The Rising of the Shield Hero Vol 15 Page 2

  “Very well,” I agreed. “I’ll make you a delicious dessert, maybe.” I thought of a dessert because we’d achieved the production of honey using a mutant species from a bioplant I’d been researching with Rat. I could experiment a bit while cooking something up.

  If that failed, I’d use some of the luxury sweeteners that Siltvelt had offered up. I’d given them a lick and found them to be a little unique, but definitely sweet.

  I headed to the kitchen, and Keel came in to watch excitedly. Once I started cooking, everyone in the village got like this.

  “That does smell good. It looks delicious,” Raphtalia offered.

  “Bubba! What’cha making?” Keel asked excitedly.

  “Just shut up and watch,” I barked. “Ah, I have to adjust the heat . . . I need it as low as possible.” I heated the hotplate and then created the batter by mixing wheat obtained through trade with monster milk from a ranch in the neighboring town managed by Melty. I’d also separated the fat from the milk to form cream and whipped it up. I added the honey to that to make it sweeter. Oh, and I needed some fruit too.

  As I continued cooking, my slaves and even monsters started to gather, lured in by the smell.

  Was there going to be enough?

  “Right.” I spread the batter as thinly as I could across the hotplate, flipping it quickly to cook both sides. I placed the finished articles on a separate table, arranged them with fruit, topped them with cream, and then wrapped them up.

  “All done,” I proclaimed.

  “Right. I thought you were making crepes,” Ren muttered upon seeing the finished food.

  “Yeah. I had a part-time job in a food court, so I know how to make them,” I explained.

  “Part-time job, huh? There’s a concept that takes me back,” Ren mused.

  “Have you ever had one?” I asked. He had been hooked on Internet games, after all, which meant that he’d probably needed all the money he could get his hands on for in-game purchases. Those kinds of games could cost money to play. That or you could make better progress if you paid. If things got serious, those weren’t the kind of charges you could cover with an allowance. You’d need to at least get a part-time job to raise funds.

  “Nope,” was his flat reply. “Although I wanted one.” Ren was a high-schooler, after all. His school, or maybe his parents, probably didn’t let him work. My younger brother was already attending a school that didn’t allow the students to work.

  Me? I’d been working my butt off since I was in high school, desperate for cash. I think you can guess why.

  With that, I gave my first experiment to Ren. This was a popular dessert in Japan, so Ren was probably best positioned to evaluate it for me.

  “Delicious. A little different from what I’m used to, but not enough to bother me,” was Ren’s verdict.

  “Ah, ah! Are they really good?” Keel’s eyes sparkled as she looked on.

  “Here, this is a thing from my world called a crepe,” I said and gave the next one to Keel.

  “A crepe? I’ve never heard of this. A food from your world, Bubba?” she asked and sniffed at it, eyes wide. At the moment she was in human form. She’d been in dog form a lot recently. According to her, although it consumed magic while she was transformed, it heightened her senses and made her lighter on her feet (paws?), which was convenient for all sorts of things in daily life.

  Keel took a big bite out of the crepe. “I’ve never tasted anything like this,” she managed to say around her stuffed cheeks. She kept on chewing, wagging her tail and wriggling her ears. “It’s delicious.”

  “Glad to hear it,” I said. Thanks to Keel’s comments, the rest of the villagers and the monsters were all displaying a desire to try one.

  I started to cook more, but then, “So delicious! crepes rule!” Keel started yapping while running around.

  “Don’t fall over,” I warned her. Almost at that same moment, Keel took a tumble!

  “Hey. I’ve seen that bit before, somewhere,” Ren commented.

  “That’s a coincidence. Me too,” I realized. She spilled the crepe across the floor. “I think it was ice cream though.”

  “It was shaved ice for me,” Ren said. “A bit dated now, but I definitely saw it.” Looks like classic comedy was the same even in a futuristic and otherworldly Japan with VRMMO games.

  Keel. The life of the party.

  “Uwah! The crepes Bubba made! Noooooooooo!” Clutching her head in her hands, Keel shouted and looked at the scattered crepes, tears in her eyes. If she wanted them so badly, I’d have to try and do something. But did I have the materials?

  I wasn’t even sure there’d be enough for everyone else in the village.

  Keel was looking intensely at the crepes on the floor. Another demi-human slave extended an arm to help her up, but it was like she couldn’t even see them.

  A moment later . . . she ate one?!

  Possessed by something perhaps, Keel turned into her dog form and started to gobble up the crepes from the floor.

  “Keel! What are you doing?” Raphtalia dashed over and warned her to stop. Others from the village were pointing at her in surprise. “You’ll make yourself sick!” Raphtalia was almost wrestling with the dog.

  “Let me go! Bubba made these for us to eat! I can’t let them go to waste!”

  “Stop it!” Raphtalia wasn’t giving any ground. “He told you himself not to eat food from the ground!”

  “I’m still going to eat them! Move! I need to eat these crepes! Uwaaaaaaah!” Even when she was pinned down, Keel’s feral eyes still scanned her surroundings as she reached for the scattered crepes.

  Man. Did I slip something addictive into the batter by mistake? I’d have to let Rat know that the honey was a failure.

  “Calm down! Here, you can have mine,” Ren offered.

  “Really?!” Keel perked up at once.

  “Sure.” Ren’s selfless act finally brought the situation to a close. I was still having trouble understanding why Keel had got so carried away. At least Ren seemed to be getting more comfortable in the village.

  Eventually Ren returned to my side. “Naofumi, all the kids in the village really love you, don’t they?” he said with a slightly perplexed look on his face.

  “Nah, that’s just the honey. It must have come out as a narcotic,” I explained. “I’ll stop us from making any more.”

  “I don’t think that’s it,” Ren replied. “Please, don’t stop. Everyone is looking at you with such emotion in their eyes . . . Please, keep making it!” Ren said, flustered, looking at the slaves. They were all looking at me; that was true. I still suspected narcotics, but that wasn’t confirmed. Very well, then.

  “Something smells nice.” Drawn by the smell, Raphtalia’s cousin came in, accompanied by Wyndia. Wyndia was the guardian of a dragon called Gaelion. She loved monsters. Alongside Rat, she was in charge of managing the monsters in the village.

  To add a further note, she was also the daughter (well, step-daughter) of a dragon that Ren once defeated. But she didn’t exactly bear ill will toward Ren. Actually, if Ren started to get pessimistic, she wouldn’t hold back in trying to pep him up a bit.

  Raphtalia’s cousin, meanwhile, was the kid who had been raised into the leader of the forces opposing us in Q’ten Lo, the nation we had recently visited—and then conquered. The same race as Raphtalia, he had a face that really reminded me of his cousin when she was younger.

  Ostensibly, he had been executed. But in actual fact we’d brought him here to the village. One difficulty was that he hadn’t learned the Melromarc language yet, so he could only really talk to me, Raphtalia, the heroes, and those who knew the languages of the demi-human nations.

  When he was Heavenly Emperor, he’d honestly been a bit of a fool, including putting out a dangerous proclamation against harming monsters. In the end though, the silly laws he had enacted actually helped us take Q’ten Lo far quicker than expected.

  The real fools had been the corrupt poli
ticians beneath him, anyway.

  A selfish bitch called Makina, apparently originating from Siltvelt, had really held the reins of power in Q’ten Lo. But we’d successfully managed to take her down.

  Anyway, to get back to Raphtalia’s cousin, he had also very much liked a certain type of monster—filolials. However, after learning the true terror of monsters, he came to regret his past actions. That said, he was still very curious about monsters and was very interested in Raph-chan in particular. I wondered if I could make effective use of Raph-chan to lure him over to my side.

  “Hey. Do you want some too?” I asked them both.

  “Yes.” Raphtalia’s cousin took a crepe and started eating. The expression on his face was just like when I gave Raphtalia food when she was small.

  “Can I ask you why you’ve got such a gentle look in your eyes?” Raphtalia asked with the same tone she normally used for a snide comment at my expense. What did I say this time?

  “I was just remembering when you were small,” I explained. “I felt a bit paternal for a moment there.”

  “I’m not sure I like that reason . . . by the way, Mr. Naofumi,” Raphtalia continued coolly and placed her hand on her cousin’s shoulder. “Seeing Wyndia just now reminded me of it. You do know my cousin’s name, don’t you?” From the look in her eyes, you’d think Raphtalia was interrogating me.

  The reason for this was, for an extended period in the past, I had privately called Wyndia “valley girl.” I’d eventually had cause to mention this to Raphtalia and the others, and she’d made the same face that she was making now.

  My answer to this question was as follows.

  “No idea.”

  The only information I had on the kid was that he was the former Heavenly Emperor of Q’ten Lo and Raphtalia’s cousin. I’d never heard his name and was getting along just fine without it.

  “If you don’t tell him your real name, he’ll give you a silly nickname!” Raphtalia desperately explained to her cousin.

  “That’s right!” Wyndia joined in. “I almost ended up being renamed ‘valley girl’!”

  “Mr. Naofumi,” Raphtalia rounded on me. “What do you currently call him in your head?”

  “Raphtalia’s cousin,” I replied curtly.

  “Look! He’s sinking to just describing you already! Hurry up or you’ll end up as nothing more than ‘cousin’!” Raphtalia was practically panicking.

  “O-okay, I’m . . . Ruftmila,” the kid managed. His name sounded similar to “Raphtalia.” I guess they did come from the same country.

  “Fair enough. I’ll call you Ruft,” I decided. I still thought “cousin” would be enough. “Should we use a totally different name when folks from Q’ten Lo are around?”

  “No weird nicknames!” Raphtalia was adamant about that one point.

  “Raph,” Raph-chan chirped. Ignoring Raphtalia, I passed Raph-chan my absolutely best-made crepe. And with that, my dessert-making was finished.

  “Ah, I forgot. That woman and Gaelion were asking to talk to you, Shield Hero,” Wyndia announced.

  “That woman” would be Ratotille, an alchemist well-versed in monster lore who had joined us from Faubrey. Gaelion was a dragon, as previously explained.

  “Okay, no problem. I need to talk to them about managing supplies and other stuff anyway,” I replied. She might have completed her investigation into the unique ecosystem of Q’ten Lo and prepared materials on it in her lab here in the village.

  “In that case, Naofumi, I’ll go and explain what’s been happening to Eclair and the others. Just give me a call if you need me,” Ren said.

  “Sure thing. Have a word with Atla and those guys too. Tell them it looks like I’m going to be too busy to come and train today.” My duties piling up, there was no time for that stuff. So best to just shut that down right away.

  “Sure thing. Although I can’t promise Atla won’t come charging after you,” Ren warned.

  “I know how to handle her. Taunt her a little for me. Tell her to overcome that recent terrible performance with more training,” I suggested. In Siltvelt, Atla had caused a bit of trouble. They’d been completely tricked by illusions created by an enemy and hadn’t been much use. It seemed to be really getting to Atla in particular, and she was sticking to her training rather than perving on me. That should keep her off my back for a while anyway.

  “It’s a shame we weren’t there,” Ren commented. He and his party had been on the move when the problems occurred. There hadn’t been time to call them back, but there was also nothing to be gained by worrying about that now.

  “In either case, we need to take some steps to prevent that from happening again,” I said. “You and Itsuki not being there wasn’t the issue.” It was an issue that we’d let our attacker get away, but this wasn’t the place to say that. Other than the Shield Hero, the holy heroes could be pretty difficult to handle.

  “I’ll go and see Rat right away,” I said. “I’ll catch you later.” Splitting up from Ren, I followed Wyndia and Ruft toward Rat’s lab.

  Chapter One: Birth of the Raph Species

  “What do you need from me?” I asked, entering a room in Rat’s lab. As always, bizarre monsters were bobbing in their culture tanks.

  “Raph?” Raph-chan waved at a monster inside one of the tanks, and the monster went right ahead and waved back.

  “Kwaa.” So Gaelion was here too.

  “Ah, Count,” Rat greeted me. “I’ve got some exciting reports for you.”

  “Like what?” I’ll be the judge of what was exciting.

  “First, a progress report. Concerning the sakura lumina trees, there’s no way to cultivate them. I don’t understand the reasons, but they wither the moment you put the cuttings in the ground,” Rat explained.

  “I see.” That was a shame. They were so beautiful. I’d asked Rat to try planting them here, thinking we might be able to make the village famous for the trees. The sakura lumina were endemic to Q’ten Lo and could provide all sorts of convenient abilities. I’d thought it to be something of a waste if they could only be used in Q’ten Lo.

  “Working with bioplants really demands the cooperation of you, Count, and the other heroes,” Rat explained. Among the bioplant expansion functions there was “formulation.” It had shown up after messing about a bit. Maybe we could use that to prevent the sakura lumina from withering.

  “Sure thing,” I replied. “Should I just do that now?”

  “Hold on, hold on. I’ve got other things to report that I’d like you to listen to first,” Rat said.

  “Huh? Like what?” I’m a busy guy.

  “Wyndia, dear. Go get them ready,” Rat ordered.

  “Okay,” Wyndia responded and left the room.

  “Ah, good. She’s gone.” With the departure of the girl, Gaelion started to speak.

  “Why do you only talk when Wyndia isn’t around?” Ruft asked, tilting his head.

  “Keep that to yourself,” I told him. “Gaelion’s got his own rules for doing stuff. Don’t tell Ren either, okay?”

  “Okay,” the kid replied.

  “I’m sure Wyndia would love it if you’d talk to her,” Raphtalia offered. Neither her nor Ruft had parents, so they likely felt that more keenly. In any case, Gaelion was raising Wyndia as her foster father and had decided that not talking would be best for Wyndia. It wasn’t really our place to make comments.

  “Come on then. What’s going on?” I tried to keep things moving along.

  “You already know that Dragon Emperors can obtain further strength and knowledge by obtaining Dragon Emperor fragments, correct?” Gaelion asked.

  “Yeah.” I had some idea of that, not only from the events in Q’ten Lo but also from the Demon Dragon trouble we’d had when Gaelion first joined the party.

  “In order for me to become stronger, it is vital that we defeat Dragon Emperors—dragons—and obtain more fragments, but concurrent with that, there’s other information that might be prudent to share with y
ou,” Gaelion explained.

  “Like what?” I asked.

  “The knowledge of a class-up to break the level 100 cap should be among the lost fragments. Along with lots of other useful information, I should think,” Gaelion continued.

  The “level 100 cap” referred to the phenomenon in this world that affected most everyone apart from heroes, causing their development to stop at level 100. People from this world normally stopped at 40 but could then continue on to 100 after a class-up. I vaguely remembered being told something about that around the time I purchased the hakuko siblings, although some of the Siltvelt demi-human species, such as the hakuko, had a limit of 120.

  I’d been thinking if we could have everyone pass 100, that was something we should definitely investigate. I hadn’t expected to receive hints about it like this though.

  “You’ve been involved in so much trouble I’ve not had much chance to talk with you,” Gaelion explained.

  “I mean, it’s definitely an issue, but is that all you want to say?” I replied. To be honest, it certainly wasn’t a problem for me, and Raphtalia wasn’t affected by this system either. Ren, Itsuki, and S’yne were all categorized as heroes, so no problem for them either. When I thought ahead, sure, it was knowledge that I wanted. It just wasn’t a priority at the moment.

  “First things first. Now the filolial isn’t nearby, I can remove the lock on your shield, at least to a certain extent,” Gaelion continued.

  “Huh?” What was going on now?

  “The lock placed by the filolial queen. You don’t remember this?” Gaelion quizzed. A lock? I might remember something like that when I placed the Demon Dragon materials into my shield. Was that what he was referring to?

  Hold on! Don’t tell me that the reason I couldn’t bring out dragon-type shields was because of Fitoria’s cowlick? Unlocking the filolial series had sealed the dragon series away? Dammit, Fitoria! What was she playing at? Especially after having made a request from me! That was going to place a limit on my abilities. What was she trying to say? She had dibs on me?