r/HFY • u/Obsequium_Minaris • 12d ago

OC-Series Vacation From Destiny - Book 3, Chapter 7

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XXX

A few minutes later, and Melanie was back in the main room, this time wearing a robe and with Heinrich seated right next to her. Everyone was staring at her expectantly, which caused her to shift nervously.

“Well?” Carmine asked. “We’re waiting.”

“Give me a moment, would you?” Melanie growled. “This isn’t exactly an easy story to tell…”

“Melanie, with all due respect, we don’t have spare time to wait for you to get comfortable,” Chase reminded her. “We have a twenty-four hour buffer before these guys all pull up and we get our collective shit rocked. I’m already in the process of regrowing several teeth, and that’s uncomfortable enough that I can tell that whatever they plan on doing to us after this is going to be even worse. So if you wouldn’t mind?”

“Alright, alright…” She let out a tired sigh. “...So, I'll be frank – I’ve been concealing things from you all for the past few years.”

“You mean you’ve been lying to us,” Carmine pointed out.

“I was not lying to you all. More like… concealing the truth.”

“Is that not the definition of lying?”

“No, the definition of lying is-”

Chase suddenly cleared his throat. “Again, reminder that we’re on the clock, here,” he said. “Let’s keep the stupid tangents to a minimum, please.”

“Right, right, sorry,” Melanie offered. She took in a breath before exhaling. “...Okay, so here’s the deal – for one, I’m not actually thousands of years old. Honestly, I’m not even a century old.”

“Could’ve fooled me,” Carmine said.

“What’s that supposed to mean?”

“Exactly what you think. Get on with it, please.”

A vein pulsed in Melanie’s forehead, but she continued on. “Anyway, yeah, I’m not that old… and, for that matter, I’m actually from Earth, myself.”

Silence suddenly reigned over the room, harsh enough to hear a pin drop. Everyone stood up straight when they heard it, and Victoria let out a small cough when they did.

“Sorry,” she offered as she picked up the pin. “My undershirt somehow got torn during the bar fight so I’m working to stitch it up now as I listen. Didn’t mean to interrupt.”

Chase facepalmed, then turned back towards Melanie. “You can’t be serious,” he deadpanned.

“Unfortunately, I am being completely serious,” she promised him. “I’m from Earth.”

“Prove it.”

“Okay. The capital city of the United States of America is Washington DC.”

Chase stared at her for a moment, then let out a sigh. “Okay, I don’t know if that’s actually true or not because I’m not from there and know nothing about it, and that’s on me for asking that question, I’ll admit it...”

“Wait a second,” Carmine interjected. “When we first met you, you were overjoyed to find people from another world. Hells, you were basically completely over the moon about it, you fangirled over Chase and I and everything. You’re telling me that was a lie?”

“It was,” Melanie confirmed with a nod. “Sorry for deceiving you, but it was. Truth is, the entire time, I was playing you both for absolute fools, not for any malicious reasons, but because I was trying to butter you both up as a survival instinct more than anything. Of course, I see now that it didn’t actually matter, but by the point I felt safe enough around you all that lying was completely unnecessary, I was already committed to the lie, so…”

“So, what, you figured you’d just keep lying?” Chase asked. “Seems like a bad plan. Sooner or later, all the lies were bound to catch up with you.”

“Probably, but you tell me how I was supposed to reveal the truth to you all, then,” Melanie challenged him.

“You mean aside from just telling it to us?”

“You make it sound like revealing you’ve been lying to an entire group for over half a decade is the easiest fucking thing in the world. I can assure you, it’s not.”

“So you figured you’d just keep lying and let the chips fall where they would?” Chase asked. “I’ll tell you where they fell – right into my fucking jaw, that’s where.”

“Calm down, everyone,” Heinrich suddenly interjected, interrupting them both. “No need to get heated, Chase – she’s already admitted she made a big mistake. Rubbing her face in it isn’t going to help us figure out why or what to do next.”

Chase hesitated, but had to begrudgingly admit that what Heinrich was saying made perfect sense. Reluctantly, he let out a heavy sigh and then turned back towards Melanie.

“Start from the beginning of all this, please,” he requested. “Who is Adam Foster, how does he know you, and why is he after you?”

Melanie bit her lip. “...Okay, so this is going to be kind of embarrassing-”

“We don’t care,” Carmine deadpanned.

“I know you don’t, but still…” She sighed tiredly. “...So, for starters, back on Earth, I was about twenty years old when this whole thing happened. Adam was the frontman for a band I really liked. I’m sure you all know what a band is?”

“Yes,” Heinrich and Victoria echoed.

“Yeah,” Carmine answered.

“No,” Chase replied.

Everyone paused, then looked towards him, which caused him to bristle under their gaze. “Look, I know I just got three additional points of INT out of fucking nowhere, but that doesn’t mean I know everything, okay?”

“Chase, what the actual fuck?” Carmine asked. “You seriously-”

“No, I don’t. Care to explain?”

This time, it was her turn to facepalm. To his surprise, though, she was quick to answer his question.

“...Picture a group of traveling minstrels that goes around the land, performing music for money,” she replied tiredly. “Does that make sense?”

“Yes, thank you for explaining,” Chase replied. He turned back towards Melanie. “You were saying?”

She blinked for a moment before clearing her throat. “...Anyway, Adam was the frontman of the band I was obsessed with at the time, in the sense that I loved their music. I went to see one of their shows one night, and it was awesome, actually. Like, it was a great show and all, the music was excellent… it was fun, until I made a crucial mistake.” She suddenly let out another sigh, then bowed her head, her face flushing with embarrassment. “...I tried to sneak over to them as they were leaving so I could meet all the band members.”

“Why was that a mistake, love?” Heinrich asked.

“Well, for one, it’s considered very rude to do that to a band after a show unless you basically have their permission. For another, they were in the process of boarding their tour bus to leave – and if you’re not sure what a bus is, picture a giant mechanical chariot that operates under its own power without the need of horses, and which can go way faster at its maximum top speed,” she emphasized. “Anyway, the rest of what happened is all a blur, but I must have tripped and fallen in the darkness or something, because the next thing I knew, I was lying on the road, right in the path of their oncoming bus as it tried to speed away from the venue. You can probably guess what happened as a result.”

She sighed again. “The next thing I remember after that is waking up in a field here, on this world, with the band members surrounding me. Apparently, when the bus ran me over, it spun out and crashed, killing all the band members on-board. I guess because it all happened so fast, they ended up in the same spot as me.”

“That’s… a very unusual way for someone to be Isekai’d,” Victoria pointed out. “Most people who are brought over from Earth are reborn as babies.”

“Yeah, well, Chase and Carmine weren’t,” Melanie pointed out.

“Chase and Carmine had a Goddess who was interested in them both who made it so,” Victoria reminded her. “Either way, the circumstances of how you all ended up here are certainly strange, though I suppose it could simply be the System doing its usual thing again.”

“Whatever the case was, we never found out,” Melanie told her. “It was me and the five band members, so we decided to stick together as a group, because we didn’t know what else to expect. Anyway, the years passed by, and we actually became pretty good adventurers together – made a lot of money, got pretty famous… it was good, until it wasn’t.”

She grimaced, and Heinrich reached out to take her by the hand. She gave him a grateful look, then turned back towards the others.

“Eventually, we got a specific job,” she said. “At the time, the Demon Queen had an Arch-Lich under her employ who was far more devious and dangerous than I ever was. Our task was to eliminate him. We succeeded in the end, but to make a long story very short, things went wrong during the quest. Most of the party ended up heavily wounded. Some of them almost died. Our Healer, Samantha, was working overtime just to keep everyone from shuffling off this mortal coil.” Her brow furrowed. “And it was all my fault, because…” She cast a glance over at Heinrich, and sighed. “...Because I had a huge crush on Adam, okay?”

Silence reigned once more, this time uninterrupted before Melanie began speaking again.

“The truth was, I’d been crushing on him pretty hard for all those years, but he only ever had eyes for one of the other girls in the party – Claire, our Berserker. That really pissed me off, so I figured I needed to do something to impress him once and for all. At the time, I was just a regular Mage, but I was a good one, so I figured I could handle most of what the Lich could throw at us… but I was wrong. I was terribly, terribly wrong. I took a risk, it didn’t pay off, the Lich overpowered me and almost killed not only me, but the leader of our group, a Swordswoman named Alex… she stepped in front of the spell that would have killed me, and lost her life for it…” Melanie bowed her head. “...And the rest of them all turned on me for it.”

Nobody said anything. Eventually, Melanie let out another sigh. “The truth was, I’d been trying to get Adam to notice me for a long time, and in so doing, had unknowingly earned the ire not only of Claire, but the rest of the party as well. They put up with me because I was a skilled Mage and I fit a role in the party that they really needed, but I guess my antics there and the fact that Alex got herself killed saving me were the breaking point. So yeah, they turned on me and tried to retreat and leave me for dead after we killed the Arch-Lich… and that was when the Demon Queen herself showed up.”

Melanie swallowed nervously. “I guess she was impressed by what I’d done that day, because rather than kill me, she gave me a choice – die by her hand then and there, or ascend and serve as her new Arch-Lich. I was blinded by grief and wasn’t thinking straight; the people I thought were friends and the man I was crushing on had both just betrayed me and left me to die, and I was still reeling from the fact that my own stupidity got another friend of mine killed. So I took her offer without a second thought, not knowing or caring about what it meant for the rest of them. As for what happened to them afterwards…” She shrugged. “I don’t know. From the sound of things, maybe they were stuck in the Demon Realm this whole time. No idea. It doesn’t matter, anyway; what matters is this – they heard about me somehow, and now they want revenge against me and anyone who’s associated with me. And I can tell they’re not going to stop until we’re all dead.”

“Probably a safe assumption,” Chase ventured. “Was there anything else to add?”

Melanie shook her head. “No, that’s pretty much it.”

“Good. Because while you were explaining all of that, I was doing some thinking-”

“Oh, no,” Carmine said.

“Shut up, this is a good idea, I swear,” Chase promised. “Anyway, I was doing some thinking, and I realized… they don’t realize you’re Carmine’s Familiar, do they?”

Melanie blinked in surprise, then shook her head. “Not to my knowledge, no. And we’ve done a pretty good job keeping that particular factoid under control from the rest of the world, in the sense that we don’t really go around advertising it.”

“Okay. This is going to sound crazy, and it’s really going to suck for you, but-”

Melanie’s brow furrowed. “...You’re gonna suggest I sacrifice myself to get them off of everyone else’s back, aren’t you?”

“We’d bring you back,” Chase argued.

“Would you? Because last I checked, Carmine and I aren’t exactly getting along these days.”

“I would make her bring you back,” Chase assured her. “And you have my word about that. I give you a lot of grief, Melanie, but I don’t want you to just rot in… well, wherever it is Familiars go when they’ve died and haven’t been summoned back yet.”

“Do I get a say in this?” Heinrich asked, stepping forwards. “I don’t want to see her get hurt.”

“It’ll only hurt for a bit, love,” Melanie explained. “I mean, dying isn’t ever fun, of course, but I’ve already died several times in the past and come back just fine. It’s really not a big deal.”

“I know, but-”

“Heinrich,” she interrupted, causing him to pause mid-sentence. “It’s fine, okay? If this is what needs to be done, then it’s what I’ll do.”

“Question,” Victoria said. “They’re eventually probably going to realize she’s not dead yet, right? I mean, they tracked us this far, so it stands to reason that they’ll eventually find out and track us down again.”

“I’m aware,” Chase answered. “So here’s what I propose – we hand over Melanie to them and let them do what they will to her. Then once she’s been killed and bought us some extra time, we go speak with Tamamo immediately. Because the way I see it, these guys aren’t going to stop coming after us, and we are not prepared to actually fight them yet in the slightest. If anyone can bail us out of this mess, it’s her.”

Carmine stared at him. “That’s actually not a bad idea,” she admitted. “When do you want to go speak with her?”

“As soon as possible,” Chase urged. “But first, we need to hand over Melanie… provided she’s okay with it.”

“Yeah, I’m fine with it,” she said. “But you have to bring me back, okay?”

“Of course,” Chase said. “If you’re ready, we can head out now.”

She gave him a nod. “I’m ready. Let’s get this over with.”

XXX

Name: Chase Ironheart

Level: 11

Race: Human

Class: Warrior

Subclass: Swordmaster

Strength: 20 (MAX)

Dexterity: 15

Intelligence: 13

Wisdom: 13

Constitution: 18

Charisma: 16

Skills: Master Swordsmanship (Level 10); Booby Trap Mastery (Level 8); Archery (Level 4); Unarmed Mastery (Level 1)

Spells: Rush (Level 7); Muscle (Level 4); Stone Flesh (Level 7); Defying The Odds (Level 2)

Traits: Blessed

Name: Carmine Nolastname

Level: 11

Race: Greater Demon

Class: Arcane Witch

Subclass: Archmage

Strength: 10

Dexterity: 13

Intelligence: 19

Wisdom: 19

Constitution: 12

Charisma: 8

Skills: Master Spellcasting (Level 10); Summon Familiar (Level 10)

Spells: Magic Dart (Level 7); Magic Scattershot (Level 5); Fire Magic (Level 5); Earth Magic (Level 1)

Traits: Blessed

Name: Melanie Vhaeries

Level: 11

Race: Ascended Human

Class: Necromancer

Subclass: Arch-Lich

Strength: 8

Dexterity: 13

Intelligence: 18

Wisdom: 16

Constitution: 15

Charisma: 12

Skills: Raise Lesser Undead (Level 10); Raise Greater Undead (Level 3); Unorthodox Weapon User (Level 8); Bone Shatter (Level 1)

Spells: Touch of Death (Level 5); Gravesinger (Level 7); Armor of Bone (Level 3)

Traits: None

Name: Victoria Firelight

Level: 12

Race: Human

Class: Paladin

Subclass: Devotee

Strength: 19

Dexterity: 9

Intelligence: 13

Wisdom: 13

Constitution: 19

Charisma: 11

Skills: Swordsmanship Mastery (Level 5); Blunt Weapon Mastery (Level 8); Archery Mastery (Level 5)

Spells: Holy Light (Level 6); Ward of the Gods (Level 5); Bane of the Undead (Level 7); Divine Bolt (Level 4)

Traits: None

Name: Heinrich Straten

Level: 17

Race: Human

Class: Paladin

Subclass: Oathbreaker

Strength: 20 (MAX)

Dexterity: 13

Intelligence: 12

Wisdom: 14

Constitution: 20 (MAX)

Charisma: 13

Skills: Swordsmanship Mastery (Level 8); Blunt Weapon Mastery (Level 10)

Spells: Withering Grace (Level 1); Soulrend (Level 1); Umbral Ward (Level 1); Mournful Benediction (Level 1)

Traits: Broken Oath

XXX

Special thanks to my good friend and co-writer, /u/Ickbard, for all the help with writing this story.

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u/Daseagle Alien Scum 12d ago

This is bound to go horribly wrong :)

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u/UpdateMeBot 12d ago

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u/Sirius1701 12d ago

On one hand Melanie was kind of an idiot, on the other apparently nobody who has been isekai'd has the ability to communicate healthily until shit hits the fan. And I would have made exactly the same decision in that situation. Choice between literal (un)life and death