Chapter Eight: Hero Worship
“What?!” I immediately exclaimed in surprise, looking at the other Shield Hero. Just as Raphtalia had said, that seemed impossible to me . . . but power-up methods that we could only partially use, levels not resetting even after being transported, monsters that were meant to be extinct, and Fohl and Melty kind of recognizing the scenery—all of these mysteries suddenly seemed to make a lot more sense.
“What’s going on?” Mamoru asked.
“You are Mamoru Shirono, correct? From modern Japan?” I confirmed with him.
“Yes, I mean, I would call it modern, obviously . . .” he replied.
“Maybe you can understand this, then. It seems highly likely that we’re from far in your future, caught in a trap and sent back into the past,” I explained.
“In other words . . .” he pondered.
“Right. From my perspective, you’re one of the Shield Heroes who came before me, tackling the waves long ago in my past,” I said. At this revelation, Mamoru looked at us with disbelief on his face.
“From the future?” He tilted his head. “Still, seeing as we already know that being summoned to different worlds is a thing, jumping across time . . .”
“Isn’t such a stretch, is it?” I said. I was pleased he caught on so quickly, but everyone else seemed to have not caught up yet. They were all looking at each other, tilting their heads and wondering what we were talking about. I had to wonder how we reached this point. The occurrence of waves that fused worlds together was also sending people back in time. This kind of timey-whimey tomfoolery could be very volatile.
“Anyway, can we prove it conclusively?” Mamoru asked.
“Good question. Maybe if we could predict some future events for you, like in a movie or something . . . but in our time all sorts of historical documents have been destroyed or disappeared. You’re little more than a fairy-tale character, so we’ve no way to tell you about anything other than large events,” I explained. This would be the time to chat with someone who knew a lot about the legends of the four heroes, but thanks to the one who assumed the name of God, it was hard to tell if these things were facts or just fiction. “What we can tell you, if you are the Shield Hero from our past, is that you’ll eventually start a nation of demi-humans called Siltvelt,” I revealed to him.
“Siltvelt . . .” he said.
“The only way we can try to get you to trust us is by sharing whatever we know with you,” I said.
“Okay then,” Mamoru finally agreed. “If you don’t want to fight with us, we don’t need to fight you either. Explain whatever you can.” He paused again. “One thing though. If you really are from the future, isn’t there a chance that coming here will change whatever you go back to?”
“That’s the issue. If everything we’re doing is already part of our past, including our coming back there, then we can do whatever we want,” I said. The other choice was being able to do things like save people who should have died in order to make the future a better place. In either situation, we weren’t going to get anywhere without more information.
“Tell me something, predecessor (TBC),” I said.
“Can you not give me strange nicknames?” he remarked.
“Don’t worry. Once we confirm the truth, I will remove the (TBC). I just need you to understand that if you try anything violent, try to trick or trap us, or attack us for any reason, we’re not going to hold back on you,” I warned. I had to keep my guard up, but squabbling wasn’t going to resolve anything. We needed to find out the truth of our situation first—and the only way to do that was to talk to these guys and the others in their village. “I’m a Shield Hero too, remember, which means I know where to hit you. Try anything and I’ll hit you back ten times as hard.”
“You are very cautious,” Mamoru replied.
“I’m looking to send more than my bones back to the future, after all. I’ve encountered lots of problematic people in every world I’ve visited so far,” I told him.
“Sorry about that . . .” Ren said, dipping his head. I actually hadn’t meant that one as a shot at him! “I got too carried away to help,” he said.
“Ren, this isn’t about you. Stay out of this,” I told him. When he heard all of this, a strange look came over Mamoru’s face.
“I understand what you mean,” he eventually admitted, nodding. It sounded like he’d experienced some of the same stuff. “There are people who want to use the heroes for their own advantage or who want to—as you put it—trick or trap us. Even the heroes themselves don’t always make all the right decisions.”
“Have you realized that the waves are running interference here too?” I asked. Mamoru nodded. They understood it even in this era, and yet that information hadn’t made it to the future. The vanguards of the waves had been doing their evil work too well, of course.
“I got caught up in all sorts of stuff when I was first summoned. There are nasty people everywhere,” Mamoru said. From my perspective, the whole system was shot the moment they started relying on summoning people from other worlds. But I didn’t want anything to bounce back onto me, so I kept that opinion to myself.
In order to further understand the situation, anyway, we decided to show Mamoru and his party back to our village.
“There definitely wasn’t a village here before,” Mamoru said, nodding as he looked around. The boundary line running all around it was clear proof that we were the interlopers here.
“Naofumi, welcome back,” said Melty.
“Brother, everyone! You have returned!” said Fohl, the two of them spotting us and running over. Then they spotted Mamoru and his allies. They looked at me with questioning looks on their faces.
“Those weapons . . . If we’re right about everything, makes him the Gauntlets Hero of the future, right?” Mamoru asked.
“If we’re right,” I confirmed.
“Brother, who are these people?” Fohl asked.
“That’s pretty complicated,” I said. I proceeded to introduce Melty, Fohl, and everyone else in the village to Mamoru and the others, and then I explained that maybe we had been sent into the past. “Does anyone here know a lot about the Shield Hero legends?” I asked. “That might lead to some more clues.”
“There is a lot that’s spoken of as fairy tales. However . . .” Melty signaled to me that she wanted a more private discussion. Whispering among ourselves might make a bad impression on our new friends, but we couldn’t worry about that.
“There sure are some strange monsters in the future,” Mamoru said.
“Raph,” said one of the Raph species.
“What was that?” asked a filolial as Mamoru and his allies looked over at them. He did hang out with a lot of demi-humans, so maybe he was an animal lover. This seemed like my chance to get a few words in with Melty, anyway.
“What do you want? Something you can’t say in front of them?” I asked.
“I know something of the Shield Heroes summoned by the waves before you, Naofumi. My mother told me a lot. I’m sure she would have loved to see this, if she was still alive,” she said. This sounded promising. Her mother had been a history buff. Like queen, like princess. “There are numerous heroic tales remaining with a motif of the hero most worshipped in the creation of Siltvelt—like how he taught the demi-humans how to fight for themselves.”
“If that’s true, it means we’ve hooked up with a real celebrity here,” I said. Nothing was confirmed yet. I wasn’t even sure we’d be able to prove it. However, adding to what Raphtalia said, this guy seemed really well liked!
“There’s something else you’d better know, Naofumi. Where there is light, there are also shadows. In Melromarc, which is the enemy of Siltvelt, he was the most hated of the Shield Demons . . . the hero known as the Demon King,” Melty continued. That was what the guys who hated me called me—guys like the Church of the Three Heroes. And Armor, the guy Itsuki had captured and brought back, had called me that too.
“The Shield Demon King, huh?” I said. There wasn’t much I could do about that now. It came down to the difference in the awareness of justice and evil, that hot topic that Itsuki and Rishia were always worrying about. Which side was right could depend on the values of the time—and the side you picked made the other side your enemy. These were the kinds of issues that always emerged once you got involved with authority.
“There’s something else my mother said. If you search through the heroic legends from our world in the countries prior to Melromarc, the Shield Hero just suddenly appears at one point. That suggests he didn’t exist until that time,” Melty said. It must be the effects of the fusion of the worlds, meaning there had been no Shield Hero when the waves first occurred.
“Does that mean the place that is Melromarc for us is the world the Sword and Spear Heroes came from?” I said.
“That sounds correct to me. There are more legends about those two than there are of the shield and of the bow. Tracing back my father’s lineage leads to the Spear Hero too,” Melty commented. That reminded me of something the queen said once about Trash’s name before they got married, something like “Lansarz” or “Lansarose” or something like that. That probably explained where his preferential treatment of Motoyasu had come from.
“We need to find out if we have really come here from the future or not. Melty, can you share what you know with Mamoru and the others?” I asked her.
“Sure thing,” she replied. That finished our private chat. Then I saw Fohl.
“Fohl.” I called him over.
“What is it, Brother?” he asked.
“With your bloodline, you might be able to share some info that these guys will be interested in. Can you talk to them about the Shield Hero along with Melty?” I asked him. Fohl was a member of the hakuko, one of the representative races of Siltvelt. They probably had some tribal stories or something passed down through the generations.
“I could manage that . . .” he replied. Mamoru and his allies were still distracted by the village monsters. But then I introduced Melty and Fohl to them.
“Thank you for coming to meet with us, Shield Hero. I am Melty Q Melromarc, the queen of the nation of Melromarc.” Melty gave them the full royal performance, including a regal bow. I had seen her like this before, but it was so different from how I normally knew her that it still seemed funny to me.
“Your Majesty. Melromarc is not a name I have heard before,” Mamoru replied.
“Most likely a nation that does not yet exist in this time. Likely, it will be coming from a completely different world, thanks to the waves,” Melty said.
“Being the queen of a nation that doesn’t exist yet means you’ve been demoted to ‘ordinary girl,’ Melty!” I quipped from the sidelines. She gave me an elbow of considerable force right in the side, which also wasn’t very regal. Also, unfortunately for her, I was the Shield Hero. It didn’t hurt me at all. Probably not the best impression to make in front of guests though—Mamoru already looked perplexed by this interaction between us.
“And this is Fohl, the Gauntlets Hero. He is one of the most knowledgeable people in our village on the topic of Siltvelt,” I continued, introducing Fohl to Mamoru and his allies.
“Archduke Naofumi Iwatani, who we know as the Shield Hero, has explained the details of the situation to us,” Melty said, continuing with her sickly official persona and continuing the discussion. She even put “Archduke” in front of my name! It was nice to feel noble sometimes. I was getting goosebumps. “I can only hope that this works, but we will be able to share with you some stories from our time of the Shield Hero.”
“I would like that very much. We also wish to confirm the truth of this situation,” Mamoru said. The discussion was led by Melty and Fohl. We started to talk about the Shield Hero with Mamoru and his allies. The basic outline was pretty simple—Mamoru was summoned as Shield Hero to the ancient nation of Siltvelt, the weakest nation in the land. He taught them how to fight, took on the waves in order to save the world, and after many struggles and hardships, he secured the continued existence of the world. The part about teaching demi-humans to fight probably wasn’t that difficult to do, considering the hero’s blessings he would have been able to offer. Still, he had faced tribulations along the way, but there simply wasn’t time to share all of the stories in detail. I was actually somewhat interested, but there was no way of telling if they were true or not—in particular, there were things that hadn’t happened here yet.
“Angered at the invasions by other nations, Shield Hero Mamoru combined his strength with his allies to drive off—” Melty continued.
“There are plenty of records of that in this time,” Mamoru said.
“So that is true?” Melty confirmed.
“Yes,” he replied.
“Okay, moving on. It is said that ancient Siltvelt was comprised of those who learned how to fight from the Shield Hero. The four main races that benefited from this were the hakuko, the aotatsu, the shusaku, and the genmu. The Gauntlets Hero here with us is a member of one of these races, the hakuko,” Melty revealed, pointing at Fohl to direct attention to him.
“Hakuko?” Mamoru said, puzzled.
“You don’t have that race?” I asked.
“No, I don’t think we do,” Mamoru replied. I wondered what that might mean. If this was the past, the hakuko race should be here too. Perhaps they were a race that emerged after this but before our time.
“That does sound like the kind of name you would give something,” R’yne said to Mamoru, looking intently at Fohl with a smile on her face.
“That’s rude!” Mamoru said.
“I really think it sounds like one of your names, that’s all,” she teased.
“R’yne!” he exclaimed.
“You have trouble thinking up names, do you?” I asked. So this was the hero who had given the races all those dumb names. “They’re a little better than strings of random letters. I bet you give things really simple nicknames too, don’t you? Like ‘doggie’ for a dog-type monster?”
“I couldn’t possibly comment . . .” Mamoru said, turning his eyes away.
“Bingo!” said R’yne, pointing at me like I’d won the jackpot. Just as I expected.
“You’re not one to talk, Mr. Naofumi. You just add ‘II’ on everything,” Raphtalia chided me. Friendly fire, at a time like this! Friendly fire that was hard to avoid, too, because it was aimed so accurately.
“This isn’t about me. None of those names will be going down in history either,” I said. I just made up nicknames for people who wouldn’t share their names with us—mainly our enemies.
“Oh really? You deny calling Wyndia ‘valley girl’ and almost calling Ruft simply ‘cousin’ because of his relationship with me? If we do succeed in bringing peace to our world, can you be sure that your nickname for Wyndia isn’t the one that will go down in history?” Raphtalia said pointedly.
“Wow, Raphtalia. You’ve really upped your game,” I said.
“We’ve known each other for a long time, after all. We’ve had this discussion before too,” she said. We both almost looked off with glazed eyes into the distance. We’d come a pretty long way—too long, to be honest. “We met those people in the Demon Dragon’s castle who didn’t tell us their names, didn’t we? What nicknames did you give them?” Raphtalia wasn’t giving up. It sounded like this habit of mine actually really bothered her. She was so good at remembering names herself. That’s probably where this was coming from.
“Cool and affected people get labeled Ren II. People with a strong sense of justice, Itsuki II,” I said, deciding I had nothing to hide anymore.
“Hey! Are you talking about the stuff that happened in the other world? Stuff that you told me about yesterday? You were calling the enemies by my name?!” Ren said, suddenly getting involved.
“I had to call them something. They weren’t forthcoming with their names, and there was one of them who was exactly like you used to be,” I replied. Now Ren was much more of a team player and gave due consideration to his allies—he was a totally different person, really.
“I know I was like that, and I regret it, but how long am I expected to drag it around? Next time someone else like me shows up, you’re going to call them Ren III, aren’t you?” he accused me.
“Of course,” I shot back. “I’m up to III with Motoyasu and Trash already. Trash II got sliced in half, and Trash III is currently locked up after getting all muscular,” I said.
“I know who you are talking about. III is a woman!” Raphtalia had her hand pressed to her forehead. Motoyasu III, by the way, was Therese. Then Raphtalia suddenly looked over at me again, having seemingly realized something else. “Hold on. I’ve had this thought before, actually. Don’t you actually know the name of Trash II, Mr. Naofumi?” I wasn’t about to answer that question. I needed to deflect before Raphtalia became sure of it.
Quite honestly, who gave a shit about the vanguard of the waves that Tsugumi had once had the hots for? Tsugumi herself was now completely fixated on Kizuna anyway. For a moment, I thought I saw both Kizuna and Tsugumi shaking their heads in the back of my mind, but no, that couldn’t be a thing. The two of them were basically scissoring every time I saw them. Then add Glass into the mix and you had a right romantic comedy going along.
“Hmmm,” Eclair pondered. “In the case of Hero Iwatani, knowing the model for the nickname could be an effective way to understand the kind of impression these others give off. It might be a good way to remember people,” she continued. I hoped she was just making a joke, but that seemed unlikely from her.
“Eclair?!” said Ren in surprise. “This isn’t something you should be copying!”
“Where did ‘valley girl’ come from?” Mamoru asked unexpectedly. Wyndia looked sullenly interested in the answer too.
“You’d like to know?” I asked.
“Just a passing interest,” he replied.
“Okay. Even though you say you’re from Japan, we already know from among ourselves that you might not be coming from the same Japan as me, so I’m not sure if you’ll get this, but here we go.” I gestured to the Raph species from the village that had originally been a caterpilland and directed it to move around behind Wyndia. “Now turn into your bug form,” I told it. The caterpilland popped back into its previous form. “Before I won everyone in the village over, Wyndia and the others living there were raising these monsters and keeping them hidden from me. Even when I finally found out, she did everything she could to hide the monster by standing in front of it like that, telling me there was no monster at all.” Mamoru was clearly picturing the scene, and his eyes narrowed. It looked like he was thinking back, remembering something. “From that reaction, I think we have the same thing in both of our worlds,” I said. There had been plenty of examples of geeky guys being selected as heroes already, so it made sense—and in this case, we were talking about an internationally famous anime.
It had been a long time since I saw any anime, I thought wistfully. Just another thing I missed.
“Okay, I see it. Valley of the—” Mamoru started. Yeah, he got it.
“I don’t like these explanations that only you heroes understand!” Wyndia cut in petulantly.
“Ask Ren and he’ll explain it to you,” I said.
“I wouldn’t like that either!” she said curtly. Wyndia really disliked Ren.
“Maybe one of the other heroes has already brought this story over? That might help you to understand,” I said.
“You know what . . . I think I may have seen something like this,” Melty muttered. She was a royal, after all. She might have seen it in a play or something.
“Hey . . . if you keep this up, then Wyndia’s name really will go down in history as ‘valley girl.’ Is that what you are aiming for here?” Raphtalia asked. She made a good point. Spreading the origin of the name might indeed turn her into valley girl forever.
“Please, don’t allow that!” Wyndia said emphatically.
“Okay, okay,” I replied.
“If you are allied with Mr. Naofumi, please make sure to tell him your name. Multiple times, if necessary. Otherwise, who knows what will happen?” Raphtalia stated. It sounded like she was okay with me giving names to our enemies, then. Most of them probably wouldn’t share that information even if we asked—or would just come out with a made-up name. Even that might be better. But then I’d end up calling them “Mr. Fake Name” or something if it ever came out.
“We are getting pretty off track here,” I said. “You don’t have hakuko, correct?” I asked for confirmation. Mamoru stayed silent. “This might be something we really shouldn’t be telling you,” I continued. “The hakuko might be a new race that you are yet to discover, like a powerful race that chooses to hide itself away from the habitats of others.”
“There are stories like that too,” Melty said, stepping in to back me up. Perhaps like Hengen Muso Style, pushed to the brink of extinction by the effects of the vanguards of the waves, but somehow just managing to cling on. This was all still just supposition, of course. They might also be in a country like Q’ten Lo that sealed itself off from the outside world or might literally be sealed off somewhere. Maybe Mamoru would meet them at some point after this and win them over—or maybe they were refugees, using the waves as a means to cross to this world. The waves had warped history so badly it was hard to uncover the truth any longer.
“I’m still not sure I believe any of this . . .” Mamoru said.
“The name sounds so much like one of yours, Mamoru. I believe it,” R’yne said brightly.
“We aren’t going to get anywhere without a little trust, and you don’t seem to want to fight. To be honest, I thought maybe you were going to just mob us,” Mamoru admitted. If we were invaders, that might have been a tactic we used. If we used everyone we had here to launch an all-out attack on just Mamoru and the allies he had with him, we might have been able to win.
“I could say the same thing to you,” I countered.
“Indeed. I’ve decided that we’ll accept you as our guests and cooperate with you however we can. We need to find a way to get you back,” Mamoru said.
“Okay,” I said.
“One more thing. Those monsters with wings on their backs, who are they?” Mamoru asked.
“Huh? The filolials?” I replied.
“Is that what they’re called?” Mamoru said. He was looking at the filolials, furrowing his brow. He seemed pretty interested in them.
“From your reaction, it looks like you don’t have them in this time either, right? They’re pretty odd monsters who like to pull carts around. In the future, wild filolials can be found pretty much everywhere,” I said. They were versatile beasts, used for everything, like transport to food. Unfortunately, Filo was the only one who could fly.
“Filolials, huh,” muttered R’yne, also looking at the birds. I was starting to get suspicious again, but I wasn’t sure what could be causing it. The filolials had noticed the attention and a few of them asked what was going on. “Nothing to worry about,” R’yne said. “Can I ask you something? You’ve been transported somehow to this strange new place, potentially the past—aren’t you scared?” The filolials thought for a moment.
“No, we’re fine. Iwatani and the others will sort this out. If they can’t do it, I’m sure Kitamura will come to save us,” one of them said.
“Yeah, that’s right,” another agreed. They were as airheaded as ever, pretty much giving up on thinking about anything altogether. Mass-produced Filos at their finest. Unfortunately for them, Motoyasu was not going to come to the past—or at least, I very much didn’t want him to.
The scary thing was he might find a way to do it.
“I think that covers everything. We are going to go along with your conjecture for now,” Mamoru said after listening to everything we had to say.
“I do have a lot I want to ask you, but really, we just want to get back to our time as quickly as possible,” I said. In the past, before I was framed, and if I could fight—if I had nothing holding me back, basically—then I probably would have quite enjoyed ending up in the past like this. Now I wanted to make getting home my first priority. We’d been hit by an attack that moved us through time. Back where we came from, I was betting that S’yne’s sister—and Bitch and her goons too, probably—were going to town in our absence. I had to do something about that situation. I needed to get back as quickly as possible and wipe them all out.
“You’ve kindly explained the situation to us, Naofumi. I want you to see my base of operations too,” Mamoru said.
“I understand where you are coming from . . .” I said, trailing off. I looked at Melty and the others from the village. The most pressing question was still how the hell we were going to get back to our time. Maybe we could negotiate with the shield or request a transfer from Raphtalia’s katana? When I checked on those possibilities immediately after arriving here, however, neither had looked very promising. As I pondered these issues, I saw Rat looking pretty pleased with herself. She probably wanted to make a start on investigating these extinct monsters. She could do that later.
I looked away from her and back at Mamoru and his allies.
“Hold it, Archduke,” Rat said, following up after I ignored her. “You aren’t going to ask for my help?”
“Quite honestly, when actual achievements such as reading ancient texts are considered, the only ones among my allies I consider truly intellectual are Rishia and Trash—both of whom aren’t here,” I told her flatly. Rat was a researcher, so she said, but working under me, she had been more of a monster doctor/veterinarian, and there wasn’t a great deal I relied upon her for. For another thing, she’d been taking her sweet time deciphering the technology we’d collected from other worlds. She had originally been conducting her research in Faubrey, but Takt had shut that down and so she’d drifted into Melromarc. I did know that after we defeated Takt, she had expanded her research facilities.
“You are pretty full of yourself, even though you don’t achieve much,” Wyndia said, coming in with an unexpected boot from the sidelines. Rat winced and gave her a nasty glare. I knew she had her talents, but Wyndia also wasn’t wrong.
“I just don’t like research that doesn’t look far enough forward—that gives no consideration to its subjects! The proof of that is all the medical checks I’ve been giving the Raph species, some of the archduke’s favorite monsters. I’m working as hard as I can to reduce the complications of an interspecies class-up!” Rat said indignantly.
“Hold on. There have been complications?” I asked.
“Of course. If your entire body was suddenly transformed into a new shape overnight, Archduke, I’m sure you would have trouble moving parts of it or keeping it all working. I’m helping the Raph species adapt to their new circumstances,” Rat explained. She was claiming to be working hard beneath the surface, then . . . but it was still hard to evaluate her based on these kinds of results. That said, what she was doing was worthy of praise, so I had to be careful with my reply. She went on. “I’ve also been keeping an eye on the technical stuff you’ve been asking other people to handle, Archduke. The texts translated by the projectile weapon hero, the Ivyred girl, have passed through my hands too—and the reports on the pieces you’ve been bringing back from other worlds.” She was starting to sound like a jack-of-all-trades. Maybe I should have been calling her “Rishia II.” She specialized in monster-related stuff but seemed to actually know a reasonable amount about other stuff too. “You must be aware, Archduke, that alchemy requires a wide base of varied knowledge. You have your own skills, after all, such as accessory-making and cooking, so you understand,” Rat said. She did have a point. The Demon Dragon blood I had used in the cooking, for example, was more a magical material if you were going to categorize it. Rat had specialized knowledge, so she clearly thought this was her time to shine.
“Raph!” came a gaggle of calls. The Raph species monsters clustered around Rat. I guessed this meant it was okay to trust and rely on her. The monsters trusted her second only to me, after all. I would like to see how she reacted to the Demon Dragon, that was for sure.
“If the Raph species are vouching for you, I guess I can roll with it. What have you got, Rat?” I asked.
“I’m not sure I like the way you’re asking,” Rat said.
“I have some resistance to the Raph species recommending this. Are you sure you want to proceed?” Raphtalia asked. Neither of them seemed that happy, but Rat herself had asked me for this!
“Raphtalia, we’ll discuss this later or we’re going to get distracted again. In the first place, do you think Rat can’t be trusted?” I asked her.
“No, of course not. She performs health checks for everyone, and I think we can trust her,” Raphtalia replied.
“That settles it. Rat, we’re going to search with you for clues, okay?” I said.
“It’s not my specialty, but I’m the biggest brain you’ve got around here, Archduke. And I’m very interested in this world of the past,” Rat said. So that was what she was really after. A researcher like Rat was clearly going to react to having all these extinct monsters around. She wanted to get materials on them, no matter what that took.
“We’ll take you along then, Rat, but we need to firm up the defenses of the village too. If we go out in force and fall into a trap, it will be hard to escape,” I said.
“You still don’t trust us?” Mamoru asked with a frown.
“I didn’t say that,” I said cautiously—but quite obviously, believing anyone too quickly could only lead to pain.
“As your predecessor as the Shield Hero, let me remind you of something. What is the shield’s power-up method? Trust, right?” Mamoru said. I grunted. He certainly knew where to place his punches. The shield power-up method could raise abilities through trust and being trusted. Trust itself could become power. In some respects, the Shield Hero could be called the “hero of trust.”
“I understand, but I only survive by being careful,” I told him.
“Just how dark are things in the future?” Mamoru said, shaking his head. “It’s like being told that everything we’re fighting for here is meaningless.” I couldn’t comment on that. I had no way of rating the difference his actions were making. We didn’t even know how many years into the past we were. It certainly wasn’t ten or twenty years. We were talking hundreds of years here, at least. Considering the lack of records, it could even be thousands. How many years ago was the founding of Siltvelt anyway? I seemed to recall hearing a number . . . and it had been pretty long ago.
“I don’t think we need to worry too much about that,” R’yne said, giving what seemed to be a typically cheerful reply.
“I’m not suggesting hostages, but why don’t we have some of our allies remove their weapons and stay here in the village? That should give you some insurance,” R’yne suggested. Some of Mamoru’s allies immediately put down their weapons and put up their hands.
“I can do that,” said the guy whom the Shadow had taken hostage. One wrong step and he would have been dead, and here he was, offering himself as a “hostage.” That was how much he believed in Mamoru.
“How does that sound?” Mamoru asked.
“Fine then,” I eventually said. If they were going to these lengths, it didn’t seem like we had much choice.
“Naofumi, I’ll go with you too. I’m a representative of this world. I can just hide back here,” Melty said, in a rare proactive moment. She still had to be feeling considerable distress with Filo not being here. I guessed it was her royal colors showing through. “Or do you think you will be unable to protect me?” she asked pointedly, questioning whether I would be able to protect my queen or not, almost like a threat. I wondered if I should take that as an example of how much she had grown—or maybe an example of how Trash’s education was pushing her development in unexpected ways.
“Okay then, fine. Ruft, you and Fohl can take over from Melty in managing the village,” I commanded.
“Okay!” Ruft said brightly. I honestly would have preferred to leave Melty here with them, but that wasn’t the situation we were in. Ruft could look out for the villagers in Melty’s stead, I was pretty sure. Everyone under my command was getting pretty mouthy in their old age, I thought, shaking my head. I just hoped they could back that up with action.
“Melty, you’d better stay close to me at all times,” I told her.
“Of course. Being close to you is the safest place to be anyway!” she replied cheekily.
“Hey! Melty, no fair!” Keel protested, pointing accusingly at Melty.
“Don’t start!” I warned them. “We don’t know what’s going to happen here, so I need you guys to just keep protecting the village while you wait for us to return! We won’t be gone for long. Don’t worry!” I told them.
“I shall alzo accompany you,” said the Shadow, giving a salute to Melty. He could definitely prove useful, for both spying and protection, so I had no complaints there.
S’yne didn’t speak, but she seemed very interested in the hero with the same weapon as her and clearly wanted to come along. Even if I told her no, she would probably ignore me. So I decided to include her in our numbers. That meant it would be me, Raphtalia, Raph-chan, Melty, Rat, S’yne, and the Shadow leaving the village again. Not the usual lineup of faces, I had to admit. There being no Filo, the Shadow being out in the open, and Rat leaving her lab were all standout features. Eclair had wanted to join us, out of worry for Melty, but eventually she decided to remain behind for Ren.
“Let’s go,” R’yne, the Sewing Kit Hero, said. Then Mamoru and R’yne both sent us party guidance. There were also limits to consider on the number of people they could teleport.
“Jumping Needle!” said R’yne.
“Portal Shield!” said Mamoru. Everything flickered around us and we moved into what looked like a castle courtyard.
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