Chapter Five: Battle Advisors
“Fehhhh!”
“Wh . . . What the hell? You were lying about being the Shield Hero, weren’t you?!”
Rishia’s gasp was still echoing throughout the castle courtyard. Keel was glaring angrily at Raphtalia and I. Then Rishia took off running as if she were a startled rabbit.
They certainly were spurred to action at the strangest times.
“Don’t let them escape with their lives!” I shouted.
“Why would you say that?”
“I knew it!”
“Keel! Calm down! I know that Mr. Naofumi can seem a little rough around the edges, but trust me. There’s a reason for all this!”
“What kind of reason could there be?”
Hm? I suppose I was causing more confusion than necessary.
“Okay!”
Filo turned into her filolial form and chased after Rishia.
Keel was stunned. That’s right. He’d never seen her transform before.
“That was a joke! Filo! Just bring her back normally! Don’t claw her!”
“Or peck at her! Rishia wouldn’t survive your attacks!”
Whoops. I should control myself better. I had almost gotten Rishia killed.
Filo wrapped her wings around Rishia and pulled her back to me.
But Rishia was writhing wildly.
“Let me go! I’m going back to my village! I’m going back to my mom and dad! Master Itsukiiiiii!”
“It was just a joke.”
“About turning me into your slave?”
“No, that part was true.”
“But why?”
“How do you get stronger? You raise your level by defeating monsters, right? The heroes have a special ability called maturation adjustment that can make your growth more efficient. That’s one of the reasons that Raphtalia is so powerful.”
“R . . . Really? Raphtalia, are you really that powerful?”
“Well, yes.”
Raphtalia quickly shuffled around to stand behind Keel.
She moved so quickly that Keel didn’t have a chance to react. By the time he noticed she’d moved, she was already behind him.
“Wow!”
“The only characters my shield can help grow faster are slaves and monsters.”
In addition to the maturation adjustment skill, I also had a skill called ability adjustment. That would help them master new abilities faster.
If I could get those two to accept the conditions, then they would level up a lot faster than they would have otherwise.
“Whether you want to do it or not is up to you. But if you don’t become a slave, you won’t level up nearly as quickly.”
“But ...”
“Think about it. What do you need to do to get stronger? Be greedy about it. Think about what you can do to get what you want. I’m only offering you the option.”
“...”
Both Rishia and Keel fell into deep thought. It was their lives, so they needed to make up their minds for themselves.
But I could give them a little push.
“Well, Rishia is already at level 68. If you’ve already leveled that much, then it might not be as effective for you. Still, it would make you stronger than it would if you didn’t become a slave.”
It was the sort of skill that worked best the earlier you started to use it. It snowballed over time.
It really was like a game.
Characters that had high levels at the beginning either died or betrayed you. Either that or they basically never leveled up more.
That described L’Arc pretty well. But no—I couldn’t let myself fall into that trap. This wasn’t a game.
“Or we could reset your level. But the next wave will be here soon and I want you to be powerful enough to fight in it. So if we were going to do a reset, we should probably wait until after the wave.
The rest of us were in the 70s, so if we were to reset her levels and continue leveling from that point on, the gap between us would only get worse.
“Oh . . . Alright.”
“But if you become my slave then don’t run! I mean it’s not like I’m going to keep you in chains or... Hey, are you listening?!”
The second I started talking about slaves, Rishia snapped her head left and right, looking for a way to escape. She was driving me nuts.
“Are you listening? I’m telling you that you won’t be forced to do anything you don’t want to do!”
“Fehhh!”
“Rishia, please listen to me. I’m telling you how to get stronger. What do you want to do?”
Her eyes were wandering around the courtyard, but she was thinking about the offer.
Fair enough. Not many people I know would be first in line to volunteer for slavery.
But Raphtalia had.
“I will technically hold the reins. But I promise that I won’t force you do to anything against your will.”
“He really is a good person. Although he can be a little selfish from time to time, he won’t ever hurt you. You can trust me.”
“Raphtalia...”
“Master, you never tie me up or nothing!”
Raphtalia and Filo had both chimed in, but to Rishia and Keel it probably just sounded like they were brainwashed.
“I’m not going to force you. You don’t have to do it if you don’t want to. I’m just telling you the best way to move forward. Keel, I’ll tell you the same thing. All I’m doing is giving you the option. It’s up to you whether or not you want to take it.”
“Yeah. I want to be stronger! If it would make me stronger, I’d sell my soul to the devil. If it would help me bring them back.”
“You think I’m the devil?”
“He just pretends to be mean! He’s actually very nice!”
Keel didn’t answer Raphtalia or me.
Did that mean he thought I was the devil?!
Rishia held her hand over her heart. She was wearing the kigurumi, so I couldn’t really make out her expression, but she spoke as though she had made up her mind.
“I’ve decided. Please, make me your slave!”
“Are you sure?”
I hadn’t expected her to decide so quickly. Judging from what I knew about her personality, I’d expected some vague foot shuffling for a while.
But it looked like once she’d made up her mind, she threw herself into it completely. I liked that.
“Yes! I want to be strong!”
“Alright then. Let’s go see the queen and get this matter settled.”
And so we left the courtyard and went to go visit the queen.
“Ugh . . . Uh...”
The slave sealing ceremony went off without a hitch.
Both Rishia and Keel ended up with powerful slave seals on their chests.
Keel had already been a slave though, so first we had to have the original seal removed. I’m sure he didn’t like being freed only to immediately become a slave again.
The queen had applied the same sort of seal that she had used on Bitch. It was the sort that was invisible unless it was activated by something.
A list of actions I could prohibit appeared before me in the air.
I unchecked all of the options. Or I tried to. I couldn’t uncheck them all!
Apparently I had to leave at least one thing checked or the spell wouldn’t work. So I picked a minor condition and finished the process.
It was a simple thing. They were not permitted to lie to me.
I didn’t want to think about it, but there was always the possibility that one of them might try to betray me.
What if Rishia was actually a spy sent by Itsuki?
Granted, the very fact that she had agreed to be my slave made that pretty unlikely.
Huff. Huff.
“Are you okay?”
“Yes. I’m fine.”
“I’m good. That was nothing!”
“Yeah? Good.”
I felt a little guilty, but there was no use dwelling on it. I opened up
Rishia and Keel’s status screens.
I decided to check Keel’s stats first.
He was at a pretty low level. I couldn’t be sure how he would mature. But from the looks of it his agility rating was very high. He was a demi¬human with dog-like features, after all. Maybe it was wise to assume that speed was his specialty.
I looked as Rishia’s stats next.
“. . . !”
“What is it?”
“It’s nothing. Don’t worry about it.”
I had gasped without thinking.
I didn’t know how to explain it. Compared to Raphtalia, Filo, and I, her stats were unbelievably low.
She was at level 68, but her stats were barely any higher than Keel’s. Now I understood why Itsuki wanted to get her out of his party.
But I wasn’t going to abandon her like that. Figuring out how to make a weak person stronger was my specialty.
Maybe those were the kind of stats that normal people had in this world?
If there was anything of interest about her, it’s that all her stats looked to be roughly equal. There was nothing in particular you could point to as a weakness.
But the stats themselves were all very low. It was exactly what you would expect from a jack-of-all-trades.
Was she really level 68? If she was, then I really had my work cut out for me.
“Mr. Iwatani.”
The queen was talking to me. A knight I didn’t recognize was standing by her side.
“What?”
“I am in the process of calling for an experienced combat advisor. But when it comes to sword fighting, this person is easily one of the best in the kingdom. If you would find her of use...”
“Why don’t you call for ALL of the best?”
“Mr. Naofumi, you don’t need to be so crass.”
“Sounds good to me.”
What would be the best use of our time though? I’d have to make the most of what time we had.
“Hey Keel, you’re the lowest level member here. Filo’s going to take you out leveling.”
We needed to bring him up to fighting level if he was going to get any use out of the training.
To do that we’d have to power level—at least that’s what it was called in the online games I used to play. A weaker character would go level with a high-level, fast character, and then they would level up very quickly. At the very least, we had to get him ready to class up.
“I’m supposed to help him?”
“Yeah. Take him out leveling. Just make sure you’re back before dark.”
“Okay!”
With a puff of smoke, she transformed into her filolial form, then picked up Keel and placed him onto her back.
“Huh? But . . . Raphtalia?!”
Before he could finish his sentence Filo used her wings to hold him in place and took off running.
“AAAHHHHHHHH!”
“Oh! Keel!”
“Don’t worry about them. Filo’s strong—they’ll be fine.”
It was important that they started with the fundamentals. That was the only way to make the most of the following training. And besides, focusing on the fundamentals would probably be good for higher-level characters, too.
“Rishia, once the next wave has come and gone, you’ll be doing the same thing as Keel. So look forward to it.”
“Fehhh!”
She never calmed down, did she?
Oh well. I guess there was no getting around it. Even Raphtalia got a little freaked out when she had to ride Filo.
They needed to think of it as a trial on the path to strength. There was just no getting around it.
“The Shield Hero’s companions are boisterous, aren’t they?”
The knight standing with the queen removed her helmet. She looked like the typical strong, female knight character than you ran into in RPGs. She was very beautiful also, like Raphtalia.
She had long strawberry-blonde hair. She must have kept it tied up when she wore her helmet. Had she dressed like a man, she could have passed for a prince.
“Please introduce yourself,” said the queen.
The knight took a step forward, saluted, and spoke loudly and clearly.
“My name is Eclair Seaetto. I am honored to assist in the Shield Hero’s training exercises.”
“Seaetto? I don’t think we’ve met before, but...”
I felt like I’d heard that name somewhere.
“Mr. Naofumi. Seaetto is the name of the territory my village was in.”
“That’s right. Nice Guy had mentioned that.”
Did that mean this woman was part of the nobility that had ruled over Raphtalia’s region?
But I’d heard that the nobility there had been killed.
“This woman is the daughter of the nobleman who once governed the land that Raphtalia’s village was a part of.”
Heh. I liked her choice of knights.
I’d heard that the noble family that had ruled there was exceptionally talented. Raphtalia had mentioned that losing them in the wave had been another major tragedy for her people.
“Okay. What has she been doing this whole time?”
“When my father died in the first wave, a portion of our knights and soldiers tried to take advantage of the ensuing chaos by hunting down survivors and selling them off as slaves. I have been hunting those cowards down and ensuring their imprisonment.”
Well, well. I never expected to find someone so upstanding in such a rotten country. I appreciated that she had taken that upon herself, both as the Shield Hero and as Raphtalia’s friend.
“It is just as she has said. They have been imprisoned in the castle dungeons. She finished her work while you were in the islands. So I have selected her to assist in the training of the other heroes.
I guess the church and Trash had still been in power before we left, so if she had tried to hunt down the slavers at that point they might have had her killed off.
There was only one problem. Was she any good?
That was the most important thing. There was no reason to receive instruction from anyone who wasn’t at least as strong as Raphtalia.
“Is she any good?”
“Very. She was the winner of the last national fencing tourney.”
“Are there others as good as she?”
“Not ones that haven’t been imprisoned, killed, or demoted.”
So there was no one else in the kingdom that was good enough to train us further.
She seemed like an upstanding person, but...
“You can hate me if you like. I realize I was unable to defend your lands after my father’s death.”
“I would never. That was not your fault. Please, don’t bow to me.”
The introductions just kept on going.
This Eclair woman was talking to Raphtalia as if she had nothing to worry about.
“If that is how you feel. I am happy that I can do anything in the service of our people. Thank you for the opportunity to help, Ms. Raphtalia.”
“Please, just call me Raphtalia.”
“Understood. Now then, Raphtalia, I do not know how worthy I am to be teaching you anything at all, but I will do my best to show you the things I know.”
So this Eclair person was going to be teaching Raphtalia what she knew about sword fighting.
“I should probably participate in the training too, huh?”
“I do not know if I have anything to teach you, Master Shield Hero, but I will certainly do all that I can to assist.”
She was so proper! I could tell she was one of those overly serious types.
“Thank you for your time. I will be returning to my duties now. Please let me know if there is anything you need from me.”
The queen turned and left us alone with Eclair.
“So what should we do? Do you want to start training right away?”
I felt like they were going to make us run laps, or whatever counted for combat training in Melromarc.
“We must begin by evaluating your current skill level.”
“You’re not going to make us run laps, are you?”
“I am confident that you are far beyond that level of training. I would like to start with actual battle operations.”
I wondered if I should tell her that I wasn’t a track star or anything like that.
The only work we’d really done was that I taught Raphtalia how to hold her sword and we did some pull ups. And I only did that when we’d had free time.
And as for myself, all I’d really done was sit around making medicines and accessories.
Oh! I had made dinner a few times, too.
That made me nervous. We hadn’t really done any physical training at all. All the exercise we had gotten had just been from fighting monsters.
“Honestly, we haven’t done much. All the skill that we do have really just comes from my shield’s abilities. Raphtalia is the only one that has actually done some work.”
“Mr. Naofumi, don’t be so crude.”
“Really? Well then, shall we start with a run around the interior courtyard?”
I didn’t really want to run, but Eclair was probably right.
We should go for a run. At the very least it would loosen us up a bit.
Eclair took the lead, and we ran a few laps around the castle training grounds.
We ran at a pretty good clip, but the stat boosts I had from my shield kept me from tiring.
I was sort of annoyed by it the whole time. Running behind Eclair.
She was kind of slow.
“Do you mind if we speed up a little bit?”
“I’m sorry if my pace was holding you back. Please, run at whatever speed you like. I’ll adjust my pace to match yours.”
“Hear that, Raphtalia?”
So we picked up our pace a little. It still wasn’t giving Raphtalia or I any trouble.
“Fehhh...”
But Rishia had run out of stamina and had started walking. It was probably because of that kigurumi she was wearing.
Then just when we had been running for a while...
“Just a moment please, Master Shield Hero.”
Eclair called for us to stop. It sounded like she was getting tired out.
Rishia had run out of steam a while back, but I was doing just fine, so I’d picked her up and continued running.
“I think you are plenty fit for the training to continue. Shall we move on?”
“Really?”
“Your advanced level is no doubt an advantage, but from what I’ve seen you are more than ready to move on.”
Had the levels we’d gained in Cal Mira really helped us that much?
I didn’t get tired no matter how much I ran. And I could carry Rishia easily—she was so light!
I felt like I could have easily kept running with heavier baggage. Actually, I hadn’t even really been running, just walking quickly.
The game-like system of powering up had really changed the meaning of physical training.
Of course, I was glad that it was easy, but I still felt that if we made light of the training fundamentals, we would end up regretting it.
I wanted to raise my reaction time, and I wanted to get some good physical workouts in to help me move better in battle.
If I could improve my speed and strength, that would give me a better chance of dodging L’Arc and Glass’s attacks.
But Eclair was huffing and puffing, clearly out of breath. Maybe she was still recovering?
“Then let us move on to battle tactics properly.”
Eclair took Raphtalia aside and started showing her the minutiae of sword handling, from how to hold the sword and regard your opponent to how to set her footing.
Thinking back on it, the only instruction she had ever really gotten was a perfunctory lesson at the weapon shop. Everything since that time she’d had to teach herself. She’d managed to handle herself with magic and luck, but she had once had a difficult time taking down a particularly powerful bandit we ran into. She was sure to benefit from instruction by a real swordsman.
“Now then, may I ask Ms. Rishia to act as Raphtalia’s opponent?”
“That makes me a little nervous, but go ahead and do as she says.”
Rishia’s stats were so low that I was worried on her behalf. But I’m sure she would be fine.
Raphtalia was given a wooden training sword. She set her feet to stand against Rishia.
Rishia was still wearing that kigurumi. It made for a ridiculous-looking scene.
“Here I go!”
“Um . . . Okay!”
Raphtalia dropped her weight low and struck at Rishia just as Eclair had instructed her to.
“Fehhh!”
That’s all she’d done, but suddenly Rishia was flying through the air.
Oh jeez. I’d known she was weak and all, but she couldn’t even block an attack? I was hoping she’d be able to handle some melee work, but that wasn’t looking like an option.
What were we going to do about her?
“Huh? What?!”
Raphtalia was stunned. She kept looking from the wooden sword in her hand to Rishia and back again.
“Do us a favor and hold back a little.”
“I did! But she still went flying.”
Oh boy. I couldn’t let her get hurt, so I ran over and caught her out of the air before she crashed into the ground.
“Fehhh...”
“Hm. It may be harder to train Raphtalia and Ms. Rishia together than I had expected, Master Shield Hero.”
I was ready to throw in the towel and keep her out of melee entirely. She was so talentless there was really no hope.
But another part of me didn’t want to admit defeat so easily.
What was talent anyway? What she lacked in talent she could make up for with effort.
“Maybe so.”
How were we going to train her? Maybe I was the only person that she could handle facing off against, considering the fact that I was basically incapable of attacking or doing damage.
But there was still a problem. I wouldn’t get anything out of it!
“What would you like to do, Master Shield Hero?”
“I’ll focus on defending myself against your attacks.”
“Understood. Shall I come at you full-force?”
“I don’t know how strong you are, but if you think you can get through my defenses, give it your best shot.”
“Understood.”
Eclair readied her sword and turned to face me.
“Hya!”
Huh? She was really fast! There was nothing unessential in her movements. She thrust at me, her body shooting forward like a coiled spring. I was only able to respond just in time.
The point of her blade clattered against my shield.
“You were able to parry my thrust, just what I would expect from a true hero. Let us see how you do with this!”
She shot forward again, delivering thrust after thrust very quickly.
It was hard to keep up. It was like she was attacking with more than one sword at once.
Still, I was able to block the thrusts. But it was exhausting. I wasn’t sure I felt like it was a good skill to use in training. What if my shield had a counter attack skill? That could have caused real problems, so I stuck to mostly trying to dodge the thrusts.
Still, there were times when her attacks connected through an ingenious move on her behalf. She hit my shoulder and arm once or twice.
So these are the kind of attacks a skilled swordsman could deliver?
I was pretty sure that my stats were higher than hers, but I still hadn’t been able to completely cover myself from her attacks.
“You really are good with that thing.”
If Raphtalia could learn to use a sword like Eclair, she’d probably be a lot stronger than she was now.
During the last battle, Raphtalia hadn’t been able to defeat a powered-up Glass. But if she learned to fight like this, then she could probably do the job of the all the other heroes combined. We might even stand a chance.
“As for you, Master Shield Hero, it seems to me that you are already advanced beyond the point where my instruction will be of any use.”
“It’s only because of how high my stats have become. Don’t worry about it. Though that reminds me. . .”
“Yes?”
“Is there any way to imbue those sword attacks with additional effects? I mean, can you have magical sword attacks or anything like that?”
“It is possible to apply such effects. Try to block this one.”
The female knight laid her hand on the tip of her blade and chanted a spell. When she finished, she readied herself and thrust at me again.
When she did, the blade was immediately engulfed in glowing energy that expanded to form the shape of a wide lance.
She was fast!
I readied my shield, and the lance energy blade glanced off of it, shooting over my head.
From what I could tell, it didn’t seem powerful enough to hurt me, even if the attack had connected. That was only because of my special defense rating though. I bet it would really do a number against a monster, or against Glass.
“I see. That was pretty impressive.”
“It is called the ‘applied sword technique.’”
“Another question. Could you use that to make your attacks turn into defense rating attacks or into attacks that ignore the enemy’s defenses all together?”
Eclair rubbed her chin and thought for a minute.
“Not in the school I’ve been trained in. But I have heard rumors to that effect.”
That’s right. Normal humans in this world didn’t have access to the same sort of skills that the heroes did.
But I could tell from the way she was fighting that they DID have access to attacks that could be just as effective.
It was probably similar to what Raphtalia had done with her magic and the magic sword.
I think she’d called it “illusion sword.”
It was an attack that turned her invisible long enough to sneak around behind the enemy for a thrust at their backside.
Aside from that, Raphtalia had probably done something similar without intending to. I’d seen her sword glow in the same way that Eclair’s just had.
So Raphtalia would be able to make attacks like that when she was done training with Eclair— awesome.
“Do you mean to say that you’ve seen an attack like that before?”
“Yeah. One of the enemies that we fought in the last wave used it. As you can tell, I am the Shield Hero. Which means that I’m very weak against attacks that can break through my defenses. So I’m trying to find a way to get around those defense rating and defense ignoring attacks.”
“I see. I do not know if I will be of much use to you in that regard. I do not believe that I have much to teach you at all, Master Shield Hero.”
Eclair nodded slowly to herself, looking a little wistful.
“Don’t worry about it. I’m a weird case. I can’t even attack on my own. But I hope that you’ll help teach the other heroes a thing or two.”
“Your judgment is impeccable. I agree with you.”
She was so proper!
I didn’t like to be so polite. It made me feel like she didn’t know who she was actually talking to.
Anyway, at least I’d gotten to see her real skill level.
If Raphtalia could learn from her, we’d be in better shape than we were now.
“Fehhh...”
As for Rishia, we couldn’t start with anything advanced. She could barely run around the courtyard.
For her level, she was very weak. She was probably too weak to even participate in the training exercises.
She did have the drive to work at it, but did she have the necessary stamina?
“Okay, well, until the other combat advisors arrive, I’ll be working with Rishia on the basics.”
“Understood! I will also assist Madam Rishia with the fundamentals of sword use!”
“Fehh...”
“Stop with that weak sigh. You’re trying to toughen up, aren’t you?”
“Feh... Yes!”
She did seem committed at least.
We spent the rest of the day training on the castle training grounds.
Just before evening fell, Filo came trotting back with Keel.
“We’re baaaack!”
“How was it?”
“After all the running, it looked like the sun was going to set. So we had to come back! I guess we didn’t get to fight very many monsters!”
Keel was limp and exhausted where he lay on her back. I checked his stats.
Level 14. That seemed like good progress to me.
“I feel sick.”
“Keep it up. You’re getting stronger.”
“Did Raphtalia have this hard of a time?”
Raphtalia had gotten really sick after riding in the carriage for a day. She was out for a while after that.
So in that regard, yes, she’d had a hard time. But to be fair, she’d never gone out fighting monsters on Filo’s back.
“She never tried leveling from Filo’s back.”
“What? Then why do I have to do it?”
I had sent them out as an experiment, but it looks like Filo’s version of boot camp was pretty tough.
I couldn’t wait to see how quickly Keel leveled up.
“Ugh. I’m hungry.”
Keel’s stomach was growling loudly.
Demi-humans’ bodies matured with their level, not their ages.
“Keel, how was it?”
Raphtalia finished her training with Eclair and came running over to see him.
“Filo, you can’t push him too hard.”
“Huh?”
Filo had no concept of what people’s limits were, regarding anything.
“Anyway, why don’t we all have dinner? Tomorrow is going to be another busy day.”
“Good point. According to Eclair, we’ll be studying magic in addition to sword skills, so I think it will be another full day. The other soldiers say they have things to teach us before we go to sleep, too.”
“Fehh... I’m better at studying than training anyway.”
“Right. Got it.”
We finished the dinner that had been prepared for us. Keel and Filo ate like pigs.
And that was the end of our first day of training.
Compared to the leveling that we’d done on the islands, this felt more like we were living together as a team. It was like summer camp.
Personally, I never really hung out with people outside of school, so I’d only seen things like that in anime and manga.
“Hey, that reminds me. Haven’t the other heroes shown up yet? What’s taking them so long?”
I asked the queen, and she answered.
Apparently, they had all gone their separate ways immediately after arriving and were all doing their own things.
From what the queen said, it sounded like they were all still in Melromarc. But no one had heard from them directly.
Hadn’t they promised to participate in the training?
I guess it didn’t matter if they skipped out on the first day, considering we hadn’t really established a system yet. But we needed to start training seriously the next day.
I wondered if we were really going to be able to get them to join in.
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