The Rising of the Shield Hero Vol 15 Read online

  “You sure about this?” I asked Fohl.

  “Yeah. It’s better than trying to leave her in the village and having her come after us anyway and get hurt,” he replied.

  “You think it’s that simple?” I asked. He’d certainly changed his tune.

  “Yes, it is. I just have to protect Atla. Nothing has changed,” Fohl stated.

  “Fair enough,” I concluded. Fohl had a clear soft spot for Atla. Still, the conditions might have been to win the fight, but seeing as it had been a draw, I guess leaving her behind would be difficult to enforce.

  There was quite a refreshed, happy look on Fohl’s face, which kind of annoyed me. But I decided to just ignore it. He didn’t say anything, but he was looking at me. There was something about him now that reminded me of how Atla felt around me.

  “Stop looking at me like that. It makes me uncomfortable,” I told him. Fohl stopped it right away, but from then on, I caught him looking at me in the same way often during conversation.

  It was a few more days later.

  Tomorrow would likely be the day that we set off for the region where the Phoenix was sealed away. Our core group would be Motoyasu, Ren, Itsuki, Rishia, Raphtalia, Filo, the filolials, Raph-chan, the Raph species, Fohl, Atla, Sadeena, Shildina, S’yne, Rat, Keel, and any others from the village slaves and monsters who wanted to come along.

  Imiya and the others focused mainly on making stuff would be staying behind.

  I couldn’t afford to force anyone to do this, and so I cautioned them no less than three times.

  “The waves aren’t playtime. Even I’m not confident I can protect you all. If you don’t think you can make it back alive, don’t come with us!” I declared. I just had to hope that they were hearing me.

  I really, really wanted to keep the damage down to the minimum—to overcome the wave with as little trouble as possible. All the slaves nodded their agreement, but I had to question if they really understood what they were getting themselves into.

  Chapter Ten: Home of the Phoenix

  The queen was joining us as the head of the coalition army. She seemed to have some idea of what had gone down in Siltvelt and Q’ten Lo. I was thankful for her reconnaissance abilities.

  The castle would be left in Melty’s care. The town would be handled by a skilled noble, a man who had looked after Keel in Melromarc. Eclair would be handling Melty’s protection. We couldn’t afford to take the nation’s entire fighting force with us, and she’d make an effective guard.

  She’d still looked upset at not being able to fight the wave. She was pretty strong, that much was true, so I could understand that feeling. Still, she’d shaken Raphtalia by the hand and entrusted us to her.

  The queen also had Trash along with her too, sitting in the wagon. He looked even older than the last time I saw him. He’d been like that since seeing Atla, apparently. He hated me, but having her—who was apparently the spitting image of his own sister—now placed under my command was probably keeping him in check. He still glared at me, but when Atla was by my side, that glare softened.

  With all that going on, we arrived at where the Phoenix was sealed.

  Motoyasu getting a portal for us meant the trip over was a smooth one. There was also a dragon hourglass at our destination, so Raphtalia was put to work using Return Dragon Vein to bring in some of the forces from places like Melromarc and Siltvelt.

  “So this is where the Phoenix is sealed,” I said to no one in particular. The country we had arrived in was, well, barely large enough to be called a country, a real tiny backwater. There were people in the castle town dressed in what looked like Chinese clothing. It was a China-like nation but with differing tastes from Siltvelt. Exactly how it was different I couldn’t really express well in words.

  It was like a regional thing, looking the same at a glance but having subtle differences. In terms of Japanese history, it was like the difference between the Muromachi and Edo periods.

  “First let’s head to the castle,” said the queen, walking ahead and leading the way through the castle town. She didn’t really seem to know the way, so I wasn’t sure she had to go to the trouble of guiding us.

  “There aren’t many people here, are there?” I noted. It was almost odd. There were so few people around we almost had the streets to ourselves. The town really looked to have fallen on hard times.

  I wasn’t quite sure what to make of being told there was a castle here.

  “After all the trouble with the Spirit Tortoise, talk of the Phoenix that slumbers here also awakening caused a bit of a panic, and most of the people fled,” the queen explained.

  “I mean, fair enough . . .” The Spirit Tortoise had done its fair share of damage. I could see people choosing to run from that. I guess the rumors of the damage that had been caused were enough to scare most people away.

  “So? Are we going to talk with the leaders of this nation?”

  “That’s right. We are to have an audience with a representative,” the queen stated.

  “Hmmm.” I wasn’t convinced.

  Rightly so. The chamber the queen finally led us into had only one single, young-looking kid sitting on the throne.

  This was their representative? Another kid ruler, like Ruft?

  But no, he wasn’t quite that young. More like Melty, maybe.

  “You are most welcome, the four holy heroes and the queen of Melromarc. I am the king of this nation,” the boy said.

  “The king? You’re not the ruler I know. Whatever has happened here?” the queen asked.

  “Our previous monarch cleaned out the treasure room and departed our lands, along with his minions,” the new king informed us. I gave a deep and lingering sigh. Fleeing his own kingdom to avoid being caught up in the Phoenix battle—just how rotten could you get?

  “Very well,” the queen continued. “So you are now the representative of this land.”

  “That is how things currently stand,” the boy agreed.

  “Hey, queen,” I said.

  “What is it?” she asked.

  “Are all the royal families in this world so extreme?” I couldn’t help but ask.

  “He should be of the most capable bloodline of Faubrey, so I can’t fathom why he would run away when faced with crisis,” she explained. Hold on. Was it the very Faubrey bloodline of Trash? The Seven Star Heroes hadn’t come to see us either. They seemed pretty suspicious overall anyway. Who knew how far they could even be trusted?

  “That reminds me. You ordered the Seven Star Heroes in Faubrey to come see me, right? What’s happening with that?” I asked the queen.

  “I’ve made contact with them three times, but nothing has happened yet. Then there’s the incident with the one claiming to be a Seven Star Hero who you encountered in Siltvelt. Everything is still being confirmed,” she explained. We needed to stay on guard, is what it sounded like.

  There’d been some pretty crazy people amongst the vassal weapon holders in Kizuna’s world. It was starting to look like that problem wasn’t exclusive to that world.

  “We welcome the four holy heroes and those of the coalition army. As requested in advance, we have also prepared the materials for you concerning the Phoenix. Please take a look at them,” the king told us. Then he clapped his hands and a Shadow and a scholar came forward to show us the way.

  “We’ll have the coalition army remain in the castle town and its environs, if that would be acceptable,” the queen said.

  “Of course . . .” The boy’s expression was grim. The harvest around here had been poor, I’d been told. The remaining people I had seen had looked pretty thin.

  Right, of course. There was something of a global famine going on.

  I had the bioplants, so it hadn’t really bothered me . . . but these people looked like they could hardly get any food at all.

  “Shadow,” I said.

  “Whatever iz it?” he asked. I beckoned him over, took some bioplant seeds from my pocket, and scattered them into his
hands. “We’re going to be staying here a while. Plant those somewhere to secure some food for us. You can fill your own food stores up too,” I told him.

  “Very well,” came the reply. Then the queen also gave a deep bow at my actions, and the child-king joined her.

  “Our gratitude for your mercy, Hero,” he offered.

  “Letting people starve is only going to blow back on us in the end,” I told him. Damn. The food issues were pretty serious around here. I was starting to worry about how long the supplies we had carried in were going to last.

  “Is there a familiar in this nation? Something like Ost?” I asked. Ost had been difficult to face as an assassin, but she’d been very impressive as the Spirit Tortoise. Whomever we had to fight here, I’d like to at least say hello before the fun started.

  “We haven’t confirmed the presence of any such individual here . . .” the queen answered.

  “Ren, Itsuki, Motoyasu, you got any game-based knowledge on this subject?” I asked the three of them.

  “Not really. In the game I played, the whole world came together to fight. Anyone like that would stick out right away,” Ren said.

  “That’s right,” Itsuki confirmed.

  “So say I too!” Motoyasu added. I guess Ost had been the familiar of the Spirit Tortoise, transforming herself into a human simply because the tortoise had been the first of the four benevolent animals.

  Hmmm. This might even make things easier in the end.

  “Let’s take a look at these materials you’ve collected,” I said.

  “Of courze. Thiz way,” said the Shadow. We finished our simple audience with the king and were shown through to where the Phoenix materials had been gathered.

  Before that though . . .

  “Raphtalia, Fohl, Atla, go and see how the coalition army is doing,” I ordered them.

  “They should know what to do already, right?” Raphtalia said.

  “But we’ve got more coming in too. I need you to bring them all up to speed. If anything happens, report to me at once,” I explained.

  “Ah, very well. Understood,” Raphtalia replied. She and the others would have no part to play in looking through the Phoenix materials.

  I’d told Filo to secure a spot for her wagon and survey the surrounding terrain, so she was already gone.

  Ah, having her sing for everyone might be a good way to increase morale. It sounded like she was quite a popular singer. Before meeting with us in Siltvelt, she’d been singing in each location she visited with Melty while raising her level and becoming quite famous for it. So I was told, anyway.

  I’d seen anime in which singing boosted morale. Maybe it really worked.

  Then I noticed S’yne, who had really been on edge, constantly looking around since we got here.

  “No need to be quite so tense,” I told her.

  “But—”

  “She says that it is just at times like this, prior to a large battle or during the fighting, that her foes are likely to appear,” her familiar, the Keel doll, said for her.

  “Can I go and—”

  “Now she is asking if she may go and check the vicinity, just to be sure,” the doll continued.

  “If you feel you must. But don’t overdo things beforehand and then fall asleep in the battle,” I warned her. S’yne nodded in response and then headed out.

  She made a good point though. We needed to keep security tight right now.

  “Master Naofumi,” Atla called out with her hand raised.

  “What?” I asked, somewhat distracted.

  “If you need anything, just let me know,” she said.

  “I will. S’yne said pretty much the same thing,” I replied to Atla and then headed to look at the Phoenix materials.

  Chapter Eleven: The Lost Hero’s Diary

  The collected documents explained the extent of the damage that had been suffered during the previous revival. That extent was pretty extensive, from the look of it. As expected, they had summoned a hero to aid them and ultimately succeeded in sealing the Phoenix away again.

  “Ren, Motoyasu, Itsuki, do you know where the Phoenix is sealed?” I asked.

  “That mountain there,” Itsuki promptly replied, pointing to a mountain outside the window. It looked like something from one of those dusty old traditional Chinese landscape paintings.

  “Yeah, that’s the place,” Ren confirmed.

  “That’s right. Father-in-law, that’s the mountain,” Motoyasu added, just to be sure.

  “Okay . . . and in the game, how was the seal broken?” I asked.

  “You mean the quest itself? The Phoenix revives from the sealing inscription up there,” Ren informed me.

  “I see,” I said.

  Then we turned to look at more of the materials. There was a diary left by the hero who sealed the Phoenix away. It looked to contain everything from when he was summoned to fight the Phoenix, right up until he died of old age. This was what we needed—the knowledge of those who came before us.

  All we had to do was copy what the previous hero did and defeat the Phoenix that way.

  Of course, if you threw in the trouble we had with Ost, it might not go quite that smoothly.

  The diary described the days of fighting that took place after he was summoned to this other world and chosen as the hero of the Seven Star Gauntlets. I couldn’t really tell what kind of place he had come from. There was no mention of VRMMOs or superpowers. Maybe something closer to my world then, or Motoyasu’s?

  It was almost like an Internet novel written from real experience—something like that. Much of it was bragging about having defeated some annoying foe or another. There was also boasting about his forming a harem. I didn’t need to hear about that. All the sexy scenes with women could be cut too. I really didn’t care about him celebrating losing his virginity or all the details about how he met his first wife through to when they finally tied the knot.

  She had been a princess there when he was summoned, but for us that particular princess was pretty much a taboo word. Even her name would not be named.

  I needed to capture and execute her still. Just where was Witch hiding?!

  Anyway, was this how things were for everyone summoned here? Myself included?

  If I skipped too much, it felt like I might miss something important, so I read it carefully. I really needed to find some useful information quickly. Still, I had to start wondering what he was thinking, leaving this as his legacy for future generations. The only conclusion I could come to was that it was just for himself, an unfiltered outpouring of his feelings. It was written in Japanese, so no one in this world could read it. That meant he probably never intended for other people to understand this. Otherwise, he would have likely dramatized it up a bit.

  I read on and simply had to believe he didn’t intend to leave this behind. It would be too painful of a legacy otherwise.

  Ren looked a bit puzzled by it too.

  Motoyasu . . . was having Green read it. He was messing around with the feathers of all three of them. Could she even read Japanese? She did look like the smartest of the three, but still . . .

  Itsuki had an indifferent look on his face. I presumed he’d speak up if he spotted anything.

  I really needed this terrible piece of literature to hurry up and get to the Phoenix battle. With that in mind, I kept reading . . . and ended up reading it all.

  For some reason, most unnaturally, the key sections about the battle with the Phoenix and anything else relating to the four benevolent animals or the waves were completely missing.

  I’d also been hoping to learn something about methods to class up or the power-up method.

  “Hey. The very part we want is missing!” I said.

  “These are all the materials we have,” came the response.

  Really? The book was pretty beat up and barely legible. Maybe someone had intentionally removed the parts we wanted. That was what I almost wanted to think, seeing as how just the most important parts
were missing.

  “There was conflict in this region and much was lost to fire,” the scholar revealed.

  “Fire that was pretty choosy about the pages it burnt,” I snarked.

  “I’m so very sorry . . .” the scholar apologized, checking over the pages again.

  “Naofumi, if there was ever someone here like that Makina in Q’ten Lo, that might account for the missing information,” Itsuki said.

  “Yeah, good point,” I agreed with him. Were there people like that everywhere in this world? People who plotted to destroy books and historical materials?

  “There’s one more thing, right here—a written copy,” the scholar said, handing over a sheaf of papers. They didn’t even have the decency to bind it into a book. It was full of holes too.

  Still, we managed to find—barely—some information on the Phoenix.

  The goal of the Phoenix . . . as its source . . . prevent . . .

  It cannot be sealed during the terminal wave.

  To defeat it . . . simultaneously . . . both . . .

  Its attack patterns—

  That was as much as we could read from the crappy copy. Halfway through, the Japanese basically fell apart and became unreadable. We only managed to make this much out with all the heroes working together.

  Cutting off just before talking about attack patterns—were you kidding? I almost demanded that the one responsible for “caring” for these texts be brought before me.

  “We discovered its purpose from the Spirit Tortoise and in Kizuna’s world. It’s to prevent the fusing of the worlds due to the wave,” Ren recapped succintly.

  “I’m not sure what good that does us,” I said.

  “I mean, if we’d fought it without meeting Ost, Kizuna, or the others, I doubt we’d ever have worked it out ourselves,” he said.

  That didn’t get us any closer to working out its attack patterns though.