Tate no Yuusha no Nariagari (LN) - Volume 20 - Chapter 3

Chapter Three: The Sword Hero’s Sense of Responsibility 

It took longer than expected, but we finally rolled back into the village. L’Arc and his allies had remained behind. Just as I had expected, everyone from the village had gathered to welcome us home. However, they managed to stop themselves from throwing a full-blown festival. 

“Bubba, welcome back! I can’t wait for dinner tonight!” shouted Keel, the one voice I could pick out. Others shouted “welcome home!” or “I can’t wait for dinner!” or “feed me!” Everyone was hungry; that was the impression I got. The preparations had already been made, and no sooner was I home than I was forced to start cooking. I guessed this was to be my lot in life, no matter my destination. 

“Hey, Imiya,” I said. “Your accessory was a big help over there.” 

“Ah, well . . . thank you,” she replied. 

“We’ll be receiving a visit fairly soon from someone who was really impressed by your work, so I hope you’ll have a chat with her,” I continued. 

“Of course,” Imiya said. I carried on, chatting with everyone in the village in a similar fashion. 

“Brother, Sister . . . you have returned to the village,” Fohl said, coming in as I continued to prepare the meal. We had seen each other briefly when fighting the wave, but I had prioritized talking to Trash, so we hadn’t really caught up yet. 

“That’s right. I’m not sure exactly when we will go back over, but for the time being we are going to be keeping an eye on things here,” I told him. 

“Understood,” he said. 

“How have things been with you?” I asked him. 

“Bubba Fohl has been hanging around the village like a bad smell . . . He doesn’t like talking to Staff Hero Trash, not one bit!” Keel said gleefully. 

“Keel!” Fohl was quick to chastise her, looking most uncomfortable. Trash was Fohl’s uncle, meaning he had familial feelings toward Fohl that were along the same lines as those that he had for Melty. I could understand Fohl not quite knowing how to handle them. 

“Atla did tell you to look after the village,” I reminded him, giving him an out. “If there hasn’t been any trouble, that’s fine.” 

“Okay! Everyone in the village has been training! Everyone is trying hard!” Fohl reported. I took a moment to check over the levels of those who were assembled and saw that they had indeed seen an increase across the board. Next we needed to implement the whip power-up method and work to create an invincible force that could take down any wave. 

“Naofumi . . . welcome back.” Ren appeared in the refectory, looking pretty worse for wear. He greeted me unsteadily. I’d been thinking of giving him an earful, but his condition actually looked pretty bad. I couldn’t get angry with him over this. His sense of responsibility was even stronger than I had expected. 

“I’m sorry . . . I know you left me in charge,” he said, sounding truly exhausted. 

“I didn’t mean for you to take responsibility for absolutely everything,” I told him. The medical analysis had determined he was suffering from a gastric ulcer and intense mental exhaustion. He also faced a lack of sleep due to stress, with some people reporting he had been training instead of sleeping. Perhaps the pressure of fighting to protect the world had just proven too much for him. It all seemed a bit silly to me. He took everything too seriously, which only accelerated the troubles he faced. I knew that I had been helping to reduce that burden on him, but I didn’t realize it would get this bad this quickly without me around. It could be a result of Motoyasu and the others running so wild . . . or just Ren having such a strong sense of responsibility for everything. 

“Kwaaaaaa!” One of those moments that had been causing such a hassle for Ren came—quite literally—flying in. It was Gaelion. 

“Hold on, Gaelion!” I shouted. All he did was squawk, so I was forced to take action and defend myself—just in case. “Shooting Star Shield!” With a thunk, the incoming dragon crashed into my barrier. 

“Kwaa! Kwaa!” he squawked, clearly complaining about the wall keeping him away. 

“The taunts of the Demon Dragon really got him riled up, or so I heard,” I commented. 

“Kwaa!” Gaelion responded. 

“That’s true! He went on quite the rampage and caused a lot of trouble for the Sword Hero. I’m so embarrassed . . .” Wyndia explained. 

“The Demon Dragon is also to blame, taunting him like that,” I said. I didn’t know exactly what she had said to him, of course, but I was concerned enough about what the additional fragment she had given me might contain that I wasn’t sure if I should hand it over or not. “Even so, you’re the king of the dragons, aren’t you? Shouldn’t you be acting a little more regal?” I pointed out. I wished the old Gaelion would suppress him a bit, but the personality of the young one was too dominant. 

“Kwaa . . .” Gaelion squawked. 

“It seems Gaelion wants to know if you had relations with the Dragon Emperor in the other world,” Wyndia asked. 

“He really thinks that’s something I would do?” I asked, with some venom. I wondered if I was really considered so unprincipled. The way the Demon Dragon came on strong reminded me of Atla, which I didn’t hate. But taking it any further than that would be going too far. 

“Really, as if you would do such a thing,” Raphtalia agreed. 

“Raph!” added Raph-chan. I wondered how he could even think such a thing was possible. Maybe he thought she had turned into a beautiful girl to tempt me. Gaelion’s face brightened at my response, seemingly forgetting that he was going to have to be punished for his misdeeds while I was away. 

“After all the trouble you’ve been causing for Wyndia and Ren, I’m not going to be talking to you much for a while. I don’t know what kind of taunting message it contains for you, but I have a gift here for you from the Demon Dragon, so just take that and let’s see what happens!” I told him, tossing him the fragment I received from the Demon Dragon. 

“Kwaa . . .” Gaelion said pitifully at my words, moving over to have Wyndia console him. 

“So now you finally calm down. I told you, there’s no way the Shield Hero was going to fall for that madam dragon,” Wyndia said, unable to resist an “I told you so.” 

“I can’t say I like her on a personal level, but she’s definitely more capable than you in battle,” I told him. He squawked in surprise. “If you don’t like it, you’d better start training harder.” 

“Kwaaaaaa!” The dragon grabbed onto Wyndia, crying. I had no sympathy for a selfish reptile who couldn’t even keep things together while I was away. Hopefully, the regret he was feeling now would propel him forward. 

Old Gaelion was choosing to keep quiet, the situation being what it was. 

“There, there. Let’s go back to the monster stable before you upset the Shield Hero any further,” Wyndia said, carrying Gaelion away. As they left, Sadeena and Shildina came in, bringing Ruft—with Raph-chan II in his arms—along with them. 

“Shield Hero, welcome back,” said Ruft. He was in his demi-human form and was also starting to look a little taller than everyone else. If I compared them all directly, I could see a definite change in him. Just like Raphtalia, he seemed to be developing faster than the others around him. Seeing him with Sadeena and Shildina like this also helped to reinforce a similarity to that of Raphtalia. I guessed that it meant even after everything that happened, he was indeed the king of Q’ten Lo. Seeing Melty and Trash in action up close had probably been having an effect on him too. Raphtalia seemed to be having similar thoughts about the demi-human Ruft, because she had a complicated expression on her face. She had lost her parents and probably saw some of her departed father in Ruft’s face. 

“Raph!” said Raph-chan. 

“Dafu!” said Raph-chan II. I basked in their cute greetings for a moment, and then I turned to Ruft. 

“Hey, Ruft. How are things?” I asked him. With a poof, Ruft turned into his therianthrope form, a happy expression on his face. I felt conflicted about the fact that when he was a therianthrope he looked his actual age, but I wasn’t going to let it bother me. After all, he also looked like a giant Raph-chan. 

“Queen Melty and the others know more about the political situation. Rat has been conducting research into my own transformation,” he explained. 

“I see. How is that looking? Do you think we can perform the same thing on Raphtalia?” I asked. As soon as I said that, Raphtalia grabbed my shoulder, turning a fixed smile in my direction and giving off an aura so strong it was like she might have been cursed herself. 

“I know I have been away for a while, but none of that, please,” she told me. 

“Are you sure?” Ruft pleaded, looking up at her with a slightly frowny pose that even Raph-chan never used. 

“Oh my!” said Sadeena. 

“Oh dear!” said Shildina. “You’ve gotten bolder than before, Ruft.” 

“I’m not going to allow it, no matter what kind of look you give me. It sounds like you and Mr. Naofumi have been cooking up all sorts of trouble while I was away . . . Ruft, don’t you take issue with being experimented on?” she asked him pointedly. 

“Not at all,” he replied. He had asked for the class-up experiment himself—and that had led to the birth of this incredibly sweet Raph-type therianthrope. It looked so cute. . . but it was also starting to feel a bit dangerous. I had also learned that both raccoon therianthropes and the race called war raccoons looked different from what Ruft had become. “When I’m like this, I get along so well with the other Raph species. I can understand what they are saying, and the text for cooperative magic just appears in my head, making it so easy to cast! It also makes the Melromarc language easier to understand too.” That almost sounded like some kind of translation function. I would have to ask Rat what was going on there. 

“Raphtalia. You know I always tell the village slaves that they get to choose for themselves when they take a class-up—that I’m not going to choose for them. Ruft wanted this Raph-chan class-up for himself. You’ll just have to accept it.” 

“You really believe that? I can only see you having pushed him into this, to be honest. Making all these comments about Raph-chan being cuter than filolials, things like that,” Raphtalia responded. 

“I only speak the truth,” I replied. Of course, that was also all based on the reaction Ruft had shown when we first met him. Ultimately, Ruft had taken a liking to Raph-chan and started to play more with the Raph species. 

“Dafu!” said Raph-chan II, looking a little upset about the whole thing. Raph-chan consoled her by patting her on the head. 

“There’s no changing what has already been done, but we are not finished discussing this issue, Mr. Naofumi,” Raphtalia said. She could be stubborn too when she wanted to be. 

“Brother, Sister, I’m glad nothing has changed with you,” Fohl said, nodding to himself in acceptance. I wondered if this situation was really something to be accepted so easily. 

“Now things should be easier on me . . .” Ren breathed. 

“You need to learn to relax a little, Ren, that’s for sure. Fohl, he needs more backup from you,” I directed. 

“I did what I could! The Sword Hero collapsed anyway!” Fohl protested. He had always done a good job of looking after Atla, giving him the flexibility to handle a certain degree of problems that the village might throw at him. The issue was really Ren’s fragile mental attitude and lack of means to blow off that stress. 

“I’ll be watching over things for a while, anyway. You just concentrate on getting better, Ren,” I told him. He managed to mumble his agreement. 

“Little Naofumi, are we expecting a meal anytime soon?” Sadeena called. 

“It’s like every day is a party recently! What fun!” said Shildina, both of them clearly very hungry. 

“It’s almost ready,” I told them. 

“Master, I’m back! Save me!” Filo came flying in and immediately rushed into the kitchen and hid herself. I wondered where Melty was—maybe Filo had dropped her off somewhere. With or without her, anyway, I knew what was coming next—Motoyasu. 

“Everyone with their hands free, stop Motoyasu and his filolials from getting through! They can eat later!” I commanded. There were shouts of agreement. 

“Naofumi! Should you really be giving orders like that?” Ren asked. 

“It’s fine. Everyone here has such energy, as I’m sure you’ve noticed. This is how you handle the villagers, Ren. Watch and learn,” I told him. I ignored the chaos my orders triggered and went back to cooking. 

Dinnertime was always crazy. This was one of the big differences between here and Kizuna’s world. There were so many mouths to feed that I could cook and cook and I’d still need to cook some more. I got sick of it in the end. I told anyone else who was still hungry to eat some bioplant veggies. Then I settled down to my own dinner. Everyone stuffed themselves and then went their separate ways for the night. 

“Hey, Filo,” I called out to her. I had chased out Motoyasu and his filolials after feeding them, and Filo was now eating some bioplant nuts in the refectory. “Can you get in touch with Fitoria?” 

“Huh?” she replied, stuffing her mouth. I couldn’t believe how much she could eat. Then her cowlick started twitching. “Yes. I hear her, and she can hear you. She wants to know what you want,” Filo reported. 

“You know at least something about what we are fighting against, right?” I asked, speaking to Fitoria directly. “About Takt and the others called the vanguards of the waves.” Via Filo, I proceeded to explain the truth about the vanguards of the waves and those who appeared to be behind them. “But you already knew all of this, didn’t you?” She had been around for a long time, so it seemed unlikely to me that she didn’t have some inkling about this stuff. 

“Hmmm. She says it was all so long ago. Her memories are unclear. But she knew about enemies being sent here by the waves,” Filo relayed. 

“You can’t do any better than that?” I asked. 

“It’s all blurry, she says, and the waves try so many different things. She doesn’t know,” Filo reported. She was still just a filolial at the end of the day. They were a pretty easygoing race. 

“No matter. We learned a lot over in that other world—the second other world, for me—but I take it you already know about Ethnobalt through Filo, correct?” I asked her. I waited for Filo’s cowlick communication to be completed and then continued. “He’s a monster that occupies the same position that filolials do here, basically. It seems that there was once a legendary library rabbit, much like you, but they were killed at some point in the past.” The one who assumed the name of God had shown a tendency to wipe out anyone who could act as a threat to the waves. In that case, it wouldn’t be surprising if they decided to come for Fitoria. I went on to explain to Fitoria what had happened in Ethnobalt’s home, the Ancient Labyrinth Library. “It seems that the ones we have been fighting are active in this world too. They might be targeting you, so please be careful,” I warned her. We had no idea what might happen, after all. S’yne’s sister’s forces might even try to capture Fitoria alive and do all sorts of things to her. 

“She says that she understands. She’s also saying . . . that there are some things she wants to check with you, so she wonders if you would come and see her in the near future,” Filo told me. 

“Things? Like what kind of things? She isn’t looking to cause trouble for us with more strange requests is she?” I replied. I had yet to forget the antics with Motoyasu—I would never forget them, to be honest. 

“She says it sounds similar to the Ethnobalt issue. It’s getting dark today, so she wonders if you can make time tomorrow,” Filo relayed. 

“Hmmm. Okay then,” I replied. As I gave the nod, Filo’s cowlick stopped moving. 

“A visit with Fitoria. It has been a while, hasn’t it?” Raphtalia commented. 

“You know what? It really has. We haven’t seen her since the whole Spirit Tortoise business,” I replied. We had been in the middle of the monster war at the time, meaning we didn’t really have time for a chat. Since then, the only real contact had been the request that had led to whacky races with Motoyasu, and thanks to that, I hadn’t really had the time of day for her since. 

I just had to hope things would go better this time.