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Tate no Yuusha no Nariagari (LN) - Volume 17 - Chapter 7




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Chapter Seven: Finding Kizuna 

“Raph!” said Raph-chan. 
“Pen!” said Chris. We were in the carriage, heading to the country where Kizuna was being held. The two little ones were having some kind of conversation, while Raphtalia and Glass looked on. 
“Pen! Pen-pen!” said Chris. 
“Raph, raph!” said Raph-chan. I wondered what they were talking about. If Filo had been there, she probably could have translated, but I’d sent her to help Sadeena and the others. Ethnobalt was training Rishia, and L’Arc was working to rebuild the nation. 
I realized that I had hardly spent any time together with just Glass. Kizuna had always been there between us. Raphtalia seemed to have spent longer with her than I had. 
“Raph,” said Raph-chan. 
“Pen,” said Chris. The two of them seemed to have reached some kind of understanding, like an earthling and an alien touching their index fingers in what looked like a sign of friendship. Then a faint light started to shine out from where they were touching. 
“Pe, pepepepepe—!” Ah! Chris fell flat on his back and it looked as though he was having some kind of seizure. 
“Hey! What are you doing to Chris?” Glass shouted, immediately noticing what was happening. 
 
“Yes! What are you doing?” Raphtalia helped Glass pull the two critters apart. 
“Raph?” Raph-chan asked. 
“Pen . . .” Chris managed. Raph-chan looked at Raphtalia while tilting her head, while Chris looked a little disappointed. 
“Seriously . . . just what was that? You need to train your shikigami better, Naofumi,” Glass said. 
“Train her? Raph-chan has never done anything wrong,” I said. 
“You bet she has!” Raphtalia retorted, choosing this moment—for some reason—to come at me with her brow furrowed. Raph-chan doing something wrong? Like what? If she’d tried to pull something when I wasn’t looking, I’d have to have some words with her, of course. 
“What, then? What did she do?” I asked. 
“The Raph species!” Raphtalia immediately replied. 
“I’m not sure that really counts,” I countered. The monsters in the village had wanted to become members of the Raph species, after all. They had done great things not only in the Phoenix battle but also when defeating Takt, and Raph-chan II more than pulled her weight. They were like the leaders of the monsters and the guardians of the village. 
More than anything, they could get really big and were so soft and comfortable to lean on. I mean, I loved the Raph species. 
“I really wouldn’t class that as being bad,” I continued. I hadn’t told her about Ruft yet. We could save that one for after the two had been reunited. 
“It seems our opinions have diverged on this matter, Mr. Naofumi,” Raphtalia said. 
 
“You said they were convenient!” I countered. 
“. . . I admit to saying that,” she acquiesced. Deploying the Raph species against Atla had led to an unprecedented victory. They also got on really well with everyone in the village. 
“I’d love Raph-chan even if she turns Chris into one,” I said. 
“What are you planning to do to Chris?! I won’t be held accountable for my actions, depending on your answer!” Glass raged. So she was on Raphtalia’s side. I didn’t like her tone of voice either. 
“Raph, raph!” Raph-chan jumped on my shoulder and started hitting me on the head. I guessed she wanted me to stop giving people the wrong idea about her. 
“Pen!” said Chris, also directed at Raph-chan. Just what were the two of them trying to do? 
“Just what have you been doing with that shikigami anyway?” Glass asked. 
“Not much. Researching her with my monster specialist back in the village, a woman named Ratotille. That and raised her mutability a little, that’s all,” I told her. 
“That’s all? Increasing her mutability might turn her into who-knows-what kind of dangerous monster! How could you do something so reckless?” Glass exclaimed. 

“Even if Raph-chan did turn into a dangerous monster . . . Raphtalia is the only one who would be put out,” I said. 
 
“Why are you bringing my name up in that context?” Raphtalia asked. 
“Because you’re the only one who doesn’t like any of this,” I said. 
“Raph,” Raph-chan said. Then Chris leapt down from Glass’s arms and started waving a flipper about, trying to explain. I thought for a moment it was just shadowboxing, but no. After punching an imaginary foe, Chris pretended to take damage, then spun around on the spot and collapsed. 
“You’re weak and you hate yourself for it?” I ventured. 
“Pen!” Chris pointed at me, indicating I’d guessed correctly. I was smart when I needed to be. Then Chris pointed at Raph-chan and struck a pose, arms flexed. 
“Raph-chan is strong, so you’re learning something from her?” I guessed again. 
“Pen!” Chris leapt around happily, indicating another correct answer. 
“Mr. Naofumi, your skills at communicating without language have really improved recently,” Raphtalia said. 
“I guess so,” I replied. It felt like he was making sense. I actually enjoyed conversing like this! 
“You’re not allowed to do anything!” Glass put her foot down. “If something happens to Chris, we’re the ones who’ll be sad! I’m sure Kizuna would feel the same way!” She made Raph-chan sound like some kind of virus or infection. Still, if that was her stance, then it couldn’t be helped. I’d just stay quiet about Raph-chan and Chris having already done this numerous times behind Glass’s and Raphtalia’s backs. They seemed to have split whatever ritual it was up into numerous parts. 
 
“In which case, maybe I’ll make an accessory for Chris to try and provide a bit more confidence,” I suggested. 
“And will it really just be an accessory?” Raphtalia asked. She and Glass both had accusatory eyes. It looked like I had to prove I wasn’t involved in the ritual Raph-chan and Chris had been performing. 
A few days later, I handed an item over to Chris that I had created in collaboration with S’yne. 
“Here you go, Chris. I did consider making you some armor or something, but I think this suits you best,” I said. 
“Pen!” Chris replied. I had given Chris a red hat with a pointed design— the kind of thing you would see Santa wearing. 
“That’s just like a pekkul! Mr. Naofumi, are you playing around?” Raphtalia accused. 
“No, I’m not. Kizuna told me that Chris was born around Christmas, right? So my design plays into that backstory,” I told her. It wasn’t what you said but how you said it, I had always thought. “You make good use of that hat, you hear me?” 
“Pen!” Chris replied, full of energy, almost giving me a salute. 
“Raph!” said Raph-chan. Ah, she was jealous! I would have to make something for her later. 
“I’m not sure I like this. It feels like Chris is getting more selfish,” Glass said. 
“This isn’t being selfish,” I told her. “Chris is eager to take action.” 
 
“Noninterference isn’t the same as taking care of something,” Raphtalia commented, striking at an unprotected spot. Not long afterward, Glass complained to me that Chris had started to keep things in the hat. Was it so wrong to make effective use of potential storage space? Still, it really felt like Chris’s pekkul transformation was proceeding apace. 
Our journey with Glass continued. We reached the country that traitor we defeated had been in league with, just to hear that Kizuna—who we had been hoping to rescue here—had already been captured by a different vassal weapon holder. Our plan to meet back up with Kizuna slammed right into another brick wall. 
“What’s going on here? Is Kizuna some kind of poor princess, continually getting kidnapped in each new destination?” I bemoaned. We had to return to L’Arc’s castle, find a room, and discuss what to do next. I’d thought we’d save her easily, just to find her captured by someone else. Confounded by another trope! 
“So? Which of the other vassal weapon holders is responsible for taking Kizuna?” I asked. 
“From the information we acquired, it sounds like it is the musical instrument vassal weapon holder. If I recalled correctly . . . they are a summoned hero,” Glass explained. 
“So someone summoned from another world is causing havoc again,” I said. Just doing whatever they liked. Like the other three I’d come in with— back at the beginning. 
 
“This is just a guess based on the weapon they had, so I can’t be sure,” Glass continued. 
“One thing . . . I don’t think I’ve ever asked this before, but how many vassal weapons do you have in this world?” I questioned. This was another world, and I hadn’t really felt the need to find out, but it seemed like a good idea to confirm the number right now. 
“I have heard there are eight,” Ethnobalt informed me, opening up a book and checking its pages. 
“Eight, huh? Can you tell me all of them? Just in case. You’d better tell me about the four holy heroes too,” I said. We had the seven star weapons in the other world, meaning they had one extra here. I couldn’t quite explain it, but something felt off about all this. Like, maybe there was a secret eighth seven star weapon in our world too. When I was in the shield world, I had counted the lights and seen eight, if I recalled correctly, so the possibility seemed pretty high. 
“Very well. I’ll explain everything we know in order,” Ethnobalt said. 
“Sounds good,” I confirmed. 
“So we have Glass’s fan, L’Arc’s scythe, and the ship that I held. Then there’s Raphtalia’s katana,” Ethnobalt said. Those were the allied vassal weapons. “Next there is the book that Kyo had and the mirror Albert held.” Albert . . . I didn’t know much about him. I didn’t know what kind of guy he had been, but from what I’d heard, he had been surrounded by women. I couldn’t get past the feeling that he had been a Kyo II. 
“Then there’s also the harpoon and musical instrument vassal weapons. 
 
We’ve found the owners of each one . . . and are currently opposed to them,” Ethnobalt said. That meant we had the fan, scythe, ship, katana, book, mirror, harpoon, and musical instrument. All of them sounded pretty funky. 
“What about the four holy heroes?” I asked. 
“There’s the hunting tool, held by Kizuna, and then the jewels, the blunt instrument, and the ofuda,” Ethnobalt revealed. I shook my head. A bit of an odd menagerie. The vassal weapons sounded more promising, to be honest! Jewels? A “blunt instrument”? And ofuda were one of them too? Those could be made. A lot of mysteries around these four holy weapons, I thought. Ofuda and jewels both sounded kind of magical. 
“You’ve got a pretty abnormal selection in this world,” Itsuki stated, choosing this moment to unleash his caustic tongue. 
“Itsuki!” Rishia quickly shushed him. “They might kill you for insulting the four holy heroes, for all you know!” Both Ethnobalt and Glass showed discomfort on their faces. 
“I’m not really sure what you mean. Are they that strange?” L’Arc questioned. 
“Based on the Japanese standards I am used to, the only answer to that is yes. Didn’t Kizuna say something about this?” I asked. 
“Huh . . . You know what? She did, but it was a while back now,” L’Arc recalled. I’d expected as much. Being able to change her own weapon into a variety of forms probably meant it wasn’t too bad for her, at least. 
“I bet this ‘blunt instrument’ gives access to some pretty gray-area stuff, like axes and sword maces—just like how the Bow Hero can turn his weapon into a gun,” I surmised. I looked over at Itsuki, and he obliged by turning his bow into a gun. 
 
“I’m sure you are right. There’s not much we can say for sure,” Ethnobalt said. 
“The weapons in our world are closer to what Japanese people are used to thinking of as weapons. They are definitely a bit easier to understand,” Itsuki said. I was pretty glad we’d got normal weapons for our four, I had to admit. The shield though . . . That one was definitely out of place. I wondered if there was some way to turn the shield into something else. 
No. Best to just think about something else entirely. 
On a separate track, it might be worth asking S’yne about this stuff, through her familiar of course. Find out what the holy weapons were like in her world before it was destroyed. It would be funny if they had a sword vassal weapon. 
“Getting back on topic, that means there is a total of twelve weapons in our world,” Ethnobalt concluded. 
“I see. And this musical instrument vassal weapon holder is the one who nabbed Kizuna?” I confirmed. 
“That seems to be the case,” Ethnobalt replied. 
“No chance of a diplomatic solution?” I ventured. 
“We have sent messages of protest, but they claim to have no idea what we are talking about,” Glass explained. 

“We might have been able to have more of a discussion if they had demanded a big pile of cash,” I pondered aloud, wondering exactly what it was they wanted. I was starting to want to find these enemy vassal weapon holders and just cut them down where they stood. 

I pressed on with getting the situation in order. 
“The book—we defeated Kyo, but have you found the new vassal weapon holder?” I asked. 
“No. Both the book and the mirror are still missing,” Ethnobalt replied. I didn’t really like the sound of that, but that was also a matter for later consideration. It would be a pain, of course, if one—or both—of them suddenly showed up in opposition to us. 
This meant that the three other holy heroes had been killed, and we still had to deal with enemies holding the musical instrument, harpoon, and Ethnobalt’s ship. 
That was fewer enemies than I had been expecting, perhaps. When I took their mobility into account, though, the group with the ship vassal weapon holder was going to be a pain to deal with. 
They were also the ones who seemed to have S’yne’s enemies pulling strings. 
“If we know where to point our weapons, we need to start pointing them. Itsuki, Sadeena, Shildina, how are your levels coming along? Report, including the state of your level raising,” I ordered. I’d spent most of my time with Glass and L’Arc and so hadn’t been following the progress of Sadeena and the others. Raphtalia had tagged along with them and provided all sorts of support. 

“The monsters in this world provide quite a lot of experience. I’ve been pleasantly surprised,” Sadeena said. 

“Yeah, they have a lot of experience. Strong though,” Shildina added. 
“I see,” I commented. When I was here before, I vaguely recalled thinking the monsters offered better-than-normal experience. But Kizuna had been in the party then, and she was strong when fighting monsters, so maybe that confused the issue. 
“But the ocean offers more, right?” I asked. 
“I’m not sure. I can say the monsters on the land compared with ones in the oceans of this world don’t offer much difference in experience,” Sadeena said. 
“Yeah, not much of a difference,” Shildina added. 
“Okay then,” I said. The reason was unknown, but it looked like in Kizuna’s world there wasn’t much of a gap between experience on the land and experience in the ocean. 
“You asked about our levels. I’ve reached 82, and so has Shildina,” Sadeena reported. 
“Wow, good. That was fast,” I said. I was still only 90, meaning they had caught up pretty fast. 
“We can push it a lot higher yet,” Sadeena said. 
“Yeah. I’ve finally got some of my height back,” Shildina added. She still wasn’t back to her full height, but she was growing taller every day. 
“That’s great to hear. Carry on raising your levels. I’ll take part too,” I told them. 

“Sure thing!” Sadeena cheerfully replied. Then I looked over at Rishia, and Itsuki nodded. 

“I’ve kept up with enhancements and raised my level to 80. I’m easily getting the same kind of experience as we got from the Cal Mira islands during an activation period,” Itsuki reported. 
“Do you think it’s easier to raise our levels because this is a different world?” I asked. It felt like there had to be a reason why experience was lower on our world. 
“Each world—” S’yne said. 
“S’yne is saying that there are differences in experience in each world, and these differences change depending on how frequent the waves are,” her familiar explained. She had visited many worlds, so she was likely to know. This world, then, had three dead holy heroes and vassal weapon holders who were underestimating the waves. We should’ve probably been thankful that it hadn’t been destroyed by the waves already, I mused. 
S’yne had pushed her own level to 81. 
“We are defeating the monsters relatively safely thanks to the magic Itsuki cast,” Rishia reported. The discussion turned to the combat itself. Itsuki took the opposite approach from me, using support magic that debuffed all of an opponent’s status. If we shared a battlefield and both used our respective support magic, it was quite a thing—the enemies got weaker and we got stronger. I was already using Liberation Aura X, which boosted our allies multiple times. If the massive reduction that Liberation Down X offered was then also applied to the enemies, it was hard to calculate the gap in status that would be applied. I practically had zero attack power, and even I might be able to defeat such foes. 
 
Under those circumstances, the thing we really had to watch out for were status-rating attacks, like those Kyo had unleashed. If that happened, we should just use our boosted status to avoid them or use the power of Hengen Muso Style life force to escape. 
There were plans in place . . . was my point. 
“The forces seem pretty locked in place . . . The issue is travel time,” I pondered aloud. 
“Yes. Return Dragon Vein is sealed off too, meaning we have to take the fight directly to them,” Glass responded. 
“More wasted days on the road. Just keeping the waves under control is trouble enough already,” I said. We were helping with the waves in this world with Glass, L’Arc, and Raphtalia, but they came at high frequency now. With backup from Itsuki and me, the fighting itself wasn’t presenting much of an issue . . . yet. Our biggest issue was information warfare. We weren’t facing complete idiots. If it started getting around that the guy who stole the scythe vassal weapon had been wiped out in seconds with the aid of support magic provided by a group coming from another world, they were going to put their guard up. 
The issue there was the potential for Kizuna’s abduction to be used against us. It would be for the best if we could get her back first and then go about wiping these guys out. 
In any case, we needed to move while the wind was at our backs. 
“First things first, we need to work out where Kizuna is being held. 
 
Chris, you can sense where Kizuna is, correct?” I asked. 
“Pen . . .” Chris said. 
“He should be able to,” Glass confirmed, “but that didn’t apply when Kizuna was trapped in the never-ending labyrinth. The same problem seems to apply this time . . .” Kizuna definitely had a thing for going missing—even if I knew she wasn’t doing it on purpose. 
“Pen!” Chris had been looking forlorn, but then he placed his flippers together and started to concentrate on something. A moment later, he opened his eyes and pointed in a certain direction. 
“Raph!” Raph-chan was looking pleased with herself. Did this mean something she had done to Chris had boosted his precision in finding Kizuna? Chris proceeded to take out what looked like a world map from the hat I had given him and then drew a circle around a corner of the continent. 
“Is that where Kizuna is?” I asked. 
“Pen!” Chris confirmed. 
“Wow! That’s amazing, isn’t it, Master!” Filo was in her monster form. Perhaps due to her further increase in levels, she was showing off what she could now turn into. She was a higher class of monster from the humming fairies in the field guide. I thought for a moment and the name came to me— humming cockatrice. I’d thought a cockatrice was a monster with the power to turn people into stone, but this one was a bit different—with the power to control sound waves. 

It was basically a big chicken. But appearance-wise, she had feathers a bit of a different color from her filolial queen form. She could fly like that too, which I couldn’t get my head around. Enough about Filo, anyway. “Now that we have a read on Kizuna’s location, should we prepare to set out?” I asked. “Indeed. We should proceed with as much secrecy as we can afford,” Glass said. As the discussion continued, a ball of light appeared in the room. “What’s this? Did someone cast some magic? Raphtalia?” I asked. She could use light magic, so it would be easy for her to create a ball like this. 

“It isn’t me,” she replied. So it looked like it wasn’t her. If this was some kind of attack magic, I had to be ready to defend against it. Even as I considered my options, the light scattered apart. 
What it left behind was . . . 
“A mirror?” Glass said. That’s exactly what it was. A mirror, which I remembered seeing when I was here before. It had appeared in the middle of the room. 

“What’s the mirror vassal weapon doing here?” someone shouted. “Don’t ask me,” I replied. The mirror showed no intent to attack us. It just floated in the air for a while and then started to unleash a blinding light. “What’s going on now?” I asked. “I’ve seen this before!” L’Arc said. “When we came to get you, the mirror did the same kind of thing!” Right. That was after we defeated Kyo, when Kizuna and the others had come for us. I blinked a few times and then looked around . . . 
 
“Where are we now?” We were together in an old, extremely dusty-looking room. I looked out the window. It looked like some kind of house. Outside the window, the surrounding area was quite overgrown, suggesting no one had touched this place for a while. 
Back inside the room, there was an old mirror on the wall. So the mirror vassal weapon had the ability to transport things using other mirrors as a medium. That seemed pretty conventional and convenient—one advantage of having a funky weapon, perhaps. 

In the room with me was Raphtalia, Filo, Sadeena, Shildina, Rishia, Itsuki, S’yne, Glass, L’Arc, Therese, Ethnobalt, Raph-chan, and Chris. “Where are we?” I repeated. “No idea . . . but the way the mirror vassal weapon appeared like that, I think it wants to lend us a hand,” L’Arc said. That made sense. The legendary weapons seemed unlikely to try and get in our way without good cause. “We should be careful, but take a look around,” I responded. “I’ll use some illusion magic and take a look,” Raphtalia suggested. “Raph!” Raph-chan wanted to go too. The pair of them together could handle anything that might come up while scouting. “Should I go too?” Filo asked. “Just because you can fly, don’t drop your guard. Be careful,” I told her. “Sure thing!” she said. A short while later, Raphtalia finished her scouting and returned. The place was apparently an abandoned house deep in the mountains. There didn’t seem to be anyone else here. 
 
“Let’s get moving and try to find some people,” I said. 
“This is pretty exciting!” L’Arc was in good spirits, as always. Now that he had the scythe back, he was probably spoiling for a fight. 
“If the mirror vassal weapon helped us get here, I would think this is close to the location that Chris indicated,” Ethnobalt said. I agreed with him. That definitely sounded right to me. That said, the vassal weapons could sometimes pull some odd stuff too. We definitely needed to proceed with caution. 
Regardless of how strong we had become, we didn’t need to just butcher anyone we came across. That would make us no different from Takt. The best move would be to remain undiscovered, just take down our target, and get Kizuna back. We could retreat easily enough using a portal. If our retreat was impeded in some way, we’d work something out. 
As I was considering our situation, my shield arm started to tingle. I checked it over a couple of times but didn’t find the cause. So was I just imagining things? 
We left the abandoned house and headed toward civilization. 
 





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