The NPCs of this world aren't that strong.)” Kenshi grabbed the best quest he could find, clearing and mapping a newly discovered dungeon then went outside. He looked around to make sure no one was looking at him. “Check Status.” He said out loud causing a stat screen with his information on it to appear. [“Name: Kenshi Wantanabe. Class: Hero. Level: 10”] as well as other information.
He puts a hand on his chin. “Only level ten? Ugh, leveling up takes forever. I found a way to check the status of NPCs as well and the highest level I've personally encountered is fifteen. Maybe st Isekai stories with RPG elements go to level one hundred. Probably because they base it off of JRPGs. However from what I can tell this world uses something like the Creatures and Catacombs system meaning max level is twenty to thirty depending on the edition you use.”
Kenshi didn't really have too much time to dwell on the specifics, he had a job to do. That job was to rid this world of evil like any good Isekai protagonist. That meant killing any monsters that posed a threat to humans, even if those monsters were extremely weak compared to himself. Kenshi teleported as close to the dungeon as possible, landing him in Gallia. Specifically in Parisii, the capital of the nation. After checking in with the local government he headed straight to the dungeon that was apparently discovered by a member of the Church of Longinus’ Order of the Crimson Cross, something like the Knights Templar that once existed on Earth.
He was to meet up with and relieve the knight before entering the dungeon. Once again Kenshi magically summoned his horse and rode to the location. There was a knight holding a halberd with a flag on it waiting at the entrance. The knight greeted Kenshi, with a harsh but definitely female voice. The knight was young, but based on her armor and equipment relatively high ranking. A prodigy among what was normal in this world. “Just one person? I was expecting a full party.” Kenshi enthusiastically pointed to himself with his thumb. “I'm the legendary summoned hero, I don't need a party.”
The woman sighed. “I took a brief look inside and ran into some strange monsters I didn't recognize as well as several robed figures. Oddly enough I got a good look at one of the robed figures and it looked like a church robe like a high cleric of Longinus would wear. So you know, don't kill everyone. You'll need to interrogate somebody.” Kenshi grumbled. “Can you describe the monster?” The woman nodded. “U spotted a few of them. They looked like giant sea stars mixed with an octopus or squid. Central fleshy Mass with prehensile tendrils. About the size of a dog or wolf. Its tendrils were covered in tooth or thorn-like barbs and its main body seemed to be covered in eyes and mouths. It made strange gibberish noises ”
Kenshi racked his brain. “Sounds vaguely familiar, like something I saw a drawing of in my old world. The high clerics weren't fighting the monsters?” The woman shook her head. Kenshi looked into the entrance of the dungeon, a series of corridors and rooms. “The Excalibur swords might not be suited for indoors and my armor doesn't get its biggest bonus if I'm in caves or out at night. Still great armor without it so I should be fine. I just need to switch weapons.” There's a flash of light and the two swords vanish, Kenshi then lifts his hand and says “Inventory” causing a hologram to appear from a ring showing what he has stashed in the ring. He scrolled through the list for a while.
“You can never be too careful so I'm taking out a shield. As for weapons… I'll go with this ax that causes bleed and an animated sword.” Kenshi switches his weapons. In his left hand a shield that looks more like a surfboard, in his right a jagged looking hollow headed ax that's a bright red in color. A sword floating and moving on its own also appears next to Kenshi. “Alright miss, you can go now or whatever. I've got this covered. Or you can stay if you want, which makes little difference to me. I've already got a human in my harem.”
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The woman tilted her head but decided to simply shrug and leave as Jenshe started to make his way into the corridor of the dungeon. As Kenshi makes his way in he steps on a trap like that sets off a classic arrow trap. The ancient arrows simply brake on his armor, unable to do any damage even without the invulnerability. He continued to walk without checking for traps and arrived in his first room. The room looked empty at first, minus a single wooden chest.
Kenshi started walking towards the chest when something dropped on his head from the ceiling with a wet slap. He struggled for a moment before grabbing it and throwing it to the floor. It tried to leap at him but he cut it in half while mid-leap. The animated sword lit up and floated up to another thorn-tooth mouth and eye-covered sea star abomination and cut at it with small light waves similar to the ones Excalibur Ivory used but smaller, putting deep gashes in the monster. Five more of the creatures sloped down from the ceiling and started making strange noises that almost sounded like an attempt at language but was most likely gibberish.
“It sounds like someone mashed a keyboard and ran it through a cursed text to speech program. These masses sure do gibber a lot.” There's a pause after he says that as the masses of flesh slap and crawl their way to him. One leaps only to meet a shield and get cut in half. “Gibbering Masses! That's why they seemed familiar. It's a Creatures and Catacombs monster. They're not from the mortal realms though.” Two more leaped at Kenshi with one hitting the shield and the other meeting ax blade. However this one doesn't die in one hit. The animated sword attacks the target it wounded earlier, finishing it off. Three Gibbering Masses remain.
Kenshi looked at the mass wounded, this being the first time in a while something had survived the first hit from him. “Well that's unexpected. I don't recall you being that high level of a monster but I never really played Creatures and Catacombs. I just remember that stuff from it showed up in anime sometimes and people talked about that.” One of the masses leaped at him from behind, latching onto his back and trying to bite at his armor. After failing to penetrate the armor it screamed at Kenshi.
Kenshi smacked the monster with his shield until the animated sword stabbed it and caused it to jump back off him. He then finished it off with an ax swing. Just then the not wounded remaining monster squished down like it was about to leap only for the wounded one to attack it. Kenshi lowered his weapon for a moment as he watched the mass devour its own kind and its bleeding wound healed with the mass also getting larger. The mass, rather than attack again, started slapping its limbs on the ground to run to the chest instead.
The mass opened the chest, revealing it to actually be a mimic that grabbed up the gibbering mass and pulled it into its mouth. The chest shook and rocked a few times before busting open and a now even bigger gibbering mass emerged from the splintered chest. “Krekru kekriku. Kekeke. Groblik hoblif seronin. Traka traka halamph ralka.” Kenshi tilted his head. “If I didn't know better, I'd think you were talking shit. Okay then, you think being a bigger more spongy target is going to save you? Come at me, I'll chop you up into cursed calamari.”
The monster slap slop ran at the wall, calling up it and back to the ceiling before running to the door. Kenshi looked to the room exit and cursed under his breath. “
Inside this room were eight humans in white robes adorned with a red cross symbol that created an almost line from under the neck to the bottom of the robe. High clarics, specifically of the order of the Crimson Cross. One of them even recognized Kenshi. “The summoned hero? What an honor to meet the once in a lifetime summoned hero. Yes, everything is going exactly as planned. With you here, surely our ritual will succeed.”
Kenshi tilted his head. “There was a knight outside of your order that claimed you attacked her.” The robed figure waved dismissively. “That witch is no true believer. If it were up to me she'd be burned as a heretic but the archbishop argues her skills are too good to waste. But now, with the blessing of the chosen one, we can finally fully pierce the veil to Celestia and summon a higher angel in its full glory! Not just one of the small fry angels you normally get from the summon celestial spell.”
Kenshi made a confused face. “You're trying to summon a higher celestial? Then what is with the Gibbering Masses? Those are definitely not celestials.” The man smiled a wicked smile. “You just say that because you've never seen the true beauty of Celestia, these things are but star children that will one day grow into the messengers of higher angels. Sure, they are lowborn compared to what we want, but they are the very image of the divine.”
Kenshi frowned. “I see, I don't notice it because my helmet makes me immune to mental attacks, but you all have been charmed. Weapon swap, Ax of Eric for the staff of submission.” The red ax lit up and disappeared only for what looked like a cattle prod to appear. “Don't worry, this staff is strictly non-lethal magic. But it sure as hell is going to hurt.” The clerics, now realizing that the summoned hero wasn't there to help them, all charged up magic spells.
Kenshi moved fast, jabbing two mages with the staff one after the other before they even had a chance to fire their magic. They twitched and dropped to the floor as Kenshi continued. The six remaining mages all fired bolts of magic at him. Fire, lightning, and ice. Although he managed to block one of the fire shots with his shield, the other two struck his armor and he felt a slight sting as a minor amount of damage managed to get through. “Ah, so that's what taking just five points of damage feels like.”
Kenshi zapped two more mages before the remaining four mages fired a second volley with one shot again being blocked. He grunted slightly before taking out two more mages. “This is getting annoying. Casting a basic first tier spell at higher tier for more damage isn't going to do much. Don't you have any other spells?” The remaining two mages looked at one another before one cast a spell causing vines to wrap around and restrain Kenshi, the second then cast a spell causing a cloud to form above Kenshi and lightning to strike down at him from above and set the vines on fire.
Kenshi grunted and then laughed. “Now that's more like it! Now this is what it feels like to take actual damage. Too bad it won't be enough.” He then broke out of the burning vines with relative ease before zapping the last two mages. Kenshi then pulled out rope and restrained them all. “I'll cast a spell to cure you of your charm condition after I finish the dungeon.” He then starts his way back down the corridor to the next room.
This room looked empty minus some statues so naturally Kenshi checked the ceiling before entering. There were five statues each made to look like a different type of adventure and a mural with monsters on it. The floor looked like a tile grid similar to a chessboard. The five statues included: A knight or paladin, an archer, a mage, a cleric, and finally a barbarian or martial artist. “A fairly simple puzzle. I'm guessing I just have to move these to the optimal party formation relative to the mural.”
Kenshi started sliding the statues. The fighter and barbarian up front, mage and cleric in the back, and archer between the two groups in a five points formation similar to the dots on dice. The mural then opens up revealing a hidden passage. “Seriously, it's like this puzzle was designed by a child. Same with the dungeon to be honest. Let me guess, next up a physical challenge, then maybe one more combat encounter before the boss. Granted if I had the level of equipment intended for this dungeon the combat would have been engaging. I'm both over leveled and over equipped.”
Kenshi entered the next room to see a series of obvious traps. Spikes coming out of the floor and arrows shooting out of walls as pendulum guillotines swing back and forth a wide hallway. Everything was moving and activating to a rhythm. Kenshi counted out loud. “One two three four, one two three four, one two three four. A four part waltz. Classic. Though honestly I could just break these traps and brute force it.” Kenshi put his zap staff and shield away before making his way through the passage counting in groups of four as he dodged the traps with ease.
Once on the other side he swapped back to the shield and ax set up. “This feels so pedestrian. Where the hell is a Terraque when you need one. Or at least an elder lich. Oh! An elder dracolich! That would be dope. Or one of those crazy template creations from madmen who miss epic levels. Elder vampiric shadow Terraque dracolich. Using a prismatic shadow dragon. Because fuck logic, I just want to TPK a party of level thirty gastalt characters.” Kenshi chuckled to himself as he made his way to either the final or second to last room.
Kenshi entered to find ten clerics, five paladins, and ten Gibbering Masses. The men were all on their hands and knees down prayer bows and chanting in Latin when he walked in. There were ribbons of energy flowing out of them and into the next room. The Gibbering Masses screeched when he entered, alerting the holy men to Kenshi’s presence. They all got up with the Paladins drawing swords, spears, or halberds paired with shields and the clerics powering up offensive spells.
“These guys must all be clerics by name only and actually be wizards or sorcerers on paper. Not that it matters.” He then swapped his ax for the cattle prod again, aiming not to kill the men of faith who are likely only aggressive due to some form of mind control. He runs in and stuns three of the mages right off the bat leaving seven left. He is then pelted by six spells blocking one before the melee fighters and masses surrounded him completely. However, there's a limit to how many people can reach him even when using reach weapons and of those attacks none seem to get through.
Kenshi then stuns three of the five paladins leaving only two before more spells and melee attacks hit him doing minimal damage. Kenshi notices all the small bits of damage are starting to add up, as he has now taken noticeable damage. He takes out the last two paladins before rushing through the Gibbering Masses to stun one of the seven remaining mages. Six mages and ten Gibbering Masses left. The Gibbering Masses swarmed and attacked at Kenshi uselessly as five of the six spells hit him directly.
Kenshi continued to simply move through the masses taking extra attacks to get at the mages, taking out half of them leaving three left standing who decided to run deeper in. Kenshi swapped to the ax and started cutting through the ten masses before tying up the holy men, downing a health potion, and going into the final room.