The Rising of the Shield Hero Vol 06 Read online

  I kept wondering if there wasn’t a better way, if I’d made a mistake by stepping in. But there was no point in worrying about it. They wouldn't listen to anything I said anyway.

  “Fine. We just need to agree to those two conditions, right?”

  “Ha! Oh well. But this is the last time we help you!”

  “Yes, exactly. When those jobs are finished, we’ll be on our way.”

  Understanding that there was no clean way out of the fight they’d picked, the heroes put their weapons away.

  The queen must have been nervous. She relaxed, and the tension drained from her shoulders.

  “Very well then, I will distribute instructions for you all. Please go to the indicated countries. If you run into any trouble, don’t hesitate to contact me.”

  A shadow appeared at the queen’s side and handed a scroll to each of the heroes.

  “Also, please make sure to return to the castle at the end of each day.”

  “Want to make sure we don’t run away?”

  “Whatever.”

  “Oh well.”

  The three of them all nodded nonchalantly and left.

  “So? Do I need to do the same thing?”

  “Yes. I would very much appreciate your cooperation, Mr. Iwatani.”

  “Okay.”

  The shadow passed me a scroll. I opened it and began to read.

  It mentioned a village in the southwest. Was that where the bioplants had gotten out of control? The scroll indicated that the mysterious monsters had appeared there.

  There was no indication of a reward. I guess if the whole country was trying to solve the problem then they couldn’t guarantee one.

  “What about our training?”

  “Put it on hold for the time being. This matter must be addressed.”

  “Fine.”

  Honestly, Rishia had been improving a bit, but Raphtalia and I weren’t progressing very quickly.

  We’d only gained a rather vague understanding of our energy. At the very least, I had learned to feel a certain something down within the depths of my being.

  When I was very tired I tried drinking the life-force water and was able to sense a little of the warmth that Rishia had talked about.

  I’d learned to respond to the old lady’s defense rating attacks somewhat. Though the real fruits of the training still seemed far away and out of reach.

  “What about Eclair and the old lady?”

  “I would like them to accompany you.”

  “Right. Then I’m going to start preparing to leave.”

  I swear. Ever since we’d gotten back from Cal Mira it had just been trial after trial, and we’d ended up with little to show for it.

  I hoped we could finish this new mission without much trouble, but who knew what was waiting for us?

  Then the next wave would come and we might have to face Glass again.

  I wasn’t sure if we’d be able to count on the other heroes when that battle came, but whatever did end up happening, we had to put an end to all this.

  Anyway, before we left I decided to review what we’d gotten out of the training.

  Surprisingly, after the class up ceremony we discovered that Raphtalia was able to use magic aside from her illusion magic. In the last week she’d been learning new spells at an unbelievable rate. She was like a sponge soaking up water.

  But of course she wasn’t able to learn any of the more advanced magic, considering she’d only had two or three days to work on it.

  She’d said that, with the help of the royal wizards, she thought it wouldn’t be too long before she was able to master the Trifa class of spells.

  So there was that to look forward to.

  Filo had been taking Keel leveling during the day and then playing with Melty in the evenings. Melty said that she helped Filo to study.

  She’d said that Filo was surprisingly good at studying and that she might have a future as a scholar—totally ridiculous if you ask me.

  She participated in the energy training from time to time. The old lady said that Filo could naturally manipulate energy.

  She said that it was common for monsters to be able to do so.

  I asked her how she did it. She said that she “just kinda squeezed herself until it was all ready.” Not even Melty could figure out what she was talking about.

  Thanks to the life-force water, Rishia had apparently learned to identify the energy inside of her. Or so she said.

  She had made the most dramatic progress out of any of us that week.

  Her slow, deliberate movements had become smoother and more immediate.

  However, perhaps because of that hesitant, unsure personality of hers, she said she didn’t feel like she really understood how to control it.

  Keel had been leveling quickly, and as you might expect, he had grown quite a bit in that time. Having said that, it would be a while until he grew to Raphtalia’s level.

  He was at level 34. But he didn’t know how to handle himself in battle, so I had him training with Eclair.

  “Almost ready to leave?”

  “Wait!”

  We’d finished preparing the carriage for departure. I was waiting for Raphtalia and Filo to arrive.

  We were looking for mysterious monsters. I had no idea what that could mean, or what to expect.

  “Excuse me, sir.”

  “Huh?”

  Someone called to me. I turned to see who it was.

  Someone was standing there in deep, heavy robes. They looked to be a little shorter than I.

  “You . . . you possess the shield of the holy weapons, do you not?”

  The person pulled back their hood and I saw her face. I had grown accustomed to pretty girls like Raphtalia and Rishia, but this woman was one of the most beautiful people I’d ever seen. It was the sort of face you couldn’t look away from.

  It was almost bewitching, in the way Bitch and the queen could be.

  I wondered how old she was. Maybe she was in her mid-20s, maybe a little younger.

  The queen looked much younger than she really was, so it was hard for me to judge the true age of people.

  Even Rishia looked like she was in middle school, though apparently she was actually 17.

  Her hair was brown, although it was a lighter shade of brown than Raphtalia’s.

  She wore it up in a Chinese-style chignon.

  Her breasts were very large—large enough that you could see the shape of her body through the heavy robes she wore.

  I could see her hands. It was clear that her skin was tight and smooth. I assumed that she had long legs.

  She had long, sharp eyes that lent a very eastern look to her. I’ll just go ahead and say it: she had a fox-like air about her.

  That kind of woman wasn’t really my type. I sort of assumed they were out to use you, like Bitch.

  “I don’t know how holy it is, but I am the Shield Hero. What do you want?”

  I had to think of something to say. I’d been standing there silently.

  If she started sauntering over to me suggestively, I’d have to cut this short and get some distance.

  But she didn’t do that. She acted as though she didn’t understand how beautiful she was when she, without being seductive at all, humbly clasped my hand and bowed to me. She seemed to be in trouble.

  “Please, I beg you. You must destroy me.”

  “What?”

  She hadn’t explained herself, and I had no idea what she was talking about.

  And besides, I was the Shield Hero. If I couldn’t attack, how did she expect me to destroy her? All my forms of attack put me at risk.

  “As I am now, I cannot complete my task. So . . . So I beg one who possesses a holy weapon to help me!”

  As she was talking, the jewel in the center of my shield suddenly flashed.

  What? What was going on?

  “What do you ...”

  What was she getting at? I couldn’t understand what she was trying to say.
/>   But if the shield was responding to her, then I had to assume that there was something to what she was saying.

  “I . . . I’m up there. Please stop me.”

  She pointed to the sky.

  “If I don’t know what you are talking about, how am I supposed to help you?”

  “Mr. Naofumi!”

  “Sorry we took so long!”

  I turned to see Raphtalia and the others coming my way. I waved to them.

  “You’re so slow!”

  “Please. If you don’t, there will be much unnecessary death. I...”

  “You have to tell me what’s going on or I can’t help you—” I said, turning. But then I caught my breath.

  The woman had vanished.

  Had she run away because Raphtalia and the others had shown up?

  That couldn’t be, there hadn’t been enough time. It was like she had teleported or something.

  “Did you guys see that woman just now?”

  “Huh?”

  “Filo, you saw her, right?”

  “Um... ?”

  “Rishia?”

  “No?”

  They all looked at each other, confused.

  Filo tottered over and sniffed the ground all around me.

  “Um...”

  What had just happened?

  Whatever. I don’t know what kind of magic she had used, but we didn’t have enough time to entertain everyone that stopped by.

  She was probably a monster, or a ghost, or something creepy like that.

  There were undead type monsters in this world. Maybe she had just been one of those out in midday, trying to scare me.

  I filed the mysterious woman that asked me to destroy her away in the back of my mind for the time being. There were more important things that needed my attention.

  “Alright then, let’s get going.”

  And so we were on the road again to search for the mysterious monsters.

  Chapter Ten: Kigurumi

  Before we set to work on what we’d been tasked with, I decided to stop by the weapon shop to see what sort of progress the old guy was making.

  I asked Eclair and the old lady to wait for me in the carriage. The old lady’s son kept watch outside.

  “Oh hey, kid.”

  “How are things looking?”

  “Good, good. You know your bird friend came over to play the other day with a friend of hers.”

  That must have been Melty.

  She was the princess! And she was first in line for the throne, considering how unfit to rule Bitch was.

  Besides, if he’d ever seen the wanted posters they’d put up about us, he should have recognized the girl.

  I was surprised that, after all she’d been through, Melty would sneak out playing with Filo. She must have been feeling a lot better.

  “That’s great. I don’t care about it though.”

  “I know, I know. But it has to do with why you came. Look.”

  He vanished into the back room before reappearing with weapons.

  The first was Raphtalia’s sword.

  It looked a lot like the Karma Rabbit Sword. Except, while that sword had been all black, the blade of this one was white.

  “That thing had some fierce power in it, didn’t it? I used the black rabbit materials you brought me to level this thing up, but it ended up turning white.”

  “Huh...”

  “And I went ahead and applied a blood clean ‘rinse’ to it as well. It’s not quite as good as the ‘coating,’ but it will definitely help keep the blade in good condition.”

  A blood clean rinse? I guess that was a weaker version of the coating.

  “It feels better than it used to, Mr. Naofumi.”

  “It’s sharper too. And there are better equip effects. I have to say, I think this job went pretty well.”

  “I’m very impressed, sir.”

  “I did most of the same stuff to the little bird-lass’s claws, and those came out well too. Are these from a black dog?”

  “Yeeeeah!”

  Filo’s claws had turned white, just like Raphtalia’s sword.

  I wonder what it meant? Had the curse been broken? I slowly regarded the two new weapons.

  Usauni Sword: quality: high: imbued effects: agility up, magic up, swordsmanship up, blood clean rinse

  Inult Claw: quality: high: imbued effects: agility up, magic up, claw skill up, blood clean rinse

  The negative effects had been removed, leaving the weapons with only good effects. That looked pretty impressive to me.

  In games, I remember always having a pretty hard time removing negative equip effects from equipment.

  If this world was anything like the games I’d played, then these weapons must have been a lot of work.

  I’d run into the issue when working on accessories in the past. Whenever I finished a piece and found that it had a negative equip effect, I was always upset that they seemed impossible to remove.

  “Nice job.”

  “No sweat.”

  If they were easier to use than they had been, then that was something to look forward to. And come to think of it, they had official names too, which was different from what we got when the old guy had worked on improving my barbarian armor.

  Usauni. Inult. Those were the names of the legendary monsters of Cal Mira.

  The Pekkul Kigurumi was in that category too, but I have to say that the boss monsters of the islands certainly dropped strange pieces of equipment.

  “Is that your sword?”

  Keel was looking at the sword in her hands when he asked.

  “Yes.”

  “Hey, who’s that? I’ve never seen you around these parts. You one of the kid’s new pals?”

  “Yeah. I’m Keel! I grew up with Raphtalia. Nice to meet ya!”

  “Sure is!”

  Keel and the old guy greeted one another warmly.

  “So what are you going to do about the new guy’s weapon?”

  “I don’t know yet. What do you think? He’s started to work on swordplay a little.”

  “This kid? Hm... I would think claws, or maybe jamadhars?”

  “Should we go with that?”

  “I can’t say for sure.”

  “Well, why don’t we come back to it later then. For now he can just stick with a sword.”

  “Sure.”

  “Listen kid, of course I’ll sell you whatever you want. But I have to say that the sword he’s already using is pretty damn good.”

  That’s right, we’d grabbed a sword for him out of the castle storeroom.

  It wasn’t anything very expensive, but it was probably perfect for him at his current level.

  “That’s what I like about you, old man: your honesty.”

  “I just thought it would be a shame to waste a good weapon on someone that can’t use it.”

  It was that kind of behavior—that honesty of his—that kept customers coming back to his shop.

  I might be biased because of how much we had worked together, but he certainly seemed more talented than the castle blacksmiths. I wouldn’t hesitate to say so.

  “The only thing I’m having trouble with is that kigurumi you left with me.”

  He sighed, sounding disappointed. Then he rummaged in the back room before reappearing with what used to be the Pekkul Kigurumi.

  “Hey now, why would you keep it as a kigurumi if you were going to improve it?”

  He was carrying something that looked like a kigurumi, but it was all white.

  “I was hoping to do something about it, too. But then when the bird girl and her friend came by the other night, I figured it all out. It was a lot of work, you know.”

  “I’ve got a bad feeling about this. Don’t you dare unfold that thing.”

  “What is it?”

  “Rishia!”

  Rishia hadn’t heard me. She unfolded the kigurumi to reveal . . .

  “Hey, old man. What the hell were you thinking?”

  “I k
now, I know. But I couldn’t help it!”

  The old guy hid his face behind his hands.

  That’s right, the old Pekkul Kigurumi was now a filolial kigurumi.

  And no matter how you looked at it, it was obvious that it was based on Filo. It was shaped like Filo when she was in her filolial queen form.

  So I decided to call it the Filo Kigurumi.

  Filo Kigurumi: defense up, agility up (large), collision resistance (small), wind resistance (large), shadow resistance (small), HP recovery (weak), magic up (medium): automatic restoration ability, traction ability up, carrying capacity up, size adjustment, type change/type change unavailable when monster equipped

  The old guy and I both turned our eyes away from the kigurumi.

  “Wow! Is it Filo?”

  “It’s a perfect copy.”

  “It looks just like you, Filo!”

  “What a lovely kigurumi.”

  “Hey! I didn’t tell you to put that on!”

  Rishia had already started to change into it.

  “What do you think? Kweh Kweh!”

  Now there was a filolial queen version of Filo standing next to Filo in human form. Granted, the kigurumi was smaller than her actual filolial queen form.

  It was a depressing sight.

  I hesitated and then decided to look at Rishia’s stats.

  They were high! They were high because of the shield’s adjustment effect!

  They had risen to be one-third of Raphtalia’s stats! Before now, her stats were like Keel’s when he was in the single digit levels. I was amazed.

  To think that a piece of equipment could have such an effect, the type change must have made the monster maturation adjustment effect apply as well.

  Well, I couldn’t argue with the effects, so I guess she could wear it for the time being.

  “Yeah, it looks really stupid, but I guess it will have to do. Keel, you want one too?”

  “What?!”

  Keel looked at me. His eyes were filled with terror.

  We still had the Pekkul Kigurumi that Rishia wasn’t using.

  The effects were pretty good, so I was just thinking that it might work for Keel.

  “No way! I hate that thing!”

  “Heeeey!”