The Rising of the Shield Hero Volume 12 Read online

  “What is it?” I asked.

  The old guy and Imiya’s uncle both seemed to be reminiscing now.

  “Shield Hero, katanas were our master’s specialty,” replied Imiya’s uncle.

  “Yeah, the master was a swordsmith by trade, although he was still skilled at making other weapons too,” added the old guy.

  “I see.”

  I remembered having heard something about blacksmiths specializing in certain kinds of weapons. In Europe a really long time ago, back in my world, all of those details were decided by permits and stuff. Of course, this was a different world and things seemed to work differently here. The old guy seemed to be able to handle just about anything, so I made all kinds of requests. But it might have just been that the old guy and Imiya’s uncle were unusually well-rounded.

  “In the end, the master certified me in everything. Even so, I honestly don’t think I’ve come anywhere close to surpassing the master’s skill yet.”

  “I see.”

  I remembered them mentioning recently that their master was a womanizing troublemaker. He was the kind of craftsman that had impressive skills in spite of having a problematic personality. And his specialty was katanas.

  “I already have all of the materials, so it shouldn’t take long. Come check back again in two or three days.”

  “Got it. As for payment . . .”

  “It’s not like you’re going to buy it off of me, right? It’ll be good practice for me too. You don’t need to pay me for the little miss to just hold it.”

  That’s what I loved about the old guy. His generosity really made things easy on me.

  “Thanks. I’ll give you plenty of business when I order equipment for all of the villagers one of these days.”

  “Righto!”

  That’s why I wanted to pay the old guy back in whatever way I could.

  “And don’t hesitate to let me know if you’re looking for some rare ore or something. Alright, later then.”

  “Goodbye,” added Raphtalia.

  “Until next time,” said Atla.

  “Righto. It seems like things are getting livelier for you, kid. Even I can’t help but get excited.”

  We parted with the old guy and made haste back to the village.

  “Master! Big sis! Welcome baaack!”

  Oh? Filo was back at the village. She came trotting up to me in her filolial form.

  “Oh hey, Shield Hero. Welcome back.”

  One of the slaves that took a special interest in the monsters welcomed me back. That was unusual.

  “Shield Hero, we have a really stubborn visitor that we don’t know how to deal with,” the slave said.

  “Huh?”

  Eclair and Ren showed up a few moments after the monster-enthusiast slave. Eclair seemed a bit perturbed. I wondered just what was going on.

  “Hold on, surely it can wait. She’s being watched,” said Eclair.

  “But she’s almost gotten away several times already!” snapped Ren.

  “What’s going on?” I asked.

  I looked at Ren.

  “I don’t really know. Someone is here to see you, Naofumi.”

  “Surely you can deal with the visitor, Ren.”

  “Well . . . yeah, you’d think so, but . . .”

  Ren was acting oddly too.

  “This one is a bit of an oddball. She says she wants to see you immediately, Mr. Iwatani,” said Eclair.

  I sighed.

  “Who the hell is she?”

  “She’s some alchemist that supposedly caused all kinds of problems in Faubrey,” answered Eclair.

  Say what? Faubrey was the superpower that worshipped the four holy heroes. Why would an alchemist from Faubrey be here?

  “I received word from the queen several days ago. It appears as if the alchemist was deemed a heretic and thrown out of Faubrey. And then she showed up in Melromarc,” Eclair explained.

  Just what kind of alchemist was this?

  “If she’s that suspicious, then throw her the hell out, no questions asked!”

  “Well, the queen said something about poison becoming medicine in the right hands. So I figured we should ask you first, Naofumi,” said Ren.

  Hmm, he did have a point, I guess.

  “When she saw the monsters that you’ve been keeping, she started talking about wanting to inspect them and—”

  “Oh . . . So this is the infamous bird god!”

  An unfamiliar woman appeared from out of nowhere and started poking and prodding Filo.

  “Wh-wh-whaaat?!”

  “Whoa!”

  “When did she get here?! I didn’t even notice!” cried Raphtalia.

  “Impressive speed! Her approach rivals even that of my brother when he’s gone mad,” Atla commentated.

  “M . . . Maaasteeerrr!”

  Filo screamed out. Her response reminded me of when Motoyasu had grabbed her.

  “Oh, it seems to understand human language too. This must be the filolial queen variant that the legends speak of!”

  The woman had long, silvery blonde hair and dark brown skin. She appeared to be human. Probably in her mid-twenties. She had curves in all of the right places and she was wearing a lab coat. She seemed to fit the “hot older sister” role that was common back in my world. But any big sister role just made me think of Sadeena.

  “These feathers go really deep. I wonder if it has any unusual organs.”

  The alchemist (?) forcefully pried Filo’s mouth open and grabbed her tongue. Filo tried to struggle but was easily subdued. The alchemist seemed to be able to hold her down as effortlessly as if she were taking candy from a baby.

  “Mmmrrghhhh!”

  The alchemist stuck her head deep into Filo’s mouth, but Filo flapped her wings violently and spit the alchemist’s head out.

  “How am I supposed to inspect you if you struggle like that? Settle down.”

  Just before Filo could toss her away, the alchemist (?) pulled out a syringe and thrust it at Filo. Unable to dodge in time, the needle stabbed Filo right in the mouth.

  “Wha . . .”

  Filo flumped down onto the ground with a thud.

  “I . . . feel so weak . . .”

  “Umm, lady . . .” I said.

  “Wait just a moment. I’m right in the middle of inspecting this monster.”

  “Well, that monster is mine, and I can’t have you just doing whatever you want with her.”

  “Oh?”

  When she heard what I said, the alchemist (?) seemed to lose interest in Filo momentarily.

  “Does that mean you’re the Shield Hero?”

  “Umm, yeah . . . and who are you?”

  “Me? I’m Ratotille Anthreya. My friends call me Rat.”

  “Umm, I see. I’m Naofumi Iwatani. Just call me Naofumi.”

  “Nice to meet you, Naofumi.”

  Rat’s eyes were fixed on Filo, who was still slumped down on the ground.

  “So do you mind if I inspect this monster of yours?”

  “M . . . Master! Nooo!”

  Hmm . . . I had a feeling that the mystery that was Filo would be unraveled if I agreed, but I also couldn’t help but feel like there would be significant consequences for Filo.

  I sighed.

  “I’m going to have to refuse for now.”

  “Aww, that’s too bad.”

  Filo must have started to recover, because she stood up slowly.

  “Oh my, it looks like I’d need to use a stronger sedative to inspect her, anyway.”

  “Nooo! Save me! Mel-chaaaan!”

  Filo ran away and disappeared into the distance. I had a feeling she wouldn’t be coming back for a while.

  “So I guess you’re the person who wanted to see me. What do you want?”

  “That’s right. I took the liberty of checking out the monsters in this village and a certain plant.”

  “Okay . . . ?”

  “And I’m intrigued. I’d love to tinker around with things a bit, if
you don’t mind.”

  “You say tinker . . .”

  What in the world did this lady plan on doing? It seemed like she already knew about the bioplant, so she must have done her homework before showing up.

  “You’re the alchemist that stirred up some trouble in Faubrey, right?”

  “Trouble? That wasn’t trouble. Those idiots don’t want to admit their own ignorance. They simply couldn’t understand my research.”

  She was clearly one of those mad-scientist types.

  “Those idiots referred to my research as ‘godless deeds,’ of all things. And then they exiled me. Their ‘gods’ are the four holy heroes and the seven star heroes, right?”

  “So what? You want one of those four holy heroes to acknowledge your work and that’s why you came here?”

  I glanced over at Ren, but he shook his head.

  “That’s not it,” replied Rat.

  “Then why did you come here?”

  “I originally came to investigate the Spirit Tortoise. But my interests have already begun to shift.”

  Rat reached out to grab my hand with a look of passion in her eyes. I pulled my hand away.

  “Don’t touch me. I can’t stand women like you.”

  “Oh? Then I won’t touch you, but I’d still like to tinker with your monsters.”

  My monsters, huh? I didn’t think I really had that many yet.

  “Every one of them exhibits development like I’ve never seen before. I’d love to observe them.”

  I couldn’t deny that all of my monsters had begun to exhibit abnormal development. They were around level 25 on average, but I’d been told they were all bigger than usual.

  I looked over at the three caterpillands, which were caterpillar-like monsters. They were helping the slaves clear away stalks of the overgrown bioplant. Wait . . . three? I had only purchased two caterpillands. One . . . two . . . three . . . I counted them several times, and there was definitely one too many! What the hell?! There were only two this morning!

  “Who the hell got a new caterpilland without asking?!”

  “Uh oh!”

  The slave that had just been standing near us tried to hide one of the caterpillands in a hurry.

  “It’s too late!” I shouted.

  The slave must have been one of the culprits. And the caterpilland she hid was the biggest one too. Since I hadn’t seen it this morning, it was safe to assume they had been hiding it somewhere and raising it in secret. We had expanded the bioplant field. It was starting to look like a forest. Maybe that’s where they had been hiding it. On top of that, I could check its stats, which meant that it was registered to me!

  The monster-enthusiast slave was using her whole body to try to hide the caterpilland, but it wasn’t enough. And behind them was the bioplant. Something about the scene felt vaguely familiar. The fact that I was seeing it in a sepia tone was just my imagination, I’m sure.

  “I feel like I’ve seen this before . . . in an old anime . . .” said Ren.

  I guess they had something similar in his world too. But whatever. That was beside the point.

  “There’s no new caterpilland! There’s no new caterpilland here!”

  “It’s huge! I can still see it!”

  Was she seriously going to try to pretend it wasn’t there? What valley did this princess come from?! The caterpilland behind her was huge and looked just like one of those bugs!

  “I want you all to think about what you’ve done!”

  The slaves cast their eyes downward. And then Atla stepped forward, for whatever reason.

  “It’s time for your punishment. Each one of you will be severely punished, by order of Mr. Naofumi. We’ll start with—”

  “Umm . . . Atla, you stay out of this. I want them to tell me what’s going on.”

  What had Atla been planning on doing to them? I could easily imagine her choosing a punishment far worse than anything I would have done.

  “Alright, I want to know how this happened.”

  “Listen, it’s not like anyone wanted to upset you, bubba.”

  Keel stepped forward and spoke in defense of the monster enthusiast.

  “And how the hell did you manage to get it registered to me, anyway?!”

  “The man that sells slaves secretly did it for us.”

  “That damned slave trader!”

  When the hell did he do that?!

  “Why is the slave trader dealing with my slaves?!”

  “It was the first egg we all found together!”

  “Huh?”

  The slaves explained. They had taken an egg from a monster nest that they had found when they went out to level. Bringing it back to the village had been easy enough, but they had no idea how they would manage to raise it.

  “Did Raphtalia know about this?” I asked.

  “I did not!”

  “If we’d told Raphtalia, she would have told you, right?” said Keel.

  “Of course I would have! What were you thinking, Keel?!” Raphtalia snapped.

  Keel continued her explanation. Even the slaves recognized that hatching a monster egg without registering someone as the monster’s owner would be dangerous. They were trying to figure out what to do when the slave trader showed up.

  I had been giving them some spending money when they went out to peddle our wares. They all put together what they had left of that money and paid the slave trader to take care of the registration. Rather than registering it to one of them, the slave trader mentioned that registering it to me would make it stronger and more impressive, and the rest was history.

  Hmm . . . I had intentionally adjusted the caterpillands’ levels to keep them from getting too big, and yet this one was still huge. It was fifty percent bigger than the other caterpillands. I wasn’t sure what I should do.

  “Don’t kill it!”

  “Shut up, valley girl!”

  “What in the world is ‘valley’ supposed to mean, bubba?” asked Keel.

  “I’m guessing there’s a character from a story in Naofumi’s world that did something similar,” said Ren.

  He had seriously gone and just calmly explained my wisecrack. Oh well. I didn’t want to explain it, anyway, so whatever. But damn it, these brats just did whatever they wanted. The slave that kept spouting off valley princess lines was doing her best to stand up for the caterpilland.

  “Listen, if you just do whatever you want, you’re not only making trouble for others, you’re making trouble for me too! If you wanted to raise the monster so badly, you should have talked to me!”

  I already had my own transactions with the slave trader, so if they did things on their own it would most likely just double the effort involved.

  “And you better look after that thing properly. If I see you pushing the responsibility off on others, I’ll sell it off without a second thought.”

  “I . . . I will!”

  Sheesh . . . These brats just caused one problem after another.

  “It’s like you’re running a daycare, Naofumi,” Ren said.

  “What the hell?!”

  That bastard! What was he thinking saying that?! A daycare?! He couldn’t have been more wrong! I glared at Ren and was about to give him a piece of my mind, but Keel started shouting.

  “See, I told you! I told you bubba would forgive you!”

  “But you said Bubba Shield would sell it if he found out, Keel. You told me I had to keep it a secret. Because he’d sell it without hesitation, since he’s a money-grubber.”

  “I said penny-pincher, not money-grubber!”

  “You guys . . .”

  What a bunch of . . . Wait, did that brat not say it was the first egg they found?

  “Was this the only egg?” I asked.

  “Nope.”

  “What?!”

  The slaves were shaking their heads. They must have been really good at finding monster nests, because they started pulling out tons of eggs that they’d hidden away at their residences.


  “The slave trader is going to process them for us once we save up enough money.”

  “That’s a lot of eggs! What were you planning to do after hatching all of those without even asking?!”

  That would have been a complete disaster. Then again, I guess it would have been easy enough to dispose of a bunch of baby monsters.

  “We didn’t plan that far . . .”

  I’d never really thought about there being monster eggs in the wild. We could always use the extras to make food. I had a feeling they’d get mad at me if I said that though.

  “Are those all caterpillands?”

  “Who knows? We got them from lots of different places, so I have no idea.”

  Rat plopped her hand down on my shoulder.

  “What is it? I’m busy right now. We’ll talk later,” I told her.

  “I’ll analyze and take care of the eggs for free if you’ll let me do my research here.”

  Hmm . . . I was all about cost-benefit analysis, so “free” always got my attention. Then again, they say there’s no such thing as a free lunch too. I couldn’t make up my mind.

  “We decline!”

  The monster-enthusiast slave, a.k.a. valley girl, refused before I could even respond. The little brat seemed to become unusually aggressive whenever it came to anything dealing with the monsters.

  “Hold on now. Let me think about this,” I said.

  Keeping Rat around might not be a bad idea. She was an expert on monsters, after all. There were plenty of ways I could make use of her. I might have been expecting too much, but they did call her an alchemist. Maybe she could take over modifying the bioplant and monsters for me. That said, something about the timing of it all seemed just too perfect.

  “Is this some kind of conspiracy? Some kind of performance to get me to agree?”

  “It’s not!” shouted Keel.

  “Naofumi, I agree that it all seems a little bit too convenient, but I don’t think that’s the case,” said Ren.

  Hmm . . . So it wasn’t just me that thought it seemed convenient. But just saying so wasn’t going to accomplish anything. In that case, I’d try a different approach.

  “Rat, what is it that you hope to achieve? Depending on your answer, I might consider letting you stay.”

  “Achieve? I want to create a powerful monster.”

  “Oh?”