The Rising of the Shield Hero Vol 06 Page 6

  The weapon power-up system and the leveling were definitely reinforcing that idea.

  But that’s just the sort of world that we were in. For modern Japanese people like us, of course it was like a game.

  In the end, it didn’t matter whether it was a game or not; we needed to survive it.

  Those three were like children. They would do whatever it took to win. They would cheat and steal to win, but they would always point their fingers and accuse everyone else of being unfair.

  If I didn’t get a grip on their psychology, I was never going to be able to rein them in.

  Honestly, as long as they were strong enough to battle through the waves without dying, I didn't care what they did after that.

  If we were all battling together, then I would probably survive this whole ordeal.

  Why? I told them how to power-up and demonstrated it right in front of them. So why? Why wouldn't they believe me?

  Because more than they wanted to win, they wanted to be special.

  I would probably have thought the same thing, had I been transported to a world similar to a game I was already familiar with.

  “The other heroes are too weak to be trusted, so it looks like we are going to be sent to another country to battle in the next wave that appears there.”

  “I guess we will be pretty busy.”

  “I guess so ...”

  “I’m baaaack!”

  Filo came skipping into the room.

  Had she gotten sick of swimming already?

  “What’s wrong, master?”

  “I guess I’ll tell you about it. Remember how Fitoria said that we needed to get along with the other heroes? Well, in order to get them to power-up a little more, it looks like we’re going to have to put in some serious work.”

  I didn’t think that Filo was going to understand what I had to say, but I made an effort to explain what we’d discussed during the meeting anyway.

  “So when we are training with the other heroes, you have to be honest with them about how everything works.”

  “Huh?”

  Of course she didn’t understand. That’s Filo for you.

  “Anyway, it looks like we’re going to have to go to another country and fight in the wave battle there.”

  It happened just when I said it: Filo’s cowlick started to twitch back and forth. Filo looked a little confused.

  “Huh? Oh . . . um ... You mean you’ll go for me?”

  “What was that?”

  “Oh, Fitoria was watching our conversation. She can see what we are doing through my hair thing!”

  “She’s spying on us?”

  I guess she needed to keep an eye on how the situation was developing. I should have known better than to think she would have just let us go with a verbal agreement.

  Fitoria was the legendary queen of the filolials.

  She had a deep understanding of the waves and seemed to know a lot about everything.

  She was the one that had told me the heroes could not tolerate infighting. She was the one who had given Filo her cowlick.

  “And she was saying that if the weak heroes are going to battle against a wave, she could offer them some back up.”

  “So we don’t have to go? She’ll do it for us?”

  Filo nodded.

  “She says it’s not a problem, as long as we are trying to get along with the other heroes and grow more powerful.”

  “That’s a big help. To tell the truth, the other heroes won’t listen to anything I say. It’s been a real struggle. We were going to have to take on responsibility for everything.”

  “Yeah, that’s why she says she’ll help!”

  That cowlick was proving itself convenient, even if it had interfered with Filo’s class up ceremony.

  “Hey Fitoria. Do you know anything about L’Arc and the others?”

  “She’s um . . . she’s thinking! Ok, she says that sometimes people like that come out of the waves, but she doesn’t know what they are.”

  That’s right. She’d mentioned that she had forgotten a lot about the past. So I couldn’t expect her to know everything.

  But did that mean she had fought against them herself?

  “So she’s fought against Glass and the others before?”

  “No. She says it was someone else.”

  But that meant that this had happened before. It meant that people lived on the other side of the dimensional rifts. What did it all mean?

  “Maybe it’s like the other heroes? Heroes aside from the four holy heroes?”

  “I thought so too, but it doesn’t sound like that’s the case.”

  “Fitoria says that she doesn’t really understand it either. She just says that things like this happen sometimes during the waves.”

  “Oh yeah?”

  But what were the waves?

  “An idea? Hm ... She says that there might be a clue in the story of the four holy warriors.”

  “That’s great. I’ll tell the queen about it and see what she says.”

  Personally, I didn’t know very much about what the legends of the heroes said. All I knew was what I had read in the Records of the Four Holy Weapons . But maybe the queen, or a scholarly advisor of hers, would be able to find a clue.

  Fitoria would be a historical witness if they needed one. If she was bringing it up, then there had to be something to it.

  “But . . . she says that she wants you to take care of the waves that occur in the country that the four heroes are currently in.”

  “Fine. That’s still a load off of my shoulders. I can handle that much.”

  The biggest problem would be facing off against Glass again before we understood the nature of her existence. At least we had some time to figure it out.

  I wasn’t very confident we’d find a solution though.

  “You know though, honestly, I think we’d all be better off if you were the one to fight Glass.”

  “She says that she’ll beat them back if she ever runs into them!”

  Filo’s cowlick stopped twitching, indicating that our conversation was over for the time being.

  “Anyway, I’ll tell the queen about all of that. At the very least, she just took a major job off of our plates, which will be a big help.”

  “How wonderful. I’m glad that Ms. Fitoria wants to help us.”

  “I wish she would just take care of everything.”

  “Mr. Naofumi, I don’t think that ...”

  “I know, I know.”

  If a legendary filolial could calm the waves on her own, she’d be unbelievably powerful.

  My mood felt a little lighter after that talk, like a load had been lifted from my shoulders. Still, I didn’t know any more about the nature of the waves.

  I sat by the window and started to think as I watched the sun set over the ocean.

  We would have to get the other heroes to understand the power-up system. Then we’d have to figure out some way to get around the defense rating and defense ignoring attacks that Glass and the others had at their disposal.

  Once the other heroes were powered up, they would rely on my defenses to coordinate their attacks.

  After that, I wanted to stop by the weapon shop in Melromarc to see the old guy there and stock up for the next wave.

  The weapons that Raphtalia and Filo were using, the Karma Rabbit Sword and the Karma Dog Claws, were new. They didn’t have a blood clean coating applied to them, which meant that they would eventually get dirtied and blunt. I would have to keep sharpening them.

  If there were stronger, more durable weapons that we could replace them with, that would probably be a better option for us in the long run. I bet the queen would be willing to provide us with whatever materials we need to craft new weapons. Or if we had enough time, we could go find the materials ourselves, leveling up on the monsters we encountered along the way.

  Finally, I’d have to make sure my shield was as powerful as possible. I still felt like there were plenty of a
reas in need of improvement.

  Besides, I still wanted to see what sort of shields I could unlock with the materials I’d gotten from the Inter-Dimensional Whale.

  Chapter Three: Framed Again

  Night fell. I had dinner and a bath and then went out on the terrace to cool off.

  I looked out at the ocean and relished the cool night air. Had the storms finally subsided?

  I caught sight of Filo out in the water. She’d wanted to go swimming after dinner. She was borderline obsessed with swimming lately. I decided to pretend I didn’t see her.

  “Huh?”

  At the far end of the terrace I saw Motoyasu walking with . . . Rishia? They seemed to be walking back to the hotel.

  She wasn’t wearing the squirrel kigurumi.

  Was he hitting on her? That would make sense. He had indicated that she was on his list of pretty girls.

  I guess the guy really wanted to build a harem for himself. What did he think Itsuki would have to say about his ambitions?

  I decided I had better warn him to keep his distance.

  “Hey! Motoyasu! Better stop hitting on everyone you see!”

  “Hey! Naofumi! It’s up to you now!”

  Motoyasu looked pale when he walked over to me and slapped my shoulder. Then he shoved me in Rishia’s direction.

  “What’s your problem?”

  “Nothing! She’s yours!”

  What was going on? He was a real womanizer, so why would he want me to have her? I looked over at Rishia and was shocked by what I saw.

  Her eyes were red and puffy, as if she’d been crying for a while. I took a seat next to her.

  “Hey, what’s the matter?”

  “Alright, I’m out of here!”

  “Wait! You didn’t ...”

  Could it be that he was so rotten he’d done something awful to her?

  She didn’t want to be with him or something, so he said something like, “It will be fine. It only hurts the first time ...” And then raped her?

  I wouldn’t be surprised if Motoyasu had done something like that. He seemed like the sort of person that would push and push until he got his way with a girl.

  She was crying so hard that she was shaking.

  That was too awful. I couldn’t let him get away with it.

  “I did not!”

  “Prove it!”

  “No . . . It’s not the Spear Hero’s fault...”

  Rishia collected herself and whispered.

  I guess I let myself get carried away. Motoyasu probably wasn’t that terrible. Right?

  “Then what happened?”

  “Something’s up, but I’m not so good at dealing with this sort of thing. So I’m leaving it up to you!” Motoyasu said as he left. He was smiling, but he also looked sick, like he might throw up. He ran off on shaky legs.

  I’d never seen him look like that before. And I’d never heard him say that he wasn’t good at dealing with something.

  What had happened? Had she done something to him?

  “What happened?”

  “Please don’t worry about it.”

  “I can’t do that. I was afraid that he had raped you or something.”

  “No . . . I just . . . I couldn’t hold myself back anymore.”

  “Hold yourself back from Motoyasu?”

  “N . . . No!”

  She looked angry, like she might burst into tears again. At least she had the energy to be angry.

  “The Spear Hero tried to cheer me up, but I . . . Actually, I probably shouldn’t be talking about it.”

  “Well, you’ve already started. Is it about what we discussed earlier?”

  I don’t know why I wanted to help her. Maybe it was because I felt like we were in the same situation, and I couldn’t help but empathize.

  “No, please. Don’t worry about it.”

  She jumped to her feet, made an apologetic face, and ran off.

  “What was that all about?”

  I was left alone, having no idea what had happened, but feeling terrible about it.

  The next morning I lay in bed reading, but my mind was still occupied with worries about Rishia.

  We’d already done plenty of leveling up here, so there was really no need to do any serious leveling while we were confined to the islands.

  So I had some time to myself with nothing important to do, but I couldn’t stop thinking about the previous night.

  “I really want to know what happened.”

  Normally, I would probably feel fine just ignoring it, but this time I couldn’t help but dwell on it.

  I felt the way that I had when Bitch had framed me, or when I’d been attacked and forced to defend Melty.

  Basically I had a bad feeling about it, a feeling that something bad was about to happen.

  “What do you mean?”

  “Oh nothing. I’m going to go look into something, so you can just relax here.”

  “Hm...”

  Raphtalia wanted to know what was going on, but I left the room without explaining.

  I didn’t know what I would say anyway. What was happening?

  I was nervous about it, but I decided to stop by Itsuki’s room and listen in on them to see if I could figure it out.

  I could hear exuberant voices coming from the other side of the door. Was I overthinking this?

  “Ah...”

  I spotted Rishia. She was gazing at the room enviously from far away.

  Then she noticed me and ran off.

  What was going on?

  I figured that all I could do was try to get Motoyasu to fess up and tell me what he knew.

  So I went to his room and knocked on the door.

  “Coming!”

  A woman, one of his party members, came to the door.

  His party consisted of Bitch and two other women. The woman at the door was one of them, so I’ll call her woman #1.

  She was smiling from ear to ear. She wore a look on her face like I was the last person she expected to find knocking on their door.

  “You?! What are you here for? What do you want?!”

  She looked at me for a second before realizing who I was. Then she accosted me.

  I really couldn’t stand talking to these people.

  “Is Motoyasu here?”

  “Why should I tell YOU that?”

  “Hey! Motoyasu!”

  “Don’t you ignore me!”

  “Yeah! Don’t ignore her!”

  Woman #2 came up to the doorway to join her friend. As for Bitch, she had apparently decided to ignore me, despite sitting right where I could see her. I really wanted to assume that meant that she was traumatized, but I shouldn’t let my fantasies get ahead of me.

  These two didn’t mean anything to me.

  Bitch had been ordered, by her mother the queen, to assist Motoyasu in his fight against the waves so that she might prove herself useful in some capacity.

  When the queen had been away on diplomatic missions to other countries, Bitch had spent her time doing whatever she pleased, and the queen returned to find much of the crown’s money had been spent.

  She had red hair that she often pulled it back into a ponytail. She had the sort of face that was pretty enough but grew more irritating the more you had to look at it.

  As you’d expect of Motoyasu, she was on his list of pretty girls along with Raphtalia and Filo.

  She was Melty’s older sister, and she had the worst personality of anyone I’d ever met. She was an amoral monster that got her kicks from setting traps for people and watching them suffer.

  Her equipment looked a little shabbier than it had before. I wonder if the queen had completely cut her off financially?

  “What do you want, Naofumi? None of these girls like having you around.”

  Motoyasu stepped into view, surrounded by his harem of girls.

  Seeing him standing there with his confident swagger really got on my nerves. If I didn’t want to get information out of him, I would have jus
t told him off and left.

  “I don’t really care what your girls want. I have a question for you.”

  “What is it?”

  “It’s about last night. You said you were leaving it up to me, but I don’t know what I’m supposed to do.”

  “Fine, I’ll tell you, but you have to take responsibility for everything else.”

  “How convenient for you. But fine, I’m curious enough. I’ll agree to that.”

  He must have known something. His face looked suddenly pale, and he stepped out of the room, leaving his harem to watch over the place while we spoke.

  We both walked out to the terrace, which was mostly deserted. He looked at me again, and sure enough, his face was very pale.

  That wasn’t like him at all. I didn’t know he was capable of actually worrying about things.

  Usually, he would just call me a criminal, blame everything on me, stand up for Bitch, and make my life a living hell.

  Oh, and of course he would hit on Raphtalia and Filo the whole time.

  He seemed to have a thing for Filo in particular.

  “You’re talking about Rishia, aren’t you?”

  “Yeah.”

  Had he made her cry like that? Or had she been crying before he met her?

  She had been very tightlipped with me, and I hadn’t been able to get an explanation out of her.

  But Motoyasu had a way with women, and I thought that he had probably gotten her to tell him about it.

  “So actually...”

  And Motoyasu started explaining the whole thing to me.

  When he did, I realized that my intuition had been right. I felt anger bubbling up from deep inside my guts.

  “At first I wanted to know why she was crying, and I might have been a little overzealous when I asked her what was wrong, but . . . Sorry, you know, I . . . I’m no good with girls when they are like that. Can you step in for me?”

  “Itsuki!!!”

  I kicked his door with all my might and barreled into the room.

  The door crashed open and everyone in the room stared at me in the doorway.

  “Wh . . . What is it?!”

  “You’re the Shield Hero! What do you want with us?!”

  The leader of Itsuki’s underlings, Armor, glared at me.

  Armor apparently had a real name, but he was always wearing a suit of flashy armor, so I’d taken to calling him that.