Chapter Eight: The Day the Game Ended
“Huh?”
We were making our way back to the village after failing to talk some sense into Motoyasu. I had Filo pulling her carriage since I’d figured we might as well sell some stuff while we were on the road. But when we came to the next town, someone was causing a commotion in front of the town’s vigilante corps guard station. I was about to ignore it and keep going, but . . .
“Why are you treating me like a suspect while this trash gets off scot-free?!”
I heard a familiar voice, so I stopped the carriage and went to have a look. I couldn’t see what was going on because of the crowd that had gathered, so I asked someone standing nearby.
“What’s going on?”
“Apparently one of the heroes captured some bandits and brought them here, but something about it doesn’t add up.”
That scenario rang a bell. Although, in my case, I’d taken the bandits’ money and set them free.
“A . . . aren’t you the Shield Hero?!”
I’d been recognized. Of course, there was a huge carriage behind me with Filo pulling it, after all. The crowd parted in front of me and I saw who had been causing the commotion. The bandits were standing there grinning while Ren was arguing with some members of the vigilante corps. I had a pretty good idea of what had happened. These bandits had tried to pull the same stunt when I captured them before. I figured I should probably step in, so I made my way toward Ren through the opening in the crowd.
“Yo.”
Things might’ve gotten dangerous if he got any more worked up, so I tried to be nonchalant.
“Is that you, Naofumi?”
“Long time no see.”
Ren beckoned me over like he was glad to see me. I’d actually been talking to the bandits and not Ren, but . . . whatever. Running into Ren had been lucky for us, too. I couldn’t let him escape like Motoyasu had. I needed to be careful not to get him excited.
The bandits went pale the moment they saw me. Of course, I’d run into them twice already. This made three times. They couldn’t pretend like they didn’t know who I was. Besides, now I had enough authority to force the vigilante corps to take them in if I felt like it.
“You guys never learn, do you? Did you really think you could get off playing the victim just because your captor is a has-been?”
“Sh . . . shut up!” one of them shouted.
This could be a good little experiment. While it was true that I’d instigated Filo at the time, it was these idiots that had been the original source of her little human-eating act.
“Filo!”
“Whaaat?”
Filo leapt over the crowd and came to my side. The bandits grew even paler.
“Eat up,” I said.
“Huh?”
“What kind of order is that?!” snapped Raphtalia.
I ignored her. Filo had been pulling her carriage, so she was currently in her filolial queen form. She looked plenty intimidating, although she didn’t seem to realize that herself. Filo took one menacing step forward and the bandits all clung to the vigilante corps members.
“We’re the true criminals! Please, save us!”
They had confessed quickly! Was Filo really that scary? Now I just needed to get them to give up their hideout and go collect the stolen goods. These idiots always bounced back surprisingly fast. I guess it was because they weren’t actually that weak. And they were really good at building up their stash. Maybe I should let them go this time, too, and cash in again later. Nah, that probably wasn’t going to work this time.
“We’re bandits! We’ll tell you anything you want to know! We’ll give all the money back! Just don’t let the bird eat us!”
“Umm, Master? I’m getting a bad feeling about this. Is it just me?”
“Don’t worry about it. Just bite his head or something.”
“Umm . . .”
The crowd started whispering.
“Does the bird god really eat people?”
“Nah, I heard the Shield Hero is just really good at intimidating people.”
“Really? I knew it! I heard people from several villages mention seeing the bird god having fun playing with the village children.”
Filo should have been happy. Apparently people didn’t really believe that she was the filolial embodiment of hunger itself. It would be up to her now whether people treated her as a monster or a person in the future.
“So there you have it. Those guys tried to do the same thing and frame me back when I had a bad reputation. Make sure you tie them up nice and tight.”
“U . . . understood.”
The vigilante corps members had a bewildered look on their faces as they nodded to me.
“There’s a bounty for these guys, right?”
“Umm, yes. But you’ll need to turn over their leader first.”
“Hideout, guys . . .”
“Of course! Here’s a map right here!”
Their obedience sure made things easy.
“Alright. Filo, take Raphtalia to this location and you two take care of any bandits there.”
“Okay!”
“Understood. But what about the Sword Hero?”
“He’s less likely to get excited if I talk to him alone.”
Ren had his own portal skill, so we had to be careful or he’d just flee like Motoyasu had. If he was going to run, at least I could try my best to talk some sense into him first.
“Understood. We’ll be back soon.”
I gave the map to Filo and Raphtalia and sent them on their mission. I told the vigilante corps that the rest of the bandits would be arriving soon and asked them to give the bounty to Raphtalia.
“The Shield Hero sorted everything out.”
“Getting those lying bandits to confess like that sure was impressive.”
“I guess that shows they know there are things worse than being arrested.”
“I guess so.”
I couldn’t have agreed more. Just because you do the right thing doesn’t mean that the bad guys will get the punishment they deserve.
“Long time no see, Ren.”
“Y . . . yeah . . .”
Ren tensed up and started to back away slowly.
“Hold up, it’s not like I’m here to capture you or anything. I just want to talk. I’m no threat to you alone, right?”
Part of the reason I’d sent Raphtalia and Filo away was to show Ren that I had no intention of fighting. I figured it was the only way to get him to loosen his guard.
“I . . . guess so. It’s just that everyone seems to be treating me suspiciously lately.”
Ren replied sulkily. I’d say he had it pretty good if that’s all he had to deal with. I’d been cursed and called a demon for reasons I didn’t even understand. It was mostly because of Trash, Bitch, and the Church of the Three Heroes, of course.
“Why don’t we go to the tavern and talk?”
I sure hoped I could get through to him. Why did these idiots always seem to show up when we were unprepared?
I took Ren to the tavern. We sat at the bar and ordered some drinks. Hmm? The barkeep handed me a rucolu fruit along with the drinks and looked at me with a twinkle of anticipation in his eye. Oh, whatever. I tossed it in my mouth.
“He’s the real deal!”
“Crazy!”
I guess eating a rucolu fruit had become the gold standard for proving my identity. I wasn’t really sure how to feel about that. Sadeena got oddly excited whenever she saw me eat one.
“Sounds like you’ve been having a tough time.”
I decided to start the conversation with something neutral that wouldn’t upset Ren. The guy was a lone wolf who had been pushed into a corner, so it was hard to know how he’d react. And actually, revenge was all I thought about before I had Raphtalia and Filo with me, too.
“Yeah. The guild is constantly harping on me to return to Melromarc. So I go clear out monsters or hunt bounties on my own, and then someone takes a cut of my reward money. Then, to top it all off, something like this happens!”
The self-professed imperturbable Ren was visibly angry as he aired his complaints. Of course, it’s not like I couldn’t understand how he felt. I’d experienced the same thing.
“So I’ve been selling monster drops and whatever else, basically living hand to mouth. I’ve had enough. Everyone is treating me completely different than before. Why should I have to protect this world?”
I wanted to roll my eyes. All he was worried about was being praised. He was still treating this all like a game, as usual.
“That’s just the way people are. I had it at least that bad, if not worse, when I was still the Shield Demon to them.”
I mentioned my own experience and pretended like I sympathized with him. That must have earned me a bit of trust, because he nodded.
“I . . . I guess so.”
It was tempting to let him experience a little bit more of what I’d gone through, but if he lost all hope and ended up dying on us, that’d just be more trouble for me. But what a little weakling. Everything about him was just weak.
“So what should we talk about?” I asked.
I tried to think of something to talk to Ren about, but nothing came to mind, honestly. I mean, I could have told him to get serious about the waves or asked him what happened with the Spirit Tortoise, but I didn’t want to get him worked up.
“. . .”
Ren and I sat there in silence. With the state he was currently in, Ren would only think I was boasting if I tried making small talk, like mentioning what I’d been up to lately. I didn’t have any other ideas, so I decided to bring up what happened with Motoyasu, who was in a similar situation. Then I could appeal to how Ren surely wouldn’t want to be so childish.
“I ran into Motoyasu a few hours ago. I tried to explain that neither I nor Melromarc was interested in punishing him or anything like that, but he just ran away. He showed basically no interest in listening to me, or even to one of his party members that survived.”
More accurately, Elena had completely rejected Motoyasu. But I left that part out.
“Oh yeah? So his party members survived, huh?”
Ren seemed to grow even more despondent as he replied in a near-whisper.
“By the way . . .”
Had Ren’s party members been killed? I seemed to remember Kyo saying something like that, but . . . maybe they had survived. I know Kyo said they had charged at the Spirit Tortoise like a pack of wild boars.
“. . .”
When I didn’t say anything, Ren slowly opened his mouth and began to talk.
“I wanted to get the jump on you, so I went to defeat the Spirit Tortoise.”
Apparently in the game that Ren was familiar with, the whole surrounding region ended up damaged beyond repair by the Spirit Tortoise. It was so bad that the country established an inquiry commission to look into the incident. I had to resist the urge to insert a jab about how they’d made it even worse in real life. Ren explained that level 60-ish was appropriate for the encounter, and that defeating the boss—the Spirit Tortoise—at level 80 should have been a breeze.
Motoyasu had said pretty much the same thing. They wanted to get the jump on me by getting their hands on the powerful Spirit Tortoise weapons. I couldn’t deny that the weapons were ridiculously strong. But when you took into account our basic stats and abilities, even with those weapons the other heroes still wouldn’t have even come close to the level of strength I’d reached at the Cal Mira islands.
According to Ren, he had pointed at the Spirit Tortoise when it appeared in the distance and then darted off into its direction, accompanied by his party members.
“Alright! Let’s do this!”
Surprised by the overwhelming size of the Spirit Tortoise, Ren’s party members questioned him.
“It’s huge . . . Can we really defeat that thing?”
“We can beat it! We’re plenty strong now!”
Ren shouted back confidently as they continued running toward the Spirit Tortoise, drawing closer and closer. While running, Ren noticed someone firing off skills near the beast, but assumed it was simply adventurers fighting and paid no attention. Ren leapt at the Spirit Tortoise and swung his blade, smug in his conviction that no hero other than himself —much less an ordinary adventurer—would be able to defeat the beast.
“Hundred Swords!”
Ren’s Thunder Sword skill took longer to cast than Hundred Swords, so he timed the activation to ensure that the skills flowed together smoothly.
“Thunder Sword!”
But . . . the skills failed to inflict any significant damage on the Spirit Tortoise. This part of Ren’s story was basically the same as Motoyasu’s, so I’ll leave out the details. Confused, Ren swung his sword again. He wasn’t going to give up. He was going to defeat the Spirit Tortoise and save the people. And so he continued to fight, his impassioned battle cries ringing out through the air.
Before he realized it, Ren was surrounded by . . . the corpses of his party members. And not just that . . . The corpses were so badly mangled that it would have been near impossible to determine their identities. Still, what did remain of them was just enough for Ren to realize that his companions had all died.
“Wha . . . No way . . . I’m sure they were all at least level 80 . . .”
Overcome with disbelief, Ren’s mind went blank. He just stood there in a stupor for a while. He found himself grasping at the vague possibility they might be revived like in a game. But even Ren understood that wasn’t going to happen.
As he stood there in utter despair, something or someone took him by surprise and knocked him out cold. It was probably a Spirit Tortoise familiar controlled by Kyo. When Ren finally woke up, he found himself in a bed at the hospital.
“I lost because my party members were weak. And they died because they were weak . . . If we’d coordinated better, we would have won.”
Ren whispered in a matter-of-fact tone, as if to say none of it had been his fault. He was . . . beyond saving. His companions had trusted him and fought until the bitter end. They must have been turning in their graves.
“It’s not my fault. It’s because they were weaker than I expected. It’s not my fault. It’s not my fault!”
He knew what he had done, and he was trying to run away from the reality of it. There was no need for me to show sympathy here. But I had to make sure he didn’t get worked up or he might end up running away.
“In that case . . . there’s nothing you could have done.”
I forced out an insincere response. To be honest, it was obvious that Ren’s negligence was to blame. He’d charged at the beast based solely on his knowledge of a game, and now he was trying to run away from his guilt by rationalizing the death of his companions.
It made me wonder . . . How strong had Raphtalia and Filo been back when all of this was happening? At the very least, they’d held their own against the Spirit Tortoise. I wanted to believe that there’s no way they would have ended up dead. They’d had at least that much strength hidden within. Even Rishia could have survived the encounter if she played her cards right. I wanted to tell Ren to try reflecting on his own actions before blaming everyone else. But I restrained myself.
“Ren. Now is your chance to use what I told you guys and get even stronger. Then you can find new companions to help you fight the waves. We have two months and three weeks before the seal is broken on the Phoenix.”
There was still time. If Ren used what I had told them and made an effort, he should be able to bounce back by then. To be frank, I wanted to just completely denounce Ren. But it wouldn’t have been any good for me or this world if he ended up dead.
If the holy heroes didn’t cooperate with each other, this world was going to be destroyed by the waves, or the Phoenix. Of course, if what Ost had said was true, it was also possible to bring peace to this world by sacrificing its inhabitants. Still, there was no guarantee that something wouldn’t go wrong like it had with the Spirit Tortoise.
“Yeah.”
“If you want to keep a low profile, you could always come stay at the village I’m overseeing. You know Raphtalia, right? It’s the village she’s from. It’s where the first wave happened, so we’re working on rebuilding it now. You can borrow some of my companions to group with for the time being if you want. As long as you treat them well, of course.”
“You wouldn’t mind?”
Ren responded to my suggestion favorably. Things were going in a good direction. I’d reel him in with kind words, and then once I’d tamed him, I’d hammer the power-up methods into his dense head. If I could do that, I wouldn’t have to worry so much about him dying anymore. Then he could feel free to leave the village anytime. What Ren needed right now was a way to become truly strong. If I told him some of the things that only we knew, I was sure it would broaden his horizons, too.
“Okay, I’ll go.”
“Great! In that case . . .”
While still in mid-sentence, I caught a glimpse of a familiar figure outside of the tavern.
“Wait here for a few minutes, will you?”
“What is it?”
Taking Ren right now would be dangerous. But depending on how I replied, he might start to suspect something. Ren seemed to have a sharp intuition, so if I didn’t word my response carefully, then our whole talk might end up being for nothing.
“Oh, nothing. I was just thinking we should probably wait for Raphtalia and Filo to get back before heading back to the village. But I remembered I left something important in the carriage. I’m going to run and get it real quick.”
“Oh, okay.”
“I’ll bring back something good to eat. That’ll give you something to look forward to.”
I had some smoked meat in the carriage that I’d been saving for a special occasion. Filo had gone on about wanting to eat it, and she was picky about flavor. I was sure Ren would like it, too, if he gave it a try.
“Just relax for a bit here in the tavern.”
I’d have Ren wait in the tavern.
“Okay.”
Ren gave a dispirited nod from his seat at the counter. I stood up and exited the tavern before rushing off in pursuit of the figure I’d just caught a glimpse of.
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