Chapter Thirteen: Game Knowledge Bares its Fangs
“Those idiots!”
It was our third night in the village.
The other heroes had come on the second night to deliver their report.
The report from the shadows that had been trailing them came on noon of the third day. The shadow reported that the heroes had left the lands they had been sent to secure.
I had been out investigating during the day, so I didn’t hear the report until I got back in the evening.
Keel had been moved to the castle clinic and was recovering quickly.
Rishia thought that she was going to figure out what book she had seen the monsters in and was studying in the castle library.
The mystery monsters were growing rapidly in number, moving to the west, and attacking everything in sight.
The bat-like monsters weren’t so powerful on their own, so the country was doing its best to manage them. As for the yeti-like monsters, there weren’t as many of them, but they were too powerful for normal humans to handle.
We used the adventurer guilds to recruit adventurers that could help us fight them off.
Anyway, about the other heroes, I’d thought they were hiding something, and I’d been right.
They had attacked the Melromarc border and broken through.
“We have reports of what they said as they stormed the border, which went as follows: ‘we have to get through to stop the monsters! Why are you in our way?!’”
I turned that over in my head for a minute and then I realized what it meant. They really had known something about the mystery monsters.
The report said that they had also said things like, “We aren’t breaking our promise to the queen,” and, “This is necessary to carry out the job we’ve been tasked with.”
“What do you want to do? Should we go after them?”
“Yes, but if we go after them now, we may suffer for it.”
“How so?”
“I’ve heard that they are using filolials and flying dragons—pressing on and on without rest.”
What were they after?
Filo was the fasted form of transportation I had access to. Filo was very fast, much faster than normal horses or filolials.
But Filo was a living thing, not a car. She had to rest from time to time.
And if the heroes were really using flying dragons, then we would really be in trouble. They didn’t even have to worry about the terrain.
If they used dragons and filolials, then that probably meant they were going places that Filo couldn’t get to on her own.
If we wanted to match their speed, then we could keep switching to new animals when one of them got tired. We could match their speed that way, but they had a head start, so we wouldn’t catch up with them.
Maybe if we kept Filo on running shifts we could catch up—she was really fast.
Still, we didn’t know where the heroes were going.
Even if through some miracle we were able to catch up with them, we still didn’t have a way to stop them.
If we tried to force them to stop it would only cause more animosity, and we only had four days until the waves came.
Come to think of it, what would we do if the wave came in the middle of our chase?
Maybe they are going to a wave in another country? But aren’t the heroes supposed to come back to Melromarc for the wave?
Regardless, we had to prepare for the wave here. It was our only real option.
Judging by the direction they were last seen traveling in...
The queen pointed to a spot on a map. It was a country very far to the east of Melromarc.
Again, the east. That pretty much made it clear. The answer to the mystery lay to the east.
“Based on their speed, it’s safe to assume they will arrive three days from now.”
“That only leaves them one extra day before the wave comes. What do you think they are up to?”
“I only know that we should stay on our toes. And yet these monsters, could they be . . . ?”
If only we could teleport there. But we couldn’t.
We were only able to teleport to places we had already visited and registered.
Huh?
“I just thought of a way to catch up with them. Hold on a minute.”
I met up with Raphtalia and the others and found Filo.
“What is it, master?”
“I want to speak with Fitoria.”
“Kay!”
Raphtalia, Eclair, and the old lady were confused.
“She says, ‘what?’”
I unrolled a map on over a table and indicated where the heroes were headed.
“You have a teleporting ability. Can you teleport us to this spot? The other heroes are heading there. We have to catch up with them and figure out what they are up to.”
Filo’s cowlick started twitching.
“Uh-huh. Yup. Mkay. She says that area is outside of her jurisdiction, so she can’t take us there.”
“Huh? Wait a second. Does she know what the other heroes are up to?”
“Yeah. She says she actually wants to help, but that if the heroes are really on such bad terms with each other that it would be better for the world if you just gave up.”
Could it be what Fitoria had mentioned before? That after a number of the waves passed there would come a time when all the life in the world would be threatened? Was she saying that the time had come?
She’d said, “You can save the people or you can save the world. If the other heroes really can’t get along with you, and they want to abandon their purpose, then you need to survive. Then you can choose to save the world. It will entail great sacrifice, but you will be able to fulfill your purpose.”
Was now the time she’d been talking about?
“Is she saying that if all goes well, it could be the end of the waves?”
“Is she saying this is it . . . ?”
“Mr. Naofumi. You’re not talking to Filo, are you? What are you talking to Fitoria about?”
“Something that we talked about in private once. She said that there would come a time when all life would need to be sacrificed to save the world.”
“Are the heroes trying to save the world?”
Eclair leaned forward and asked me. She found it hard to believe.
“Regardless, we don’t know what’s happening with these monsters. But it sounds like whatever the heroes are up to might have something to do with ending the waves for good.”
“Will it be alright?”
“I don’t know, it makes me nervous. We have our hands full trying to protect the country. And yet...”
I turned back to Filo’s cowlick. “We can’t give up. We’re going after them.” “She says, ‘Good luck then! I’ll be watching from afar.’” The queen of the filolials didn’t seem to care a lick about humans. She wouldn’t even tell us where they were going. Maybe she had realized that she’d done all she could for heroes like us. I guess I couldn’t disagree with that. The situation was looking dire, but the heroes that were supposed to save everyone were fighting each other. If I was Fitoria, I’d have been disappointed too. But I bet she was really waiting for us. Waiting for us to learn to fight for the sake of everyone. But she wasn’t going to do it for us. Maybe that’s what she meant.
We all went to go meet with the queen. I explained the situation. “I see. Well, now we know what the heroes are after, don’t we?” “What is waiting for them there?” Rishia came running into the throne room and shouted at me. Her face was pale. Like the queen, it looked like Rishia had figured something out. “Feh!” “What is it?” “Fehhh... Right . . . I . . . Um...” “What is it?”
“When I heard where Master Itsuki was headed to, I remembered where I’d seen those monsters.”
“Where?”
“Yes. I saw them in one of the ancient legends about the heroes. Those monsters were the familiars—the servants—of the Spirit Tortoise.”
“I believe she is correct.”
“Spirit what?”
Come to think of it, there was a legend in my world about a Spirit Tortoise too. It was a mysterious monster.
The four benevolent animals showed up in games sometimes, but the tortoise was one of the more minor ones.
They were four symbolic animals that protected the different cardinal directions.
They were similar to the four symbols, the azure dragon, vermillion bird, white tiger, and black turtle. The four benevolent animals somewhat paralleled the four symbols and were made up of the kirin, phoenix, Spirit Tortoise, and dragon.
They were the same kind of creatures, so a lot of people confused them for one another, but they were different.
The Spirit Tortoise was a giant turtle that wore Mount Penglai on its back.
But the black turtle of the four symbols was different; it has a snake for a tail and stood on long legs. It was the protector of the northern direction.
Mount Penglai was a famous mountain for ascetic training in the east, so a beast that wore it on its back wasn’t necessary the protector of the north.
“So? The monsters that are flying around Melromarc are the servants of the Spirit Tortoise?”
“Perhaps...”
That didn’t sound good. I was probably going to have to step in.
“Hm...”
The Spirit Tortoise in my world was a protective spirit that had something to do with floods or something.
I think it was also believed to issue prophecies about the future.
“So there is a giant monster behind all this?”
The other heroes were rushing there without waiting for us because they wanted to feel like they were getting ahead of me.
I didn’t want to think about what kind of ideas they had.
They probably just thought that they would get their hands on some good equipment by defeating the Spirit Tortoise.
If everything went well, they would get good equipment and they’d put an end to the newest threat to the world.
They probably thought everyone would love them and praise them night and day.
“But ancient heroes sealed the tortoise away and took the secrets of the sealing process with them to their graves.”
“The other three heroes think that they know what to do about it, just because of the games they’ve played.”
If they really did know about the seal from the games, then maybe they knew how to undo the seal, even though that knowledge had been lost in this world.
Come to think of it, Itsuki had said something that made sense in hindsight. He’d said that I wasn’t going to be able to be high and mighty for much longer.
When he’d said it, I thought he was just whining. But now it all made sense.
If all three of them were heading for the same place, that meant that the enemy could probably be defeated by people around level 80 or so. Either that or they already knew what to do.
So that’s what their game knowledge had gotten them. I wished they would calm down.
I felt like I was going to have to give them a piece of my mind.
“But there are already so many servant monsters. Could the seal already be broken?”
“Maybe.”
And if it was, it wasn’t the heroes that had done it.
“Let’s get prepared for battle, just in case.”
If what Fitoria said was true, then the waves might end if we just did nothing and let all this run its course. But there was no way to tell what that would lead to.
She’d said there would be sacrifices. But only Fitoria knew what that really meant.
And besides, I couldn’t just sit back and do nothing.
“We’re going after the heroes.”
“Understood. Thanks to your cooperation, we have discovered the cause of all this. I have asked the guilds for assistance. I hope that they will prove useful.”
“I’m really getting tired of the other heroes’ behavior.”
“I understand. I will try to buy you some time to intercept the heroes in the country where the Spirit Tortoise is sealed.”
That would help. We had to find a way to make up for their head start.
But how were we going to deal with the wave in Melromarc?
Hopefully our training would pay dividends when the time came.
Plus Eclair and the old lady were helping us now. So we were in a better position than we had been.
We left the throne room, teleported back to the southwest village, and hitched Filo up to a carriage. Then we departed.
We were about to enter the fray of the real battle, the battle that would determine the fate of the world and the waves.
We crossed the border into the neighboring country at dawn on the fourth day.
Filo had run all through the night. We had just reached the closest border. There was still so far to go.
Eclair and Rishia had both gotten terribly motion sick during the night.
“Sh . . . Shield Hero, please . . . stop the . . . urp!”
“Fehhhh. Burp!”
“If we stop, we won’t catch up to them.”
They’d been saying stop all through the night. And they had already thrown up everything they had eaten. They were still trying to throw up.
Filo was starting to tire out.
“Guess we don’t have a choice. Let’s rest.”
“Whew! I’m tiiiiired!”
I stopped the carriage and Filo immediately began to snore.
She must have really pushed herself.
We met some shadows on the road and asked them where the heroes had gone.
We weren’t even in the right country yet.
They were going to arrive at their destination with only one day to spare before the wave came.
Which meant that we probably weren’t going to make it in time.
We stayed on the road though and when there were only two days before the wave...
Suddenly, the air was filled with the sound of shattering glass. A shockwave rocked the carriage so strongly it made me dizzy.
It sounded like the beginning of a wave, but it was somehow different.
“What was that?!”
“What?”
I surveyed the area.
For a second I thought we’d been teleported, like what happened when the waves came. But a look outside the carriage proved otherwise.
“What’s going on?”
“I don’t know yet. Filo, could that . . . could that have been the seal breaking?”
Had the heroes arrived?
A window appeared in my field of view that contained the countdown clock for the wave.
It had stopped ticking but indicated that there were still two days left.
Then, next to it, another icon appeared. It was a blue hourglass with the number “7.”
“There’s another hourglass, and it says seven. I don’t know what it means.”
I opened the help menu to see if there was any new information.
But there wasn’t.
I realized that this might be a chance to escape from my duties as the Shield Hero. But if I did, if I ran away, how many people would suffer? How guilty would I feel?
“What should we do?”
“We have to find the heroes.”
I didn’t know what was happening, but we couldn’t sit back and do nothing.
“Can we use a portal?”
I used portal shield to check.
Apparently we could.
But I still had no idea what was happening.
Something must have happened in the eastern country.
What had the heroes done?
We all got back in the carriage and spent another day on the road.
We passed through a town on the way, and a shadow appeared to stop us.
“Shield Hero, you must return to Melromarc.”
This shadow spoke normally.
The shadow I’d spoken with before had an idiosyncratic way of speaking.
But he looked just like the other ones.
“What happened?”
“You see...”
It was the start of everything, of Fitoria’s suspicions, of all I’d been thinking about, and of the other heroes’ belligerence. Everything was coming to a head, and what happened next would shake the world to its foundations.
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