Tate no Yuusha no Nariagari (LN) - Volume 21 - Chapter 5

Chapter Five: Genetic Modification

Suddenly dumping our new visitor smack-dab in the village could stir things up in all sorts of ways, so I asked Mamoru to portal us close by and then we headed in on foot from there.

“I have to admit,” Natalia commented, looking at Ren with a frown, “having the Sword Hero hanging around so casually is strange for me. To me, he’s a hero from a completely different world.”

“Not sure what you want me to do about that . . .” Ren said, a little confused.

“No, nothing, of course. This is just something I’m having trouble accepting for myself. The spirits do not seem especially perturbed by it,” Natalia commented. This was currently the world of the Shield and Bow. That meant the holder of the sword holy weapon was—strictly speaking—her enemy, and not someone she would want to hang out with. Travel between worlds should be impossible without the permission of the holy weapons, and normally if a pacifier discovered you, it would lead to immediate—and likely permanent—ejection. Even more than that, the holy weapon heroes were the foundation pillars of the world itself, so there was normally no need to send them off to other worlds. I had only reached Kizuna’s world due to the unexpected accident of stealing the energy of the Spirit Tortoise and because I had the permission of the four holy spirits, including the Shield Spirit. That was an indicator of the faith I had earned, perhaps. Things had only really worked out because I asked for help from our four holy spirits, and the spirits of the Katana and Mirror, and the other vassal weapons. Natalia seemed to be clearly sensing that I wasn’t using the holy weapons for my own personal ends.

I wondered what kind of ability that was. Was it derived from the sakura stone of destiny in some way? I looked over at Raphtalia. Perhaps this was a good opportunity for her to get some training in with her ancestor, like S’yne was doing.

“Say, Mr. Naofumi . . . I’m not quite sure what you are expecting from me, but please wait until Natalia has settled in before asking anything of her,” Raphtalia suggested.

“I’m so happy to have met you, Natalia!” Ruft said, beaming. Natalia, however, was looking at Ruft with a look of confusion on her face.

“You seem to be the same race as me . . . and have an atmosphere about you that almost feels familiar . . . Just who are you?” she asked.

“Who do you think?” Ruft said with a laugh, pointing at himself as Natalia puzzled over his appearance. “I love looking like this!” He knew how cute he was, and he loved looking like that. The reason it didn’t get on my nerves was probably because of how clear it was he loved it.

“I can’t say I like it very much,” Natalia admitted. “It is like that horrible alchemist has performed some foul human experiment on some poor creature with the capacity for speech.” She had to be talking about Holn again. Natalia really didn’t seem to like her.

“Oh, really? He gained that ability by performing a class-up with the aid of the Raph species, which originated from my own hair. If anyone is to blame here, it’s Mr. Naofumi,” Raphtalia said.

“I only let it happen because it’s what he wanted,” I replied.

“It’s like you’ve taken the dragon blessing and applied it in your own unique manner. A very interesting technique,” the Water Dragon mused, also looking at Ruft.

“You’re the Water Dragon, aren’t you? I’ve heard about you from Shildina in the future. Please continue to aid our world,” Ruft said.

“Hmmm. You are well-spoken too. I think you have a bright future. Natalia, maybe we could arrange something like this for your offspring?” the Water Dragon suggested.

“Are you trying to make me mad?” Natalia replied, veins popping out on her forehead. But her anger rolled off the Water Dragon’s back like water off a water dragon.

“What’s the relationship between you two, anyway? I know you are Heavenly Emperor and Water Dragon, but is this like you’re the ruler of Q’ten Lo and its guardian dragon off on an adventure together? Where does the miko priestess fit into it?” I asked. It was like Sadeena and Shildina weren’t even required. Maybe it was for the best that they hadn’t been pulled back here with us.

“The priestess who supports me? She is in charge in Q’ten Lo at the moment. To explain this in simple terms: we are conducting our mission while I train the young Heavenly Emperor in all sorts of important things. Of course, we do understand the gravity of the current times too,” the Water Dragon explained. So he was along to keep the young Heavenly Emperor from going off the leash.

“So you are shoring up your defenses at home while keeping tabs on the heroes in the nations outside?” I asked.

“That’s largely correct. The previous Heavenly Emperor is still resident in Q’ten Lo too. It would not be a fatal blow to our nation if anything were to happen to the one you see here,” the Water Dragon added. Sending the Heavenly Emperor out into the world while also educating her—it seemed like a lot to do at once, but it also sounded like Q’ten Lo was handling business pretty well back here in the past. “There are all sorts of nasty things causing trouble in the world. They are too much for the heroes to handle alone, so we’ve been defeating and sealing them away too.”

“Okay. That makes sense,” I replied. There were ruins with monsters sealed inside all over Siltvelt—and the rest of this world, to be honest. Documents on them suggested that people from Q’ten Lo had come and sealed the contents away. “Why are you sealing them though?” This seemed like a good chance to ask. “Wouldn’t it be better to finish them off completely?”

“I see that even that information has not reached the future,” the Water Dragon said. “They have an anti-wave effect that can reduce the effects of the waves when things are most dire. There’s a reason for us sealing them like that,” the Water Dragon revealed.

“Wow, okay. So that’s why we found all those monsters sealed away in Q’ten Lo,” I replied. Natalia tilted her head at that, clearly puzzled. “When we were there, we fought all sorts of different sealed monsters. They had names like . . . the Sealed Orochi, stuff like that. Loads of them,” I told her. I knew it would cause an unusual status effect, but I got Ren to bring out the cursed Ama-no-Murakumo Sword. He put it away again immediately, but he looked lightheaded from just that exposure.

“I sense a terrible curse from that weapon,” the Water Dragon stated. “But there is some light mixed in with that too.”

“That reminds me, what’s happening with that countdown on that weapon?” I asked.

“It’s still gradually coming down, but I’ve no idea what it means,” Ren replied. “We’ll just have to give it more time.” It had been quite a while already since he registered the weapon! I just had to hope it would eventually change into a powerful weapon for him—or, at least, that it wasn’t some countdown to death.

“There should never be the need to create so many separate seals in Q’ten Lo,” Natalia said. “I presume you have no idea what magic was used, right?”

“The awareness of things in this time and our time seems to be pretty different,” I said. There was too much we didn’t know. I hoped we could uncover the truth back here in the past. Just getting home didn’t sound like it would be enough anymore. I also wanted to find information that would help us with our fight back in the future. We weren’t ones to just roll over and give up, no matter what happened.

We continued to discuss the current situation and eventually reached the village. Imiya spotted me and came right over.

“Shield Hero,” she said.

“What’s up? Anything happen while we were gone?” I asked.

“Nothing major . . . I mean, this might be a very small thing, but it’s time to depart on our trading and Keel hasn’t shown up yet, so I was looking around for her,” Imiya explained.

“Keel?” I asked.

“She’s normally the first one ready to go,” Fohl said, also sounding concerned.

“That dog? She’s probably off playing somewhere and just forgot the time,” Mamoru suggested.

“I hope that’s all it is,” I replied. Then I noticed Natalia looking intently at Fohl.

“I’ve been wondering about you too,” she finally asked. “You have a vassal weapon from another world, don’t you? Are those gauntlets? Gloves?”

“My name is Fohl. These are gauntlets . . . and I’m the Gauntlet Seven Star Hero,” he replied.

“Hmmm. I’ve seen your race before, I’m sure . . . Are you a demi-human from another world?” the Water Dragon asked, also looking Fohl over. I saw where this was going. If the hakuko weren’t around prior to the merging of the worlds, maybe they were a race from the world of the sword and spear.

“I know you’re Raphtalia’s ancestor, but you do look so much like her. At a distance I’m not sure I could tell you apart,” Fohl commented.

“The difference in the hairstyles helps out,” I noted. They weren’t identical, but even their clothing was similar. I guessed it was being related that made them look so similar. “Anyway, so you say Keel is missing?” I asked, getting back on track.

“That’s right,” Imiya replied.

“Where do you think Keel could have gone off to at such an important time?” Raphtalia asked.

“I don’t want to say it, but maybe Piensa dognapped her. That would really suck right now. She’s tough too, so they wouldn’t have taken her easily,” I said. She also definitely would have made a noise about it. If there was one thing we had in the village, it was noise-makers—the filolials especially.

“But with her trauma resurfacing, they might have caught her off guard,” Raphtalia said. She wasn’t wrong.

“Please, Shield Hero. Can you help search for her?” Imiya pleaded. Strictly speaking, Keel was my slave and had a slave seal. No one other than me could check on it. That was why Fohl and Imiya had come to me.

I called up the slave seal item under my status and pinged Keel’s current location.

“Okay, she’s not far away at all. That way,” I pointed. A marker was displayed for me, indicating roughly how far away she was. The main issue with this system was that strong magical magnetic fields or an interference would stop it from working properly.

This was just another problem, in a long line of problems. I was starting to get sick of it. Pacifier Natalia came to check things out and this happened, right away. I wondered if a few harsh words with Keel might be warranted later.

We proceeded into the village. Natalia was unable to stop herself from looking around.

“What’s that house there? Is it made from plants?” she asked. “You do have access to some strange magic in the future.”

“That’s a camping plant, created by modifying bioplants using the abilities of the shield. I’ve been told you don’t have bioplants in this time period,” I commented.

“You do have all sorts of strange stuff here,” Natalia stated. “To me, they either look like items washed in from another world or the work of that evil alchemist.” From among the stuff that did come from other worlds, the text on it was often corrupted and unable to be used. But the bioplants had functioned normally even in Kizuna’s world. We didn’t have a handle on exactly how any of that stuff worked, but maybe it made sense if you considered everything that looked out of place to be coming from another world.

“They grow quickly once planted, but they also mutate easily. We’ve obtained the skills to modify them safely before they almost caused a major disaster. Once we became able to modify them, though, as you can see, they’re pretty convenient plants. They even make great houses,” I said.

“I’ll admit that seems convenient, but still . . .” Natalia replied, unconvinced.

“I understand how you feel,” Raphtalia said, stepping in. “This is the village I grew up in, but once Mr. Naofumi started to modify it, things have changed a lot from how they started.”

“The heroes do have a tendency to change the environment around them in all sorts of ways . . . and that’s difficult, because it isn’t always a bad thing. It seems all ages suffer some of the same problems,” Natalia mused. She seemed to be getting along well with Raphtalia. That was definitely preferable to the tension hanging over everything. I was just about to mention it when Natalia stopped still and narrowed her eyes.

“How do you have sakura lumina trees here?” she asked.

“Those were tricky, I’ll admit,” I said. “We had to work with the bioplants closely. It was a pain to get them to take root.”

“You’ve even defiled the sakura lumina?” Natalia said, her voice starting to tremble.

“Ah, this looks bad! Naofumi!” Ren shouted. Both he and Mamoru had concern on their faces.

“Well, I find this most interesting, don’t you?” the Water Dragon said, clearly trying to placate Natalia. “Taking those unfettered trees and putting them to use like this, we should probably be impressed before we get angry, no?”

“This is a different matter entirely!” Natalia seethed. “You expect me to just sit back and accept such heresy?”

“You’re the only one calling it that. Didn’t you notice it the moment we entered this village?” the Water Dragon asked. “Can’t you feel the consent emanating from the trees themselves? They have agreed to this transplant.”

“Huh?” Natalia said.

“Raph!” Raph-chan pointed at the biggest of the sakura lumina in the village and then indicated for Natalia to join her by it. Natalia moved over and placed her hand on its trunk. The light of the sakura lumina flickered and swelled up for just a moment.

Natalia came back over, a frown on her face and a sigh on her lips. She seemed pretty versatile. I hoped Raphtalia could also learn a lot of things, just like her. That would be useful in the future.

“The sakura lumina are surely lending everyone here their strength for the sake of the world,” the Water Dragon said. “Based on the reactions from them I sense here, the sakura lumina themselves have not been altered a significant amount,” the dragon continued. I recalled, during our takedown of Q’ten Lo, Gaelion had received information about control of the sakura lumina from the Water Dragon via a fragment. That suggested that the Water Dragon was probably well-versed in the ways of the sakura lumina. “They also function as a barrier. And it feels like maybe that was exploited somehow,” the Water Dragon continued. Holn had said something similar. That might well be a clue as to how we ended up here.

“I understand that the sakura lumina are lending you their strength, but I don’t like it,” Natalia admitted.

“Such stubbornness will not aid you in the times ahead,” the Water Dragon chided. It sounded like we were out of the woods on this issue, anyway.

“I understand how you feel,” Raphtalia sympathized.

“That only makes the pain keener,” Natalia replied. The two of them were becoming fast friends. If having me as some kind of bad boss they could rail against together helped things go smoothly, I was happy to play that role.

“Mr. Naofumi, if you want to get Natalia on our side more easily, it might be easiest to feed her,” Raphtalia suggested. I could feel she was becoming more and more shrewd. That was useful in many ways, but it also made it harder to pull the wool over her eyes concerning certain things.

“Not planning on a platter of poison, are you?” Natalia quipped.

“No need to worry about that with Mr. Naofumi,” Raphtalia assured her.

“Okay. That sounds like something to look forward to,” the Water Dragon said.

“The future Shield Hero has a way of getting people on his side, doesn’t he?” Natalia said.

“That’s one way of putting it,” Raphtalia said. The Q’ten Lo connection seemed to really be bringing the pair of them closer together. It felt like I needed to change the subject.

“Hey, shouldn’t we be looking for Keel right now? I could just trigger her slave seal to get her over here . . .” I said as we continued to track her.

“Oh, Duke. You’ve got quite a crowd with you today,” Rat said as we arrived in front of her lab. She was the representative scientist of our village, and it looked like she was just coming back from giving the monsters a checkup. Wyndia was with her too.

“I heard you were going with the Sword Hero to meet with the Heavenly Emperor from this time period,” Wyndia said, looking over at Natalia and the Water Dragon—more the Water Dragon.

“You’re one who has received the love of dragons,” the Water Dragon said. “I’m the Water Dragon, a guardian and an Emperor Dragon.”

“A guardian dragon? Nice to meet you,” Wyndia replied. She was being surprisingly polite. So this was her response to meeting such a gentlemanly dragon. Ren had a complex look on his face.

“We’ve made a connection with them. They’ve come to visit our village, but now we’ve lost Keel, so we’re looking around for her,” I explained.

“Understood, but what brings you to our lab?” Rat asked.

“It seems Keel is up ahead, in there,” I told her.

“She is? What’s she doing in there?” Rat pondered.

“Keel?” Wyndia pondered. “That reminds me . . . just before you left, Shield Hero . . . I saw her talking with the one who might be Rat’s ancestor.” That was Holn, then. Holn and Keel having a conversation—I couldn’t see what that could be about. Natalia was looking silently, intently at Mamoru and then gave us all a bit of a suspicious look.

“Mamoru?” Cian asked, sounding nervous.

“Shield Hero. From that reaction, it seems you have some idea what is going on?” Natalia said.

“Dafu!” Dafu-chan seemed to think so too. I wasn’t surprised to see the two of them working together already.

“It’s Holn we’re talking about! I can’t keep her under control!” Mamoru replied.

“I’m sure you can’t. She calls herself an evil alchemist, so you’re unlikely to be able to control her,” Natalia agreed.

“That’s all it took to convince you?” I said, unable to keep from commenting. Holn seemed to be very well known. I’d thought she was capable, but maybe she was just dangerous. Raphtalia grabbed my arm and shook me.

“What’s the meaning of all this?! Keel is in danger! Mr. Naofumi! We have to find her!” Raphtalia said.

“I’m surprised you haven’t taken action, Natalia,” I said.

“I would love to,” Natalia admitted, “but the Whip vassal weapon has taken a real shining to her. She’s taking a firm stance against the waves too, so for now I’m just watching the situation. There are some things she is good at.” The Whip Spirit was one I was never going to understand! It had let Takt own it in the past—our past, the future—and seemed to have a pretty crazy personality. Takt had likely been binding it against its will though. Maybe it worked on the same principle as the Staff seven star weapon that Trash liked so much.

“I have to ask . . . You can’t even punish someone who’s as completely off the rails as her? Then what can you do?” I asked, shaking my head and looking at her almost with pity in my eyes. She looked aside, sweat gathering on her brow.

“I’ve got all sorts of my own issues to deal with, okay?” Natalia replied. “Stop looking at me like that or I’ll hammer some of the terror of the Heavenly Emperor into you!”

“What a pitiful sight this is,” the Water Dragon said, shaking his head. Her position of authority was definitely slipping in our eyes, but she was also starting to feel even more like Raphtalia, and so I was starting to like her more too.

“Dafu!” said Dafu-chan, pointing over at the lab. It looked like she wanted us to stop bantering around and go inside.

“Yes, you’re right,” I said. “This could be the excuse you need to punish her at last, Natalia. Just don’t kill her, okay?”

“. . . Okay,” Natalia finally said. We still needed Holn alive, which put us in a frustrating position for dealing with her. We entered the lab to continue the search for Keel.

We advanced through the structure, smoothly arriving in front of Rat’s main lab. The signal from Keel was coming from the room ahead, from the look of it. The marker was a little lower down than I was expecting.

“She’s in the next room . . . I think,” I told the others.

“Is something going on?” Raphtalia asked.

“I’m not sure. It’s definitely strange,” I replied. Raphtalia gave a sigh. Rat kept on checking the pipes running through the place. That looked suspicious too. “Is there some kind of security device up ahead?” I asked her.

“You helped build the place, Duke. There’s nothing of the sort . . . that I know of.” Yet Rat definitely looked even more anxious than usual.

“There’s no sign of her favorite monster,” Wyndia explained. “You can normally tell what it is doing through the pipes when we return.” I recalled what Wyndia was talking about. It was about that strange monster Rat kept here. I wasn’t even sure what kind of monster it was, but I knew they were talking about that thing in the big test tube. And it sounded like that thing moved around through all these pipes! I’d heard Rat call it “Mikey,” if I remembered correctly.

“Mikey is my friend! He can’t do a thing right, but he works so hard anyway!” Rat said.

“Okay, okay,” I replied. “What the hell is he anyway?” It was a monster prized by an alchemist who loved monsters and who had been chased out of Faubrey. I knew that much. That suggested something pretty important—or insane. He had been in the tubes in order to recover from a serious injury, if I recalled correctly. It might be a completely new, original monster created by Rat. Maybe once it got out it would prove to be as strong as the Spirit Tortoise and proceed to go on a rampage.

“When I was chased out of Faubrey, the forces siding with Takt accused me of heresy, gathered all my monsters together, and killed them. He’s the only one I was able to save, and even then, he was in a bad state,” Rat revealed. She had been a pretty skilled alchemist even when she was in Faubrey, apparently, but she’d lost everything thanks to Takt. And Mikey was her one remnant from that time—a creature that looked like a bunch of muscle fibers floating inside a flask. At a glance he looked like just a ball of fur. The fluid he was suspended in looked expensive too. I wondered if she was making it using the bioplant. “It’s one of my goals to make him into the most powerful monster ever,” Rat said. She’d told me something like that when she first came to the village. She told me about proving that monsters could help fight the waves too. That was the dream she had placed on Mikey’s shoulders.

“If you level him up and perform a class change, wouldn’t he just get stronger normally?” I asked. Maybe that was arrogant of me. This world functioned a lot like a video game, which meant I focused on raising levels rather than making physical improvements. Raphtalia and the others trained a lot, but that was about creating a proper foundation. There was some suggestion that training like that at a low level made further growth smoother. In any case, now we had determined the power-up method for the Whip. Rat could have just come to us.

“Wouldn’t that be lovely?” Rat said smarmily. “After all the measures I’ve taken to extend his life, there are all sorts of complex issues to deal with! His body can’t even accept experience at the moment.” Wow. That sounded pretty serious. Rather than enhance him, it sounded like she needed to provide medical treatment. “I had been gathering things from Gaelion and other sources, and once the treatment was ready, I was going to let him back out into the world.”

“I’m thinking the world might end before you get that far,” I told her. To say she had been branded a heretic, her research style was slow and steady. She was beyond just being methodical. Rat worked so slowly even Holn was on her back about it. I guessed this also came from the trauma of her experiences with Takt. From everything I had seen of her so far, she sought to preserve life and hadn’t descended to the level of human experimentation.

“I’m actually making good progress!” she fired back.

“I’m sure you are,” I soothed her, not in the least bit patronizingly.

“I have to say . . . you don’t seem especially concerned. This sounds like some pretty risky research,” Raphtalia said.

“Raphtalia,” I replied, “our enemies, including those coming from the waves, will use whatever dirty tricks they can to try and defeat us. If we decide even this level of activity is beyond the pale, we might end up losing a battle that could have been won.”

“I don’t like to hear that,” Natalia said, sounding a little distraught herself. “That’s probably one of the reasons the Whip Spirit likes that researcher so much, though I hate to admit it.”

“You’ll wear yourself out if you keep so much tension in your shoulders,” Ruft said cheerfully. “We need to relax and just do whatever we can.” He was really growing up fast.

“You were Mr. Naofumi’s test subject yourself, Ruft, so we don’t need to hear from you,” Raphtalia replied.

“Oh my!” Ruft exclaimed, channeling the killer whale sisters.

“Mamoru?” Cian said, noticing Mamoru silently watching our exchange unfold. There was no need to expand this conversation any further. We needed to get to Holn and Keel.

“Well, whatever. That’s enough chatter. Let’s just go inside! Keel might just be having a nice chat with Rat’s favorite monster,” I said hopefully. That’s what I really wanted to be happening here, and I pushed the door open, clinging to that idea.

What we found was . . . no one at all.

“There’s no one here,” Raphtalia said.

“I see that,” Wyndia replied.

“No Mikey either,” Rat commented. The large tank in which he was normally located was empty.

“What about Keel?” I muttered, checking her location. It looked like she was diagonally downward from our current position. I didn’t recall any way to get below this room. Now I was starting to get concerned.

“Mr. Naofumi, where’s Keel?” Raphtalia asked. I didn’t say anything, just indicated a downward direction with my eyes.

“Imiya, you guys have some residential space beneath the village, don’t you?” I confirmed with her.

“Yes, that’s right. But we haven’t excavated anything around here. Causing a sinkhole under some of Rat’s research might be bad for the entire village,” she explained. The lumo slaves whom Imiya so ably represented were a pretty thoughtful bunch. I’d been aware of their digging, which was careful not to cause any collapses. When I’d checked their living space, it had been very well shored up with lots of pillars for support and had felt like a well-planned underground residence.

“Having the killer whale sisters around would make this spatial awareness stuff so much easier,” I commented. They could use ultrasound to even tell what was behind walls, making them perfect for finding people quickly.

Rat headed over to the terminal placed in this room, a machine unique to this world that looked like a stone tablet. She started to operate it.

“Hmmm. Looking for anything out of place . . . huh? This is strange. I’m not sure what’s going on here,” she muttered. She operated some more, and I started to have a bad feeling too, so I opened up the camping plant controls. Then I said the password.

“Supervisor authorization. Critical item, lock release. Open.” This was a backdoor that I’d added when we created the camping plant, allowing me to get inside even if the village kids tried something silly like locking themselves inside. It also had basic programming that meant it could not betray my orders, even if another hero tried to use nefarious means to control it. If these measures were destroyed, the camping plant would become completely unresponsive and then self-destruct. I’d given the camping plant to everyone, so I didn’t want anyone to be able to use it for just their own selfish needs.

Of course, I could also initialize everything.

With a heavy grating sound, stairs leading downward appeared in the middle of the lab.

“Ah! What’s this?” Rat seemed to have discovered something too. “Duke, look! There’s a pipe here that I don’t remember installing!” Rat was pointing at the tank. Beyond it there was a hole, just like with the stairs.

“This is smelling fishier and fishier,” I said.

“Not to mention, after creating this underground facility, she concealed it perfectly by making the camping plant excrete more coagulant. Even you wouldn’t have spotted this, Duke,” Rat said. I looked over at the one responsible for the individual in question—Mamoru—and he looked away quickly, sweat on his brow.

“It seems pretty obvious that Holn is behind all this,” I stated.

“I would say so,” Natalia agreed, joining me in looking at Mamoru. “This is just the kind of setup that an evil alchemist loves.” There was no defending her now, surely.

“It definitely looks that way, but I don’t know a thing about this!” Mamoru replied. I saw Cian look down at the ground when he said that, as though maybe she had some idea about all this . . . but it was Holn, surely. That much seemed plain.

“I guess not. You wouldn’t have walked in here with us so casually. That said, if she’s trying to pull some kind of fast one over on us, we need to find out what she’s planning,” I said.

“She’s an intelligent person. Why would she do something like this?” Raphtalia lamented. Ren and Fohl looked like they were asking the same question.

“Trying to pull something like this on you, Naofumi . . .” Ren said.

“She knows no fear,” Fohl finished. I wondered about that as a response though. Just once I would like to know exactly what they all really thought of me.

“What this definitely means,” Fohl said, “is that we need to continue the search for Keel as quickly as possible. When we were discussing the trauma treatment for Keel and the others, I heard Holn muttering something about not being asked to help out!” he suddenly recalled. It was a little late for that! We could have used that information at the point when we arrived here.

Something nasty was swelling inside me. It was a combination of Holn, Keel, and Rat’s favorite monster. I really didn’t like what that was suggesting. She had some plan to cure Keel’s trauma, and I didn’t think I was going to like it!

“Let’s get down there!” Rat headed first toward the stairs.

“Right with you!” I said.

“I’m not in a forgiving mood right now! Ancestor or not, if she’s done anything to Mikey, I’m going to dice her up and turn her into an experiment herself!” Rat seethed, sounding like a pretty dangerous switch had been flipped in her head. She normally wouldn’t say stuff quite as dangerous as that.

“Come on! Let’s move!” I said.

“Ah, Shield Hero.” Wyndia stopped me. “After we’ve gone in, can you be sure that that woman’s ancestor isn’t going to escape from here?” she asked.

“Good point,” I said. Wyndia knew Rat well, which maybe gave her this insight. “Wyndia, Imiya, you stay here and keep watch. Ren, Fohl, go and order the entire village to watch the lab from the outside. I don’t want a single ant to escape!” I wasn’t sure they would get that expression, but they nodded anyway.

Then the earth started to shake.

“What’s going on?!” We hurried back outside the lab, to see towers made from bioplants growing up around the village. “Towers?!” I exclaimed. The very top of each tower was glittering and shining. I was starting to have a really bad feeling about this. I narrowed my eyes to see the name of a monster: tower plant. Then a voice sounded from the lab.

“Oh dear. It seems you’re on to my little game.”

“Holn!” Mamoru shouted, his brow furrowed. “What are you planning?!” She ignored him—maybe she wasn’t listening, or maybe this was all a preset recording—and carried on.

“If you want to get inside the research space I’ve created just for little old me, you’ll need to put someone on standby at the top of each of the towers positioned outside it and then touch the devices placed there simultaneously. There’s a total of seven towers, so good luck with that. I’ll just hang out and see if you can meet my conditions, okay?” she announced, and then the voice vanished with a scratching sound. Mamoru’s shoulders slumped and he put a hand to his forehead.

“Just the kind of twisted game she loves,” he moaned. “You’ve been able to provide just the toys she needed for this.” By “toys” I presumed he meant the bioplants. She really had gone crazy, from the look of it. She’d even set things up to completely negate my orders, and so there was nothing I could do to control it. It was like she had taken the idea of the bioplants and turned them into something else completely of her own making.

“Now she’s really gone off the deep end, right? You’d better punish her for this!” I said to Natalia.

“I would like to, trust me, but when she’s done things like this in the past, the subsequent wave has featured the same kind of tricks. I hate to admit it, but we only made it through thanks to her,” Natalia said. This was the first I was hearing of stuff like that coming with a wave. I had always thought they were just about a bunch of monsters coming out to be defeated. I looked over at Ren, and he averted his gaze and nodded.

“I do remember seeing something for setting up events to coincide with waves. They only ran for a limited period. I also remember they required teamwork to complete, so they were a pain when playing solo,” he recalled. Events like that were a real pain in the ass.

“I doubt she intends to take this far enough to kill anyone, but it’s still a big problem,” Mamoru said, shaking his head. “She’s planning something we can’t see yet, that’s for sure.”

“Okay. Can we just chop this stuff down?” I asked.

“I’ll give it a try! Hundred Swords X!” Ren shouted, unleashing a skill that sent countless swords—okay, maybe it was a hundred of them—flying toward one of the towers. They smashed through the barrier protecting the tower and chopped it to the ground in short order . . . but immediately afterward, another tower grew in its place and started to shine.

“It looks like we’ll have to disarm them, like she said,” Mamoru commented. “They seem to just grow back, so destroying them is pointless.” I cursed—more shit we didn’t need!

“Dafu!” said Dafu-chan. She seemed eager to help tackle this.

“Naofumi, we’ll deal with these towers. Can you take a party and try to find a way to get beneath the lab as quickly as possible?” Ren asked, sounding a little unhinged. He wanted to coordinate the pain-in-the-rear task of climbing seven towers, while we tried to circumvent the entire thing anyway. That sounded fine by me, if we could get away with it.

“Okay. It has to be worth a try. You handle things here,” I told him.

“Mamoru, I want to go too,” Cian said, taking Mamoru’s hand.

“Cian has proven herself to be unexpectedly good in a scrap already,” I said. “She might help us catch Holn by surprise.”

“Sure, okay,” Mamoru eventually said. “Cian, are you willing to help out?”

“Yeah!” she replied.

“Okay! Let’s go!” I said. With that, we started down the lab’s underground passage.