Chapter Four: Growth
The next morning I woke up and tip-toed out of the room so that I wouldn’t wake Raphtalia, who had been up all night studying, on my way to go see Filo.
“Gah!”
A loud, wild voice greeted me when I entered the stables. Then I saw Filo. It had grown since the previous night. Where it had just been a round thing before, now its legs and neck had grown out. It stood there, looking something like an ostrich. It was changing so quickly! And it was growing so differently from any of the birds I knew anything about. It was now so tall that it stood up level with my chest. Still—it wasn’t big enough to ride yet.
Grumble…
So it was already hungry again? Good thing I’d stopped off to buy some food.
If it was growing this much in a day, I don’t know… Something about it was almost scary.
“Look at you! And you just hatched yesterday!”
“Gah!”
I found myself smiling just looking at the thing.
It wasn’t like I just discovered some deep-rooted love of animals or anything like that. I was just thrilled at the possibilities. I started thinking over all the things it could do for me once it was big enough. If it could pull a cart, I’d love to have it do so.
Its feathers had grown again, and changed colors. Now they were a mix of white and very light pink.
In an effort to clean up a bit, I let the shield absorb some of the feathers.
Monster User Shield III: conditions met
Monster User Shield III: ability locked:
equip bonus: maturation adjustment (medium)
Man, just imagine what I could have gotten if I’d given the shield some of its blood. I should give Raphtalia another haircut and try absorbing more of her hair.
Filo had only just been born, but here it was running around and happy.
“Gah!”
It wasn’t a dog, but I picked up a twig and threw it as far as I could for Filo to fetch. We played that way for a while.
Filo was so fast that sometimes it caught the twig before it had a chance to fall. Then it brought the twig back. It was pretty talented. Anyway, I played with Filo until Raphtalia woke up. It was kind of refreshing, this whole “pet” thing.
Thinking back on it, people back in my world kept dogs and cats. They were pretty cute.
A long time ago, at my school, there was a wild cat. It was really nervous around people, and everyone said that it wouldn’t approach you if you didn’t have food. But it approached me.
In elementary school we had a class in which we took care of animals, and everyone else complained about the chickens because they pecked. But they never pecked me. So I guess you could say that I sort of liked animals. Or at the very least, I didn’t hate them.
“Mmm… There you are, Mr. Naofumi. And look at that smile! I don’t think I’ve ever seen you so happy.”
Raphtalia had woken up and come to find me. She entered the stables looking grumpy.
She had a twisted, tired smile on her face.
“What is it?”
“Oh, it’s nothing.”
“Gah!”
Filo was lightly tapping at Raphtalia with its beak.
“Sigh… I guess there’s no getting around it…”
Raphtalia smiled, and reached out her hands to lightly pet Filo’s cheeks.
“Gah…”
Filo looked really happy and squinted its eyes as it saddled up next to Raphtalia and rubbed against her.
“I wonder where we should go today?”
“Good question. You’d probably like to try and save on food costs for Filo, so how about we head out to the plains to the south of here?”
“Hmm… That’s a good idea.”
There were tons of different grasses growing in that area, and plenty of them could be used for medicine. Raphtalia was right… it would be a good place. Our immediate goal was to get the best equipment that we could, and we’d need money for that.
“Right on. Okay, let’s get going.”
“Gah!”
“Okay!”
So we went out to the fields and fought monsters until we leveled up.
Naofumi: LV 25
Raphtalia: LV 28
Filo: LV 15
As for the grasses, I spent most of my energy on looking for things that Filo could eat, so we didn’t end up actually collecting very much for medicine. I did go ahead and let the shield absorb all the things we found, but I didn’t get much out of it except for a couple of small status bonuses.
And I still hadn’t found a shield that would teach me intermediate compounding recipes.
That evening, Filo grew into what appeared to be a full-grown Filolial.
“Sure is growing up quick! Normally it would take them three months or more to reach this size…”
The innkeeper and the rancher were both surprised. They couldn’t believe how fast Filo was growing.
It must have been because of the maturation adjustment, both small and medium, that I was using.
“If only I thought to absorb the ink way back when I bought Raphtalia…”
“Ahaha…”
I wondered if Raphtalia wished that she, too, could grow that quickly.
Creaaakkkkk.
I could hear the creaking and cracking of bones again. Filo must be growing.
“Gah!”
Filo was standing right in front of me, and looked to be large enough to ride.
“You want to carry me around?”
“Gah!”
Filo called out and dipped its head for me to climb onto its back, as though that were the most obvious answer.
“Thank you.”
I didn’t have reigns, or a saddle, but I wondered if it would be okay. The thing was practically asking me to climb on, so I did. The shield would help me survive any falls—my defense rating was through the roof.
As for comfort… Well, the feathers helped with that. If I could find my balance, it wouldn’t be bad at all.
I’d never ridden a horse, but I’d ridden a dog once. When I was a kid, some other kid in the neighborhood had a dog, and they let me ride it once.
The owners said that they had never been able to ride it, but it wasn’t any problem for me. The dog carried me around just fine.
“Gah!”
Filo quickly stood up.
“Argh!”
I was so high off the ground, and from my vantage everything looked… different. So this is what the world would look like from Filo’s back.
“Gaaaaah!”
I thought that Filo was just calling out in happiness, but then it suddenly took off running!
“Um… Hey!”
“M…Mr. Naofumi!”
Dash! Dash! We were running!
It was so fast! I’d see something, and then it would be behind us just as quickly. I heard Raphtalia calling for us, but she was already far in the distance.
Dash! Dash!
Filo circled the village once before returning to the stables. Then it sat down and let me off.
“Are you all right?!”
Raphtalia looked worried as she ran over to me.
“Yeah, I’m fine. Filo is so fast!”
Filo didn’t look tired in the least and soon turned to preening its feathers.
Filo ran much quicker than I had been expecting. This might have been my best purchase yet.
“All right, that seems like enough for today. Let’s head back to our room.”
Something had a grip on my armor’s collar. I turned to see Filo there, looking back at me.
“What is it?”
“Gaaah!”
It almost looked like it was crying. It kept balking at me.
“Huh?”
I gave up and turned to leave again, but once again it pulled at my collar.
“What is it?”
“Gaah!”
Filo’s feet were digging into the ground, like it was determined to make a stand.
“What, you want to play more?”
Raphtalia asked, and Filo shook its head. Could it understand what we were staying?
“Are you lonely?”
It nodded.
“Gaah!”
It opened its wings and cried out.
“But there’s nothing we can…”
I certainly didn’t want to sleep in the stables, and I don’t think the innkeeper would be happy if we brought a huge monster into the room.
“Let’s stay with it until it falls asleep!”
“Oh… Um… Okay.”
The thing was so big, but it had only hatched two days ago. Maybe it was still a baby, and just wasn’t ready to be left on its own in the stables overnight. Raphtalia and I decided to do our nightly study session in the stables.
Filo sat in its nest and quietly watched us study.
Piki…
“Geez… Am I ever going to be able to read this stuff?”
“If we can’t find a shield to do it, then this is our only option. Besides, if you are always depending on that Legendary Shield, well… it’s probably not best for you.”
“Raphtalia… You sure don’t hold anything back these days.”
“That’s right. So let’s get back to studying so that we can learn magic!”
What was so wrong with wanting things to be easier than they were? I hoped that all this work would actually amount to something. We kept on studying in the stables until we heard Filo’s steady snores.
Then we went back to the room, and I tried my hand at compounding some new herbs.
I still couldn’t read the recipes, so I was really just guessing.
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