Tate no Yuusha no Nariagari (LN) - Volume 20 - Chapter 12

Chapter Twelve: A Determination to War 

It was late at night. I was back in the village, and after preparing the next batch of goods to sell, I was discussing with Melty and the others what steps we should be taking next. I was about to go to bed when Mamoru came and knocked on the door of my house. I answered to find him there with R’yne and his other allies, all of them looking concerned. The villagers seemed to have realized something was up, and many of them had come out of their houses to see what was going on. People from across the village were gathering. Everyone was so sensitive to this kind of development. 

“Naofumi, we need to talk. It’s an emergency,” Mamoru said. I gave a sigh and headed to the village square to hear what Mamoru had to say. 

“What is it?” I asked. 

“A coalition of our enemies, including Piensa, has advanced into Siltran,” he explained. “We don’t want you and yours to get involved, Naofumi, so please prepare to evacuate this area.” 

“This certainly is sudden. Why do we need to move though?” I asked. 

“We really don’t want to drag you into this,” Mamoru replied. It reminded me of something he had said when we first met, about patrolling his borders in this region. After bumping into Ren, they had quickly engaged him in battle, which highlighted how tense they had been. 

“You’re not trying to get us to abandon the village so you can take our tech, are you?” I asked with an arched eyebrow. Raphtalia and S’yne shook their heads at my continued distrust. 

“What’s going on? I just nodded off . . .” Melty said sleepily, coming out from Filo’s room. 

“Mamoru wants us to evacuate the village. Other nations are attacking. This place could become a battlefield,” I told her. At my reply, Melty snapped awake and stood alert at my side. I was glad she could switch on so quickly. 

“I’ve heard talk at the Siltran castle, but I didn’t expect them to attack like this,” Melty said. 

“Why does this Piensa and their coalition have it in for you guys?” I asked. 

“They likely take issue with the fact Siltran won’t bow down to them, but there seem to be other reasons as well. They have the past Bow Hero with them, for one thing, and they also seem to want to turn the remains of a country founded by a past hero—holy land—into their territory,” Melty explained, spreading a map and pointing. Piensa itself was actually a little distance away. They weren’t a direct neighbor, but it looked like they were aggressively expanding at the moment. The issue was that Siltran, the nation we were currently in, was in the perfect spot to act as a staging area for Piensa to attack their real target. 

“The holy land . . .” I muttered, thinking back. 

“You remember that too, Naofumi,” Melty said. It was the ruins Fitoria had taken us to during the whole Melty-kidnapping thing by the Church of the Three Heroes. That place hadn’t seemed all that special to me. 

“It seems, in this time, that the place is believed to be land the one who will rule this whole world must hold. If Piensa can take it . . .” 

“They will have a foundation for world domination,” I replied. It all sounded a little too good to be true. 

“There are other legends about the place too. They believe powerful weapons, magic, anything you want can be found there—some real fairy-tale stuff. No one back in our time would give it any serious thought,” Melty huffed. That was why they called it the holy land then, but if they were going to start fighting a war on such a baseless story, I kind of wished they would just send the hero in to fight. 

It wasn’t hard to see it all as a pretense to invade. 

“The crazy king of Piensa doesn’t think we should be fighting the waves,” Holn said, appearing to offer some additional information. “He believes his own nation should first unite the world and receive the blessings of the holy land in order to overcome the waves.” So we’d been dropped in a bad spot. I was starting to worry that maybe this wasn’t the place that became Siltvelt after all. 

I’d heard some information during our trading, of course. Siltran’s issues with distribution were all coming from Piensa too. Piensa was also the home of the Bow Hero, which they seemed to be using as an excuse to just do whatever the hell they wanted. 

“Sounds like there are issues with the Bow Hero in whatever time you go to,” I remarked. Be it Itsuki or this hero from the past, the Bow Heroes seemed to love doing things that they really shouldn’t. I felt like finding the guy and giving him a good talking to. 

“He has accepted that the best way to combat the waves is through the stability offered by the unification of the nations,” Mamoru explained. That sounded a lot like Melromarc back in our time. The defeat of Faubrey created an atmosphere of swearing off pointless fighting, not only among neighboring nations, but on a global scale. Meanwhile, after we were unable to achieve the same shared feeling in Kizuna’s world, the threat of war still lingered there. L’Arc had been busy trying to resolve those issues . . . and now he was on another world, learning how to make accessories. I wondered if maybe that was the real reason he went. He was trying to escape those annoying negotiations. He had dumped everything squarely onto Glass, which only made me more suspicious. 

“Even if the goal is to overcome the waves, that’s no excuse for unnecessary invasions. That’s why I decided to oppose Piensa rather than just bow to their demands. Everyone else here is the same,” Mamoru said. His allies did all look very determined. 

War could only lead to tragedy. If a large nation got serious, they would just roll over any smaller ones. It looked like the idea of the heroes working together to take on the waves wasn’t a thing in this time either. Talking worked against opponents who weren’t strong enough to have their way with you. Those powerful enough to force you to obey didn’t care what you had to say about it. The only way to reach the discussion table was to make them think they would have a tough time taking you down by force. That meant, in the end, it still just came down to strength. 

War could be merciless too. All sorts of terrible things could happen. Trash and Melty had been dealing with those kinds of problems. With her understanding of the issues, Melty didn’t speak out against what Mamoru said. 

That said, from our point of view—historically speaking—Piensa had been wiped out, and by Siltvelt no less. Destroyed by the Shield Hero who opposed them, it looked like. Melty took that moment to elbow me in the ribs and then whispered in my ear. 

“The Church of the Three Heroes, the religion we followed in Melromarc, originally splintered off from the Church of the Four Holies. They adopted a religion that hated the Shield Hero, growing larger as a result. Maybe whatever happened in this time was the trigger for that hatred,” Melty suggested. A connection to the Church of the Three Heroes from this incident was lost in the darkness of history. The foundation of the Melromarc Church of the Three Heroes had to be a religion from the world of the spear and sword, after all. They had likely adopted the bow more quickly after absorbing the remnants of Piensa. I didn’t really care for the history lesson. 

“I understand what you came to say. That said . . .” I looked over at Keel and the others, who were watching with concern on their faces. 

“Bubba! We’ll fight too!” she yipped. She was as full of energy as always—her trademark. Just like Filo would have done, she was helping to keep the others optimistic. 

“If you order it, Shield Hero, then we will fight,” Imiya said. She and the other lumos took up their weapons in a display of solidarity, ready to fight. They were skilled with their hands, which was perhaps why they favored daggers and bows as weapons. Claws too . . . or maybe those counted as gloves. They were good at earth magic too, from the look of it. Personality-wise, they weren’t really made for fighting, however, and they were a quieter element of the village. “We won’t lose anything again,” Imiya said strongly. Her village had been destroyed by slavers. That was another reason why she had gotten along with Keel so quickly. 

“What kind of scale are we looking at for the enemy?” Ruft asked calmly. 

“Just in terms of numbers, mastery, and levels, many times higher than us,” R’yne said. It sounded like a big gap in fighting strength. “Their forces are comprised of humans, demi-humans, and therianthropes who are all completely specialized for warfare. That’s the kind of force we face coming to completely destroy this small nation. They move quickly too. If Holn and I weren’t allied with Mamoru, this nation would be a smoking ruin by now.” 

“The Shield Hero can’t do anything without allies, after all. If I lose all my allies, then I’m finished,” Mamoru muttered. The same went for me, of course. He had to understand that. 

“We’ll be facing the fighting core of the coalition led by Piensa, their dragon battalion,” Mamoru continued. “If I make an appearance then, under the pretense that heroes should not be used in warfare, the Bow Hero should make an appearance too.” 

“What about their main force?” I asked. 

“They are likely planning to move methodically in behind the battalion,” Mamoru said. I wasn’t sure if that was an efficient approach or an inefficient one. 

“So they’re leaving everything to his other forces? A true warrior engages in battle themselves!” Eclair said disparagingly. 

“He probably wants to keep damage to a minimum while making it sound like he was there in the fighting.” The king probably did get his blade wet, just as rear support, mopping up whatever the hero and fighting core left behind. 

“Brother! Do you plan to run?” Fohl asked. He seemed ready to fight as well. His fists were tightly bunched. 

“You want to fight, Fohl?” I asked him. 

“Of course. Abandoning the village would be a betrayal of Atla’s wishes!” he declared. 

“I understand that,” I replied, “but if the only other choice is getting embroiled in this pointless fighting, abandoning this base and running for it is definitely one option. Fohl . . . are you here to protect some buildings? Or some people?” I asked him. If he wanted to protect a place, it might already be too late—the entire village had been kicked into the past, after all. If he wanted to protect people—our people—then the place wasn’t all that important. 

“You are not wrong, Brother. I understand your point. But should we really run away from this?” he countered. 

“I wouldn’t recommend trying it,” Holn advised. 

“I would very much like to avoid abandoning this place,” Rat agreed. 

“Why?” I asked them. 

“First, this is the only land we have that physically came here from the future. If it gets trampled by open warfare, we might lose some vital hints as to how we were sent here or how to get back home,” Rat said. 

“Furthermore, if Piensa advances and takes this region, it will take time to retake it and that will delay our research further. Everything here is definitely worth protecting,” Holn added. 

“If the technology we have here falls into enemy hands,” Rat continued, “they are only going to become bolder.” If they took future technology and could work out how to use it, they would, of course. If we started changing the past, we had no idea what would happen in the future, which meant it was hard to decide whether we should stay or go. Wanting to maintain the current situation was definitely Rat’s opinion, and Holn sounded like she was in agreement. 

“How long will it take for them to reach us?” I asked. 

“At the earliest, the attack will begin tomorrow,” Mamoru replied. One choice, then, was to destroy everything in the village and flee before that happened. But I didn’t like the sound of that. 

“Dragons . . .” said Wyndia, muttering the name of the enemy we would face before I could say anything. 

“You want to try talking with them?” I asked her, putting a hand on her shoulder. 

“If possible, I would. But if they believe in the cause they are fighting for, though, I’m not sure what I’ll be able to do,” she said. 

“The dragons aren’t going to listen to you, missy,” Holn said, shooting down Wyndia’s idea. 

“How can you be so sure?” she replied, a little hotly. 

“Because we are talking about the further development of a type of modified dragon that little old me originated,” she explained. 

“What?” Wyndia said. 

“I forgot to mention this, didn’t I?! I’m formerly a researcher based right over there in little old Piensa. When I decided I didn’t agree with the thinking of the Bow Hero, I defected,” Holn explained brightly. So she started out belonging to a large nation and then ended up with the Shield Hero. I shook my head—she was Rat’s ancestor, no doubt about that. 

“What thinking of his didn’t you agree with?” I asked. 

“The current Bow Hero is very interested in raising monsters and using them in combat. That’s why the dragon battalion has grown into such a powerful threat. But he’s also highly discriminatory—he doesn’t care for any other monsters that might work as allies, apart from dragons,” Holn explained. Dragons were certainly far more powerful than other monsters at the same level. If you could afford it, they made for an efficient fighting force. They just weren’t cost-efficient. “He seems to want to reduce the monster population of the entire world to just dragons,” she said. The dragons in this world, including here in the past, had the capacity to mate with any other monster. Holn explained that the Bow Hero had turned all the monsters in his army into dragons. 

“Survival of the fittest is one thing, but proclaiming dragons as the king of monsters is to throw countless other possibilities down the drain. My innate curiosity won’t allow any such foolishness. That’s why I’m going to turn a balloon into the ultimate monster,” Holn exclaimed. I wasn’t sure I liked that much either. The ultimate balloon was not something I was interested in encountering. I couldn’t help wondering if maybe it was Holn’s research that had resulted in the monsters in our world remaining unorganized. Over in Kizuna’s world, they had quite an organized structure, with the Demon Dragon at the top. 

“A Bow Hero who will only accept dragons as powerful monsters . . .” I muttered, looking over at Wyndia. Then I stroked the caterpilland that had become a Raph species and looked back at Holn and the others. In our village, there was no competition for the top spot between dragons, filolials, or the Raph species. They sometimes bickered about what to change into when performing a class-up—with most of them wanting to become Raph species. Maybe there was something there that appealed to them. Even the monsters Ren and Itsuki raised had started to show that trend. That had Rat very interested. 

“Do they have a Dragon Emperor?” I asked. 

“My own investigations have only gotten me so far. I can’t be sure about that,” Holn replied. In which case, we should assume that they did. 

“What do you think, Wyndia?” Ren inquired, looking over at her after sharing a glance with Eclair. 

“Shouldn’t you ask our Shield Hero first?” she asked. 

“I want to hear from you first, before Naofumi,” Ren replied, his face deadly serious. “I turned my blade on your father, Wyndia. That’s why I’ve made a vow to never kill dragons without good cause.” 

“I don’t care about your silly vows!” Wyndia snapped. 

“I know. It’s almost selfish of me. But those are the feelings I took into my battle with Takt’s Dragon Emperor,” he said. 

“Gaelion killed that one, so I heard!” she replied. That was true. Ren had fought Takt’s Dragon Emperor, but he hadn’t landed the killing blow. This all made more sense when it came to his general attitude—his actions had traumatized him. 

“But I still fought. Things are different this time though. Wyndia . . . in order to protect everyone here, is it okay for me to face this dragon battalion? I want you to decide,” Ren said. Then he turned his sword into the Ascalon, the weapon he had copied from the one we found lying in the filolial sanctuary. Wyndia looked around the village and then met the eyes of the caterpilland that had become a Raph species. 

“What if I say I don’t want you to?” she answered. 

“I’ll think of another way. Negotiation, something else,” he replied. Wyndia gave it some more thought. 

“I don’t think they are special just because they are dragons, not anymore,” she finally said. “I don’t want to lose the village . . . to lose anyone else. Please, Ren. Fight.” 

“Okay, Wyndia. I will use my sword to protect you and everyone else here. That shall be my atonement!” he proclaimed. I liked his energy, but we hadn’t actually made the decision to fight yet. 

“Bubba! So we’re going to fight?” Keel yapped, staring me down when I didn’t reply. “You said it yourself, Bubba! We have to choose for ourselves! And we have to protect the village and everyone in it!” 

“Keel . . .” Raphtalia said, sounding very moved by this. The dog had gotten one over on me. I was indeed always telling Keel and the others to make their own decisions. That’s why I’d let them choose their own class-ups. 

“That’s all very well,” I said, “but that doesn’t mean you should just fight everyone who comes along. You understand that too, right?” I told them. 

“Of course! No killing the Bow Hero, right?” Keel replied. 

“That’s one thing, for sure,” I said back. This might be the past, but the nature of the waves was likely the same. Killing a holy weapon hero would only place greater strain on the remaining ones. That wasn’t even the worst of it—if all the holy weapon heroes were wiped out during a wave, then that world was finished, apparently. This was coming from S’yne and the forces of her sister—people whose world had actually been destroyed—and so it sounded like legit information. Even if we were enemies, killing a holy weapon hero would be the height of foolishness. 

That said . . . it might be faster to just kill a hero who wouldn’t listen to reason. 

In that respect, they had done pretty well in summoning me. Ren and Itsuki had come around and listened to reason now too. 

When I thought that all of this was probably a trap set up by the one behind the waves, the one who assumed the name of God, it did make me sick though. 

“But it would be a mistake for you to lead the charge into battle, Keel,” I told her. 

“What?! If we don’t fight to protect this place, what’s the point?” she replied. 

“We’ve got other moves we can make first. You’ll see,” I told her. There was no reason to throw Keel and the others meaninglessly into battle. 

“Zounds like you need me,” said the Shadow, popping into view and bowing to Melty and Ruft before heading over to me. “I zensed trouble and have been out zcouting. Hero Iwatani, what theze people from Siltran have told you appearz to be the truth,” the Shadow reported. He had confirmed that a large force was approaching the borders of Siltran. “I wanted to inform you az quickly az pozzible, but they move very quickly, zo it wazn’t eazy.” 

“Are you sure Mamoru isn’t counting on our aid in order to pick a fight with other nations?” I asked him, lowering my voice to almost a whisper. We couldn’t ignore the possibility that he was playing the victim to make use of us—or make a run for it, leaving us carrying the can. 

“Az far az my inveztigationz have revealed, he iz in the clear. The reazon for thiz attack iz more likely to be becauze of your aid, Hero Iwatani. You’ve been helping them recover zo quickly. That iz not zomething their enemiez can eazily overlook.” So helping them recover through trade had made their enemies move more quickly. It sounded like those looking to capture Siltran would prefer a soft target—and they were going to try and roll right over us now. 

I pondered this news. I was still worried that making the wrong move here could change the entire future . . . we were yet to confirm the effects of any such changes, however. It was definitely a thing that time in this world didn’t really affect me, since I had been summoned here from another world to this world’s Melromarc in the future. So we had to choose between abandoning the village and delaying—or completely losing—our chances of returning to the future. Or we could fight and risk changing history itself. Quite the plot twist. It was a tough choice to make. Whichever one we chose, I was sure it would change history anyway. I would just have to hope that any ripple created in the past would be smoothed over by history’s power to correct itself in the length of time prior to us reaching the present we had departed from. That said . . . 

“Just hitting them head-on isn’t the only solution here,” I commented. We had seen our fair share of warfare, but very little of it involved face-to-face battle. There was the conflict in Q’ten Lo, for example. We had made good use of Ruft’s ridiculous policies to take the castle without spilling any blood. The battle with Faubrey had been won thanks to the strategy from Trash. It really hurt that he wasn’t here, to be honest. 

“I think we can come up with some more interesting plans than that. Right, Queen Melty?” Ruft said, giving her a look that suggested the two of them had something to share. 

“Huh?” Melty didn’t seem to be in on the secret. 

“If you think back over the countless strategies Trash has proposed, I’m sure something you can use will come to mind,” Ruft said. 

“You remember all of those plans?” I asked him. 

“Huh? Yes, I mean . . . it was fun watching him explain them all,” Ruft said, a little abashed. Just like Raphtalia was so good with remembering names, Ruft seemed to have a good memory too. He had learned the Melromarc language in short order. He was a smart kid. 

“Shield Hero,” Ruft said to me, keeping his voice low. “We might have a problem if Siltran wins a complete victory here. Queen Melty told me that Piensa isn’t meant to be wiped out yet.” 

“That’s true,” I said. We might have a problem if Piensa was wiped out at this point in time. 

“In which case, I’ll make sure not to hit them too hard,” Ruft replied. Then he increased the volume of his voice again and started talking with Mamoru. “Are we to presume that the battle between Siltran and Piensa is going to proceed through a number of stages?” he asked. 

“That’s right,” Mamoru replied. 

“To recap: first, there will be the attack by the dragon battalion. Second, there will be the battle between the heroes. Third, the arrival of their main force. After that, to the victor go the spoils. The boundary between the dragon battalion attack and battle between the heroes is a vague one though, isn’t it?” Ruft continued. 

“The hero is also being used to legitimize what they are doing,” Mamoru said. 

“In terms of other things they might already be doing . . . do you think they have active operations within Siltran already, for the purposes of distraction and confusion?” Ruft asked. Mamoru nodded. 

“We’ve received reports of suspicious raids by bandits on our villages. Some of our allies have been dispatched to take care of it,” he said. 

“So they have a thorough plan in place. The cowardice on display reminds me of someone else,” R’yne said. I wondered if she was talking about a resurrected, like Takt. The enemy had the Bow Hero among their forces, so it was possible. 

“Hey. Do you know where the Bow Hero is?” Ruft asked the Shadow. 

“I don’t know the exact location, but I have a rough idea,” he replied. 

“Why don’t we have your Shield Hero meet with the Bow Hero before anything else happens, then?” Ruft suggested. By putting the Bow Hero on the spot, maybe we could nip things in the bud before it all became about the pretext for this conflict. 

“They are the ones attacking us. If the heroes meet while we still have no intent to attack, even as they talk, the dragon battalion will be advancing. Which side will that put in the right once the fighting is all done?” Ruft asked. It was cunning, I’d give him that. A way to gain some leverage even if we lost. Very much the kind of thing Trash would think up. I wasn’t sure how happy I should be at these signs of growth in Ruft. 

“What about the dragon battalion though? Won’t they zmash uz under that plan?” the Shadow asked. 

“If we’re going to use one of my father’s plans . . . we want something to confuse and confound the enemy. They have the numbers, so why not have the Sword Hero and Fohl run a raid on them?” Melty suggested. An operation using a small number, hit and run. 

“Seeing the Sword Hero in action will surely throw them into chaos, but their trump card—the Bow Hero—will have already met with your Shield Hero,” Ruft said. 

“If we can create a rift between Piensa and the Bow Hero, that will be big,” I said. 

“Indeed,” Melty agreed. “The powerful dragon battalion is going to be a problem too though. I hate to ask, but maybe you could thin them out and weaken them a little. That will make the negotiations go more smoothly. That said, we need you to fight in such a way that they won’t realize you are the Sword Hero right away. It’s a pretty tall order.” 

“I think you are getting a little ahead of yourselves,” Mamoru said, cutting in from the side. 

“These are all just proposals. You’re the leader of this nation, so you ultimately decide if we go ahead or not. We’re just thinking of the best steps we can possibly take,” Melty explained. I wasn’t sure about having Melty and the other kids thinking up strategies for war, but they were relying on tactics they had picked up from Trash, meaning we could probably expect decent results. 

“If we do use this strategy, should Raphtalia, S’yne, and I set up an ambush somewhere?” I asked. 

“If we are going to be talking with the Bow Hero . . . it would be a help to have Raphtalia along,” Mamoru said. 

“Me?” she asked. 

“Yes. I think that will get a better result. She should make a good deterrent,” Mamoru said. It sounded like his plan was to make them think she was the one from Q’ten Lo in this time. 

I wondered again, for a moment, if sakura stones of destiny existed in this time. Those were a cluster of weapons that were effective against heroes, and activating the Sakura Sphere of Influence was an easy way to quickly weaken an enemy. Our purpose wasn’t to defeat them, however; it was to create a situation in which it was just difficult to wage war. 

“If we announce that there are multiple heroes in Siltran, that might make it harder for them to invade, but it also might provoke further retaliation,” I mused. The latter of those things was exactly what had happened in Kizuna’s world. It might not be a bad move overall, but I also wasn’t sure it would really function as a deterrent. We would also be unsure what the ones pushing for this conflict might do. If possible, I just wanted to cut out those radical factions and buy us some time to get back home. It might appear selfish, from one perspective, but I really wanted the people from this time to sort out their own problems. 

So while the hero from the enemy nation and Mamoru were meeting and chatting, we would cause enough damage—without relying on the power of the heroes too much—to drive the enemy away. 

“The problem being the number of enemies we will face . . .” I pondered aloud. I had heard “ten times” being bandied around. Even if a hero was worth a thousand regular fighters, the numbers still didn’t match up. It would be a real hassle if they got inside Siltran too. 

“How are you guys set up in terms of large-scale magic?” I asked. 

“I hate to say it, but poorly,” Mamoru admitted. I hadn’t seen any units with the potential to fire off some large-scale ritual magic. One facet of warfare in this world was the exchange of ritual magic, so I had been told. There was always the possibility that, while we were dealing with the dragon battalion in front of us, a rain of ritual magic would pour in from behind. We had some Collective Attack Magic at our disposal, but there were limits to that. It wasn’t going to be very effective against a force carefully raised by the Bow Hero—and any attacks from them would probably hurt even a hero and cause serious problems for Keel and the others. They had the numbers, and we only had empty spots in our forces. Even if we did have a response, I didn’t really want to use Keel and the others in battle. If Mamoru and his allies came to rely on us too heavily, they could easily be defeated once we returned to the future, messing everything up for all of us. We lacked decisive firepower . . . We just needed more boots on the ground. 

“These are pretty tough conditions to deal with . . .” I said. Then a proposal based in my game knowledge came to mind. “Hey, I have an idea. If we are lacking in numbers, how about we just inflate them a little? Ren, do you remember when Motoyasu and I fought over Raphtalia? Do you remember how I damaged him?” I asked, looking over at Ren. It all felt like a long time ago now—a battle that took place after my first experience with the waves. Having no means of attacking myself, I had hidden a balloon in my cloak and used that to bite Motoyasu, which caused damage instead. 

“Huh? Yes, I do recall . . .” he said. 

“I’ve heard about that,” Melty chimed in. “What are you planning?” 

“Like I said, we inflate our numbers. I need to move on this quickly. Our enemies are going to be advancing too,” I said. This might not be definitive, but we could definitely expect some results. Even if we had to change our strategy afterward, this could still hurt our foes—or at least hold them in place. Then we could try a different approach or spring a trap on them. “What I’m planning should be useful no matter what you decide in the end, but I need time to set everything up. I’m going to have to get started.” 

“Understood,” Melty said. “We’ll be counting on you, but we’ll play our own part too.” 

“Raphtalia, you go with Mamoru and buy us some time,” I said. “After that, I’ll take a fast mover, and Raph-chan too.” Chick, Raph-chan, and Raph-chan II all came forward. The filolial sat down in front of me and the two Raph-chans jumped onto my shoulders. 

“Shield Hero, can I go with you?” Ruft asked. “I can help out instead of Raphtalia.” 

“Just don’t fall off!” I said. 

“No problem! Queen Melty, I’ll leave things here with you,” Ruft said. He could use illusion magic, just like Raphtalia, and had the same properties as the Raph species. All of that would be vital for this operation. 

“Mamoru, when you and your team encounter the Bow Hero, try and drag out the conversation as much as possible,” I told him. “I’m going to get moving. I can see the surprise on their faces already—and I don’t even know what they look like!” I said and gave an evil chuckle. 

“I’m sorry, Mr. Naofumi . . . Are you sure this is a good idea?” Raphtalia asked, looking across at me with concern on her face. 

“I’m fine. We’re facing enemies who think wars are won by striking first. We’re just going to turn the same kind of cowardly tactics against them to teach them a lesson,” I said. If this was a game, then you could say I was about to do some serious trolling. 

“Naofumi, are you sure you should be taking part in this fighting at all?” Mamoru asked, just to confirm things with me. 

“I don’t think I have a say in this anymore. Everyone else has decided to fight. Tell me, if you wanted everyone in Siltran to abandon their nation and survive, but they all decided to stand their ground and fight, what would you do even if you were sure how things would turn out?” I asked him. At my words, Mamoru gave a start, eyes wide, his body shaking. That was certainly an overreaction. 

“Mamoru. . .” R’yne said, supporting him with concern in her eyes. 

“If you’re going to help, we have no reason to turn you down. Thank you,” Mamoru said, giving me a deep and low bow. 

For the sake of this operation, I’d be acting as a decoy, so I should disguise myself too. I could use magic to conceal myself as long as I had Raph-chan and Ruft along with me. As I still had the mirror vassal weapon along with my shield, there was something else I could do. I tossed a hand mirror to Ren. 

“Ren, if you take that with you, then I’ll be able to follow your actions to a certain degree. When I give the signal, I want you to incant support magic enhanced by your weapons. The reinforcements will know when the time comes,” I said. This was an application of the Movement Mirror skill that used a mirror as its medium. Now that the shield was my main weapon again, most of the mirror skills were no longer functioning. But I could still get some visual and audio through a preprepared mirror. Ren had an aptitude for water and support magic. Motoyasu was fire and healing magic, and Itsuki was wind and earth. I couldn’t raise magic level using the shield, so I placed my expectations on Ren, who could do so. 

“Okay, sure,” said Ren. 

“One last thing.” I turned to look at S’yne, who was looking quietly at me. “S’yne, you can move to me at any time. There’s no sign of your sister causing trouble here either. Can I ask you to handle the Piensa soldiers that are causing trouble inside Siltran?” I asked her. 

“Sure. Leave it to me,” S’yne replied. 

“If you sense that I’m in danger, you can pop out, but you have to pretend to be R’yne,” I told her. 

“Okay,” she replied. The cooperative relationship between Mamoru and R’yne was widely known. If S’yne and I started a bit of a rampage, we would easily be mistaken for those two, based on our weapons. That would make it easy for us to act. 

“Right, everyone. I’m leaving,” I said. I hopped onto Chick’s back, along with Raph-chan and Ruft, and then indicated that we should get moving. Chick gave a triumphant squawk and dashed off. We spent the rest of the night preparing for our raid.