Chapter Three: Framed Again
Night fell. I had dinner and a bath and then went out on the terrace to cool off.
I looked out at the ocean and relished the cool night air. Had the storms finally subsided?
I caught sight of Filo out in the water. She’d wanted to go swimming after dinner. She was borderline obsessed with swimming lately. I decided to pretend I didn’t see her.
“Huh?”
At the far end of the terrace I saw Motoyasu walking with . . . Rishia? They seemed to be walking back to the hotel.
She wasn’t wearing the squirrel kigurumi.
Was he hitting on her? That would make sense. He had indicated that she was on his list of pretty girls.
I guess the guy really wanted to build a harem for himself. What did he think Itsuki would have to say about his ambitions?
I decided I had better warn him to keep his distance.
“Hey! Motoyasu! Better stop hitting on everyone you see!”
“Hey! Naofumi! It’s up to you now!”
Motoyasu looked pale when he walked over to me and slapped my shoulder. Then he shoved me in Rishia’s direction.
“What’s your problem?”
“Nothing! She’s yours!”
What was going on? He was a real womanizer, so why would he want me to have her? I looked over at Rishia and was shocked by what I saw.
Her eyes were red and puffy, as if she’d been crying for a while. I took a seat next to her.
“Hey, what’s the matter?”
“Alright, I’m out of here!”
“Wait! You didn’t ...”
Could it be that he was so rotten he’d done something awful to her?
She didn’t want to be with him or something, so he said something like, “It will be fine. It only hurts the first time ...” And then raped her?
I wouldn’t be surprised if Motoyasu had done something like that. He seemed like the sort of person that would push and push until he got his way with a girl.
She was crying so hard that she was shaking.
That was too awful. I couldn’t let him get away with it.
“I did not!”
“Prove it!”
“No . . . It’s not the Spear Hero’s fault...”
Rishia collected herself and whispered.
I guess I let myself get carried away. Motoyasu probably wasn’t that terrible. Right?
“Then what happened?”
“Something’s up, but I’m not so good at dealing with this sort of thing.
So I’m leaving it up to you!” Motoyasu said as he left. He was smiling, but he also looked sick, like he might throw up. He ran off on shaky legs.
I’d never seen him look like that before. And I’d never heard him say that he wasn’t good at dealing with something.
What had happened? Had she done something to him?
“What happened?”
“Please don’t worry about it.”
“I can’t do that. I was afraid that he had raped you or something.”
“No . . . I just . . . I couldn’t hold myself back anymore.”
“Hold yourself back from Motoyasu?”
“N . . . No!”
She looked angry, like she might burst into tears again. At least she had the energy to be angry.
“The Spear Hero tried to cheer me up, but I . . . Actually, I probably shouldn’t be talking about it.”
“Well, you’ve already started. Is it about what we discussed earlier?”
I don’t know why I wanted to help her. Maybe it was because I felt like we were in the same situation, and I couldn’t help but empathize.
“No, please. Don’t worry about it.”
She jumped to her feet, made an apologetic face, and ran off.
“What was that all about?”
I was left alone, having no idea what had happened, but feeling terrible about it.
The next morning I lay in bed reading, but my mind was still occupied with worries about Rishia.
We’d already done plenty of leveling up here, so there was really no need to do any serious leveling while we were confined to the islands.
So I had some time to myself with nothing important to do, but I couldn’t stop thinking about the previous night.
“I really want to know what happened.”
Normally, I would probably feel fine just ignoring it, but this time I couldn’t help but dwell on it.
I felt the way that I had when Bitch had framed me, or when I’d been attacked and forced to defend Melty.
Basically I had a bad feeling about it, a feeling that something bad was about to happen.
“What do you mean?”
“Oh nothing. I’m going to go look into something, so you can just relax here.”
“Hm...”
Raphtalia wanted to know what was going on, but I left the room without explaining.
I didn’t know what I would say anyway. What was happening?
I was nervous about it, but I decided to stop by Itsuki’s room and listen in on them to see if I could figure it out.
I could hear exuberant voices coming from the other side of the door.
Was I overthinking this?
“Ah...”
I spotted Rishia. She was gazing at the room enviously from far away.
Then she noticed me and ran off.
What was going on?
I figured that all I could do was try to get Motoyasu to fess up and tell me what he knew.
So I went to his room and knocked on the door.
“Coming!”
A woman, one of his party members, came to the door.
His party consisted of Bitch and two other women. The woman at the door was one of them, so I’ll call her woman #1.
She was smiling from ear to ear. She wore a look on her face like I was the last person she expected to find knocking on their door.
“You?! What are you here for? What do you want?!”
She looked at me for a second before realizing who I was. Then she accosted me.
I really couldn’t stand talking to these people.
“Is Motoyasu here?”
“Why should I tell YOU that?”
“Hey! Motoyasu!”
“Don’t you ignore me!”
“Yeah! Don’t ignore her!”
Woman #2 came up to the doorway to join her friend. As for Bitch, she had apparently decided to ignore me, despite sitting right where I could see her. I really wanted to assume that meant that she was traumatized, but I shouldn’t let my fantasies get ahead of me.
These two didn’t mean anything to me.
Bitch had been ordered, by her mother the queen, to assist Motoyasu in his fight against the waves so that she might prove herself useful in some capacity.
When the queen had been away on diplomatic missions to other countries, Bitch had spent her time doing whatever she pleased, and the queen returned to find much of the crown’s money had been spent.
She had red hair that she often pulled it back into a ponytail. She had the sort of face that was pretty enough but grew more irritating the more you had to look at it.
As you’d expect of Motoyasu, she was on his list of pretty girls along with Raphtalia and Filo.
She was Melty’s older sister, and she had the worst personality of anyone I’d ever met. She was an amoral monster that got her kicks from setting traps for people and watching them suffer.
Her equipment looked a little shabbier than it had before. I wonder if the queen had completely cut her off financially?
“What do you want, Naofumi? None of these girls like having you around.”
Motoyasu stepped into view, surrounded by his harem of girls.
Seeing him standing there with his confident swagger really got on my nerves. If I didn’t want to get information out of him, I would have just told him off and left.
“I don’t really care what your girls want. I have a question for you.”
“What is it?”
“It’s about last night. You said you were leaving it up to me, but I don’t know what I’m supposed to do.”
“Fine, I’ll tell you, but you have to take responsibility for everything else.”
“How convenient for you. But fine, I’m curious enough. I’ll agree to that.”
He must have known something. His face looked suddenly pale, and he stepped out of the room, leaving his harem to watch over the place while we spoke.
We both walked out to the terrace, which was mostly deserted. He looked at me again, and sure enough, his face was very pale.
That wasn’t like him at all. I didn’t know he was capable of actually worrying about things.
Usually, he would just call me a criminal, blame everything on me, stand up for Bitch, and make my life a living hell.
Oh, and of course he would hit on Raphtalia and Filo the whole time.
He seemed to have a thing for Filo in particular.
“You’re talking about Rishia, aren’t you?”
“Yeah.”
Had he made her cry like that? Or had she been crying before he met her?
She had been very tightlipped with me, and I hadn’t been able to get an explanation out of her.
But Motoyasu had a way with women, and I thought that he had probably gotten her to tell him about it.
“So actually...”
And Motoyasu started explaining the whole thing to me.
When he did, I realized that my intuition had been right. I felt anger bubbling up from deep inside my guts.
“At first I wanted to know why she was crying, and I might have been a little overzealous when I asked her what was wrong, but . . . Sorry, you know,
I . . . I’m no good with girls when they are like that. Can you step in for me?”
“Itsuki!!!”
I kicked his door with all my might and barreled into the room.
The door crashed open and everyone in the room stared at me in the doorway.
“Wh . . . What is it?!”
“You’re the Shield Hero! What do you want with us?!”
The leader of Itsuki’s underlings, Armor, glared at me.
Armor apparently had a real name, but he was always wearing a suit of flashy armor, so I’d taken to calling him that.
Armor had a crappy attitude. He was the sort of guy who always acted like he’d been put in charge.
He wanted power and respect, and I think he was mostly just hanging with Itsuki to make sure that he got what he wanted.
I didn’t know how powerful he was. I didn’t see him doing anything very impressive, or really helping anyone at all, during the last wave.
L’Arc might have been the enemy, but I shared his assessment of Armor: he looked like a criminal of some kind.
“What do I want? I want to know how you live with yourselves!”
I was shouting and I felt like the whole room had become chaotic.
I must have really looked unstable, because Armor and the rest of the group looked suddenly intimidated.
Itsuki was the first to come to his senses. He was very angry now. He shouted back at me.
“What are you talking about?!”
“Still playing dumb?”
Damn, I was getting so angry that I felt like I could switch to the Shield of Wrath right then and there. Hate billowed up inside me like smoke.
If Ren showed up, I’d probably go crazy. The Shield of Wrath contained the core of a dragon that Ren had killed, so the shield itself responded dramatically to Ren’s presence.
“You’re trying to seed doubt about our master, aren’t you Shield Hero?!”
Armor took a step in my direction, so I reached out, grabbed his arm, and tried to use a judo hold on him.
“In violation of the legendary weapon rules, you have touched a weapon besides the weapon with which you specialize.”
There was a crackle and hiss, and pain shot up through my arm. It wasn’t that bad though.
I was surprised that the legendary weapon rules applied to things like judo holds. I’d been able to hit things in the past though. What was the difference?
“Ouch!”
“I came here to speak with Itsuki. Don’t get in my way, underling!”
I shoved Armor back and glared at Itsuki.
I hadn’t felt this angry in a long time. Raphtalia had done so much to help keep my rage under control.
But I didn’t want to keep it under control right then.
“You . . . You’re always going on about justice and honesty, but you don’t understand anything at all!”
“What are you. . .”
I was really shouting at this point, and apparently Rishia had come to the door to see what all the fuss was about. When Itsuki saw her there he finally understood what I was upset about.
“You mean to tell me that you are upset over THAT?”
“Now you’re talking sense.”
“She’s in the wrong here.”
“Are you out of your mind?!”
Here’s what I heard from Motoyasu:
Here’s why Rishia was so upset.
Yesterday, Rishia finished her shopping and was heading back to the party’s room.
This happened right after I’d parted ways with her.
“Rishia? Was it you?”
“Hm? What do you mean?”
Right after she got back to the room, Itsuki approached her looking very upset. But she didn’t know what he was upset about.
“There’s no point in pretending you don’t know. I know that you’re the one who broke my accessory.”
She looked around and saw that Itsuki’s favorite bangle was broken into little pieces.
“Me? No! I, I don’t know anything about it. What happened?”
“I can’t believe you would lie to me. We have proof that you did it.”
Itsuki turned to his other party members.
“That’s right. I saw it. I saw Rishia break Master Itsuki’s prized bangle and then hide it.”
“Yeah.”
“I saw it too.”
“What?! I did no such thing! I . . . I really don’t know what you’re talking about!”
Rishia emphatically denied the charge. But Itsuki wouldn’t believe her.
“Look at all the witnesses that claim they saw you. I guess there’s no avoiding it. Shame, had you repented I would have forgiven you. Rishia, you are no longer a member of this party.”
“But! But I really didn’t do it!”
Just then, Rishia saw Armor smile.
But she didn’t have time to try and figure out what had happened; she simply wanted to keep her place in the party. So she fell to her knees in front of Itsuki and begged him to reconsider.
“Please! Please! I want to be by your side, Master Itsuki!”
Itsuki wavered, perhaps feeling guilty. His eyes filled with tears.
“You mustn’t forgive her now, Master Itsuki!”
Armor and the other party members shouted to him.
“I’m sorry. We must part ways.”
“Master Itsuki?! I’m telling the truth! Please believe me! Please reconsider! I’ll do anything!”
She was crying at his feet, but Itsuki turned his back on her.
“How long will you beg for his emotions?! You’re a liar! Why should we allow someone like you to get close to our master?!”
Itsuki’s remaining party members chased her out of the room.
She still tried to get back to Itsuki, but her efforts proved futile.
And that is pretty much everything that Rishia told Motoyasu.
“You’re not going to forgive Rishia after all she did for us during the battle with L’Arc?”
“That’s not it at all!”
Itsuki snapped, suddenly fierce.
It sounded to me like I’d stumbled on the truth.
The queen had praised Rishia for her help, and that was something that he simply couldn’t stand. He couldn’t let that happen because his party and he had spent so long condescending to her.
So he was jealous that the weakest member of his party was getting praise from the queen, and the only way he could deal with it was to frame her and get rid of her.
From what I’d heard, Rishia hadn’t done anything wrong. Someone else had broken the bangle, and they were clearly trying to frame Rishia for it.
I hate cowards that frame people for crimes they didn’t commit!
That was why I was so upset with Itsuki, because it was a personal issue for me.
“So you didn’t get what you wanted by begging, so you’d get another hero to come beg me on your behalf? Do you really think I’m going to let you back into my party?”
“Rishia didn’t tell me anything. Our womanizing friend, Motoyasu, used his ‘charm’ to pry the story out of her!”
Speaking of which, Motoyasu had come to this world because he’d been killed in an emotional fit back in his own world.
He was probably nervous around girls that seemed to have an unhealthy obsession with guys.
I guess it was like a yandere character from a gyaryge .
There were gyaruge like that back in my world too. It was infamous for the bad ending.
If Motoyasu had experienced something similar in his past, then hearing about Rishia and her relationship with Itsuki would have prompted memories of his own personal traumas.
But that wasn’t the issue here!
“What I’ve already said about it is the truth and needs no elaboration. Rishia lied about her actions. She forgot about her debt to me and was only using me for her own ambitions. Removing her from my party is only natural.”
“And you don’t think that any of your other party members are just lying about it?”
“Seriously? You would accuse my trusted teammates of lying to me? I don’t think that is likely. Rishia has been with us for the shortest amount of time. Therefore, I have reason to trust their word over hers.”
The idiot. He wasn’t even trying to make sense!
Obviously, I’d taken the time to look into the issue before I came breaking into his room.
I knew that I couldn’t just run in there without proof and use my emotions to change his mind. Luckily, reason hadn’t completely abandoned me at that point.
Rishia was not the real culprit. Furthermore, I’d already figured out who the real criminal was.
It was actually pretty simple. I just asked a shadow.
Shadows were secret agents under the command of the queen.
They were a lot like ninjas. They snuck around in secret, gathering information on people.
I knew that they had been watching all of the heroes since we’d arrived in Cal Mira. So I assumed, correctly, that they might have insight into what had really happened to Itsuki’s bangle.
Rishia didn’t break the bangle. One of Itsuki’s other party members did.
Apparently the shadow had even anticipated this turn of events and had therefore met with Itsuki and explained the situation to him. But Itsuki chose to believe his party over the shadow.
When I heard that Itsuki had already been informed of the truth, there was nothing left for me to do but barge in and demand answers.
“But there is a witness! And it’s a disinterested third party who watched with objectivity! Think about it! Are you really going to believe that your party members watched her break the bangle without stopping her?”
“So you’ve already investigated... Well, I suppose there’s no getting around it. It was all for her, you see? They weren’t just giving her the opportunity to confess. By setting her up, they were really giving Rishia a way to avoid conflict.”
“What are you talking about?”
I didn’t know about this “setting up” business . . . but it all sounded very coercive.
“It was a way to get Rishia to leave the party. My teammates here, by taking these actions on their own, were giving Rishia a way to avoid battle. Don’t you see? They did it out of concern for her.”
“. . . ?”
What was he saying? I couldn’t make heads or tails of it.
They did all of this on purpose? They made it all up to get her to leave the group?
“Rishia doesn’t belong on the battlefield. Everyone talked about it, and we decided that it would be better for her to live out her life, happily, back in her village.”
“Yes, exactly. We did all of this for Rishia.”
Other party members were jumping in and agreeing with Itsuki’s story. They were trying to make it look like this was all done out of concern for her.
I guess they thought it made it okay to falsely accuse her of a crime?
Did they think about what life in her village would be like after that? Did they think of how people would treat her?
Was that really their best idea?
Rishia understood perfectly well that she wasn’t the most powerful fighter around.
If they wanted to protect her from the danger of battle, why didn’t they just sit her down and talk about it sincerely?
Granted, Rishia was very passionate about wanting to help them, so she probably wouldn’t have immediately agreed to leave. But if Itsuki had sat her down and sincerely explained his feelings, wouldn’t she have choked back her tears and nodded?
Whatever. I knew one thing for sure.
Itsuki wanted to get Rishia out of his party. But Rishia was insistent about helping, and he didn’t know what to do.
So his party members decided to commit a crime and frame her for it?
Did that make any sense? No. The truth was that he was upset that she’d proven herself useful in the last battle.
So they all framed her—out of jealousy.
They did it out of concern for her? Ha! Give me a break!
It seemed more likely to me that he knew he wasn’t in any risk from the plan, so he thought it up and asked his party members to carry it out.
He could have made a sincere request of her, but instead he tricked her and ended up hurting her in the process. And all because he was jealous of her success in the last battle!
When was he going to understand that we weren’t playing a game?
Besides, had this been a game, a party member probably would have just left the party if he’d asked her too.
But that’s right. Itsuki had been used to playing console games . If those were single player, then he would be accustomed to his party members being NPCs.
I was really at the end of my rope with this guy. Exhausted, I turned to Rishia.
She looked like she was on the verge of tears. She was shaking as she looked at Itsuki, clearly using what energy she had to stay composed.
As for myself, well, this was really the last straw. There’s no way I could respect Itsuki at all after this.
Motoyasu was an idiot who believed everything Bitch said, sure. But he wasn’t the sort of person that would cast off one of his teammates and leave them to rot.
As for Itsuki, if he were facing an enemy he couldn’t defeat, would he run away and leave his party to die?
“The truth is that Rishia never really quite fit in with the rest of the party. I don’t want to force her into unnecessarily dangerous situations, so I think it would be better for her to live in a peaceful place. I think she would be happier that way.”
“Did you stop to think about how Rishia might feel about it?!”
“That’s easy to say, but a battle for the fate of the world isn’t the sort of thing that we can risk on someone’s emotions.”
“Then why didn’t you just tell her that in the beginning?”
“I will say it now. She simply isn’t powerful enough to be of use in battle. I thought that if we gave her time to level and power-up, things might change. But nothing changed. Therefore, I think it’s best that she goes back to her village.”
That was what I expected him to say.
Basically, he was just trying to make himself look better.
“Then why didn’t you tell her that honestly? Were you afraid of being the bad guy?”
“Not at all! Why are you so simple-minded?”
“If you think being thoughtful means framing someone for a crime so that you can get what you want, then yeah, I’m fine with being simple¬minded.”
“She won’t be able to keep up as the battles get harder. We had to be tough to protect her!”
“But you’re the one that ignored her real potential and forced her to be a fighter! Why won’t you let other people control their own lives?”
Hasn’t she said that she was better with magic than a sword?
He must have known that, but he told her to focus on melee when she went through the class up ceremony. He should have known that she’d end up useless!
And then when he realized she couldn’t keep up, he decided to do away with her. That’s the Itsuki I know.
What a jerk!
If he’d just been honest with her, she would have understood!
In the end, he came up with this elaborate scheme just so he wouldn’t have to look like a mean person.
And that’s basically what he had done to me too.
They’d had a specific goal in mind and they had schemed to get what they wanted. And Itsuki had been in on it the whole time.
“Then this is a good opportunity to be clear about it. My party is not going to be able to continue working with you, Rishia. To be frank, you are too weak to keep up.”
Which meant that he would only say what he really meant if his back was up against a wall—which it only was because I’d stormed in.
On top of it all, he must have felt like he was being blamed for his behavior, so he reasoned that it was because of Rishia, and therefore Rishia must be in the wrong.
How hypocritical and self-righteous can he be?
Compared to him, I preferred the company of slave traders and con men. At least they knew that they were evil.
They didn’t pretend to be something that they weren’t, and their intentions were clear. That alone made them way better than someone like Itsuki.
“...”
Rishia tried to reply to Itsuki but couldn’t find the words. She turned and ran out of the room.
“Rishia?!”
“She’s just trying to get your sympathy. Now please get out of my room!”
“You . . . You want to make innocent people suffer—again!”
“When did I ever do that?!”
“Oh, I guess you’ve forgotten? About Bitch? About your little disguised hero antics?”
“I don’t believe I have anything to do with the Bitch incident.”
Nothing to do with it, eh? He was standing with her, blaming me for everything. But I’d yet to hear an apology for it.
He really thought that he was the center of the universe. He didn’t care a lick about the thoughts and feelings of others.
I didn’t have enough energy to be angry anymore. I was just tired. The boiling rage I’d felt was starting to cool off.
I thought that this made me feel the way that Bitch had made me feel when she betrayed me. But I was wrong. This was different.
“Oh well. I thought you had a sense of justice. I thought that you had some issues but that you could at least be a decent hero. And now this. I suppose I’m surprised. Surprised and disappointed in you.”
I shot him a nasty look.
I’d heard that the opposite of affection wasn’t hate—it was indifference.
So that meant that the opposite of hate was also indifference.
I couldn’t bring myself to care about Itsuki anymore. I couldn’t get mad at someone I didn’t care about.
“We don’t have the sort of relationship that permits you to say things like that! Please keep your distance from me in the future!”
Itsuki was furious. He was shouting at me.
I was starting to understand. Itsuki thought very highly of himself, so there was nothing worse for him than knowing his estimation had fallen in someone’s eyes. He must have found it traumatic.
“I don’t care. Why should I spend time with a self-righteous brat like you? Just keep doing your best to keep your nasty, true nature hidden from everyone.”
“I told you to get out of here!”
Itsuki looked like he was about to reach for his bow, but I just glared at him with cold indifference.
“Go ahead . . . do it. Take that beloved bow of yours and shoot me. You coward!”
“You asked for it!”
Itsuki pulled the sting back on his bow and fired an arrow.
His bow was magical. The arrows just appeared when he pulled the string back. I just took one step after another towards him. His arrows hit me, but clattered to the floor with an ineffectual clang. “What?!” “You monster!” Itsuki’s party members couldn’t believe how ineffective the arrows were against my defense. They were already calling me a monster! “You know that evil attacks don’t work against me, right?” I continued walking towards Itsuki, and he kept backing away to keep his distance. Soon he was in a corner, shooting arrow after arrow at me. “Eagle piercing shot!” I couldn’t believe he was going to use a skill inside a small room like that. I squinted at the arrow and steadied myself, then reached out and snatched the eagle-shaped arrow out of the air by its throat. “You . . . You stopped my eagle piercing shot?” “I’m sure it’s a defense ignoring attack, but it doesn’t matter. It’s not even worth it to defend myself against something so weak.” I tensed, looked down at the magic eagle, and then I squeezed its throat and killed it. It wasn’t an actual monster, so I was able to kill it with my own strength. I dropped it and approached Itsuki until we were face-to-face. “You say Rishia is weak? Ha! And you think you ’re strong?”
“. . . !?”
His face flushed red with anger.
I didn’t care. I know that Fitoria had warned me about it, but I no longer wanted anything to do with Itsuki.
I turned and left the room.
“I hope you enjoyed that! You won’t be able to boss us around for much longer!”
I didn’t care. Maybe he’d finally understand how substantial the difference in our strength was. Maybe it would inspire him to get stronger.
I chased after Rishia.
I’d seen her running off in the direction of the harbor, but when I got there she was nowhere to be seen. She wouldn’t...
Just as I was considering it, I saw Filo pulling Rishia out of the water.
There was a crowd of people standing around them.
“Hey, do you like swimming? It didn’t look like you were having very much fun though! And weren’t you sinking?”
“Let me go! Please, I . . . I...”
“Filo, you did good. I’ll get you a treat later.”
“I don’t know what you mean, but yay!”
“Tell me what happened.”
“This nice girl just fell into the ocean. But she started to sink, so I jumped in and pulled her out.”
“She jumped...”
She was sad enough to attempt suicide. It was horrible just thinking about it.
I suddenly understood why Motoyasu had been so freaked out.
Someone you liked might say terrible things to you, but why would you try to kill yourself over it?
“Good work, Filo.”
“Heh, heh, heh.”
I rubbed Filo’s head.
If Filo hadn’t been there, that might have been the end for Rishia. The harbor was very deep in places.
The spots where the large ships docked were especially deep. If you tried to drown there, you could do it.
We had just managed to avoid a real disaster.
“Ok, Rishia...”
Filo was still holding Rishia, who seemed to be very distraught. I took her hand and talked to her.
“Let’s just say that you succeeded, and that you’ve died here. Now what do you want to do with the life that was saved?”
“Let me die. Master Itsuki rejected me. I have no reason left to live. I’m not worth anything to anyone.”
“No one said that. You’re the one who decides what you are worth.”
“Then let me die.”
“You can do what you want, but I won’t forgive you!”
I couldn’t stand the thought of her being treated this way.
“Are you just going to accept that they’ve pinned a crime on you? Don’t you want to prove them wrong?” “But I...” “Don’t you want to make Itsuki say, ‘Please come back. We need you’?” “I know that I’m weak. I know it!” “Who says you’ll always be weak? Only Itsuki. But he’s wrong.” They’d told me that I was the weakest hero too. They’d looked down on me. That’s why . . . that’s why you can’t just accept the things that people say about you. “Can I . . . Can I be stronger? Will he respect me someday?” “I promise you that. We’ll show Itsuki just how strong you can be!” We’d make him regret kicking her out of his team. The fool! If we made Rishia stronger than any of his other teammates, then eventually Itsuki would have to believe the things I told him about the power-up system. “Rishia, I’ll help you. I’ll help you until you are strong enough to help yourself. We can do it!” That was how I really felt. We’d been through the same things. We’d been framed, called weak, and condescended to. I saw myself in Rishia, and I was going to make sure that Itsuki understood how wrong he had been. “Come with me!”
I reached out a hand to her. She hesitated, then took it.
“But I love Master Itsuki.”
“Fine. Love who you want. I don’t care what you think of me. I care what you think of yourself.”
It’s not like I was inviting her into my party because she was a girl.
I just couldn’t forgive Itsuki’s actions. He’d forced her to level like he wanted her to, then tossed her to the curb when she didn’t suit his needs.
And I felt like I’d been through the same things she had.
That’s why I knew what I was talking about.
“You’ll be strong. We’ll do whatever it takes.”
“Okay. Thank you.”
She was still sobbing when she accepted my party invitation.
So Rishia ended up joining my party, but...
When we were on our way back to the room, we ran into Raphtalia.
“I heard you screaming. You sounded very angry! What happened?”
“Itsuki pissed me off.”
“But . . . Oh, isn’t that Rishia behind you?
So she knew about Rishia. Good. That would make explaining it easier on me.
“Oh, um . . . yes.”
“What happened to you?”
“I’ll explain when we get back to the room.”
“What about Rishia?”
“She’s in our party now.”
“R . . . Really? Okay.”
Raphtalia nodded. It looked like she had already run through the possible scenarios in her mind.
We went back to the room, and I told her what had happened.
Raphtalia reacted like I expected she would. She was half annoyed, half angry.
“Itsuki...”
“Please, don’t speak ill of Master Itsuki.”
“After all he did to you, you still want to defend him?”
Raphtalia looked like she couldn’t believe her ears.
I felt the same way.
“If Filo hadn’t stepped in, she would have drowned.”
“Did I do goooooood?”
“Yeah, you did great. I already told you that though.”
“Heh, heh.”
Apparently Filo hadn’t gotten enough praise yet, so I reached over and ruffled her hair.
Her cowlick was kind of annoying.
“Master Itsuki isn’t bad. It’s my fault for being weak.”
Rishia looked like she was about to burst into tears again. Raphtalia reached out and took her hand.
“You really care for him, don’t you?”
“Yes.”
“He’ll come around someday. Until then, you and I just need to be patient.”
“You feel the same way then, don’t you? Very well.”
Huh? What were they talking about? I didn’t really understand, but the room felt a little claustrophobic all of a sudden.
What did she mean by “you and I”? Whatever, at least they weren’t being antagonistic with one another.
“Okay, first things first. Rishia, no stalking Itsuki, okay?”
“Oh . . . Okay.”
She was already well on her way to being a stalker, so I felt like I needed to nip that in the bud.
What she really needed now was distance and space to think.
“I’ll do my best.”
“Itsuki is pretty pissed off right now, so it’s best to keep your distance.”
I didn’t want to see him either. His whole self-satisfied attitude really got under my skin.
“So what role should Rishia take on in our party? What do you think she’s best at?”
“Oh no!”
“Calm down. We’re not going to force you to do anything you don’t want to.”
All I was saying was now that she was a member of our party, we needed to figure out what role she was going to play.
But she’d been in Itsuki’s party this whole time.
Which meant there was a good chance she thought I was a sexual predator or something like that.
“What are you good at? From what I’ve heard you’ve been a melee fighter?”
“Well, I was doing my best, but . . .”
“Everyone has things they are good at and things they are bad at. We’ll just have to practice different things to help you find your niche. My party really doesn’t have enough members, so there’s sure to be something perfect for you.”
Both Filo and Raphtalia were already excellent melee fighters, so I think we were going to be just fine on that front.
With melee taken care of, it probably made the most sense to have her focus on magic use, since we didn’t have any dedicated magic-users.
“What sort of magic can you use?”
“I don’t have a specialty. But that also means I can use all different kinds.”
“That sounds pretty useful.”
Filo, Raphtalia, and I were all limited to one particular type of magic. I could use support and restorative magic, Filo could use wind magic, and Raphtalia could use illusion magic.
But Rishia was saying that she wasn’t limited the way that we were.
Unfortunately, that probably meant that she wasn’t going to be very advanced with any particular type.
Regardless, it would be a big help.
If she could use any king of magic, then we would be able to adjust our battle plan on the fly, responding to whatever came up.
Strength wasn’t only about your level and your stats, after all.
If we thought our strategy through, we should be able to perform above what might be expected of someone at our level.
So this was a good opportunity for us to sit down and decide on the most strategic way to divide up the necessary roles in the party.
I was in charge of defense and healing, which made me the supporting player.
Raphtalia was an attacker that could offer support in a pinch: our version of a shortstop.
When she was attacking, she would follow up on Filo’s offense. In a pinch, she could use her illusion magic to give us an advantage.
Filo was a flat-out attacker.
She was strong and fast. She could use haikuikku to take out and decimate a range of monsters quickly.
So I needed to find a useful job for Rishia to perform and then adjust our strategy to accommodate her.
“Don’t worry, Rishia. Mr. Naofumi comes off as pretty rough and mean, but he’s actually not nearly as bad as you might think.”
“Maybe you and Rishia should have a long chat about it someday.”
What was that supposed to mean? Not as bad as you might think?
Oh well. It wasn’t who I really was, but I can imagine that people might be intimidated after hearing about my merchant life and association with slave traders.
“Oh, well . . . I...”
Rishia’s eyes flit over to me, and then she looked away again before nodding.
I guess she agreed with Raphtalia?
“Hey, what are you trying to say about me?”
“Nothing...”
“I don’t think it’s nothing. Tell me.”
“That’s the kind of person he is.”
“I see.”
What did she see? I can’t understand the way that women think.
They were a mystery. They were way easier to understand in gyaruge.
“That reminds me of something.”
I looked Rishia over from head to foot.
She didn’t have very good equipment.
The squirrel kigurumi, I think it was called a Risuka Kigurumi? They probably forced her to wear that because she had been in the party for the least amount of time.
“Rishia, what level are you at?”
“Hm? 68.”
That was higher than I’d expected. I didn’t check on her stats directly, but if she were at level 68, then she would probably prove useful.
Rishia was going to be a jack-of-all-trades type of magic-user. Should I have her focus on healing and support magic?
If she were a magic-user though, I would have to worry about her defense rating. I had to realize that there were going to be times when I wouldn’t be able to completely protect her in battle.
If she were at level 68, then she would be a little behind Raphtalia and Filo, but she would still be able to participate in battles.
The only thing that really worried me was that Itsuki had gone out of his way to drop her. Could she really have been that weak? Granted, Itsuki wasn’t the smartest guy around.
“Um, Shield Hero? You used to have a Pekkul Kigurumi, didn’t you?”
“Huh? Yeah, I’ve got a couple of them. Oh, and don’t call me that. It’s too stuffy. Call me by my name.”
I’d gotten in a fight with Melty over this in the past, so I’d come to realize that calling each other by our names was important.
“Feh? Okay, um, Naofumi.”
“Good. Now what about the kigurumi?”
“I was wondering if you might let me wear it.”
“What?”
“Well, I had to beg them all to let me wear the Risuka Kigurumi, but eventually . . .”
“You mean they didn’t force you to wear that?”
“No, they didn’t.”
Oh, give me a break! And she was nodding along like she was saying the most obvious thing in the world.
She was so pathetic. She played right into their bullying and smiled about it the whole time!
“It’s an excellent piece of equipment. But when they kicked me out of the party I had to give it back.”
“Well...”
“It had a lot of special effects that made everything easier.”
“I guess so.”
The Risuka Kigurumi probably had magic-enhancing effects, which would have worked well with Rishia’s innate tendencies.
I pulled out the Pekkul Kigurumi and passed it to Rishia.
It did have a lot of equip effects and in many ways was better than Raphtalia’s armor.
“Mr. Naofumi, are you really going to make her wear that?”
“I’m not making her wear it. She requested it.”
If we’d just given her some cheap equipment we had lying around, it wouldn’t be much of an improvement over what she was already wearing.
And besides, we had three of them. We’d gotten them from the Karma Pengu bosses on Cal Mira.
The other karma series bosses we defeated hadn’t dropped any kigurumis though.
“Do you like it?”
“Yes, it’s very convenient. Even when I’m sad or depressed, no one can really tell when I’m wearing it.”
Well, that was a depressing thing to say. How badly had they bullied her?
“Are you sure you want to wear it?”
“Yes!”
Yes?! Give me a break. She sounded pathetic.
This put me in a touchy spot. I wanted her to be herself, but if she didn’t truly want to get better, then she wasn’t going to.
And here she was asking to wear a kigurumi so that she could cry and it would go unnoticed?
“You can wear it for a little while, but eventually I’m going to have to ask you to move on.”
Sigh
Raphtalia looked concerned.
Were they going to be friends? Could Raphtalia stand it?
Personality-wise I’m sure we’d be able to get along, but it was too early to make a judgment call anyway.
“Let’s work together and get stronger, okay?”
“Yes!”
At least she could answer with some vigor. It seemed to me like she might get along with Ren’s party.
Slowly, but excitedly, Rishia unveiled how she looked in the Pekkul Kigurumi.
“How’s it look? Pen-Pen!”
“Um . . . yup.”
She seemed a little too excited about it. She reminded me of myself, before I was summoned to this world.
But now I’d met another person, besides Filo, who actually enjoyed wearing those things.
She didn’t seem to know how to make friends with humans, but she could probably make friends with monsters.
“Thanks for inviting me into your party.”
“No problem. Thanks for joining.”
“Yay! We can dress the saaaaame!”
“Pleasure to be traveling with you, Rishia.”
And so my friends welcomed her to the party.
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