The Rising of the Shield Hero Vol 15 Page 9

  However, I had also just discovered that you couldn’t mix these two together and incant them at the same time. While magic and the Way of the Dragon Vein were in principle incredibly close to each other, they were as incompatible as water and oil and couldn’t be mixed together.

  However, SP and life force . . . EP was capable of mixing these two oil-and-water types of magic.

  In other words, this was magic that only a hero could use.

  Right. I completed the power and activated it.

  “Liberation Aura!” Ost, my friend! I’d finally reached the point of using this magic for myself! Your efforts were not in vain!

  That said, Ost might not have been too pleased to see me using it on Filo in order to defeat Motoyasu.

  “Go! Filo!” I shouted, designating her the recipient of the Liberation Aura. With this, I could now use this power without having to pay any significant cost!

  “Here I go!” Filo started to run at multiple times her previous speed!

  “Filo! Use the center of gravity of the wagon to take the curves while maintaining this speed,” I ordered her.

  “Sure thing!” she replied. That suggestion from me was all it took for Filo to start drifting the wagon!

  Just how was she doing that? I was extremely worried that the axles were going to break.

  That said, Motoyasu was doing the same thing. He was tearing along ahead of us and was so far away that flight was still probably the only way to catch him. Motoyasu was also cornering while drifting his wagon.

  It looked like Filo was actually faster, but her opponents knew the course well, and with our delay in starting, it was still unlikely we’d be able to catch them.

  “Right! Left! The right fork is faster there!” I gave instructions, map in one hand. It wasn’t easy to do since we were still bouncing along. Our wagon was made of wood too and had quite a few people aboard it.

  If we needed more speed, maybe I shouldn’t have brought so many people with me.

  “Hey, Filo,” I began.

  “What?” she replied, even as she ran. In the back of the clattering wagon, everyone else was just clinging on for dear life, desperate not to be thrown out.

  “You think maybe we could leave the cart and chase them without it?” I suggested.

  “No way!” she quickly shot back.

  “Why not?” I inquired.

  “This is my race! I can’t leave the cart behind during my race!” she explained.

  “Hmmm.” What was this, some kind of instinctive battle between filolials?

  When I gave it some more thought, maybe we should lose to Motoyasu on purpose, and then Filo would become his . . . but since she had sworn loyalty to me, that wouldn’t work. So instead I should somehow get an exemption from that rule. Then I could dangle Filo like a carrot in front of a horse and lead him along into whatever I wanted!

  “Master, you’re thinking something naughty, aren’t you!” Filo shouted. What, did Filo have eyes in the back of her head?

  “Naofumi, for the sake of all that’s holy, will you stop making that face when you’re brewing up some kind of scheme?!” Melty added. Gah, it looked like they were all on to me.

  “Mr. Naofumi! Filo, you too. Just try to stay calm!” Raphtalia’s voice was more panicked than either of us; I was the picture of composure.

  Now we were coming up to a rope bridge made of vines.

  “H-hold on, Naofumi! That looks like a rope bridge!” Melty had spotted it too.

  “Yeah. I reckon Filo can handle it,” I replied, still calm. Liberation had given her an unholy boost in speed; it was quite incredible. She had her skills too. Nothing to worry about.

  Even if she did screw up and we fell, we could just use a portal to fly back to safety. The wagon . . . would have to fend for itself.

  “Raaaaaagh!” Filo headed out onto the bridge without a moment’s hesitation. We immediately started to hear the popping sounds of vines breaking along the bottom of the bridge. Melty let out a scream that almost popped my eardrums. Even more amazing was that Raphtalia screamed as well—my name—long and loud.

  At their screams, Atla darted her head around and took hold of my sleeve.

  “E-everything is okay, isn’t it, Master Naofumi?” she tentatively asked.

  “Yeah,” I replied with confidence.

  “G-good. What’s gotten into those two?” she inquired.

  “I don’t rightly know. Maybe they should have more trust in Filo?” I prompted. But they just kept screaming. Indeed, perhaps now also enraged by my comment, Melty grabbed me and started shaking even as she screamed.

  “This is impossible! We’ll fall! We have to get out of here!” she managed.

  “Raaaaaagh!” Filo plowed onward. With a definite snapping noise, the thickest vine supporting the bridge gave way.

  “It’s broken!” Raphtalia screamed. Honestly, I thought she’d hold up better in a crisis than this.

  Filo accelerated away even faster, and for a moment I thought she was leaving the cart behind. Then she grabbed a vine supporting the bridge at high speed and kicked out at the wagon catching up behind her, knocking it over to the other side.

  “Guwaaah!” Everyone inside the cart was slammed into the wall, suffering various bumps and bruises as a result.

  “Yaah!” Having released the vine, Filo gave a cry as she used her mighty legs to propel herself after the wagon, catching up and then setting off once again.

  “Uwah. I don’t think one life will be enough for this race,” Raphtalia bemoaned.

  “What a coincidence. I was thinking the same thing,” I confided in her.

  “If you think that, pay more attention to the course!” she raged.

  “If we hadn’t just done that, we wouldn’t have a hope of winning!” I shot back. In actual fact, it had proven to be quite the shortcut. We were really catching up now.

  Bumped along by the clattering wagon, I checked the map again. I only had the light of the torches to go by, but Motoyasu looked to still be plenty far ahead. Just how much of a lead had he got on us?

  I guess there was a reason he called himself “street racer.” Shit, maybe he was even using his own secret shortcuts.

  “We’ve got a nightmare five-curve hairpin coming up. Watch out for that,” I warned. Just the image on the map was terrifying; one wrong step and we’d be taking a new shortcut straight down the mountain.

  I certainly had no recollection of arriving in a race game world.

  “I’m on it!” Filo proceeded to use jumps to leap over each of the curves of each hairpin. The wagon sounded like it didn’t agree with that decision. In fact, it felt like a blender that was about to break apart, with Raphtalia and the others getting blended inside.

  “Waah, aaah!” Ruft was having the hardest time of it, and Raph-chan had grown large in order to hold onto and try to stabilize him.

  “Aaagh . . . Raph!” Raphtalia shouted as she herself risked tipping over the side.

  “Raph?” Luckily, the oversized Raph-chan used her tail to grab Raphtalia. The thing that caught my attention most, however, was what Raphtalia had just said. Could it be that, in moments of crisis, she also made a “raph” sound?

  Nah, probably not. She’d likely just been calling to Raph-chan for aid.

  Raph-chan also looked over at Melty, bouncing around in the wagon, perhaps thinking about helping her. But she was bouncing so hard there was probably little she could do. I decided to try and hold her in place using two Float Shields, but—

  “Owww!” Ah, I hit her with one of them. Well, so long as she held onto it!

  “This is quite thrilling,” Atla exclaimed. For some reason, she wasn’t being shaken around at all, riding the bumps as though she was carved out of the wood of the wagon.

  Being in the driver’s seat, I had a much better time of things.

  Maybe it was thanks to her magic and life force. But no, that should mean Raphtalia would be okay too.

  I would have liked to help
them all, but if I let go of the reins, I risked getting thrown out myself. If that happened, with my high defenses I’d probably survive . . . but we’d also probably lose the race. Raph-chan was helping Raphtalia, so it looked like she’d be okay for now.

  “I never dreamed that Raph-chan would be saving me,” Raphtalia commented.

  “Raph,” Raph-chan offered, hugging Ruft to her tummy and giving Raphtalia a peace sign.

  “Uhh . . . I’m gonna die. I’m seriously gonna die,” Melty moaned, clinging to the Float Shields and offering up some uncharacteristic childlike whining. I wanted to say: You were the one who started this! Put up with it!

  She should be grateful to the world in which she was born and the blessings of Fitoria that she could take a beating like this without dying, honestly.

  “If you don’t like it, you’ll just have to send Filo to Motoyasu,” I reminded her.

  “No!” Melty adamantly replied.

  “Choosing to prioritize friendship? See, you’ll make a great queen,” I remarked.

  “Hearing that doesn’t make me happy at all. In this situation, not at all!” she sullenly replied. The back of the wagon was starting to look like nothing more than a pile of corpses though. It might have been better to bring Wyndia and Gaelion along after all.

  I could at least let these guys out . . .

  “Wouldn’t it be better if you guys got out?” I suggested.

  “How are we meant to do that?!” Melty retorted.

  “Use magic!” Seemed simple enough to me.

  “I can’t use magic under these conditions!” Melty shouted back.

  “Sure you can. I know. Shoot some water magic and use the reaction to push you out. How about that?” Seemed like a valid idea to me.

  “You’ve got to be kidding!” she replied.

  “Not at all. I’m being totally serious here,” I told her. That seemed like a pretty basic escape method that Melty could possibly use.

  “That look in your eye . . . you really are serious! I really have to do this? To save the world?” Melty was incredulous.

  “I mean, if you’re asking if you really have to do it, I’ve got nothing for you,” I admitted. I was simply postulating one way she might escape the wagon without dying.

  “Mr. Naofumi! That’s quite enough messing—” Raphtalia started. Whatever.

  We really were catching up anyway, but the goal was also drawing closer. We were going to lose at this rate.

  Ah! From beyond the cliff, I saw the light of Motoyasu’s speeding wagon. We still had to go all the way around to reach that point. If we could just jump across to there, we could win with ease, but it was too much to expect that.

  “Filo, you can see the light on the cliff over there, right?” I asked her. “Just below that is the goal. At the moment, we’re going to lose!”

  “Don’t want to!” That was her almost petulant reply. Filo proceeded to leave the course . . . over the cliff!

  “That’s a cliff! A cliff! Filo, we can’t fly! We’re going to faaaaaaaaaaaaaall!” Melty screamed. The timing here was key. Could Filo make it?

  “Yah!” With a cry, she grabbed the roof of the cart and flapped her wings. An incredible wind whipped up around us, with an accompanying incredible whooshing sound! Was Filo really going to fly? I did recall her hopping about a little when bickering with Gaelion.

  Man, in Kizuna’s world, she’d actually flown.

  Oh? She was successfully hovering in the air.

  “Waooooh!” She was doing more of a penguin than an eagle though. Was her plan just to make a gradual shortcut across like this?

  It was a real gamble as to whether it would work or not. The chances of it failing seemed far higher. She was gradually losing height. Filo’s body just wasn’t made for flight.

  Was it her weight? But Gaelion could fly and look at him. Messed up. That was other-worldly physics for you. And yet filolials couldn’t fly!

  Shildina had been flying around, hadn’t she? And Sadeena in beast transformation too. Boy, these poor filolials really had got the short end of the stick.

  I decided to help her out.

  “Air Strike Shield! Second Shield!” I sent out the two shields, one after the other, right at the limit of their range. The goal was beyond the cliff ahead.

  And then—

  “Change Shield!” I selected the Rope Shield. It had a hook as its special effect. That was added when it awakened. The hook could be used to launch a rope from the shield and pull things in. I also had the Chimera Viper Shield, but the range on that hook was shorter.

  What this all meant was that I could use the Rope Shield to make hooks appear on the distant shields and then draw the wagon toward them. Then, using the principle of a pendulum, we could swing over to the Second Shield.

  “Shield Prison!” Furthermore, I created a Shield Prison below the wagon.

  “Filo!” I commanded.

  “Got you!” she replied. Filo kicked the wagon and we reached the distant cliff. Using the Prison as fresh footing, she started running again.

  “One life . . . really is not enough for this race.” Melty was rolling listlessly on the wagon bed. Honestly, I felt almost the same. I certainly wasn’t going to take Filo racing again any time soon.

  If there ever was another race, I’d leave Filo behind completely and just use Portal Shield.

  “We’re going to die! Mr. Naofumi. Seriously, this is going to get us killed! One hundred percent!” Raphtalia shouted.

  “No way! We’ve handled fated battles with the high priest, the Spirit Tortoise, and Kyo! A mere race isn’t going to take us down!” I went hard with my reply.

  “Yes, it is! We’re going to die. This is too dangerous!” Raphtalia was on the verge of tears. Maybe it was actually pretty dangerous. I’d been rattling along thinking of it as just playing a race game. Maybe I needed a little more self-awareness.

  Below the cliff was pitch black, anyway. It wasn’t like you could see anything down there.

  “Don’t worry. We’re almost there,” I reassured her.

  “That was quite the thrilling attraction,” Atla offered.

  “This isn’t some traveling circus!” Raphtalia sniped back. I guessed they wouldn’t call it a “theme park” here. I’d have to ask what this “circus” entailed later.

  In any case, with this massive shortcut, Motoyasu should now be far behind us. We passed through torches intended to indicate the goal and came to a stop.

  “We won,” I said, sounding pleased. It had seemed impossible after all the time we lost at the start, but Filo had pulled out all the stops. The downward curve of our bad luck had finally taken an uptick.

  The three filolials with Motoyasu had been in human form, meaning they could also turn into filolial queens, although they hadn’t had any of the cowlicks.

  “Uhh . . .” Melty moaned.

  “W-we survived. That was the most thrilling experience of my life,” Raphtalia offered.

  “Really?” I asked.

  “Your mental fortifications are lacking, Raphtalia,” Atla chided.

  “And I’m fine with that. If you can just sit there without reacting to that, something is wrong with you on a fundamental level,” Raphtalia replied. It sounded pretty convincing, coming from her.

  “I won!” Filo was up on the roof of the wagon, dancing around and singing. What was it, some kind of official ceremony?

  In any case, the wagon itself was pretty much scrap. It was a broken-down cart now, little more. We did pretty well to win in this thing, I reflected.

  I was going to have to order a new one. It was made of wood, so it should be pretty cheap. I could see if Rat could make one at the bioplant or maybe get a ship out of Siltvelt to pick one up for us.

  “I won! I won! A win for Filo! I’m the fastest! I won’t lose to Gaelion!” Filo’s singing was ongoing.

  “Don’t get too excited,” I told her.

  “I won’t! But I won!” She wasn’t stopping anytime so
on. She really didn’t like Gaelion either, did she?

  It wasn’t long before Motoyasu and his own yapping threesome tore into view.

  “I . . . I lost, you say?” he lamented. Having confirmed that we arrived first, he slumped down to the ground.

  Chapter Six: The Love Hunter

  “The winner gets to take one filolial from the loser, correct?” I reconfirmed. It wasn’t like I really needed one of them, but that was the agreement. The whole point of this thing had been to bring Motoyasu back into the fold.

  Of the three of them, Green looked to be the easiest to handle.

  “Right. I’ll take the most peaceful looking-one of them . . . Green. Hand her over,” I proclaimed.

  “No waaaaaaaaaaay! No way you’re having Green!” Motoyasu lost it, grabbing all three of them protectively.

  “Seriously?” He was the one who set this whole thing up, and then when he lost, he wanted to back out? Filo was more than enough. Another one? God forbid.

  I just wanted a regular filolial, like the ones in the village.

  Nope, not even that. Now that we had the ability to class up into the Raph species, I didn’t need any more filolials at all actually.

  “Heheheheh . . .” If I did class the new one up, I’d turn into a Raph-mix!

  “Mr. Naofumi, stop making that face. It makes me afraid for the future.” Raphtalia always said things along those lines, and I just ignored her. The moment this new filolial came under my control, it would be fated to become one of the Raph species.

  “Motty!” Crimmy whined.

  “Moomoo!” bellowed Marine.

  “Mr. Motoyasu!” Green cried. Couldn’t they even decide on what to call him?! I decided not to say anything. It was likely to just make them even noisier, and I was no stranger to having lots of different people call me lots of different things.

  The three of them were all clinging to Motoyasu and crying together.

  “Enough, enough. Just don’t cause any more hassle for us,” I said. That was it, then. Mission completed. Now, by bringing Motoyasu back in, it was finished.

  “Father-in-law!” Motoyasu implored me. The guy was truly broken. Bowing low to me, groveling, he asked, “Please let me have your daughter!”