Chapter Ten: Shield Power-Up Method
The following morning, we held our final war council and marched on the old city.
“Today we need to capture this so-called old city. Do you think they’ll come at us full strength?” I inquired of a nearby officer.
“According to our scouts, they have deployed their forces in front of the old city and are ready to engage us at any time,” the officer reported. So our enemy, too, was really going to get serious this time.
“They’re not going to be annoying by holing up behind fortifications, are they?” I groaned.
“Do they stand a chance against us though?” Sadeena questioned. If they had a sakura stone of destiny barrier, maybe—but if I was the enemy, I wouldn’t fancy my chances.
Heroes were useful at a time like this. Especially me. With my sakura stone of destiny shield, it made it tough to take us down, and Raphtalia and Itsuki were especially high-powered. It would be difficult without some skilled officers capable of taking each of us down.
Then there was the policy that Raphtalia was marching under: to abandon the order restricting the harming of animals. She had much support from the people, meaning keeping them under control was definitely going to be demanding resources.
Another officer ran up and shouted, “Reporting! Information is coming in that those under the Heavenly Emperor are raiding the settlements we have taken!”
There it was, then. That was their play. Attack the exposed locations and slow down our progress. We were fighting to defeat the false Heavenly Emperor, perpetrator of the forbidden, and so we needed to gather a certain amount of support from the people. If we ignored the attacks on these towns and villages, the people might end up thinking that nothing was going to change other than who it was standing over them.
What choice did I have? I’d send out a selection of the most annoying among my retinue.
Atla and Gaelion. Fohl could go too.
“What is it, Master Naofumi?” Atla snapped to attention.
“Kwaa?”
“Yes?” Fohl chimed in too.
I could have also asked Itsuki to go, but—nah, they should be fine.
“Go capture the brigands causing trouble in the towns and villages we’ve occupied. It doesn’t matter how many days it takes; maintain the peace until I call for you. You’ll need to work in tandem with the Siltvelt troops following from behind.” Atla was well-liked in Siltvelt. They had sent considerable numbers to the revolutionary cause too.
“Very well!”
“Kwaa!”
“Why do I have to follow your orders again?” Fohl was as rebellious as ever. Then Raphtalia stepped in.
“Fohl. Will you please do this for me? Atla is excited to do this for Mr. Naofumi, and you’re the one best suited to stop her from going too far. I think it would be safer for her to get away from the front lines too.”
“Ah, if you think so, big sister. Very well.”
“Kwaaa!” With that, Gaelion turned from baby into father mode. Atla and Fohl climbed aboard.
“We will execute your orders to the letter, Master Naofumi!” Atla dutifully replied.
“Kwaaa!”
“We’ve got this,” Fohl too conceded. With that, Atla and her party flew away on Gaelion.
“Right, that should handle some of the issues behind us. In either case, we’ve got an excellently located base of operations right in front of us. Let’s go.”
As we approached, a large castle and city came into view, with forces arrayed in front of them, standing ready to fight at any moment. They were seeking to control the field, making us come to them. When we also formed up into easy-to-fight formations and started to close in, one of the enemy units raised a flag indicating they had no hostile intent and started to move toward us.
One of our officers came running up and announced, “It’s a messenger unit. Rather than spill meaningless blood in an all-out conflict, they are inquiring as to whether this could all be settled by having two representatives from each side fight. For their side, the water dragon’s miko priestess will be fighting.”
“Oh my!” Sadeena exclaimed.
“They have the gall to attack the towns and villages behind us, and then this? Send them packing!” I barked. Upon receiving my response, the distant enemies showed surprise on their faces, and then they retreated. It was starting to look like their command structure wasn’t in the healthiest position.
A short while later, they started to abandon the defense of the old city and withdraw completely.
Again, an officer appeared and stated, “Another message has been received. Due to an oversight on their part, the water dragon’s miko priestess declared that they will simply hand the old city over to us and then depart.” It looked like she had control of her forces, at least. A strong sense of duty, perhaps. I’d really wanted to see her—if only to make sure she really wasn’t Zodia.
We could have chased after them, put the boot in a little, but doing so against an enemy who was leaving of its own accord would paint us as the bad guys here. Best not to do that.
With that, then, our resounding—resoundingly easy—victory in taking the old city was complete.
Entering the old city, we found ourselves warmly welcomed.
The people were practically begging us to take over, and even some of the enemy soldiers stayed behind to join the revolution. Honestly, the real reason for being so well received was clearly because of the idiocy of the current Heavenly Emperor.
With that, anyway, we headed swiftly toward the castle in the old city.
This should have been a major base of enemy operations, but we were arriving after the enemy leaders posted here had already fled to the east. I really hoped I wasn’t underestimating the stupidity of these guys.
“We salute the true Heavenly Emperor!” chanted men who flipped to our side. With the capture of the old city, skilled generals who had been demoted to posts out in the sticks were now siding with our forces, increasing the size of our lands at an incredible pace. Our forces were expanding at an almost unnatural rate.
Just how much stupidity could the forces of the opposing Heavenly Emperor pull off? It was like they were going for some kind of record.
After that, Raphtalia was shown to a place called the Sanctuary in order to perform the rite of appointing her as Heavenly Emperor. We left the castle, passed through a forest of tall, verdant, beautifully mossy trees, and came to a spot within it that had a yin-yang seal depicted there.
A small, well-maintained river was running between the trees. It really was all quite picturesque.
“Here we shall perform the ritual of appointment for the Heavenly Emperor. Lady Raphtalia, please, step this way,” an important-looking official announced. Raluva, Sadeena, and other key figures in the revolution all formed a circle around her, and the showy ceremony got underway. Raphtalia herself looked as though she was being consumed by the very air here, withering away before my eyes.
The miko outfit looked great on her though.
When the enchantment-like blessing finished, the light from the massive trees—ah, they were sakura lumina, of course—started to twinkle down onto Raphtalia.
“Ah. What’s going on? I feel something very strange,” she murmured as the light bathed her. Wow, it was like her tail was glowing! What was this, a beast transformation? Was she going to turn into Raph-chan?
“Mr. Naofumi, please don’t make that look. I dislike the sparkle in your eyes.”
“Concentrate on the ritual, please, Raphtalia,” I told her. She sighed at my tone.
“I know, and I am. I’m starting to see something in my field of vision, actually. Is this—the blessing—the ability to activate sakura stones of destiny?” Raphtalia said, beckoning me over.
“What is it?”
“I’m not sure. Mr. Naofumi, give me your hand—” As she asked, I put my hand out. Then Raphtalia took it with both of her own hands, raising them all up as though praying and then touching them to her forehead. Then some text appeared.
Pacifier’s Blessing received!
Spirit Binding Limited Release 2: seal resistance (medium) acquired!
“Hmmm. I tried to apply more than that, but they were repelled,” she stated.
“An affinity problem, most likely. So? Can you activate the sakura stone of destiny barriers now?” I asked.
“Yes, it looks like it.”
“Oh my!”
“I should start by applying them to everyone here. They are definitely going to need it in the future.”
“Yeah, good idea.” And so everyone received the blessings of the Heavenly Emperor, through Raphtalia. That should provide us with some means to resist the interference of our enemies. If they put up a barrier, our barrier would apparently nullify it.
“There is something that concerns me. What’s that back there?” As I asked, I pointed to a place farther inside where the ritual was being performed, beneath a large tree. “Isn’t that a dragon hourglass?”
“I was wondering the same thing,” Raphtalia said. It definitely looked like a dragon hourglass, buried in the roots of the tree—although it also looked to have a slightly different design. Was it functioning, then?
“I think that’s what it is. This is where they used it on me, back when I was here,” Sadeena mentioned.
“So it is, huh?” I remarked.
Sadeena explained more. “Yes. I received the protection of the Water Dragon and had a special class-up. I never would have returned to that level of strength without the help of you and the others, little Naofumi.” Thinking about it now, Sadeena had past experience with both class-ups and resets, then.
I see. So this was where it happened.
“Seriously, if you knew there was a dragon hourglass here, you could have said something,” I grumbled. With this we could use Raphtalia’s Return Dragon Vein to go straight back to Melromarc. “We’ve been away from the village for a while. I’ve been getting a bit concerned.”
Raphtalia concurred. “Indeed. We’ve captured a lot of Q’ten Lo too, so I’d like to just take a quick trip back and check things out.”
“Excuse me, Lady Raphtalia, but what exactly are you talking about?” Raluva ventured. He and the other revolutionary leaders clearly had some questions.
“Of course. That dragon hourglass is used to implement class-ups, right? Well, Raphtalia can also use them to instantly travel to distant lands,” I told them.
“S-she can? But we really cannot afford to have Lady Raphtalia, the very pillar of our revolution, go off traveling at this point in time,” he went on. I gave Raluva and the others a bit of a glare, eyes narrowed. Raphtalia was also applying a bit of silent pressure. It wasn’t like we were doing this for the sake of the nation, and the revolutionaries were definitely aware of that. Having them come out with this now didn’t sit right with me.
“We’ll come right back. In either case, we need to spend a few days here, appealing to the new order we’ve created, correct?” I told them. It would be difficult to clash with the Heavenly Emperor’s forces right away.
We’d been forced to send Atla and the others out to deal with their silly makeshift attack strategy too. It would be a few days before we were whole again. Taking that time to bolster our strength didn’t seem like a bad idea.
“What’s this? I see three stone tablets of some kind,” I reported.
“What could they be? Maybe we can learn some kind of special magic from them?” Raphtalia replied.
“I wonder.” I approached and took a better look at the text on the tablets surrounding the dragon hourglass.
“It’s the Hero language,” she asserted.
“Yeah. It’s got some magic text on it too, meaning only certain people can read it. This is heavy stuff,” I remarked, and as I touched the tablet, text floated into my field of vision. It was the exact same text as back in the Orochi’s stone chamber. I read it out.
“Holy Shield power-up methods, number one: share the power-up methods from other holy weapons and vassal weapons,” I read aloud.
“Oh my. We’ve seen that before,” Sadeena said.
“Is that—” S’yne began.
“She is asking if that’s true about the vassal weapons,” S’yne’s doll finished. As S’yne traced the text with her finger, she went on. “Apparently, she cannot read it.”
“Looks like only the Shield Hero can,” I announced and punched the tablet—a bit rashly, perhaps. “Get off my back! Just how many of the same thing do they need to leave lying around?”
“Mr. Naofumi, calm yourself,” Raphtalia soothed.
“Itsuki!” He was also with us, so I called him over. I didn’t get a chance after the ruins collapsed last time, but I really needed to see if it said the same thing for Itsuki.
“Can you read this?” I asked him.
“Let me see.” With that, Itsuki read the tablet. He’d been studying a bit of magic, so he should be able to handle this by now. Rishia had been training him pretty hard.
“Bow Hero power-up methods, number one: increase the capabilities and rarity of the weapon itself and find powerful rare weapons.” This was what Itsuki had explained to us before, wasn’t it? Just more information we already knew.
“Looks like this is a power-up method that you have already used,” I stated.
“Seems likely. Still, Naofumi, this is the first time we’ve found a clear explanation of sharing power-up methods,” he replied. Yeah, that was a good point. It felt like stumbling over an instruction booklet.
“Let’s take a look at the other two,” I said. Itsuki and I both read the next one.
“Holy Shield power-up methods, number two: trusting and being trusted leads to an increase in abilities.” The crystal on my shield glowed.
Itsuki’s, meanwhile, was an explanation of ore enhancement.
“This is a power-up method too?” I wondered.
“Mr. Naofumi, does that ring any bells?” Raphtalia asked.
“Huh?” At Raphtalia’s question, I took a moment to think back. Had I experienced anything like this? Trust? I believed in Raphtalia and the others, but was that boosting my abilities?
Raphtalia began, “When we were in Melromarc, fighting the high priest of the Church of the Three Heroes, or when fighting the Spirit Tortoise, you were pretty tough, Mr. Naofumi. But then, in Kizuna’s world, you complained about not improving as much as before.”
“Yeah, you’re right. I did.” So at the times I was improving better than I expected, maybe that bonus had unknowingly been in effect?
“I felt far more powerful during that time too. Perhaps being trusted by Mr. Naofumi was providing a bonus to my abilities,” she went on. Yeah. That sounded likely. Back then, Raphtalia had quickly got stronger and stronger. Of course, she was far stronger now.
“This might also explain why Ren and I were weaker,” Itsuki flatly stated, his voice still lacking all emotion. Those two had started to be hated by their countries and people, after all. Branded as being weaker than expected.
That said, if you didn’t believe in the sharing of power-up methods, maybe they didn’t work at all? Hmmm. Convoluted.
“Let’s look at the next one.” I also had a feeling that actual understanding would lead to an enhanced modifier. The sharing of power-up methods was definitely a thing. My abilities had enhanced since checking the text in the Orochi’s stone chamber.
Giving consideration to all of this, I looked at the third tablet.
“Holy Shield power-up methods, number three: energy boost.” When I read the explanation text, the item EP was quietly added to status magic. I continued. “The heroes have an energy that they draw out automatically as power from the weapons, and this is always active. Assigning this energy to skills will allow more powerful skills to be used. Anyway, that’s what it says.” Which meant what? We had auto Muso Activation? It sounded like simple possession of a legendary weapon provided a permanent, complete state of Muso Activation. “Energy Boost” was also there now, under Help. So if Muso Activation was already active, it shouldn’t be possible to activate another one and have two running.
“Energy Boost?” Itsuki followed something with his eyes and then manifested a burst of life force.
“Feeeeeh! How is Master Itsuki suddenly able to use life force?” Rishia suddenly blurted out. I checked, and the flow of life force from Itsuki had definitely increased—and from me too—although they had a slightly different quality. Everything seemed to click into place when I considered Hengen Muso Style as the artificial recreation of this power.
“EP have now appeared, which we can mix into skills, magic, and even attacks. They seem to work in combination with SP and magic, but just being aware of them consumes them too. This is going to require some practice,” Rishia explained. Acquiring this so easily? So what had all that hard work been for? Man, this world could be a real pain.
Still, it all came down to how it was used. Get that wrong and it would simply chew through the points with no effect. So maybe we’d now achieved easy use of life force, but it still didn’t mean we understood it. That seemed the way to think of it.
“Raphtalia has a vassal weapon from another world, so they can’t be shared,” I said.
“That’s right. It would be convenient if we could do that, but I can already use life force, so it isn’t so vital,” she replied. She couldn’t use Muso Activation though. She’d been able to imbue it into skills for a while, having learned it from Glass, if I remember correctly.
It looked like S’yne could do it too. To be honest, it was a bit annoying that they could do all this stuff as though taking it for granted.
I didn’t really feel like I’d got much stronger.
“Still, why do you think the shield power-up methods are written here?” she asked.
“You think maybe it has something to do with that stuff Glass talked about? The fusing of the worlds due to the waves? Siltvelt and Q’ten Lo are both nations of demi-humans, right?” I replied. That made them the territory of the Shield Hero.
Indeed, looking at a world map, there were many demi-human territories. Taken in that light, it perhaps wasn’t so odd that the power-up method for the shield would be hidden in Q’ten Lo—although here they had the odd name of “spirit implements.”
“Well, if we bring Ren and have him read these tablets, we might understand more,” I surmised. All sorts of reasons came to mind, such as the order in which the worlds were fusing. We were still at the stage of collecting materials, prior to being able to make a judgment.
“Yes, good idea. Shall we take a quick trip to Melromarc, then?” Raphtalia suggested.
“Sounds good.” Ren was currently the only hero there, and that, among other things, had definitely been weighing on my mind. This would all be pointless if the village was taken out while we took Q’ten Lo.
With that, then, we used the dragon hourglass found in Q’ten Lo and transferred back to Melromarc.
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