Tate no Yuusha no Nariagari (LN) - Volume 11 - Chapter 6

Chapter Six: The Fruits of Training 

After that, we quickly headed to the dragon hourglass and exchanged greetings with the soldiers at the entrance. They must have already received the queen’s orders, because preparations for the ceremonies had already been completed. 
“Okay, you go first, Sadeena.” 
“Okay! I won’t let you down!” 
Hmm? There were people there to assist with the ceremonies just like when we had classed up, but this time they had a stretcher with them. It seemed strange, so I asked a nearby soldier about it. 
“Resets often have repercussions. It will probably take several days to fully recuperate.” 
I guess that made sense. I’d felt sluggish when the stats I had taken for granted suddenly dropped, too. But my level hadn’t changed. I could only imagine how restricted I might feel if I was suddenly back at level 1. 
“There is individual variance, of course.” 
The soldiers began the ceremony. The dragon hourglass began to glow as power flooded into the magic circle on the floor. It looked a lot like when we had done our class-ups. 
“ The woman standing here before us has chosen to relinquish her own powers in order to walk a new path. Powers of the world! Grant her the chance to find that path! ” 
 
Sadeena was standing in the middle of the magic circle and waving to me. 
“Look, little Naofumi! It’s the moment of my rebirth!” 
She seemed just a bit too relaxed. Moments later, something came rushing out of Sadeena and then scattered in all directions. 
“The ceremony is complete. How do you feel?” asked one of the soldiers. 
“My body feels pretty heavy, but I can still move.” 
Sadeena trudged over to where I was standing. I guess that meant she was pretty tough. 
“You’re next, Fohl.” 
“Off you go, Brother! Do as Mr. Naofumi says!” 
“A . . . Atla! Fine! I’m going!” 
I was starting to feel a little bit sorry for Fohl. Regardless, he completed the level reset ceremony and seemed to have no trouble walking, just like Sadeena. 
“You guys just reset your levels, but you seem to be moving surprisingly well. Do you not need to use the stretcher?” I asked. 
“Would you carry me if I couldn’t move, little Naofumi?” 
“I’m no wimp!” shouted Fohl. 
“You two aren’t normal,” I said. 
I thought about giving Fohl a quick jab to the arm to see if he was really okay . . . but Atla beat me to it. 
“Ow!” 
 
Yeah, he was definitely feeling weaker. 
“Hahaha! That tickles!” 
I tried it on Sadeena, too, but she reacted the same as always. She seemed to be just fine. Maybe the repercussions would be minimized if the person was in good physical shape. Both of them were physically fit. Exercising and getting in shape certainly seemed to fall into a different category than leveling up. I guess staying in shape would make it easier to deal with not feeling so great, unlike some kind of stat boost that the person barely even had to work for. These two had that kind of self-discipline. Raphtalia made sure to keep herself in shape, too. A person’s stats would be reduced with a level reset, but the results of their physical training would stay. Other than that . . . the boosts from my shield might have been helping a bit. 

So in other words, the people that needed the stretchers were probably people who mostly used magic, or people that had been power-leveled by someone stronger. For example, some spoiled kid from a noble family could pay an adventurer to level him up. That kind of thing was effective up to a certain point. It’s basically what I was doing with the slaves back at the village, so it wasn’t necessarily a bad thing. The problem was that once someone hit the level cap like that, the only way to further improve would be to get in better shape or train with someone like the old lady. 
Heroes had no level cap, apparently, but even I probably should have been doing some kind of training. Things like levels and stats were the norm in this world, so it wasn’t unthinkable that training and honing your magic skills on a daily basis could raise some kind of limit, too. That would mean people like Fohl and Sadeena, who had been training hard since they were little, might be able to become that much stronger. I didn’t know how it actually worked and I wasn’t planning on sticking around in this world forever, so I’d just do my training until the waves were defeated and not worry about it. After all, my levels and stats would mean nothing when I returned to my own world. 
 
The same went for this shield. This stupid shield that I couldn’t remove no matter what. Changing it to the Book Shield was the best I could even do to try to hide it. If this stupid thing followed me back to my own world, there’s no way it could be considered anything but a curse. A grown man walking around carrying some strange book all the time would be the laughing stock of the world. 
It’d be better to just not think about that. There was no point in worrying about something that might not even happen. Even if the shield did happen to follow me back, that’s just something I’d have to deal with when the time came. 
“Alright, let’s hurry back to the village and get ready to head out.” 
We used my portal skill to return to the village. 
“Sadeena, Fohl, and Atla, I want you three to get out there and level up. I’ll take the others and head out. Somebody go fetch Filo for me.” 
“Will do! I won’t let you down, little Naofumi!” 

Sadeena went walking off toward the ocean by herself, for whatever reason. Seriously? Was she going to be okay by herself? 
 
“You don’t have to tell me! Come on, Atla. Let’s go. You can just watch.” 
“No way! Mr. Naofumi! I want to go with you!” 
“Sorry, but you need to stay and level up. Where we’re going, you’d need to be able to protect yourself at the very least.” 
We were going to try to lure out Motoyasu. If things went wrong and he struggled, Atla might not make it out with just a scratch or two. I couldn’t take her with us. 
“If I level up and surpass my brother, then I can have Mr. Naofumi all to myself. I’ll do my best!” 
“What the hell are you talking about?” I asked. 
“Come on! Stop being ridiculous!” Raphtalia snapped. 
Right? Although . . . Raphtalia was mostly addressing me when she said that. But Atla sure was mentally tough. What happened to playing the part of the sickly young girl? Anyway, I got Fohl, Atla, and the other slaves loaded up in Filo Underling #1’s carriage and sent them off just as Filo came running up. 
“Master! You called?” 
“Yeah. There’s somewhere I need to go. Can you come with us right now?” 
“Yup!” 
I would take . . . Raphtalia and Filo should be plenty, I guess. Rishia was busy training under the old lady with Eclair. Nothing bad could come from having her master the Hengen Muso style. Besides, Rishia made Motoyasu uncomfortable. Taking her along would probably only make things more complicated, so I’d just leave her behind. 
 
“Alright, it’s just going to be the three of us. It’s not like we’re going to be selling anything, so maybe we should just ride on Filo’s back.” 
“Caaaarriage!” squawked Filo. 
“Okay, yeah. Fine.” 
“I finally get to pull my own carriage! My own caaaarriage!” 
Ever since I started using my portal skill more often, most of the carriages we’d been riding in were rentals. Filo hadn’t had many chances to pull her own carriage lately. Peddling was about the only time she got to use it. Going by carriage would be fine, I guess. It didn’t really matter either way. 
“On the way back . . . maybe we’ll see if we can’t sell a thing or two.” 
Alright, we needed to hurry up and get to Motoyasu’s companion. Raphtalia and I loaded up into Filo’s carriage and we headed off in that direction.