We followed, descending
the stairway. My
name is Naofumi Iwatani. I was a university student until I got summoned to another world to
serve as the Shield Hero, and at the moment, I was with my companions in
Zeltoble , the country of merchants and mercenaries . We came here to purchase
additional slaves, which is why we were following a couple of slave traders to
the underground slave market.
After the whole Spirit
Tortoise ordeal ended, I knew we needed to increase our offensive capabilities
before the appearance of the next guardian beast — the Phoenix —and before the
next wave. I
decided to establish my own village, so I had the Queen of Melromarc grant me a
territory and the requisite noble title. That’s when we ended up
getting involved in the whole mess with Lurolona , the village Raphtalia was
from.
Despite being citizens of
Melromarc, the village residents had been forced into slavery in their own
country and were being abused simply because they were demi-humans. Thanks to my efforts, the
primary instigators of the demi-human discrimination — Trash and the Church of
the Three Heroes — were dealt with and the queen issued an emancipation
proclamation. But in a string of unlucky events, that proclamation came just a moment
too late and the slaves ended up being sold off to another country, where they
were being traded at ridiculously high prices. Numerous attempts were
made to secure the villagers, but these worked against us. The result was that
certain merchants, taking advantage of the situation, pushed prices up even
further.
It was a truly miserable
state of affairs. Rumors about my sidekick Raphtalia were apparently another reason for
the skyrocketing prices, but whatever. Either way, a long string
of unlucky events had resulted in the surging prices of the Lurolona slaves. As a result, we were
forced to fight in the underground coliseums of Zeltoble to make money. And, well . .
. we had a rough time, but
we managed to win a tournament and successfully buy back the Lurolona slaves,
fortunately.
“I’m sure the numbers we
have now won’t be enough. You know we’re rebuilding the territory, too, right?”
That woman hanging on to
my arm was Sadeena. She was like a big sister to Raphtalia, and she had joined the coliseum
fight tournament on her own in an attempt to rescue the Lurolona slaves. She was in her demi-human
form now, but she could also transform into a therianthrope form that resembled
a killer whale. As for
her appearance . . . she
was beautiful and had a certain Japanese air about her, while her expression
hinted at being a carefree drunkard.
Even though Raphtalia,
Filo, and I were currently in a weakened state due to the effects of a curse, I
was sure we were still far stronger than your average adventurer. And yet Sadeena was
strong enough that it took all three of us just to barely defeat her in the
tournament. She insisted that she wasn’t that strong and that it was because we had
been debuffed while she had been buffed via support magic during the fight. But judging by her skills
and fighting abilities, I was still sure she was quite formidable.
Oh, and there was a reason
that she wouldn’t stop hanging on to my arm, too. She had apparently decided
long ago that her heart would belong to the man who could outdrink her. She started coming on to
me when she saw that I was unaffected by eating rucolu fruit, which was kind of
like highly concentrated alcohol.
There was also the
incident of slave hunters attacking the village because of the skyrocketing
prices of the Lurolona slaves. Fortunately, we had been
training the villagers prior to that and they were able to turn the tables on
the attackers. That was
just it. We
needed to make them realize that they couldn’t keep holding on to naïve hopes
of someone always being there to save them, and that realistically it was up to
them to protect their own village.
The people of this world
had a bad habit of depending on the heroes every time they were in trouble. If they actually took a
moment to think about it, they might have realized how absurd summoning people
from another world to fix their problems really was. Although, there were
certain aspects of this world that made it feel just like a game, like the
concept of levels and defeating monsters to raise your level.
That was Raphtalia that
just reprimanded Sadeena. Raphtalia was a demi-human girl and a former slave who now fights by my
side as my closest companion. She was chosen as the
owner of the katana vassal weapon by the katana itself, which signified hero
status in another world we had visited. She had proven her fighting
prowess, and it fell upon her to actually defeat my enemies for me, since being
the Shield Hero meant that I was unable to attack other people myself.
Raphtalia wanted nothing
to do with romance or sexual relations, probably due to prioritizing her
mission to save the world from the waves. I was repulsed by the
thought of romantic relationships, too. Of course, it was being
framed by that worthless bitch that had made me that way.
Raphtalia looked really,
really good in miko outfits, by the way. But she refused to wear
them because of her utilitarian nature. She was quite attractive,
and her tanuki ears and tail provided the perfect accent, which was probably
why the miko outfits looked so abnormally good on her. I would have been happy if
that was all she wore, so I was secretly considering having a miko outfit with
powerful effects custom-made for her.
Lately, Sadeena had
constantly been trying to get close to me and she always teased Raphtalia in
the process. I really wished she would try thinking about what it was like always
having to calm Raphtalia down.
That was Rishia behind us
that just made a really pathetic sound. There were times when she
would step up to the plate — she could be a real force to be reckoned with when
she got emotional. But she usually just stuck to handling the more intellectual side of
things for us. It felt like her performance had been especially lackluster lately,
even though she’d apparently been up to all sorts of things. Of course, having her
fight at a place like the coliseum, while she was still a weakling, would have
basically been signing her death warrant. So I guess she hadn’t
really had a chance to impress recently.
That was Filo cocking her
head to the side with a confused look on her face. Filo was a little girl
that was actually a filolial, which was a type of monster that loved nothing
more than pulling carriages. Filolials exhibited a
special pattern of development when raised by a hero that enabled them to
transform into a human form resembling an angel with wings on its back.
Judging from her
appearance, you might think she was just a cute little angel girl with blonde
hair and blue eyes — until she opened her mouth. She was simple and
innocent, but her instincts were impressive when it came to combat. Her performance in our
most recent battle was still fresh in my mind. We’d found ourselves in a
situation unable to use magic, yet Filo had managed to force our opponent into
a corner by . . . singing. She’d learned a singing
technique that was similar to magic while we were in Kizuna’s world. I knew I could rely on
her in combat.
That little thing sitting
on Filo’s shoulder and chirping was a shikigami — known as a familiar in this
world —that I made using a lock of Raphtalia’s hair. I named her Raph-chan. If Raphtalia had a
therianthrope form that she could transform into like Sadeena, Raph-chan was
what I imagined it would look like.
Thinking about Raph-chan
would restore some of my sanity that they had been chipping away at. Raph-chan was always up
for a good time and would happily join in whenever I started making mischief. The cursed shield, which
had been stuck to my arm since being summoned here, had abilities that let me
make a familiar more powerful. Lately, though, I had
been paying more attention to tweaking properties that had nothing to do with
combat, like the quality of Raph-chan’s fur. I wanted to get as close
as possible to an ideal texture that would feel simply blissful when I pet her.
But I had
to make sure that Raphtalia, in particular, never figured that out.
Umm . . . I guess I got off track
there for a second. Anyway, we needed more slaves to continue developing the village, and
we were here to buy those slaves at a cheap price.
We had finished
descending the stairway and arrived at the underground slave market. I looked around at the
surprisingly fancy cages that the slaves were being held in. Sitting inside of one of
the cages was a female demi-human that had horns like you might expect to see
on an ogre. She had dark brown skin and a rather nice face. Her frame was a bit on
the large side, and she had large breasts, too. I guess she would have
been worthy of being called a rare beauty. She had a healthy
complexion, too, which was odd. It made me think she had
probably been eating well. But she wasn’t the kind of slave I was looking for. She seemed like the type
that would be traded as a sex slave or something.
The slave was waving at me
with a big, fake smile on her face that made me think she wanted to sell me
something. Something
about her really gave me the creeps. That face gave me the
sudden urge to just punch it. But I was sure that
wouldn’t make anyone else here happy.
There was something about
her I didn’t like. Or rather, I just didn’t want her being one of my slaves. It wasn’t like I had
decided to only buy slaves that were children, so it wasn’t an issue of
standards. But
something about her just seemed wrong. Then it hit me. It was because she reminded me of Bitch. Yeah, she looked like the
former princess of Melromarc, who had falsely accused me of raping her just
after I had been summoned to this world. Sheesh . . . I’d gotten tangled up in some real nonsense back then.
“Oh?
That’s too bad!” said Sadeena as she
pressed herself up against me in a rather provocative manner, making sure that
the slave noticed.
The slave shouted at me
angrily. I
guess I had hurt her pride or something. Her behavior sure was
confusing for a sex slave. But wait
. . . why
did she want me to buy her anyway?
Slave trading was a
family business for the two slave traders standing in front of me. One of them handled the
slave trade in Melromarc, while the other was based out of Zeltoble, and they
were the spitting image of each other. If I were forced to come
up with some kind of difference between them, the colors of their tailcoats
would probably be the best I could do.
When I glared at them,
they both suddenly shifted their gaze elsewhere. Whatever.
They were doing plenty to help me
out, after all. I glared at the slave.
She was batting her eyes at
me. I felt like
throwing up. And besides, the way she was acting only made it seem even more like
she was lying.
“Some of them do, but
several years ago father was talking about it being about time to have Sadeena
start meeting potential suitors. Adding the number of years
that have passed since then to the age that he mentioned would indeed make her
23 years old now.”
Saying things like that
is exactly why I figured she was a lot older. Frankly, she usually
sounded like an old lady.
Anyway, I didn’t have any
illusions about myself, despite how it might have seemed. Yes, most of the slaves I
bought were children. And female.
That’s just
how it had turned out, since I was focused primarily on gathering up the
Lurolona slaves.
I guessed Rishia had
figured out where the slave was from. That reminded me of the
fact that my shield had translation capabilities. Multiple languages were
spoken in this world, just like in my own world . . . just like back on Earth. Conveniently for me, my
shield could translate all of those languages for me. As for the official
Melromarc language, I was pretty sure it was used in countries with . . . large populations of pure
humans.
I looked inside of the
cage that the slave traders had brought us to. It was another demi-human
slave that looked healthy and well taken care of. This one was a child . . . and a female. She was waving at me with
a big, fake smile on her face.
“What?!”
Just as I expected, she
started complaining. Her response was slightly more childish than the last slave, but she
was still way more chipper than she should have been. The slaves I knew all
started out with lifeless eyes. They’d given up on
everything. Even
our fearless Keel had been terrified until she saw Raphtalia. This kid looked like a
dreamy-eyed adventurer. There was no way she was a real slave.
I had the slave traders
show me another slave. Once again, the slave complained when I showed no interest. I started to understand
what was going on. I squinted my eyes and glared at the slave traders, who both started
wiping the nervous sweat from their brows.
I beckoned to the slave
that we had been brought to. When she got closer, I
slowly reached out and grabbed her by the collar, and then started questioning
her using my best threatening tone.
“Spit it out! Who’s
behind this? I’m
the Shield Hero, you know. If you don’t tell me, I’ll destroy the country you came from.”
“D-d-daddy made me do it! He told me I had to marry
the Shield Hero! They say the Shield Hero only associates with slaves, so daddy paid
someone to set this up.”
The slave explained while
cowering in fear as I glared at her. She was just a child. This wasn’t her fault.
“Even if it is for your family’s sake,
you’re being given as an offering to someone you don’t even have feelings for.”
Judging by the slave’s
appearance, she was probably a bit younger than Raphtalia was when I first saw
her. The
thought of someone using a small child like this to boost their own status
filled me with disgust.
“Either way, I want you
to go home. Tell them I saw through their plan. If that’s not enough for
them, tell them that the Shield Hero said he only helps demi-humans that are
truly in need.”
Siltvelt—the demi-human
country—was obviously trying to set up an arranged marriage. They were disguising
children of wealthy and noble families as slaves and sending them here for me
to purchase.
“I’m pretty sure that
country considers my word as gospel, right? I’m on the verge of
personally notifying them in writing that it’s going to work against them if
they keep trying to force slaves onto me like this.”
“The Shield Hero does it
again! Of
course you would notice the slaves were fake! Such perceptivity sends
tingles of excitement down my spine!”
It was as if they were
practically shouting out that they were fakes! They could have tried to
make it a little less obvious. Or they could have even
sent slaves bought from some human-supremacist country or something.
“There’s no way Mr. Naofumi would be seduced
so easily. It
would save me a lot of trouble if it were that simple.”
Sadeena’s excitement
rubbed off on Raph-chan, causing her to join in the ruckus. What an annoying woman. It was in my best
interest to just ignore her.
Huh?! She just interpreted my disregard
however it suited her! Just when
I thought this woman couldn’t get any more annoying!
Sadeena yielded, backing
off when I protested. But she still had a grin on her face that was really getting on my
nerves.
Filo seemed to think it
was all some kind of game and started getting ready to grab me from behind in
her filolial queen form. Damn it! If ignoring them didn’t work, just what
was I supposed to do?!
“Sheesh
. . . Don’t
you have any other slaves? I’m going to be mad if this trip was all for nothing.”
“Right now I could use
some slaves that are good with their hands. Other than that, any slave
that can fight will do.”
I already had a few slaves
back at the village that were good with their hands, but I needed more. What I really wanted was
more slaves that had a natural aptitude for detailed work like Imiya, who I was
teaching how to make accessories.
I walked over toward a
cage filled with lumo therianthropes. Imiya wasn’t originally
from Lurolona, but if any of these lumos knew him already then it would
probably make them easier to work with. Kind of like how having
Raphtalia had made it easier to work with Keel. I figured it wouldn’t
hurt to ask.
Hmm . .
. So Imiya was a
common name. This was useless if
I couldn’t say his full name. What was it
again? I remembered it being
abnormally long. Leu . . . Nope, I couldn’t remember it. I gave up. It
seemed like a good idea at the time, but whatever.
“Mr.
Naofumi,
you know Imiya is a girl, right? Her full name is Imiya
Leuthurn Reethela Teleti Kuwariz.”
Raphtalia spouted off
Imiya’s full name like it was nothing. Just how good was her
memory, anyway? Raphtalia was actually pretty impressive. Or maybe she was just
good at remembering names.
Sardines with basil, in
other words. There were fish similar to sardines in this world, but they weren’t
quite the same. They didn’t have basil here, either, so I just made do with some random
herbs. Not
long ago I’d cooked the dish for the slaves to celebrate their return, since
we’d finally gotten the village’s basic infrastructure in place. It was a French dish, by
the way.
The name of the dish
wasn’t difficult to remember since each of the words had meaning. Imiya’s name just sounded
like some kind of foreign code to me.
I had a feeling slaves
would come flocking over if I said the truth out loud while we were in this
place. It’d
save me a lot of trouble if I just glossed over it for now.
“I’m just a drifter that
came from the same place as little Raphtalia’s parents. They took good care of me.”
I’d just figured all of
them had lived in Lurolona for generations. But I guess that made sense. The territory that I was
governing now was a region that Eclair’s father had worked to develop, and it’d
been designated as a demi-human-friendly area. But once he died, there
was no one around with political influence anymore and the region just fell
into ruin.
My coin purse had been
feeling pretty light ever since I’d paid Sadeena’s debts off for her. I probably couldn’t
afford to buy any more slaves than this right now.
“A powerful drug can
become a dangerous poison in the wrong hands. This is a pair that we
believe you will know how to handle best, so we are prepared to offer them to
you at a very reasonable price.”
A powerful drug, huh? That sounded good, but it
also meant I’d be dealing with a dangerous poison if I wasn’t careful. Still, it wouldn’t hurt to
take a look.
We seemed to be in some
kind of quarantine area for sick slaves. It sure didn’t seem very
sanitary. I
wasn’t about to start doing charity work, but this was just bad for my mental
health. I
walked over to a cage, pulled out a vial of medicine, and beckoned to the slave
inside.
I couldn’t help myself. It was for my own mental
health. The
slave was suffering right there in front of me, so I gave it the medicine. I’d made a good portion
of my money from selling medicine in this world, so I was confident that my medicine
would make a difference.
“Don’t worry, we’ll be
sure to reimburse you with a portion of the profits later!” the slave traders cut me off.
The Zeltoble slave trader
started skipping. Come on! Seriously! He was creeping me out. Anyway . . . after all was said and done, it came time to meet the pair of slaves.
“I saw him fighting in
the coliseums every now and then when I first came to Zeltoble. I even saw him fight in
the underground coliseums a few times.”
So he was a slave and a
fighter. I’d
heard that some people in Zeltoble ended up as slaves and were forced to fight
in the coliseums. I guess this Fohl kid was one of those combat slaves.
It was hard to see since
it was so dark, but I could make out someone lying on a bed of straw. Whoever it was didn’t
seem to be in very good condition.
I looked the Fohl kid over. The first thing that
caught my eye was the color of his hair. It was black and white. I could tell from the
colors and texture of his hair alone that he was more valuable than the other
slaves. His
eyes were blue, with pupils that were vertical slits, like those of a cat. Those slits, surrounded by
blue irises standing out against the whites of his eyes . . . That alone gave him an air
that felt almost intimidating. His face had a wild look to
it. There
was something in his eyes that said the whole world was his enemy. His ears were also a bit
cat-like, but thicker and rounded. What really stuck out was
his tail, with its black and white stripes. Could it be?
Oh? Even Filo had noticed,
apparently. She was right. Something about the slave
reminded me of the white tigers that we had fought in Kizuna’s world. It made me think of the
half-human, half-beast enemies that Kyo had created. How should I put it? I imagined this slave was
what the perfected version of those things would look like. He looked like a human
that had been very skillfully combined with a white tiger. I’m sure he was just a
demi-human, of course. But my prior experience with white tigers put me off.
“Factoring price in from
the very first impression . . . My hat’s off to your financial prudence, hero!”
But actually, they did
have a point. Maybe thinking about money before anything else wasn’t such a good
thing, after all.
“You have good intuition. This slave is a hakuko. It’s a type of demi-human
with quite the reputation,” the slave trader responded.
In Japanese, the character
for “white” could be pronounced “haku” and “ko” was one of the pronunciations
of the character for “tiger.” When the two were
combined to refer to the legendary white tiger they were actually pronounced
“byakko,” but if you didn’t know that I guess you might mistakenly pronounce
them “hakuko.”
That meant it was a type
of demi-human that had been around since ancient times. In that case, it might
have been a good investment, but . . . what if he turned into some kind of monster like the Spirit Tortoise
when he grew up and then ended up going on a rampage or something? That was not something I
wanted to deal with.
And anyway, what was up
with that name? Why did all of the past heroes seem to have such bad taste in these
things? It
was the same with the legends at the Cal Mira islands. Then again, I did name my
filolial “Filo,” so I guess I couldn’t really talk.
Even the White Tiger
guardian beast in Kizuna’s world hadn’t been impossible to defeat. The shields that I had
unlocked using materials from the beast had left an impression on me because
they had some really annoying equip effects like support nullification. The same went for
Raphtalia’s katana, too. The equipment was really difficult to use well.
I looked over the papers
that the slave trader handed me. I’d had a hunch, but
apparently the two slaves were siblings. Level 32? He sure looked young for a level that high. The slaves back at the
village were all pretty grown by the time they hit level 30.
“That’s higher than I
expected. Does
the fact that he still looks like this have something to do with his race? Or just individual
differences?”
“He’s still a child at
this level. One special characteristic of this type of demi-human is that they
cannot class up until level 50. They can reach level 60
without classing up, as well. Yes
sir. Consequently,
they can reach a maximum level of 120 after classing up.”
Impressive.
So this was
some kind of special type of demi-human. Even Filo had to class up
at level 40, so I could only imagine what kind of development these siblings
might exhibit if I leveled them up. My interest had definitely
been piqued. The boy’s sister was level 1, by the way.
“The hakuko demi-humans
are known for having used their exceptional combat prowess to repeatedly thwart
the plans of Melromarc’s legendary figure known as ‘His Excellency, the Wise.’ Yes sir.”
Using Trash as an example
wasn’t going to help anything. Nothing about him impressed
me. And
that meant he’d used his influence to bring his tyranny all the way here.
“Regardless, the hakuko
is one of this world’s most prestigious races, not counting the heroes. Yes sir.”
Ignoring whether or not
Trash was any more impressive during his prime, I guess it was safe to assume
that hakuko demi-humans had exceptional combat skills. The ability to thwart an
enemy’s strategy using physical force was probably something I could use,
considering that I was generally limited to defensive measures. Of course, that was
assuming that these slaves truly had such potential.
What?! Now they were telling me that Sadeena
was a superior type of demi-human?! Then again, the Japanese character for
“killer whale” was a combination of “fish” and “tiger,” so I guess it made
sense that they would be powerful animals. But anyway, we were supposed to be
focusing on the slave siblings right now.
“As for these siblings,
the brother is in perfect health, but the younger sister has a genetic
disorder. She
is blind, cannot walk, and does not have much longer to live. However, her brother
cares for her more than anything else in the world.”
So he was still trying to
protect his dying sister even after they had become slaves. It sounded like the hero
of some clichéd story. If this were some kind of manga or something, he wouldn’t even need to
be the hero. With that kind of conviction, he would be a popular character even if
he were the villain or something. And he had the strength
to actually stand by that conviction because of his race. He fit the stereotype
perfectly.
“Perhaps you could
separate the two. Put
the brother to work. Tell him that his sister will be hospitalized, and then go leave her in
a field somewhere. Of course, you would make the brother believe she was still alive. You have monsters that are
good at imitating voices, right? Just let the brother hear
her voice from time to time.”
Did I have monsters that
were good at imitating voices? There were only four
things that my monsters did: dig up dirt, run around peddling, eat weeds, or
fight. Did he mean Filo? I looked over at Filo.
Filo went straight into
an impression of Melty. It
was perfect. You would have thought Melty was standing right here with us. But what the hell? What kind of line was that?! Charming?! I’d have to have a talk
with Melty next time I saw her. I motioned for the slave
trader to continue.
“If you did that, the
brother would continue fighting to the very end, all for the sake of his
precious little sister, who would have actually already departed this world. All that would be left is
for you to reap the benefits.”
His plan was pure evil. It made me cringe. There were just too many ways it could backfire. I could just imagine
someone like Itsuki showing up, rescuing the brother, and then teaming up with
him to try to defeat me. That wouldn’t even be funny. I’d win the fight, of
course, but I wasn’t going to go out of my way to create my own enemies.
“That’s why you’re
useless at handling all but the simplest slaves. I’ll show you how to do
it the right way.”
The brother was
surprisingly aggressive, but I just ignored him. I went inside of the cage
and approached his younger sister at the back.
I’d made the medicine
using my shield, by the way. I still couldn’t pull it
off on my own. That’s how difficult it was to make. I’d learned how to make it
from an equip bonus on the Spirit Tortoise Sacred Tree Shield. The bonus was called . . . miracle drug recipe.
I had no idea what the
shield’s effects did, although it was clear that they had something to do with
plants. The
miracle drug recipe had only taught me how to make one medicine. Even worse, it required a
bunch of other medicines and potions to make: regular medicine, superior
medicine, a healing salve, magic water, and soul-healing water. On top of that, you had
to mix an extremely precise amount of poisonous materials, filter the mixture,
and skim the top layer off to use along with . . . sacred tree sap, wherever
that came from.
Just recently, I’d tried
to compound the medicine without using my shield, but I failed. I went and asked the
apothecary to try to figure out what had gone wrong, but he just scolded me and
told me I was in over my head. That’s how difficult it
was to make. It was a priceless medicine that was practically impossible to get your
hands on unless you just happened to have a legendary shield.
Its name: Elixir of
Yggdrasil. It
was the same medicine that the lively old Hengen Muso lady had used, so it went
without saying that it was effective. Any gamer would know that
something with “elixir” in the name was bound to be powerful. The name may have been my
shield’s translation, but it still included the name of the world tree,
nonetheless.
How did that old lady get
her hands on such a priceless medicine? She must have been filthy
rich. I
wondered if maybe she had used the Hengen Muso style to rake in money while
traveling the world. How did her son end up being so plain? The poor guy wasn’t even
worth mentioning.
“You belong to me now. This is medicine that will
cure your sister. You can pay for it by dedicating your life to serving me.”
The apothecary mentioned
that it had a ridiculously high market value. Selling it wouldn’t have
made enough to buy up all of the Lurolona slaves, though, and my stocks were
really limited. Very few cases were dire enough to actually require this medicine to
save someone’s life. Still, lots of people wanted it since it was so effective. Some said that it could
even bring back the dead.
My funds were running low
lately, so I’d brought it planning to rob someone blind, but this was the
perfect chance to use it. Considering the coming battles with the waves, I needed power more than
I needed money. I would use it to secure a powerful ally via an enormous debt that
ensured allegiance.
The brother sniffed at
the medicine. Of course, if he’d smelled this medicine before, he probably wouldn’t
be here in this situation. He took a couple of really big sniffs before looking up suddenly and
shouting.
“If you refuse to believe
me then I don’t have to give it to her. But will that save your
sister? I’m
buying you, either way. Whether your sister is suffering or not won’t change that.”
The girl coughed as she
turned her head in our direction. She was blind, right? I guess she was relying
on the sound of our voices as a guide.
The girl slowly turned her
head toward me. The brother hesitantly motioned for me to approach her. I moved toward this girl
that he’d called Atla. She was in terrible condition. She was wrapped in
bandages from head to toe. You couldn’t even see her face. But I could still tell
she was covered in sores. Judging from her appearance, it was surprising she was still alive. Her ears and tail were the
only signs left that she was even the same race as her brother.
She seemed to be
referring to me, so I tried speaking to her. The first impression is
always the most important, so I decided to go with my usual bigheaded attitude.
Deep sadness, huh? Memories of being consumed by rage after Bitch betrayed me came
flooding back for a split second, but then faded almost immediately, being
replaced by memories of my time with Raphtalia.
If I’d only just recently
arrived in this world, I probably would have been drawn to this girl’s act. Characters that spout off
seemingly profound lines like this were common in manga and games. Not to mention, this was
a young girl on her deathbed. It was all a bit too perfect.
Her pronunciation was
impressive. Apart from the other heroes, this was the first time anyone had
pronounced my name correctly here. Even in the other world,
Kizuna had been the only one who could pronounce it properly. L’Arc and Glass could
never say it quite right.
Wasn’t it obvious? She knew she didn’t have much time left, so she was asking me to watch
over her brother.
Atla started to say
something in reply, but then simply nodded. I held the Elixir of
Yggdrasil up to the young girl’s lips. Unable to defy his
younger sister, the brother stood aside with clenched fists and said nothing.
Atla drank the medicine
without hesitation. Huh? In addition to the glow from my skill
that increased the efficacy of medicine, there was another strange light
radiating out. It was no small
glimmer, either. I had unlocked
the complete Spirit Tortoise series of shields thanks to Ost, so I did have a
bunch of new skills. Maybe it
had something to do with one of those. Whatever it was, it was obvious that it
was increasing the efficacy of the medicine even further.
“Well, it will probably
take some time to feel the full effects of the medicine. I’ll give you several
doses over a period of time, so just rest for now.”
He suddenly fell silent. Considering their race,
they probably came from a good family. Maybe they had been
disowned or something and could no longer use the family name. It didn’t matter, anyway.
“Yeah.
Fine. That medicine seems to be
the real deal, so I’ll work until it’s paid for. You want me to fight in
the coliseums?”
Hmm . .
. That wasn’t a bad
idea. But having this little
brat fight in the coliseums in his current state would be a waste of time. I wanted to toughen him up a bit before
anything else.
“I haven’t decided if
we’ll do that yet, but I have different plans in mind for you, regardless. You don’t need to worry
about fighting in the coliseums for now.”
“I’ll take care of the
details, so you just do as I say. Don’t worry. It’s not like I’m going to short-change you.”
I threw in an evil laugh
there at the end and Fohl shot me an icy glare. This was how the
relationship between owner and slave was supposed to be, right?
“That medicine is
expensive, you know. It’s on a whole different level than any Elixir of Yggdrasil you’ll
find on the market.”
I threw in a bit of extra
condescension for good measure. If I talked the price up
enough, maybe I wouldn’t have to worry about him trying to say he’d worked
enough to pay for the medicine and running off. Although, it wasn’t like
I’d actually let him get away.
Fohl was clearly unhappy,
but his reply was an honest one. He seemed to have a
pretty serious sister complex. Maybe it had just been
the two of them for so long now that he viewed everyone else as an enemy. I could kind of
understand where he was coming from. I saw pretty much
everyone around me as an enemy for a while after being falsely accused by
Bitch.
“Sadeena . . . If you think calling me
great is going to make me happy, you’re in for a rude awakening.”
I wasn’t Motoyasu, after all.
I wasn’t
the kind of idiot who got excited over flattery. I preferred someone who
would complain when I stirred up trouble, like Raphtalia did.
Raph-chan clearly agreed
with Raphtalia. Hmm . . . So the kid was jealous. In that case, he definitely had the
wrong impression.
Fohl pointed at Raphtalia
and Sadeena while shouting. So this was what people
meant when they talked about someone not knowing their place. I was going to push this
brat harder than a Spartan soldier when we got back to the village. He supposedly had a lot
of potential, after all. I was starting to look forward to his training. I’d given his sister the
same medicine that cured the old lady, so I had a feeling she would get better,
too. When she did . . . I was sure I could find
something for her to do at the village.
The slave registrations
were going smoothly. I took the slaves back to the village in groups using my portal skill
as they were completed. Of course, we had to wait for the cool down to expire each time, so we
were sitting around twiddling our thumbs a lot.
“Yeah, but it wouldn’t do
much good to send people to the dragon hourglass. Although, I guess we could
have Filo pick them up and take them to the village from there.”
It had a similar cool down
time, though. The same was true for Kizuna’s Return Dragon Vein. That reminded me . . . I guess Raphtalia could
use Return Dragon Vein, too.
“By the way, I wonder
where that seven star hero that’s supposed to be in Zeltoble went,” I mumbled.
I figured meeting up with
Zeltoble’s seven star hero would be no problem with the queen, the accessory
dealer, and the slave traders all backing me. But the hero had gone off
somewhere and was out of the country. Searching for the hero
was too much trouble, so I’d had a message sent asking the hero to return. I wasn’t sure if the hero
had been summoned from another world or if it was someone chosen from this
world, but this hero obviously didn’t think much of the holy heroes. Then again, thanks to
those other three idiots, people had come to the conclusion that I was the only
one that wasn’t a fake or just damaged goods.
“Yes.
But it
would have been nice if we’d been able to meet and talk with the hero, too, for
the sake of the world.”
Talking with the seven
star heroes to learn about their power-up methods would boost my own stats, if
nothing else. At least, that’s what I’d hoped to see happen.
I didn’t feel like dealing
with Sadeena, so I went ahead and sent her back to the village before the next
group of slaves. Her flirting was getting out of hand and I didn’t have the energy to
put up with it right now.
“Yeah, I know. You have no interest in pursuing romantic affairs before this world is
peaceful, right Raphtalia?”
And then, finally, it came
time to send Fohl and Atla back. Atla was still
recuperating, but Fohl brought her over and laid her near where we were all
waiting. After
he got her situated, he brought her a jug of water.
I changed my shield to the
Spirit Tortoise Sacred Tree Shield and gave Atla another dose of the remaining
Elixir of Yggdrasil. She had already gotten a lot better, but her condition seemed to
improve even more.
Hmm
. . . Was
it just me or did something about the way he said that sound just like someone
else? Whatever. He was going to have to
work hard to pay for this medicine. He was supposed to have
some real potential, so I wasn’t going to go easy on him. I’d work him like . . . a slave.
Fohl threw his arm around
my shoulder like we were good buddies. What was up with that attitude?
I couldn’t
have him getting the wrong idea about our relationship.
Atla seemed exhausted. She returned to her
resting position. The medicine was working, but it was clear she was still sick. It only made sense she
would be exhausted.
“We’ll all go fwoooosh and
then we’ll be there! I prefer running, but this is fun, too, so I’m sure you’ll like it!”
“The bird that pulls
carriages is full of energy and . . . I sense a pure, untainted power within her. This bird . . . Her strength rivals even
your own, does it not, Mr. Naofumi?”
Atla pointed in Filo’s
direction. Impressive. Her description of Filo
was spot-on. She may have been blind, but it was clear that she was still sensing
her surroundings somehow.
Filo puffed up her chest
feathers proudly when she responded. Kindness?
Me being kind to Filo?
What was
this girl going on about?
“Yeah.
That said,
I’m going to have the slave traders continue to search for Lurolona slaves, so
we’ll probably end up coming back to Zeltoble from time to time.”
“The prices have stopped
rising, but slaves . . . claiming to be from
Lurolona are still being traded at high prices, after all.”
I liked to think we had
recovered the vast majority of them, but I couldn’t say for certain that there
were none left to be found. That’s why we were
continuing to search. It wasn’t very likely, but it was always possible that a few had
escaped slavery to become mercenaries or something. There could be other
slaves out there that Sadeena hadn’t been able to acquire. I never imagined that
making certain none were left would be so difficult.
I used my skill to
teleport us back to the village. I recognized the smell of
the village instantly. It smelled like the sea. It was partly a fishing
village, after all.
“Anyway, you’re still sick. We’ll have you stay at
the village infirmary. Fohl, take her to that building over there.”
I pointed at the building
that we were using for the infirmary. We’d built it so that we
would have a place to treat the slaves’ wounds.
Imiya hugged her uncle,
clearly happy to be reunited with family. I’d heard that her
parents had been killed, so it was nice that she got to be reunited with her
uncle.
It looked like the new
slaves had already begun rekindling old friendships on their own. We’d just kicked off a
little party at the village to welcome the new slaves. I decided to treat them
all to some of my cooking for a bit of extra motivation. Before I knew it, the day
had ended.
We began training the new
slaves and monsters the next day. For the first few days, we
just did a minimal amount of leveling while they got used to the village. I’d put Keel, Rishia, and
Raphtalia in charge of the new slaves, and they were keeping them all busy with
various tasks. Sadeena was helping level them, too. Despite how I felt about
her at times, she was still ridiculously strong, after all. I’d heard that her group
had been attacked by a bunch of monsters once and Sadeena had swiftly wiped
them out with a magical attack.
It was night. I’d come to the village infirmary to continue Atla’s treatment. She was complaining of
itchiness, which probably meant the medicine was working.
“Mr.
Naofumi . . . Umm . . . I’m sorry to ask this of
you, but could you please change my bandages?”
“I have an ointment for
skin diseases that we could apply, too. My hero abilities will
make it more effective if I’m the one that applies it, but it’s up to you.”
Fohl was staring at Atla’s
skin in amazement. Was it really that astonishing? I mean, she did seem to
be healing surprisingly quickly, but still . . . I removed the bandages
from her face to see if there was any change.
Raphtalia had been
watching and gasped in response, clearly startled. I had expected there to
be improvement, but even I was amazed when I saw Atla’s face. Let’s just say the result
was more impressive than I had imagined.
The Atla I was looking at
now was easily one of the most attractive among the village slaves. Her hair was shiny, and
she had clear, pale white skin that seemed unfitting for a slave. Her brother looked like
he might be 12 or 13 years old, so I’d figured she was even younger, but once
the bandages were removed she looked even smaller than before. She was around the same
size as Melty, I guess.
The slave trader’s
suggestion had certainly been evil, but with a slave this attractive he
could’ve gone a whole different direction of evil and really cashed in. That was assuming her
skin condition healed completely, of course. Still, I was at a loss
for words. I
could objectively say that Raphtalia and Filo would be considered attractive,
but Atla’s beauty belonged to a different category. She had a childish look,
and yet there was a delicateness to her that reminded me of a fragile glass
sculpture or something.
Some of the other slaves
were peeking in from behind the infirmary door. I could hear them
whispering something about Atla being beautiful. Wherever the action was,
those slaves could smell it from a mile away.
Fohl snapped back to
reality at the sound of my voice and gave me a regretful nod. I’d taken his younger
sister from the verge of death to this. I was going to work him
like a horse.
“I’m making soldiers out
of the villagers. Soldiers that will blindly follow my every command. In due time, you and your
brother, too, will happily charge forth into the jaws of dea—”
Raphtalia ruined the moment. I just wanted to shake
Atla up a little bit. Raphtalia never seemed to enjoy my malicious shenanigans. Then again, I couldn’t help
but think my past behavior gave her good reason to be that way.
Reluctant to part ways,
Atla reached out to me quickly when I stood up. Fohl lovingly intercepted
her hand. But
Atla had reached out so forcefully you would think she had been trying to leap
at me, so when Fohl caught her hand she lost her balance and tumbled off the
bed . . . and
then caught herself on her feet.
It was like a scene
straight out of Heidi. I was imagining Fohl in
the Alps. Oh, damn. If I didn’t already know
Fohl’s name, I probably would have ended up calling him that in my head. Kind of like Trash #2.
But yeah, a young girl on
the verge of death and who had never before stood in her life was walking now,
right in front of our eyes. The Elixir of Yggdrasil
really was something. First it was the old lady, and now Atla.
Fohl, a.k.a. Alps, blurted out in protest. I guess it only made sense
that he would be opposed to his beloved younger sister wanting to fight.
“Even so . . . I’ve felt this way for quite
some time now. I decided long ago that if I was ever able to move freely, I wanted to
be able to protect others rather than always relying on others to protect me.”
Alps was having a hard
time defying Atla’s sense of determination. Hmm . . . If I kept calling him
Alps in my head I was probably going to end up blurting it out eventually. I decided I’d better stick
with Fohl.
Hmm
. . . It
seemed like things weren’t going to turn out quite like I had imagined, but
that might not be a bad thing. After all, Atla was a
hakuko, which meant she should be able to reach level 120.
“I like that eagerness. In that case, I have a
proposition. Being the slave of a hero comes with all sorts of special benefits . . .”
I told Fohl and Atla
about all of the boosts for slaves that came from being a hero. Ultimately, starting over
from level 1 would likely result in being stronger in the end. Fohl had already gained a
few levels and was level 34 now, so it might feel a bit like wasted time. But considering all of
the little advantages, it was probably worth it.
Sadeena was supposedly
level 98 already. Raphtalia was level 87 now, by the way. Sadeena was strong to
start out with, so there was no point in starting over for her. No, I couldn’t actually
say that. I
had to admit I was curious to see how strong she would end up with all of my
slave boosts, considering how formidable she was without them. But . . . the thought of an even stronger Sadeena making sexual advances—in a
literal, physical sense—scared me.
Then again . . . Who knew what kind of
trouble we might end up in if we started slacking. If it meant being
stronger, she should probably do it.
“If you’re that set on it,
then why not? Alright then, I guess we’ll reset your level sometime in the next few
days.”
“There you have it, Fohl. If you really do want to
be stronger, you should reset your level, too. What do you want to do?”
I gave him a bit of a nudge. It would probably take Sadeena
a while to get back to her current level, but that wasn’t true for Fohl. I could just throw him on
Filo’s back and have her run around killing monsters and he’d be back to where
he was now in no time.
Fohl looked over at Atla
while trying to make up his mind. It would be pretty
embarrassing if his precious little sister beat him to a pulp. He might never recover
from that one.
“Alright. Now then, it’s getting late. Go back to your assigned
residence and get some rest. Atla, if you can walk
then you can go with Fohl.”
I couldn’t rule out the
possibility that Atla might only be able to walk while the medicine was in her
system. It
was probably best if she didn’t overexert herself right now.
“But
Mr. Naofumi! Brother! Let go! Let go of
my hand! I
want to get better acquainted with Mr. Naofumi!”
These siblings were on
completely different wavelengths. I sure hoped this didn’t
turn into a problem.
“Let’s go, Sadeena. Some of the children
still get scared at night, so we need to help make them feel comfortable.”
Raph-chan jumped up on
Raphtalia’s shoulder and waved goodbye. I thought about how I
hadn’t been playing with Raph-chan nearly enough lately as I headed back to my
own place.
Filo had gone to see
Melty, and Rishia was in her own room trying to decipher the manuscripts we’d
gotten from Kizuna and the others. I had the night to myself. Having some peace and
quiet felt nice. I started compounding medicines to sell later, and after several
moments there was a knock on my door.
The door opened and
standing there in the doorway was Atla. Yes, the same Atla that
had just been practically dragged off by her brother to their residence.
Knowing him, I’d never
hear the end of it if he found Atla sleeping with me. That was not something I
wanted to deal with.
“Brother is out cold. So . . . I’d like someone to talk
with while falling asleep. Please,
Mr. Naofumi.”
Out cold ? That spaz? Don’t tell me she had
actually physically knocked him out . .
. No, surely not. She seemed far too innocent to do something like that. It was nice that she
seemed to like me, but I wasn’t sure I liked the thought of her sleeping in my
bed. Having
my blanket stolen once was more than enough. I knew I probably needed
to let that go already, but I still didn’t feel like sharing my bed,
regardless.
I decided to take
advantage of the fact that Raphtalia wasn’t here and motioned for Atla to come
in. I
couldn’t help but wonder if Fohl was alright. I’d go check on him after
Atla fell asleep. Once Atla came into the room, I showed her to Raphtalia’s bed and
helped her get tucked in.
Our medicine sales had
been booming lately. I was using my shield to make the medicines, but production was still
falling behind. Pretty soon I’d have to get serious about teaching the slaves how to
make medicine. I wanted to get things set up so that the village had a steady flow of
income, but we still needed more people to make that happen. I’d arranged for the
medicines to be sold in the neighboring town as well, but our supplies couldn’t
keep up with demand. We could always sell the medicinal herbs themselves, but none of them
were worth that much.
I’d managed to unlock
most of the herb-related shields, since I’d been purchasing a wide variety of
plants from all over the place. They’d enabled me to
identify and analyze poisons, increase the effectiveness of those poisons, and
increase my resistances to them, but not much else.
Something didn’t feel
right about having my selfish motivations spun around and interpreted as good
intentions. The room
fell silent.
I wasn’t quite sure how
to interact with this kid. She didn’t try to push her ideals off on me like Raphtalia. Instead, it was like she
just openly accepted anything and everything I said. It frightened me to think
what might happen if I said something like, “Alright! Spread your legs!” I had a feeling she’d
happily comply, and probably even try to jump on top of me.
Just like Sadeena. Just like Sadeena! Except the scary thing
about that woman was that she’d probably try to do the same thing without me
even saying anything. She hadn’t tried yet, but considering the way she acted, it could
happen at any time. Shit . . . I hadn’t realized how
dangerous being alone with Sadeena was until just now. I felt shivers going down
my spine.
“I was talking to Raphtalia. She told me that she
serves as your sword to defeat your enemies for you.”
I couldn’t do anything
except defend myself and others. That was the shield’s
limitation, and it had been that way ever since I set foot in this world.
Raphtalia was working
hard to put an end to the waves, for the sake of this world. Seeing how hard she tried
made me want to try, too. All else aside, there was no one I trusted more than Raphtalia in this
world.
Was that like a baby
chick being protected by its mother’s wing? That would make the village . . . a bird’s nest. Filo suddenly sprung to mind.
“Leaving the nest is all
well and good, but ultimately the villagers are the ones that need to protect
the village. There will be consequences otherwise.”
This village was
Raphtalia’s home. Once we rebuilt it, Raphtalia would have a place in this world even
when I was gone. Even if I went back to my own world, she would still have Keel and
Sadeena. I
planned on leaving Filo in Melty’s care. Everyone loved Raph-chan,
so she would probably end up sticking around as the village mascot or
something. I
was confident the village would last for a long time to come. If anyone—organization,
country, or otherwise—were reckless enough to try to destroy the village built
by the hero that saved the world, they were as good as dead.
“In my time here at the
village, I’ve heard about all of the amazing things you’ve accomplished. It truly is . . . impressive, what you’re
doing. You should be
proud. Despite
all of the hardships you’ve faced, you’ve persevered and overcome them all. I admire you, Mr. Naofumi.”
What was she talking about? Protect me? Why? Why would she be talking about protecting me, of all things? Didn’t she realize she
was talking to the Shield Hero? How dense could someone be? Although, it was true I
wouldn’t be here if it weren’t for the help of plenty of others. I couldn’t forget that.
Raphtalia, Filo, Melty, the
queen . . . All
of them had given me a hand at times when my position or my life had been in
danger.
Being someone’s shield
and always defending that person really didn’t feel all that great. Why do
I have to defend this person? The thought had crossed my
mind time and again. It was painful at times, too. But if I worried about
that, I’d only end up losing and creating friction. Even so . . . Knowing that I was
protecting Raphtalia, Filo, and all the people I cared about outweighed the
unpleasantness of it all.
But still . . . Be my shield? She’d sure come up with a
lofty goal. I guess it was because she had spent her whole life being the one
protected by someone else. She’d probably idealized the role of protector. It was like saying if
Raphtalia was my right arm then she would be my left. Still . . . I did appreciate the thought.
“You need to look after
your sister better. She showed up at my place saying she wanted to sleep with me.”
Fohl was glaring at me
like I’d murdered his parents or something. I activated his slave
curse and scolded him.
Ugh . . . I couldn’t deny either of
those things! I’d given up on any fantasies that included surrounding myself with
women long ago! I was getting the feeling it was time to start being more careful about
whom I ran around with. But then I remembered I’d never cared whether my companions were male
or female.
Fohl turned pale and
started backing away. He had obviously misunderstood. I’m sure he probably
thought I was gay, now.
These siblings sure were a
pain in the neck! Still . . . be
my shield? She was a strange one, for
sure.
The next morning, I ended
up making breakfast, since the village slaves practically insisted on it. The cooking division
slaves took care of all of the prep work, so all I had to do was cook the food.
They all cheered. Sheesh . . . This must have been what
people meant when they talked about kids only looking grown-up. Raphtalia had been a lot
more mature by the time she was their size.
Hmm?
Sadeena and
I weren’t the only ones causing a ruckus. Those voices . . . Ah, it was Fohl and Atla.
I wasn’t even going to go
there. I
went about putting the food on the slaves’ plates, which they put on their
trays and carried back to their seats. It reminded me of lunch
back in elementary school. There were quite a few slaves now. That meant more helping
hands, of course, but to think that three massive pots of food would disappear
in a single meal . . .
There was a girl was
standing next in line, waiting for me to serve her. She sure acted like she
was right where she belonged, but I didn’t recognize her at all. She looked . . . 15 years old, maybe? She was a human, as far
as I could tell. She looked sleepy, like she was only half awake. Her eyes were silver, and
her hair was a silverish color, too. She had pale white skin,
and something about her made her seem delicate. Being a human surrounded
by all of the demi-human slaves made her even more conspicuous. There were soldiers from
the castle here, too, but she wasn’t dressed like a soldier.
Clown girl? Did I know any clown girls? Or was it a friend of Filo’s?
Filo had
been going out more on her own to help with peddling and other stuff. She must have met the girl
that way.
Huh?
All I could
hear was static in the middle of her sentence. Wait. Hadn’t there been someone like that before? I could feel myself
breaking out into a cold sweat.
The unfamiliar girl pulled
a pair of scissors out and showed them to me. Umm, nope. That didn’t ring any bells. Then, right in front of my
eyes, she transformed the pair of scissors into a ball of thread. Then she pulled out a
familiar mask and showed it to me.
That’s right. She was showing me the same equipment that had been used by Murder
Pierrot—the freak that we had fought with Sadeena several days earlier in the
underground coliseum! The Murder Pierrot in the coliseum had been wearing a mask and a weird
outfit, so I didn’t recognize her at first. But there was only one
person in the world that sounded like a sandstorm when they spoke!
She stuck her hand in her
pocket, pulled something out, and . . . placed it in my hand. It was two silver pieces. Umm, I wasn’t trying to
ask for money. But two silver was more than I would have expected. Thirty copper was enough
to get a pretty good meal in this world. Two silver would have
bought a really nice set meal—something like fancy broiled eel served over hot
rice at a posh restaurant if we had been in Japan. I was going to play along
with her joke and say something clever, but she just stood there staring at me,
completely serious.
We weren’t getting
anywhere like this. I decided to just feed her and then we could talk later. I put some food on a dish
and handed it to Murder Pierrot. She sat down and began
eating like everything was completely normal.
Sadeena sat down next to
Murder Pierrot excitedly and struck up a conversation, although Murder Pierrot
was hardly even responding. It was really more like Sadeena just talking to herself.
It didn’t look like she
was going to cause any trouble, and I could tell that Sadeena was on her guard
just in case she did. The slaves did seem curious, but with all of the new slaves and
everything else going on, they didn’t really seem bothered by her presence. But why in the world had
she come to the village?
“Little Naofumi, the girl
told me that her previous contract was terminated, so she’s not tied to any
employer at the moment. She said she came to find out if she could work for you.”
Fighting us at the
coliseum had been purely business, I guess. Running off in the middle
of a fight didn’t seem like it would be good for business, but I guess that
kind of thing was probably common in the mercenary business.
“Umm, why do you want to
associate with Mr. Naofumi?” asked Raphtalia, choosing
her words carefully.
“At the coliseum, you told
me, ‘You have to work harder, or you’ll die.’ What did that mean, anyway?” I asked.
I was hearing static again. What was that? It felt like talking to
someone on a cell phone with really bad reception.
Atla came walking over
with Fohl tagging along behind. If they were done eating,
they should’ve already hurried home and started getting ready to head out. We were going to the
castle today to reset her brother’s level.
“It’s nothing. This girl .
. . We
fought against her in a tournament at the Zeltoble coliseum and now she’s here
asking to be friends.”
“I sense a transient power
that is on the verge of disappearing, together with a separate, untainted
power. She
doesn’t seem to be a bad person, Mr. Naofumi.”
I’d felt the same when
she’d shared her impression of me. Atla’s “senses” were just
a bit too out there for me. I wasn’t quite sure what
to make of them.
I hadn’t realized how
frustrating it would be to try to have a conversation when you could only just
barely get the gist of what the other person was saying. This was beyond annoying.
Murder Pierrot stood
there thinking for a moment and then started opening and closing her mouth, but
. . .
Aside from the simplest
of words, all I could hear was static. I had no idea what she
was saying. What was
with this girl?
“Also, about our fight at
the coliseum . . . Judging from what I can
make out of what you’ve said, you’re . .
. the holder of a vassal
weapon or a seven star weapon, right?”
I wasn’t dumb. It wasn’t like I just thought her weapon was odd. It had changed shape
repeatedly, and it seemed to have mysterious powers that could restrict an
opponent. That
kind of performance meant it almost certainly had to be a vassal weapon. The only thing was, none
of the seven star heroes had a weapon like hers, according to the queen.
When I said that, Murder
Pierrot started nodding her head emphatically. So I was right. Also, that meant she
could understand what I was saying. I bet that was it—she’d
probably snuck into this world to try to kill the holy heroes like Glass and
the others had done, but now she couldn’t get back home because of the Spirit
Tortoise’s barrier. Something
like that.
“You seem to be under the
impression that we’re weak, but I’ve used the power-up methods of all four holy
heroes. I’m
just in a weakened state because of a curse right now.”
“Yeah, okay. Whatever. I may not be able to
explain it very well, but I know what the waves are. I know that other vassal
weapon holders are trying to save their worlds by killing holy heroes.”
The sandstorm was getting
worse. It was
almost pure static now. What
was with her? Had she unlocked a curse series that made it impossible for her to
carry on a conversation or something?
“We can’t trust her. She could just be
pretending to be an ally and end up betraying us when we least expect it.”
For all I knew, she was
pretending to be a drifter to get close and wait for a chance to try to kill
me. Even if
she had exposed her own identity, I still couldn’t trust her.
Murder Pierrot just kept
staring at me silently. What was this feeling? Something about her eyes
reminded me of Raphtalia or Filo. It was true I didn’t
detect any hostility. She showed no sign of ulterior motives. Even so, I still couldn’t
trust her, and if she had no intention of fighting then there was no reason for
her to come to me. She could just wait until the next wave and then go back through the
rifts.
Hmm
. . . So
she was offering to fight for me and even pay for her own room and board. Those were certainly
favorable conditions. I knew that when something sounded too good to be true, it usually was.
But the
offer was still hard to refuse. But yeah, she was
probably going to try to kill me in my sleep or something.
“I’m smart enough to know
there’s no such thing as a free lunch. If you understand my
words, then you understand I’m telling you to get out of my village.”
Murder Pierrot looked
down dejectedly. She finished eating and then stood up. Something about her
reminded me of Glass, after we had settled our differences.
Another possibility I
could think of was that she just wanted to get stronger and had come to this
world looking for materials to power up her weapon like L’Arc and Therese had
done. It
wasn’t like going to another world meant she was trying to kill heroes. L’Arc had mentioned that
the abilities and stat increases gained in another world could be shared
between worlds, after all. And in fact, I’d retained my stat increases despite ending up back at
level 1 when I first arrived in Kizuna’s world.
Murder Pierrot probably
didn’t intend to kill any of the holy heroes. She had probably just
gotten stuck in this world and didn’t know what to do. Still, the power on the
verge of disappearing that Atla mentioned did have me a bit curious.
Murder Pierrot started
walking away at a ridiculously slow pace while stopping to look back at me
every few steps, like she was trying to stall or something. Was she hoping I would
stop her? I
just stood there silently, glaring at her, and she just kept doing the same
thing over and over. She would turn around and start walking again, and then stop and look
back again.
“If you can tell that’s
what she wants, then why not stop her, little Naofumi? You do realize how strong
she is, right?”
This was getting a bit
awkward. Considering
what was coming, it might have been a good idea to keep her around. We could always just kill
her if she tried anything. But that wasn’t a chance I could take in my current state. Murder Pierrot continued
walking slowly while glancing back at me every now and then, all the way to the
edge of the village.
Once she had finally left
the village, I started cleaning up the dining hall. Apparently something had been
bothering Raphtalia.
That was a good question. I should have asked her. Actually
. . . I
had been so focused on kicking her out that I didn’t even think to find out
what she knew about fighting against other heroes. Now I was regretting not
asking her more while she had still been interested in being friends.
“That would be like
falling for the enemy’s trap. We’re letting her go
unharmed because she doesn’t seem to be interested in fighting. But I’m not prepared to
let my guard down.”
It may not have seemed like
it, but I was being plenty lax already. It wouldn’t have been a
surprise if she had wanted to kill me. Honestly, I was a bit
worried about what might happen if she ran across any of the other three
heroes. We
needed to find them and get them somewhere safe as soon as possible. They might very well end
up dead if they were forced to fight against someone like Murder Pierrot.
“I guess we’ll start by
heading to the Melromarc castle. It’s been a while. Raphtalia, Fohl, and Sadeena . .
. You’re coming with me. We’re going to do the
level resets we talked about yesterday.”
It was probably a good
idea to take Atla along with us. Fohl would probably start
causing trouble if I tried to leave her behind. Filo had gone back to
hang out with Melty again after she finished eating. Raph-chan had taken it
upon herself to help Rishia and the villagers with whatever they were doing. I would have been more
than happy to take Raph-chan along, but whatever.
I used my portal skill to
teleport us to the Melromarc castle. When we arrived, Sadeena
looked over and commented on the mountains on top of the Spirit Tortoise’s
back, which were visible from the castle.
“Wow
. . . It’s
been a long time since I came this way. Things seem pretty crazy
outside the castle town gates.”
Sadeena was still looking
at the Spirit Tortoise mountains as she replied. As for the rest of the
Spirit Tortoise . . . Oh? Looking closely, I could
see that many of the trees had been cleared away. The reclamation of the
land was coming along nicely. Humans sure were a hardy
bunch. Disaster
had struck, but everyone was working hard to bounce back.
“We’ll go talk to the
queen first. We didn’t tell anyone we were coming, so they’ll probably need some
time to make preparations.”
It made sense to go see
the queen. Unlike
class-ups, level resets were probably relatively uncommon, after all.
“Into the castle, then? I’ve seen the Melromarc
castle from the outside like this plenty of times, but I’ve never actually
stepped foot inside.”
“It’s about the same size
as L’Arc’s castle. But this isn’t a very good place for demi-humans to be.”
Several of the castle
soldiers noticed us and saluted, but they looked slightly disconcerted when
they saw Sadeena. She was in her therianthrope form, which was normal for her, but I
guess it only made sense that we would get some confused looks. But then again, they had
invited all the adventures to the celebrations after we defeated the last wave.
Hmm . . . Actually, I hadn’t really
seen many demi-humans there. I guess being a
demi-human in this country was hard in more ways than one. I’d started to forget that. It was only the queen that
didn’t discriminate. The racism was deeply ingrained in the citizens themselves.
She was probably staring
at paperwork in that office of hers, like always. I asked a castle servant
where the queen was. Apparently she had already been informed of our arrival and was headed
out to meet us. We could just wait for her to come to us, then. Relaxing in the castle
courtyard didn’t sound bad to me.
Crash! It sounded like something had fallen over
behind us. I
turned around to see Trash staring at us with his mouth hanging open like a
fool.
So he was still around, huh? More importantly . . . why was he half-naked? He was wearing nothing
but underpants and a cloak. I guess he was going for
the emperor’s . . . king’s new clothes look.
A smile crept across my face.
Why hadn’t
they invited me to join in the fun? He even had a note stuck
to his back that said, “I’m doing a lap around the castle grounds as
punishment. Do
not assist me in any way, no matter what I say.” The note was signed by
the queen at the bottom. What had he done this time?
Trash grabbed the note
and started running toward us. Several nearby castle
guards blocked his path despite being clearly dumbfounded, and then restrained
him.
“Let
go! The Shield! The Shield has
infiltrated the castle along with those hakuko! Bastards! Out of my
way! Or else
I can’t kill the Shield!”
I’d heard that there was
bad blood between Trash and the hakuko, but this was an impressive show of rage
even for him. And that last line of his was almost identical to a quote famous with
otaku back in Japan.
Trash had been stomping
his feet violently, but he began to lose steam and then stopped completely. And then . . . What was going on? He was just standing there
with a really strange look on his face. I couldn’t tell whether
he wanted to smile or cry.
How in the world had Atla
managed to mistake Trash for Fohl, of all people? And when they were both
right there in front of her? I guess they did share a
tendency to be rather annoying, but otherwise they could hardly be more
different. I
mean, their ages and physical builds . .
. umm, were irrelevant since
Atla was blind, I guess.
Having heard all of the
shouting, she’d finally showed up several minutes later. I told her about how
Trash had started raving when he saw Fohl, only to up and leave as soon as he
saw Atla’s face.
Why was she making a
point of not calling him Trash? I guess it didn’t matter. But
. . . little sister?
“Yes.
His full
name is Lüge Lansarz Faubrey. He was born as the
thirtieth heir to the throne of Faubrey.”
“The youngest prince, but
yes. However,
there was an incident that prompted him to relinquish his right to the throne. That incident was the
murder of his parents and everyone he loved by the hakuko.”
It sounded like Trash’s
life had been one hell of a roller coaster. But now I understood why
he seemed to detest Fohl—a hakuko—so much.
“Fortunately, Lüge and
his younger sister had been away at the time, which is why they weren’t killed
in the incident. However, for political reasons, Faubrey made no attempt to hold
Siltvelt accountable. As a result, Lüge developed an intense hatred for both Faubrey and Siltvelt.
He changed
his last name and moved to Melromarc, a country hostile toward the
demi-humans.”
“Lüge concealed the fact
that he was royalty and established an impressive track record for himself as
both a soldier and officer of Melromarc’s military at a time when the country
was constantly at war. He was eventually chosen to wield the seven star staff and went on to
make a name for himself as a hero.”
It was a picture-perfect
story of self-made success. I started to feel a bit jealous. But then . . . a slight look of distress
came across the queen’s face.
“Just as things had begun
to go his way, Lüge’s blind young sister, who he loved dearly, was attacked by
a hakuko and . . . presumed dead due to the bloody scene of carnage left behind. But her body was never found.
More than
ever, Lüge was consumed by a desire for revenge, pushing him to finally
confront and overthrow the king of Siltvelt, who was a hakuko.”
This was just conjecture,
but the following possibility came to mind. Trash’s beloved younger
sister didn’t actually die. Instead, she was taken
back to Siltvelt as a plaything and raped by the hakuko, which is how Fohl and
Atla were conceived. But there were several problems with that theory. For example, why wouldn’t
they have used her as a hostage? Maybe the younger sister
and the hakuko were secretly in love, like some kind of soap opera or
something.
I had no idea what had
actually happened, but the fact that Atla mistook Trash for Fohl probably meant
that there was some kind of blood ties that she had sensed. Now that I thought about
it, I remembered Fohl mentioning having had a sizable amount of money devoted
to Atla’s treatment.
“Oh?
What about
how you and little Naofumi met? Does that not seem too
convenient to be true? It sure does to me,” Sadeena interjected.
Oh, come on. Surely Raphtalia and I meeting had nothing to do with fate or anything
like that. Sadeena
just associated me with destiny because I couldn’t get drunk on this world’s
alcohol.
“Who knows? I was too young at the time to remember anything before our parents
died. Brother
would know more, I think.”
“All I know is that our
grandfather was supposedly really impressive. We were told to never
mention our last name, and our parents died in some war when I was still young,
so I don’t really remember much. I’m pretty sure they had
been well-off, though. We had servants and other helpers, too.”
This world was full of
worthless people. They must have fell victim to one of those people and that’s how they
ended up as slaves.
“Nothing like that. Once we couldn’t afford
to pay for Atla’s treatment anymore, we divided up the family assets among the
servants and said our goodbyes.”
So they were bankrupted by
Atla’s medical fees. And they even had loyal servants. They had gotten lucky with
that one.
Yeah . . . Fohl was a rebellious little brat. There was no way he would want to stick
around with me longer than he had to.
Ah, now it made sense. Fohl and Atla were the grandchildren
of Trash’s most despised enemy, and on top of that, he had realized that Atla
was the orphaned child of his precious younger sister. No wonder he had left
looking like that.
“All my parents told me
was that he was a really impressive man. Was he the king of
Siltvelt, then?”
Fohl looked like he wasn’t
sure what to think. I could see how it might bother him to find out about things his parents
refused to tell him in a place like this. Still, the queen was
being overly dramatic. Surely he would want to know more about his roots. That’s what I thought,
anyway, but it didn’t seem like either Fohl or Atla had any intention of asking
the queen for more details.
“Oh yeah. I want to reset the levels of a couple of my slaves so that I can level
them up from scratch.”
“Understood. I will see to it that preparations begin at once. They should be complete
by the time you and your companions reach the dragon hourglass.”
Motoyasu, huh? Motoyasu was the last of the three that I wanted to see, but this
wasn’t the time to be picky.
They found one of
Motoyasu’s companions? Judging from the queen’s wording, she wasn’t talking about Bitch. That meant it was one of
the other two girls that ran around with him. I’d just call them Girl 1
and Girl 2. I guess that might not make it clear which I was referring to, but I
didn’t know their names and I’d hardly ever talked to either one. Trying to recall anything
about them was a hassle. All I remembered was that they both seemed really annoying.
“No.
A member of
Melromarc’s nobility, who is also a father, had expressed concern about his
missing daughter. But then he returned home one day to find her helping her mother run
the family business, as if nothing had happened.”
What the hell?! His missing daughter had just shown up and acted as if nothing had
happened? It
sounded like some kind of joke.
“We did question her. I was hoping that you
would meet her and try to convince her to help lure the Spear Hero out of
hiding.”
Now it made sense. The queen believed that Motoyasu might try to see the girl. It was a bit of a gamble,
but if it meant possibly capturing Motoyasu, then it was worth a try.
So she was basically
trying to protect herself in a plea bargain. It made sense. The girls that ran around with Motoyasu had all seemed like scum.
“Fine.
After we
finish the level resets, we’ll return to the village and then head out to meet
her.”
“Alright, let’s get these
level resets over with and get back to the village. We have an important
mission now,” I announced.
After that, we quickly
headed to the dragon hourglass and exchanged greetings with the soldiers at the
entrance. They
must have already received the queen’s orders, because preparations for the
ceremonies had already been completed.
Hmm?
There were
people there to assist with the ceremonies just like when we had classed up,
but this time they had a stretcher with them. It seemed strange, so I
asked a nearby soldier about it.
I guess that made sense. I’d felt sluggish when
the stats I had taken for granted suddenly dropped, too. But my level hadn’t changed. I could only imagine how
restricted I might feel if I was suddenly back at level 1.
The soldiers began the
ceremony. The
dragon hourglass began to glow as power flooded into the magic circle on the
floor. It
looked a lot like when we had done our class-ups.
“ The woman standing here
before us has chosen to relinquish her own powers in order to walk a new path. Powers of the world! Grant her the chance to
find that path! ”
She seemed just a bit too
relaxed. Moments
later, something came rushing out of Sadeena and then scattered in all
directions.
I was starting to feel a
little bit sorry for Fohl. Regardless, he completed the level reset ceremony and seemed to have no
trouble walking, just like Sadeena.
“You guys just reset your
levels, but you seem to be moving surprisingly well. Do you not need to use
the stretcher?” I asked.
I thought about giving
Fohl a quick jab to the arm to see if he was really okay . . . but Atla beat me to it.
I tried it on Sadeena,
too, but she reacted the same as always. She seemed to be just fine. Maybe the repercussions
would be minimized if the person was in good physical shape. Both of them were
physically fit. Exercising and getting in shape certainly seemed to fall into a
different category than leveling up. I guess staying in shape
would make it easier to deal with not feeling so great, unlike some kind of
stat boost that the person barely even had to work for. These two had that kind of
self-discipline. Raphtalia made sure to keep herself in shape, too. A person’s stats would be
reduced with a level reset, but the results of their physical training would
stay. Other than that . . . the boosts from my shield
might have been helping a bit.
So in other words, the
people that needed the stretchers were probably people who mostly used magic,
or people that had been power-leveled by someone stronger. For example, some spoiled
kid from a noble family could pay an adventurer to level him up. That kind of thing was
effective up to a certain point. It’s basically what I was
doing with the slaves back at the village, so it wasn’t necessarily a bad
thing. The
problem was that once someone hit the level cap like that, the only way to
further improve would be to get in better shape or train with someone like the
old lady.
Heroes had no level cap,
apparently, but even I probably should have been doing some kind of training. Things like levels and
stats were the norm in this world, so it wasn’t unthinkable that training and
honing your magic skills on a daily basis could raise some kind of limit, too. That would mean people
like Fohl and Sadeena, who had been training hard since they were little, might
be able to become that much stronger. I didn’t know how it
actually worked and I wasn’t planning on sticking around in this world forever,
so I’d just do my training until the waves were defeated and not worry about
it. After
all, my levels and stats would mean nothing when I returned to my own world.
The same went for this
shield. This
stupid shield that I couldn’t remove no matter what. Changing it to the Book
Shield was the best I could even do to try to hide it. If this stupid thing
followed me back to my own world, there’s no way it could be considered
anything but a curse. A grown man walking around carrying some strange book all the time
would be the laughing stock of the world.
It’d be better to just
not think about that. There was no point in worrying about something that might not even
happen. Even
if the shield did happen to follow me back, that’s just something I’d have to
deal with when the time came.
“Sadeena, Fohl, and Atla,
I want you three to get out there and level up. I’ll take the others and
head out. Somebody
go fetch Filo for me.”
Sadeena went walking off
toward the ocean by herself, for whatever reason. Seriously? Was she going to be okay
by herself?
“Sorry, but you need to
stay and level up. Where we’re going, you’d need to be able to protect yourself at the
very least.”
We were going to try to
lure out Motoyasu. If things went wrong and he struggled, Atla might not make it out with
just a scratch or two. I couldn’t take her with us.
Right? Although . . . Raphtalia was mostly addressing me when
she said that. But Atla sure was
mentally tough. What happened to
playing the part of the sickly young girl? Anyway, I got Fohl, Atla, and the other
slaves loaded up in Filo Underling #1’s carriage and sent them off just as Filo
came running up.
I would take . . . Raphtalia and Filo should
be plenty, I guess. Rishia was busy training under the old lady with Eclair. Nothing bad could come
from having her master the Hengen Muso style. Besides, Rishia made
Motoyasu uncomfortable. Taking her along would probably only make things more complicated, so
I’d just leave her behind.
“Alright, it’s just going
to be the three of us. It’s not like we’re going to be selling anything, so maybe we should
just ride on Filo’s back.”
Ever since I started
using my portal skill more often, most of the carriages we’d been riding in
were rentals. Filo hadn’t had many chances to pull her own carriage lately. Peddling was about the
only time she got to use it. Going by carriage would be
fine, I guess. It didn’t really matter either way.
Alright, we needed to
hurry up and get to Motoyasu’s companion. Raphtalia and I loaded up
into Filo’s carriage and we headed off in that direction.
After receiving the
queen’s report, we rushed to the location of Motoyasu’s companion. But when we got there,
the one and only Motoyasu was right in the middle of chatting up Girl 1 at the
counter of a big shop where she was working. We were looking on from
an alleyway a short distance away, by the way.
Damn it! Our prey had shown up before we even had
time to talk strategy! With
Motoyasu already here, we could forget about making any preparations.
Hmm
. . . If
I wasn’t mistaken, she had been more of the loud and annoying, ditzy type, but
that wasn’t how she was acting now. Even assuming she had
decided to cut ties with Motoyasu, I would have expected her to be acting like
much more of a bitch. Even so, Motoyasu still seemed surprised by the way she responded.
Motoyasu seemed to be
enjoying the conversation now. Girl 1, on the other
hand, remained icy cold. She looked at Motoyasu with a stony gaze. This must have been what
people meant when they talked about looking at someone like they were trash.
“I was hoping to enjoy
their conversation a bit more, but I guess you’re right. We should probably go
have a talk with him.”
Filo was looking at
Motoyasu and . . . making a kicking motion. I’d ordered her to kick
him whenever she saw him a while back.
“Sorry, but I’m being
forced to take over the family business. I can’t run around with
you anymore.”
She remained emotionless
as she responded. It was clear she had absolutely no interest in accepting his offer.
Motoyasu seemed to realize
that and had no idea how to respond. I’m sure everything had
always gone his way up until now. But to be honest, I envied
him. I’d
been given the title of count and even had my own territory now, and yet here I
was cooking meals for the slaves every day. Frankly, I felt like I
was playing mommy to them. I’d even overheard the soldiers quietly referring to me as the Cooking
Hero, recently. The conversation had gone like this:
What the hell? Pot lid? I wasn’t going to forget
those soldiers. I’d work them to the bone while I had them helping with the
reconstruction. But whatever, that didn’t matter right now. I needed to focus on
Motoyasu.
“Listen, Mr. Moto . . . or rather, Spear Hero. I was already at my limit. I can’t stomach the
thought of running around with you anymore.”
“Sure, you had money and
you had fame. But that’s all in the past now. So what do you have to
offer?”
“You’re always hitting on
girls everywhere you go, and you don’t even understand us in the slightest. We’re basically a status
symbol to you.”
Motoyasu was growing pale. Ah, I bet he had never
been dumped before. Oh shit, I found myself starting to smile at his misfortune.
“You’re a has-been now. If you want me to hang out
with you, then go make something of yourself. Like the Shield Hero.”
Girl 1 dissed Motoyasu in
the classic style of the woman I hated. It was like she was
saying, “I’ve done absolutely nothing wrong. This is all your fault.” If this were a dating sim
or visual novel and she were the main character, this would be one of those
parts that really pissed me off. But for some reason, I
couldn’t help but be super excited when it was Motoyasu getting dumped on. That was what he got for
calling me a cheater all the time!
Raphtalia was getting mad
at me. If I
just stood here smiling any longer she might run off and leave me with Sadeena.
I didn’t want that.
“Yo. I just got back from
busting my ass in another world, sorting this whole Spirit Tortoise mess, and
here you are looking nice and rested. Nice of you to let me
handle all the hard work.”
Honestly, if even just
one of the other heroes had actually listened to me, we wouldn’t have ended up
in such a mess in the first place. How about taking a break
from chasing booty every now and then to actually do your job as a hero?
“Don’t try to make it
sound like I’m the bad one. I’ll side with whoever is
stronger. Always
have, always will.”
“What a shitty thing to say. If I were Motoyasu, I’d
forget about morals and laws and all of that and thrust my spear right through
your black heart.”
We’d come to persuade
Motoyasu, and yet here I was reprimanding Girl 1 and threatening her life. How did that happen?
What the hell? Did he not realize I was trying to stick up for him? It’d been a while since
I’d talked to this buffoon, but he was just as ridiculous as always. Did he really care about
women that much?
“Whatever. Why don’t you run off now and work on getting stronger, like the Shield
Hero? You
could learn a thing or two from the Shield Hero.”
I couldn’t tell if she
was actually more considerate than Bitch or not. Either way, she was a
little shit. Motoyasu seemed to realize that he was at a disadvantage and readied
his spear. Did
he really intend to fight in a crowded place like this?
“Clear your name? It’s not like I have any intention of killing you. On the contrary, not
having you participate in the waves would be more of a problem than anything. I’ve said this a million
times already, but my specialty is defense. I can’t attack worth a damn.”
All I was trying to say
was that he needed to learn how to properly power up his weapon and become
stronger, so that he wouldn’t cause any more trouble for me, Melromarc, or this
world. Other
than that, I could care less what he did with his time—as long as he helped out
with the waves, of course.
“You realize you said
something similar to me before, right? Now that the situation is
reversed, this is how you act? Or do you actually have a
good reason, like I did?”
Trying to talk it out was
getting us nowhere. I was just going to have to take him in by force. Would I be able to fight
him with my stats reduced to a third of what they usually were? I had Raphtalia and Filo
with me, though. I
was sure we’d be fine. He’d only used his own power-up methods, so he’d still be slightly
weaker than us, despite his higher level. He was alone as far as I
could tell, so we wouldn’t have any problems, as long as he didn’t manage to
escape.
The portal skills relied
on SP to function. Normally we’d thwart his escape by other means, but right now that
wasn’t an option. There were several ways to interfere with teleportation. Thinking back on the
times I couldn’t teleport, I knew that aside from just being near a guardian
beast, certain types of magic that affected the surrounding terrain could cause
interference.
I had initially planned
on setting a trap before Motoyasu arrived, so that we could interfere with his
teleportation skill before I even tried to persuade him. But the prey had arrived
before the trap was set. So we’d need to either knock him out clean in a single blow or sap his
SP.
Damn it! Motoyasu’s appearance started to waver and distort, and an instant
later he had disappeared.
Things had gone pretty
much exactly like I’d expected, but still . . . Catching a hero sure was a
pain in the neck.
“This should be a breeze
for anyone around level 60 or higher. That monster over there
drops super nice weapons and materials.”
That’s what Motoyasu told
Bitch and his other groupies while pointing at the Spirit Tortoise off in the
distance. Of
course, the beast was heading in their direction, so all of the locals were
running away in the opposite direction Motoyasu and his party were headed.
“Ha, ha, ha! Commoners! You need not run! For I, the Spear Hero,
shall make quick work of the Spirit Tortoise!”
“Sorry for showing up unannounced,
but there just happens to be a little world event here that I plan to clear. I’ll show you all just how
much stronger I am than the Shield Hero!”
And then the fool took
off running toward the Spirit Tortoise, like Don Quixote charging at windmills.
Torn between
wanting to believe in Motoyasu and wanting to ensure their own safety, the
people looked back over their shoulders from time to time as they continued to
run about haphazardly, trying to escape.
Elena and the others took
off toward the Spirit Tortoise along with Motoyasu. Everything went downhill
from there. The Spirit Tortoise summoned its familiars and began to harvest the
lives of any and every living thing in its vicinity. Motoyasu, Elena, and the
rest of the party fought the familiars off as they continued running. Before long, they arrived
at the foot of the Spirit Tortoise.
Motoyasu launched straight
into his finishing move, but . . . it simply made the Spirit
Tortoise screech and left nothing more than a scratch on its face. On top of that, the
scratch regenerated and healed instantly.
The Spirit Tortoise
familiars began to crowd around Motoyasu. He fought the familiars
off but showed absolutely no sign of being able to defeat the Spirit Tortoise.
Bitch, Elena, and Girl 2
started whispering to each other. The last straw was when
the Spirit Tortoise just ignored Motoyasu and continued walking. In other words, he wasn’t
a threat. He was nothing.
When I’d fought the
Spirit Tortoise . . . it’d been firing off
finishing moves and casting gravity-altering magic like crazy. With Motoyasu, it must
have just figured that the familiars would be able to take care of him on their
own. Of
course, going up against the Spirit Tortoise was kind of like telling someone
to defeat a man with a toothpick. Even with the help of
Raphtalia, Filo, Eclair, and the old lady, it’s a miracle we were able to
damage it as much as we did. And even when we did
manage to defeat it on the outside, it just regenerated. Kyo wasn’t wrong when he
said it was our loss.
“A .
. . alright! Everyone! I’m going to take this
thing down, so back me up with your magic! Here I go!”
Motoyasu let out a battle
cry and went charging at the Spirit Tortoise, but Elena turned her back on him
and ran without hesitation. She had been completely focused on escaping and ended up getting
separated from Bitch and Girl 2. Later, after she had
gotten clear of the Spirit Tortoise and waited for all of the commotion to die
down, she returned home.
Elena’s mother was just
glad that her daughter was alive. She told her that the
life of an adventurer was just too dangerous and demanded that she carry on the
family business instead. She said that they could talk it over when her father came home, but
for the time being all that mattered was keeping her daughter alive. If they had gone to the
authorities, there was always the chance that she could be charged with a
serious offense and end up being executed. And so they eventually
came up with the plan to use her father’s connections to work out some kind of
plea bargain that would involve luring Motoyasu out if he tried to get in
contact with her.
“Oh yeah. So that was you guys that downed it, huh? That’s pretty amazing. I really messed up. I never imagined you’d
drag yourself out of the mud and actually make something of yourself . . . I sure picked the wrong
hero to suck up to.”
Elena let out a deep sigh. Honestly, the level of
bitchiness she was displaying made me want to punch her in the face, but there
was something strangely refreshing about it, too.
“But whatever. Mr. Motoyasu did give me a
bunch of gifts and leveled me up, so I guess it’s fine. Now I just have to put up
with helping out with the family business.”
“You’re not a very
enthusiastic person, are you? You seemed a lot more
excitable when we met before,” said Raphtalia.
“Oh, that’s right. We got into an argument at the castle before going to the Cal Mira
islands, didn’t we? That was a real hassle, to be honest.”
So it was just an act? I couldn’t even imagine
putting up with pretending to agree with Bitch all the time. Having to kiss the ass of
a bitch like that would give me a stomach ulcer.
Capturing Motoyasu was a
real hassle and Bitch was nowhere to be found. Elena had cooperated with
the queen and us in luring out Motoyasu, so I guess it wouldn’t be right to
punish her now. Then again, it wouldn’t have been hard for her to get off the hook
anyway. She
could just say, “We were just doing what the hero told us to! We didn’t know any better!” Well, I guess we could
still punish her even if she said that, but the queen probably wouldn’t go that
far.
Motoyasu was the real
problem. To
put it in game terms, it’d be tough to capture him without inflicting some kind
of silence-type status effect on him, to keep him from casting anything. Plus, we’d have to keep
it active nonstop or he’d run the moment it wore off. I couldn’t persuade the
bastard if he wasn’t willing to listen. Was there no way to stop
him from teleporting? The Scroll of Return skill in Kizuna’s world could be disabled using
the dragon hourglasses, but that wouldn’t work with our portal skills here.
Motoyasu didn’t want to
listen. If
we didn’t set a trap and ensure that he couldn’t escape before trying to talk
with him, there was no doubt that he would run. We would be screwed if he
ended up getting himself killed somewhere out there.
“No problem. Oh, by the way, I heard you started doing a lot of buying and selling. That’s the rumor.”
“I might be interested,
depending on what you’ve got. You know, you sure don’t
seem to want to do much of anything.”
I had to wonder just what
Motoyasu had seen in this woman. The same went for Bitch,
of course. I
couldn’t understand that guy.
Well that came out of
nowhere. It
was like Filo hadn’t even noticed Elena or anything that happened. She must have been bored.
Elena let out another deep
sigh and then sat back down behind the counter with her chin in her hands, like
she had nothing to do. What
a lazy bum.
We were making our way
back to the village after failing to talk some sense into Motoyasu. I had Filo pulling her
carriage since I’d figured we might as well sell some stuff while we were on
the road. But
when we came to the next town, someone was causing a commotion in front of the
town’s vigilante corps guard station. I was about to ignore it
and keep going, but . . .
I heard a familiar voice,
so I stopped the carriage and went to have a look. I couldn’t see what was
going on because of the crowd that had gathered, so I asked someone standing
nearby.
I’d been recognized. Of course, there was a huge carriage behind me with Filo pulling it, after all. The crowd parted in front
of me and I saw who had been causing the commotion. The bandits were standing
there grinning while Ren was arguing with some members of the vigilante corps. I had a pretty good idea
of what had happened. These bandits had tried to pull the same stunt when I captured them
before. I
figured I should probably step in, so I made my way toward Ren through the
opening in the crowd.
Ren beckoned me over like
he was glad to see me. I’d actually been talking to the bandits and not Ren, but . . . whatever. Running into Ren had been
lucky for us, too. I couldn’t let him escape like Motoyasu had. I needed to be careful
not to get him excited.
The bandits went pale the
moment they saw me. Of course, I’d run into them twice already. This made three times. They couldn’t pretend like
they didn’t know who I was. Besides, now I had enough
authority to force the vigilante corps to take them in if I felt like it.
“You guys never learn, do
you? Did
you really think you could get off playing the victim just because your captor
is a has-been?”
This could be a good
little experiment. While it was true that I’d instigated Filo at the time, it was these
idiots that had been the original source of her little human-eating act.
I ignored her. Filo had been pulling her carriage, so she was currently in her
filolial queen form. She looked plenty intimidating, although she didn’t seem to realize
that herself. Filo took one menacing step forward and the bandits all clung to the
vigilante corps members.
They had confessed quickly! Was Filo really that scary? Now I just needed to get
them to give up their hideout and go collect the stolen goods. These idiots always
bounced back surprisingly fast. I guess it was because
they weren’t actually that weak. And they were really good
at building up their stash. Maybe I should let them go this time, too, and cash in again later. Nah, that probably wasn’t
going to work this time.
“We’re bandits! We’ll tell you anything you want to know! We’ll give all the money
back! Just
don’t let the bird eat us!”
“Really? I knew it! I
heard people from several villages mention seeing the bird god having fun
playing with the village children.”
Filo should have been happy. Apparently people didn’t
really believe that she was the filolial embodiment of hunger itself. It would be up to her now
whether people treated her as a monster or a person in the future.
“So there you have it. Those guys tried to do the
same thing and frame me back when I had a bad reputation. Make sure you tie them up
nice and tight.”
Ren had his own portal
skill, so we had to be careful or he’d just flee like Motoyasu had. If he was going to run,
at least I could try my best to talk some sense into him first.
I gave the map to Filo
and Raphtalia and sent them on their mission. I told the vigilante corps
that the rest of the bandits would be arriving soon and asked them to give the
bounty to Raphtalia.
I couldn’t have agreed more. Just because you do the
right thing doesn’t mean that the bad guys will get the punishment they
deserve.
“Hold up, it’s not like
I’m here to capture you or anything. I just want to talk. I’m no threat to you
alone, right?”
Part of the reason I’d
sent Raphtalia and Filo away was to show Ren that I had no intention of
fighting. I
figured it was the only way to get him to loosen his guard.
Ren replied sulkily. I’d say he had it pretty
good if that’s all he had to deal with. I’d been cursed and
called a demon for reasons I didn’t even understand. It was mostly because of
Trash, Bitch, and the Church of the Three Heroes, of course.
I sure hoped I could get
through to him. Why did these idiots always seem to show up when we were unprepared?
I took Ren to the tavern. We sat at the bar and
ordered some drinks. Hmm? The barkeep handed me a
rucolu fruit along with the drinks and looked at me with a twinkle of
anticipation in his eye. Oh,
whatever. I tossed
it in my mouth.
I guess eating a rucolu
fruit had become the gold standard for proving my identity. I wasn’t really sure how
to feel about that. Sadeena got oddly excited whenever she saw me eat one.
I decided to start the
conversation with something neutral that wouldn’t upset Ren. The guy was a lone wolf who
had been pushed into a corner, so it was hard to know how he’d react. And actually, revenge was
all I thought about before I had Raphtalia and Filo with me, too.
“Yeah.
The guild is
constantly harping on me to return to Melromarc. So I go clear out monsters
or hunt bounties on my own, and then someone takes a cut of my reward money. Then, to top it all off,
something like this happens!”
The self-professed
imperturbable Ren was visibly angry as he aired his complaints. Of course, it’s not like
I couldn’t understand how he felt. I’d experienced the same
thing.
“So I’ve been selling
monster drops and whatever else, basically living hand to mouth. I’ve had enough. Everyone is treating me
completely different than before. Why should I have to
protect this world?”
I wanted to roll my eyes. All he was worried about
was being praised. He was still treating this all like a game, as usual.
“That’s just the way
people are. I had it at least that bad, if not worse, when I was still the Shield
Demon to them.”
I mentioned my own
experience and pretended like I sympathized with him. That must have earned me
a bit of trust, because he nodded.
It was tempting to let
him experience a little bit more of what I’d gone through, but if he lost all
hope and ended up dying on us, that’d just be more trouble for me. But what a little weakling. Everything about him was
just weak.
I tried to think of
something to talk to Ren about, but nothing came to mind, honestly. I mean, I could have told
him to get serious about the waves or asked him what happened with the Spirit
Tortoise, but I didn’t want to get him worked up.
Ren and I sat there in
silence. With
the state he was currently in, Ren would only think I was boasting if I tried
making small talk, like mentioning what I’d been up to lately. I didn’t have any other
ideas, so I decided to bring up what happened with Motoyasu, who was in a
similar situation. Then I could appeal to how Ren surely wouldn’t want to be so
childish.
“I ran into Motoyasu a
few hours ago. I tried to explain that neither I nor Melromarc was interested in
punishing him or anything like that, but he just ran away. He showed basically no
interest in listening to me, or even to one of his party members that
survived.”
Had Ren’s party members
been killed? I seemed to remember Kyo saying something like that, but . . . maybe they had survived. I know Kyo said they had
charged at the Spirit Tortoise like a pack of wild boars.
Apparently in the game
that Ren was familiar with, the whole surrounding region ended up damaged
beyond repair by the Spirit Tortoise. It was so bad that the
country established an inquiry commission to look into the incident. I had to resist the urge
to insert a jab about how they’d made it even worse in real life. Ren explained that level
60-ish was appropriate for the encounter, and that defeating the boss—the
Spirit Tortoise—at level 80 should have been a breeze.
Motoyasu had said pretty
much the same thing. They wanted to get the jump on me by getting their hands on the
powerful Spirit Tortoise weapons. I couldn’t deny that the
weapons were ridiculously strong. But when you took into
account our basic stats and abilities, even with those weapons the other heroes
still wouldn’t have even come close to the level of strength I’d reached at the
Cal Mira islands.
Ren shouted back
confidently as they continued running toward the Spirit Tortoise, drawing
closer and closer. While running, Ren noticed someone firing off skills near the beast, but
assumed it was simply adventurers fighting and paid no attention. Ren leapt at the Spirit
Tortoise and swung his blade, smug in his conviction that no hero other than
himself—much less an ordinary adventurer—would be able to defeat the beast.
But . .
. the skills
failed to inflict any significant damage on the Spirit Tortoise. This part of Ren’s story was basically
the same as Motoyasu’s, so I’ll leave out the details. Confused, Ren swung his sword again. He wasn’t going to give up. He was going to defeat the Spirit
Tortoise and save the people. And
so he continued to fight, his impassioned battle cries ringing out through the
air.
Before he realized it,
Ren was surrounded by . . . the corpses of his party
members. And not just that
. . . The
corpses were so badly mangled that it would have been near impossible to
determine their identities. Still, what did remain of
them was just enough for Ren to realize that his companions had all died.
Overcome with disbelief,
Ren’s mind went blank. He just stood there in a stupor for a while. He found himself grasping
at the vague possibility they might be revived like in a game. But even Ren understood
that wasn’t going to happen.
As he stood there in
utter despair, something or someone took him by surprise and knocked him out
cold. It
was probably a Spirit Tortoise familiar controlled by Kyo. When Ren finally woke up,
he found himself in a bed at the hospital.
“I lost because my party
members were weak. And they died because they were weak . . . If we’d coordinated better,
we would have won.”
Ren whispered in a
matter-of-fact tone, as if to say none of it had been his fault. He was . . . beyond
saving. His
companions had trusted him and fought until the bitter end. They must have been
turning in their graves.
“It’s not my fault. It’s because they were
weaker than I expected. It’s
not my fault. It’s not
my fault!”
He knew what he had done,
and he was trying to run away from the reality of it. There was no need for me
to show sympathy here. But I had to make sure he didn’t get worked up or he might end up
running away.
I forced out an insincere
response. To
be honest, it was obvious that Ren’s negligence was to blame. He’d charged at the beast
based solely on his knowledge of a game, and now he was trying to run away from
his guilt by rationalizing the death of his companions.
It made me wonder . . . How strong had Raphtalia
and Filo been back when all of this was happening? At the very least, they’d
held their own against the Spirit Tortoise. I wanted to believe that
there’s no way they would have ended up dead. They’d had at least that
much strength hidden within. Even Rishia could have
survived the encounter if she played her cards right. I wanted to tell Ren to
try reflecting on his own actions before blaming everyone else. But I restrained myself.
“Ren.
Now is your
chance to use what I told you guys and get even stronger. Then you can find new
companions to help you fight the waves. We have two months and
three weeks before the seal is broken on the Phoenix.”
There was still time. If Ren used what I had
told them and made an effort, he should be able to bounce back by then. To be frank, I wanted to
just completely denounce Ren. But it wouldn’t have been
any good for me or this world if he ended up dead.
If the holy heroes didn’t
cooperate with each other, this world was going to be destroyed by the waves,
or the Phoenix. Of course, if what Ost had said was true, it was also possible to bring
peace to this world by sacrificing its inhabitants. Still, there was no
guarantee that something wouldn’t go wrong like it had with the Spirit
Tortoise.
“If you want to keep a
low profile, you could always come stay at the village I’m overseeing. You know Raphtalia, right? It’s the village she’s from. It’s where the first wave
happened, so we’re working on rebuilding it now. You can borrow some of my
companions to group with for the time being if you want. As long as you treat them
well, of course.”
Ren responded to my
suggestion favorably. Things were going in a good direction. I’d reel him in with kind
words, and then once I’d tamed him, I’d hammer the power-up methods into his
dense head. If I could do that, I wouldn’t have to worry so much about him dying
anymore. Then
he could feel free to leave the village anytime. What Ren needed right now
was a way to become truly strong. If I told him some of the
things that only we knew, I was sure it would broaden his horizons, too.
Taking Ren right now
would be dangerous. But depending on how I replied, he might start to suspect something. Ren seemed to have a
sharp intuition, so if I didn’t word my response carefully, then our whole talk
might end up being for nothing.
“Oh, nothing. I was just thinking we should probably wait for Raphtalia and Filo to
get back before heading back to the village. But I remembered I left
something important in the carriage. I’m going to run and get
it real quick.”
I had some smoked meat in
the carriage that I’d been saving for a special occasion. Filo had gone on about
wanting to eat it, and she was picky about flavor. I was sure Ren would like
it, too, if he gave it a try.
Ren gave a dispirited nod
from his seat at the counter. I stood up and exited the
tavern before rushing off in pursuit of the figure I’d just caught a glimpse
of.
I started the tail solo. It would have been nice if
Raphtalia were there, but I’d sent her to hunt bandits. I’d just have to make do. I would have liked to have
Raph-chan with me at the very least, though . . . Now I wished I’d brought
her along.
My mark was apparently
tailing someone, too. Or more accurately, he seemed to be waiting for the right time to
approach the person. We were walking through an area with hardly any other people around. Just how far did he plan
on going?
Damn it . . . Without Raphtalia around, I had to stay hidden in the shadows of the
buildings. It
was super annoying, but if I tried just talking to him, he was sure to run. If it turned out he was
staying somewhere nearby, it would be best to wait for Raphtalia to get back
and then come up with some kind of plan to ambush and capture him.
I guess my mark still
hadn’t noticed me following him, because he was still looking straight ahead
and walking around nervously. What in the world was he
so worried about? I followed his line of sight to see what he was looking at when the
idiot came to a sudden standstill. When I saw what he’d
seen, I found myself dumbstruck as well.
It was Bitch and Girl 2 . . . and for whatever reason,
they were in the tavern talking to Ren. What were they talking about?
I decided
to ignore the idiot, a.k.a. Motoyasu, and approached Bitch. That is to say, I
intended to capture her. I couldn’t capture Motoyasu since he would just use his portal skill to
flee, but things were different with Bitch. What was that bitch
whispering to Ren in the first place?!
“The Spear isn’t worthy
of being called a hero. From the very first time I met you, I was certain that you would be the
hero that saved the world, Mr. Ren.”
The shit that came out of
her mouth was unbelievable. I wanted to leap over there and smash my fist right into her face. I ignored Motoyasu and
proceeded over to the tavern.
“Plus
. . . the
Spear tried to force us to do things with him just like the Shield did to me. I wanted to refuse, but I
couldn’t. Now
that I’m finally free, I’ve been searching for you, Mr. Ren.”
What an utterly ridiculous
line. And
to think she would try to regurgitate it this late in the game. Had she forgotten just how
many months she’d spent running around with Motoyasu? I found myself looking
over at Motoyasu, who was so flabbergasted that he hadn’t even noticed I was
standing next to him.
Even Ren wasn’t thick
enough to take the bait without suspicion. Bitch had put on a real
show, after all.
“You don’t know how
mother really is. That woman used to be known as the fox of Melromarc. She set things up so that
she could benefit from humiliating me. So that she could gain
the trust of the fiendish Shield. And now the Spear has
fallen for her deception as well.”
“And I know who was
controlling the Spirit Tortoise from the shadows. The Spirit Tortoise that
killed your companions. It’s the same person that has snatched up the trust of the people of
this world with his vile tactics. That’s right, it’s the
Shield Demon!”
What the hell was this
bitch saying? So everything was my fault now? She hadn’t changed one
single bit. I was going to have her executed for sure this time.
Hey! Don’t tell me he actually
believed her! Her whole spiel was riddled with holes! And then finally, Bitch
embraced Ren and began to run her hand through his hair.
“Mr.
Ren . . . I’m sure you’ve felt just
terrible this whole time after losing your companions. It’s okay to cry now. Don’t worry. Even if the whole world
insists you’re a criminal, I still believe in you, Mr. Ren. I believe you were
fighting for the sake of the world.”
Bitch sure knew how to
take advantage of someone in a weakened state. Wait a second . . . Was she stealing
Raphtalia’s line? Oh, hell no! She was tainting a
precious memory that belonged to me and Raphtalia! That was unforgivable! I was about to scream at
Bitch, but just a split second before the words came out of my mouth . . .
Motoyasu yelled as he
dashed toward them. His eyes were filled with anger and resentment. Could this have been an
elaborate ploy to satisfy a cuckolding fetish? No, no, no . . .
“That’s what I want to ask! What in the world
happened to you?! Why are you trying to win Ren over?! I’ve been searching for you!”
“When things started
looking bad, the Spear turned to us and demanded that we attract the Spirit
Tortoise’s attention to give him time to run away. He tried to use us as a
shield! But we
were scared, so we ran. And then he tried to chase us down, saying that desertion in the face
of the enemy was unforgivable.”
My head was starting to hurt.
Motoyasu’s
expression reminded me of something. Well, duh. It was the exact same expression that had been on my face back then!
It was just more of the
same from Bitch. She was trying to sink her fangs into a third hero now. Bitch had transcended the
realm of bitchiness. Henceforth she would be known as Witch. She was the bitchiest of
bitches, and on top of that she was as wicked as a witch.
Maybe I would just kill
her and say she struggled. It would be the perfect way to get Motoyasu on my side! It didn’t matter how weak
I was at the moment. I was sure I’d still be able to make quick work of Witch.
“Look, Mr. Ren! The Spear brought the
Shield Demon with him! They’re conspiring together to capture you, Mr. Ren!”
Yeah, I’d made up my mind. I couldn’t imagine doing
anything but killing her. But
damn it! If
only Raphtalia and Filo were here, I could choke the life out of that shitty
woman without relying on Motoyasu!
“So that was your plan,
Motoyasu? You’re
as bad as Naofumi, if not worse. Anyone willing to betray
the trust of another is a disgrace to humankind.”
“Exactly! You forced yourself on us every single night . . . threatening to kill daddy
if we didn’t comply! Continuing to call me ‘Whore’ is a testimonial to that fact!”
Witch raised her eyebrows. Her expression was
clearly an attempt to appear unperturbed despite being faced with someone she despised.
I knew
because that’s exactly what I was doing, too.
“Sorry, but I’ve decided
to kill you. Consider it punishment for trying to create discord among the heroes.”
She had gone this far. Surely even the queen
would recognize that execution was the only choice. She could have just gone
back to the castle without causing any more problems . . . Was causing discord among
the heroes the only thing this woman knew how to do?! Upon hearing my words,
Ren was the first to act.
Ren swung his sword. A clanging sound rang out
and sparks flew as the sword struck my arm. Screams echoed throughout
the tavern. A fight had just broken out between heroes, after all. The other patrons began
to scatter and run for their lives.
I had never told Ren a
single lie as far as I could remember. I wasn’t trying to say
that I was an honest person, but I’d pretty much never really tried to deceive
him.
Whoa, now! I wasn’t sure how strong Ren’s attacks were now, but Motoyasu was
standing behind me. I couldn’t have him getting killed by a stray bullet. I held my shield out and
stopped the attack. It looked like Motoyasu had readied himself to fight, too. This wasn’t how I’d hoped
things would go, but I guess there was no other choice.
“Ren, you’re better off
not trusting Witch. She’s exactly the kind of person the queen said she was.”
She was the kind of person
who could falsely accuse someone without a second thought and then enjoy
watching them suffer. I had no doubt that she would deceive Ren and toss him aside before
long, too. Just
like she had done with Motoyasu!
“Take a good look at
Motoyasu. Is
that not a pathetic face? Do you honestly believe that’s the face of someone who did the things
she’s accusing him of?”
“Stop
it! I heard
about how he’s being deceived by the queen! You and the queen are the
root of all of this evil, Naofumi!”
“Calm down. The Ren I know would understand if he stopped to think for just a
moment. Besides,
I believed in you, too.”
I refrained from saying
what I actually wanted to tell Ren. It may not have seemed
like it, but I was trying to compromise here.
Yeah . . . This
wasn’t going to work. He
seriously believed he was doing the right thing. It’s not that I had no idea how he felt.
In the very beginning, even if
something seemed strange, I just ignored it and kept telling myself to have
faith. And right now, Ren was
much more emotionally unstable than I was back then. Witch had told him what he wanted to
hear, so he wanted to believe her.
“It was you, after all! You caused all of this! The death of my
companions and my being persecuted now . . . It’s all your fault,
Naofumi!”
What
the . . . And then I
heard it. Pop! I literally heard myself
snap. It’s
just too bad that Raphtalia hadn’t been there. If she had, I might have
been able to retain some sense of composure.
“Oh, is that right? If that’s how you want to
play it, then let me tell you how it really is. Blaming it all on someone
else sure makes things easier, right? So your companions died, huh?
Well yeah,
that’s what you get for continuing to treat all of this like a game. Your attack on the Spirit
Tortoise was reckless. If you want to resent somebody, then resent yourself for murdering your
own companions.”
Ren shouted back at me
with a fierce look of anger on his face. I couldn’t take it anymore. I couldn’t bring myself to
have any compassion for a fool that only believed what was convenient for
himself, especially when it was this outrageous.
“What?
It’s not your fault? Your companions genuinely
trusted you and followed you to their deaths, and that’s all you can say? You not only fail as a hero. You fail as a human being.”
At least he could have
tried to make it sound good by saying it had been for the sake of his
companions or something. But no, all he could say was that it wasn’t his fault. This bastard . . . I bet selfishly bossing
around lower-ranking players was the only way he knew how to play a game, just
like I’d imagined. He’d gone on a suicide mission and challenged a boss that was too
strong for him, and when all of his companions ended up getting wiped out he
blamed it on them being too weak. Just like I thought, it’d
all been nothing but a game to him.
“This is not a game world
that we’re living in. Continuing to think like that is only going to cause more problems.”
“Regardless of how much
you or I may regret it, we’re stuck here until the waves have ended. It’s true that the people
of this world basically kidnapped us with their selfish hero-summoning
ceremony, and yeah, maybe we’re not to blame for that. But whining about it
isn’t going to change the fact that we have to fight if we want to survive.”
“You once said to me,
‘Things don’t go your way, so you decide to turn tail and run away? How weak.’ So let me ask you, are
you going to fall to the level of ‘weak’?”
He’d gotten what he deserved.
Could he
not have figured out if things were too dangerous before his companions ended
up dead? Even
I made a point of testing the waters to make sure we had a fighting chance
before proceeding into battle, but this idiot based all of his judgments on his
knowledge of some game. He was the type who went around attempting encounters based on what
others had learned and posted online rather than trying to figure anything out
on his own. It
was cowardice, in a way. I doubt he’d ever actually discovered anything on his own.
Witch must have sensed my
murderous intent, because she let out a small scream. Even so, I could tell she
was still about to try to say something.
A cage of shields
appeared and trapped Witch instantly. Good.
Now all I
had to do was switch to the Shield of Wrath and slaughter her with Iron Maiden.
But in a
brief moment of sound judgment, I stopped myself. Would things really be
okay if I used the Shield of Wrath right now? Without Raphtalia or Filo
here? I’d
be in a real mess if I ended up being consumed by anger and incinerating Ren
with dark curse burning S.
These idiots were so
annoying. It
was always “release me, release me!” with them. If they wanted to be released so bad, I’d be happy to just release them
from this life.
“Besides, weren’t you the
one that told me my actions were unforgivable once? If you refuse to admit it,
then I’ll be the one to say it. What you did was
unforgivable. You’re a bona fide murderer in every sense of the word.”
Ren was shaking violently
as if he had finally begun to blame himself. It reminded me of the
time I’d told him about how he’d driven a bunch of people to their death in the
village with the epidemic. He’d admitted that what he’d done was wrong and immediately tried to
head back to the village. Deep down inside, he knew it was his fault. But he couldn’t admit it. Or rather, he couldn’t
allow himself to admit it, I suppose. But the truth was, he knew.
“I know it wasn’t on purpose.
Regardless,
you’re still alive. And it’s exactly because you’re still alive that there are other things
you need to be doing, right?”
“I’ll say it as many
times as you need to hear it. The truth is you already
understand, right? You already know what you need to be doing right now. And I can say for a fact
that believing that shitty woman is not it.”
Ren drew his sword back
and swung it down hard. I parried the attack with my shield, and it made a light clanking
sound. Hmm?
Ren followed through and
swung his sword at my face. I . . . didn’t even attempt to dodge.
I heard a
metallic clanging sound come from near my ear and Ren grinned. But then immediately
after, his eyes grew wide with disbelief.
“That sword that you’re
using now seems to be made from the Spirit Tortoise materials you wanted so
badly, but . . . don’t
you think it’s a bit weak?”
That’s right. I’d withstood Ren’s attack without even needing to lift a finger. Of course, my shield had
been fully powered up, but even so, he was just too weak. If it had been Raphtalia
that just attacked me, I’m certain I would have sustained some kind of injury. That was true even
despite the fact that powering up vassal weapons was less effective than
powering up legendary weapons, and even with her stats currently being
one-third of their usual values due to the effects of a curse.
Damn it . . . Shield Prison had worn
off while we were going back and forth. I had to make my next
move before Ren could use his portal skill. Normally I would have
used Raphtalia or Filo, but right now there was only one person here I could
rely on.
How many times had he
called me a cheater now? I was pretty sure it was him that actually wanted to cheat. I was tempted to use that
as a comeback, but this wasn’t really the time for that.
The air was filled with
clanging sounds as Ren struck me with his sword repeatedly, but not a single
one of his attacks left a mark. He bellowed out a long,
drawn-out battle cry. He’d gone completely mad at this point. The Ren I knew would have
been able to analyze the situation more calmly. Damn it . . . All he could do was keep
calling me a cheater. The situation he was in now was so bad that thinking rationally was
probably no longer even possible for him.
I’d just ignore Ren for now. We needed to hurry up and
kill Witch. It
was obvious she was up to no good again.
Motoyasu finally seemed
to understand. He readied his spear and began to approach them. Just like Ren, he
appeared to be in a pretty serious state of confusion. Regardless, he seemed
willing to follow orders, so I’d have him kill Witch.
Witch called out loudly to
Ren, and he snapped back to himself. Maybe it was because he
realized that if he didn’t do something Witch was about to die. Damn it! If only he had just gone
on attacking me endlessly . . .
He must have finally
realized they were at a disadvantage, because Ren nodded at Witch and shot off
a skill. His
sword flashed, blinding me momentarily.
I was seeing stars. I reached out to try to
grab Witch to keep her from getting away, but it was already too late. Ren grabbed Witch and
Girl 2 and raised his sword up high into the air.
“Witch, it looks like
you’ve managed to get away this time, but mark my words, I will chase you to
the fiery depths of hell. You fear for your life and wait for me, damn you.”
Witch snorted at me
before disappearing completely. These portal skills sure
were a pain in the neck. I turned and looked at the other remaining hero, Motoyasu. He was sighing with his
head hung low, as if he had lost every last ounce of motivation. He looked like the
empty shell of a man.
“I don’t care anymore . . . I believed in my companions and spent all this time searching for them,
and this is how it turns out . . . The people in the towns
and villages treat me coldly. I’m
exhausted.”
His eyes were blurry. They were the eyes of
someone who had lost every last shred of hope. I was worried that he
might be consumed by a curse.
“First, I’m going to take
you back to the castle, Motoyasu. Then I want you to listen
to what I have to say, now that you’ve finally seen how things really are.”
Surely this had been
enough for Motoyasu to finally understand just how much of a bitch the woman he
had wanted to believe in was. Sharing a common enemy
would create solidarity between us, and then we could share our power-up
methods. It
worked out for both of us. Then, with our newly deepened bonds, we could go out together and kill
Witch.
“Everyone expects me to
come and save them like it’s their God-given right, but when I make one small
mistake they’re all suddenly casting stones . . . I believed in Whore and
Elena, but it turns out they’re actually nothing like I thought they were . . . I don’t care what happens
anymore . . .”
The sun was starting to set. I started to think maybe
we should just head back to the village, but I was still waiting on Raphtalia
and Filo.
“Come on, I already know
it wasn’t your fault . . . Why do you think I crossed over to another world?”
It was probably best not
to take him back to the village like this. The place was in a
constant state of commotion, and there was a good chance Motoyasu would get
worked up. Seeing
Atla and Sadeena hanging all over me would probably just make him feel even
more lonely and depressed. I guess there was no other choice . . . We’d just get a room at
an inn in this village for today and wait for Motoyasu to sort himself out
emotionally.
Filo poked the dispirited
Motoyasu with her finger. Sheesh, was he really this depressed just because he’d discovered the
true nature of a few women? Actually, he might have
just been completely worn out from everything he’d been through. I didn’t really care
either way and I was enjoying seeing the suffering on his face. I had a feeling Raphtalia
was giving me a bad look.
“Motoyasu is . . . in a fragile state right now. If he sees how successful
I’ve been and compares it to his own current state, he could end up attempting
suicide or something. That’s the last thing I need.”
“I’ll go back to the
village and let them know later. This is a good chance for
us to relax a bit, anyway.”
There were plenty of
problems waiting for us back at the village, after all. Like Atla and Sadeena,
for example. It wouldn’t hurt to take a night off and recuperate a bit.
Hi. I’m Designer of Blog Magic. I’m CEO/Founder of ThemeXpose. I’m Creative Art Director, Web Designer, UI/UX Designer, Interaction Designer, Industrial Designer, Web Developer, Business Enthusiast, StartUp Enthusiast, Speaker, Writer and Photographer. Inspired to make things looks better.
0 komentar:
Posting Komentar