"A hero? Your being serious?"
"Yeah. It's simple for me. You forget I'm a divine spirit. This stuff ain't nothing to me. I can make you a hero in terms of evolutionary stage, not a hero in the sense of people admiring and looking up to someone for something they did. Because that can apply to anyone, not just a human."
"It can't be that-"
I immediately interrupted her and said three simple words. "I bless you."
A slight shimmer of yellow and white light surrounded her body for a few seconds before it dissipated into small motes of light. I could see the change of expression on her face. She went from looking skeptical to a look of surprise. She looked at her hands and clasped them.
"Just like that?"
"Yeah. Like I said, this ain't nothing to me." Now I just need Ramiris here. Oh, talk about great timing. I could sense her approaching. She must have noticed me giving someone my blessing.
"Hold on a second, Hinata."
We didn't have to wait long before Ramiris came flying in, looking between me and Hinata. "Artoria? Did you bless her?"
"Yeah, I want to make her a hero. Can you also bless her?"
"What? You just want me to bless her now? What reason is th-"
"I'm a divine spirit. I don't just randomly bless anyone." I'm kind of lying here. I'm simply using my race as a divine spirit to make her agree to this.
"That is true. Fine, I trust your judgement on this. Only because you're a divine spirit." Ramiris turned to Hinata. "You have my blessing as well."
Hinata really looked shocked here. Not from being blessed, but by how easy I got Ramiris to agree to this. I would be too, but I'm trying speedrun Hinata from having a hero egg to being a chosen hero.
"There you have it, Hinata. You now have a hero egg, if you didn't have one before."
"I, uh, wow, that seemed way too fast and easy for the kind of power that can be given. What now?"
"You have to prove yourself worthy of awakening it and then becoming a true hero."
"And how do I do th-" I cut her off again
"I recognize you as worthy of awakening as a true hero." Just simple words coming from a divine spirit that recognizes someone as worthy. Nothing too complicated.
"What?! You just can't say that to make someone a true hero!" Ramiris yelled at me for what is probably my audacity in doing something like this.
"Well, I just did, Ramiris." I looked over at Hinata. "And would you look at that? It seems to be working." Hinata was radiating a certain kind of aura. I don't really know what the awakening looks like, but I can feel it. There was a kind of pressure that seemed to try and break free.
"That's now how it's supposed to work! How are you doing this! She's supposed to prove herself worthy first!"
"Calm down, Ramiris. And she's already proved herself worthy. To me, at least."
"How?! What has she done?!"
"It's not about what she's done, it's what she's going to do in the future. What she's done in the future is affecting my choice now. Her actions, or effect, in the future, is affecting my decision, or the cause, now, to make her a true hero."
"What?"
"It's simple retrocausality, Ramiris. Her actions in the future are enough justification for me now, to make her a true hero. So, if she's already a True Hero in the future, what difference does it make now?"
I'll be honest. I'm making things up. It's a real thing, but I'm stretching this as much as possible. I'd say I'm pulling some kind of BS right now, but if it works, it works. And it does seem that way.
"So now you want me to recognize her as worthy?"
"Yeah. Getting the recognition from a Divine Spirit and the Queen of Spirits as worthy should be more than enough to have someone with a hero egg awaken."
"And what actions are she supposed to take to make her worthy?"
"Taking down an underground criminal organization that seeks to take over the world and seek world domination."
"Really?"
"Yeah. That worthy enough for me."
"How is this even working? I'm kind of curious now to see if it will actually work. Ah, why not? Hinata, I recognize you as worthy to be a True Hero."
"Artoria, you're American, right?"
"Yes. Why do you mention that, Hinata?"
"Well, I'm almost positive this isn't how an awakening works. As an American would probably say, this all seems like bullsh-"
"Language."
Hinata got cut off as an intense aura surrounded her and the surrounding environment. I quickly set up a barrier around us to stop it from affecting the people. Yeah, this is different. It's not like when Rimuru evolved and he had to shut down for a few days. This was just raw power unleashed.
Eventually, it did subside, and a brand new Hinata came out. Well, she looked the same, but a new kind of power was radiating from her.
"I can not believe it can work like that," Ramiris said.
"It's not. Close, but no. Honestly, I myself am surprised that it worked." I said.
"What? What do you mean? Are you saying that you weren't even sure of all that stuff you said before?" Ramirirs responded with surprise and disbelief.
"I plead the fifth." I know my rights.
"What?"
"Anyway, how do you feel, Hinata?" I decided to focus on something else/
"Suprised that this worked." makes sense, but Ramiris seems more surprised than her.
"Yeah, I understand. Now, we're done here. You can leave, but you should deal with Luminous, because she is looking at you kind of weird."
Luminous had her eyes locked onto Hinata, desire filling them. It's clear how she was feeling after seeing Hinata get as strong as she did.
"Oh."
"Alright, see ya." I turned around to leave, but Ramiris shouted again.
"Hold on! Is this not a big deal to you? We just brute forced someone into a True Hero! You know what this means?!"
"Yeah, we can work together to skip many parts of the hero process and manufacture a bunch of True Heros."
"Well, yeah, but that's not what I had in mind!"
"Don't worry about it. This is a one-time thing. Well, I'm off. I have to talk to Benimaru about something."
/\\//\\//\
I was spinning around my chair as I was waiting for Benimaru to arrive. And no, things aren't awkward between us on account of me marrying his sister. We're both adults here, we know when to bring stuff like that up, and we both know what married couples do in private.
Anyway, I was in what I called our "war room" or "situation room". I had a map of the world on a large table in the middle of the room. It was highlighted to show us, our allies, potential allies, or enemies, unknowns, and enemies. This was going to just be me and Benimaru. I wanted to prepare him.
As I was spinning in my chair, Benimaru came through the door.
"Sorry for keeping you waiting, Lady Pendragon."
"Don't worry about it. I called you here because I want you to see something." I got up and pointed at the map. "What do you notice?"
Beniamro walked forward slightly to look at the map. I could see his eyes go over the map, scanning it, trying to see something. "I see that the enemy here is the Eastern Empire. And some of the western states are yellow. In a worst-case scenario, we would have to fight a war on two fronts. The East and West. "
"Yes, that's true, but things with the western states are going to calm down. Think more about the geography, the borders of all these nations."
"Our entire eastern border neighbors the Eastern Empire." He wasn't finished yet. He kept looking, and then he realized it. I could see his eyes have an "eureka" moment.
"I see you got it."
"Yes. We're a sort of buffer state between the West and the East. We'll be the ones to take the full brunt of an invasion by the Eastern Empire."
"Yeah. It sucks, but we have time before we have to do anything. As you can see and assume, it's only a matter of time before the Eastern Empire launches an invasion, and I want to get a head start on it."
"Defense on the entire border?"
"No. We don't have to worry about the entire border. The most eastern part is on top of Milim's territory. They may be strong, but not dumb and crazy. The northern part is mainly just mountains, a dumb thing to try to cross unless you're a Carthaginian general."
"A what general?" I should try to stop using examples from Earth. It's just the first thing that comes to my mind in things like this.
"Don't worry about it. We just need to worry about the central part. It's easier to cross, just a lot of trees."
"We can build defenses, and since we have time, we can do it. We can focus on parts that are more open and plain. We could rely on the natural trees for protection. I'd find it hard to move a massive ground army through trees." Except they have tanks. And could just go around and crush and run over the trees. Hmm, sounds familiar.
"We could do that. Or we could go with a 'war of interest'. We know they're going to attack us. And when they do, they'll have the initiative. What if we got the initiative instead? The problem is speed and numbers." I think a certain Prussian king would find some agreement on this.
"Wait a moment, are you proposing what I think you are?"
"It's just a thought. Anyway, that's what I wanted to talk to you about. Think about it when you can. It will be important later. I have Souei preparing to do some espionage along with his team."
"Is there anything I can do?"
"Militarily? No. Not yet, at least. But Rimuru will probably ask you to go to some mountains soon. He wants to joining the Western Council or whatever it was called, and thanks to Diablo, it's going to a much smoother process. And on top of that, we're going to start some infrastructure projects. Geld is already busy building another basilica in Falmuth. We have some more massive roads being built, and in particular, to the Sorcerous Dynasty."
"Mountains?"
"Yeah, and when you do, take Hakurou with you."
"Why?"
"It will make things a lot easier, and your life is going to change when you come back." I started to head toward the doot to leave. "Well, I'll be off now. I'm going to go spend time with Shuna." Before I left the room, I looked back and saw Benimaru looking at me with a raised eyebrow and a questioning look on his face. I just shrugged before I walked out. We both know very well what I mean.