Epilogue: A Disquieting Place
We didn’t find the heroes, but we eventually made our way to the town
where they were last seen. Eclair and the old lady were off searching for the heroes on their own. Rishia had wanted to go with them, but she was a bookish girl, so I
figured she’d be most useful back at the Melromarc library researching the legends about the Spirit Tortoise.
The new town we found ourselves in had been damaged in the Spirit Tortoise’s rampage, but there were a number of survivors, and they had already begun the rebuilding efforts.
Oh, and while we’d killed all the ones that were hanging around the tortoise, off in other places, the familiar monsters were still causing trouble. We saw them from the road sometimes. They must not have been completely dependent on their master. “Hey! Ren! Motoyasu! Itsuki! If you’re around, come on out! It’s not your fault that you lost to that thing!” “Mr. Naofumi, you don’t sound like you actually want to find them.” “I’ve been yelling their names for how many days now?” Three days had passed since we defeated the Spirit Tortoise. I still had no idea where the other heroes were wandering about, but I wanted to hurry up and find them. Their party members were also still unaccounted for. All in all, we were looking for a pretty big crowd of people. How could so many people have vanished without a trace?
“But I heard that the only one that helped in the last battle was the Shield Hero.”
We were passing through a damaged town center when I heard some adventurers talking about the Spirit Tortoise.
Raphtalia and Filo were resting in the carriage, so I decided to go visit an adventurer’s guild and see if I couldn’t find any new information.
Considering how major all the recent events had been, I thought there was a good chance that someone would know something.
“Really? What about the other three heroes? They call them the four holy heroes, so there must be three more, right?”
“I heard they tried to take the tortoise on by themselves and ended up disappearing.”
“Did they lose or did they run away? Maybe it was just other people pretending to be heroes.”
I eavesdropped on their conversation as I walked up to the reception counter of the guild and showed the staff a portrait of Ren and the others.
In the end no one knew anything.
Where the hell had they gone?
“If that’s true, then we really can’t count on the heroes for much, can we?”
“I know. Anyway, I’m gonna get going. I guess we just met, but you look out for yourself, you hear?”
“Yeah, thanks for the chat.”
The adventurers finished their conversation.
They were complaining about the heroes, but I guess that’s just how people talked.
There was no point in trying to correct them. I decided to just let it go.
I left the counter and starting thinking about whether or not we should move on to the next town. Then I heard it.
“You might be the strongest of the four holy heroes, Shield. But this isn’t over. Next time more people will die.”
“?!”
I turned to see who was talking, but there was no one there.
I thought I saw a few slips of paper fluttering to the ground, as if the speaker had just disappeared with some kind of trick.
What was that? The voice sounded like it might have been one of the adventurers I’d just been eavesdropping on.
I was carrying a shield, but I hadn’t announced to anyone in that town that I was the Shield Hero, and no one in the area should have recognized my face.
I showed the guild staff a paper that the queen had given me, but it didn’t indicate anywhere that I was the Shield Hero.
So how had the voice known who I was? Had I just imagined it?
“A hallucination? Or maybe I was talking to myself?”
I had a bad feeling about it. The ominous words hung over my head for a while.
It felt too ominous, too bad to brush off as a hallucination.
The blue hourglass was still blinking in my peripheral vision too. Something wasn’t right.
There must still be something important about the Spirit Tortoise that we didn’t know. We’d looked into it all we could. The queen and the army were still investigating.
I still needed to focus on finding the missing heroes.
When I found them, I had to find a way to make sure they understood how weak they were. That was the only way that they would listen to what I had to say.
But if they would listen, then maybe we could power-up enough to survive whatever was coming.
If they were alive, I wanted them to show their faces.
“Did you find the heroes?” Raphtalia asked as I climbed into the carriage.
“No. Nothing.”
“Oh...”
Raphtalia looked upset.
Of course she would be. The whole world was going crazy. It was hard to smile.
“Hey, master!”
“What is it, Filo?”
She sat there, gripping the reins and pointing to a collection of stalls that lined the street.
“I’ve never seen that kind of food. I wanna eat it!”
She was the same pig she’d always been.
“Right...”
Were they selling local delicacies? I saw a dish that looked a lot like yakisoba .
It was like the Napolatta that Raphtalia had when we went to that lunch spot a long time ago.
Napolattta, to a Japanese person, looked just like a pasta dish.
There was a griddle where they fried pasta-like noodles in an original sauce.
“I can make that myself. Just wait a while.”
“But—”
She really looked like she wanted to fight me for a second. Give me a break.
The food was more expensive than I wouldn't have expected, probably because of all the damage the Spirit Tortoise caused.
We had so much food in the carriage too. I thought I could make it myself, so I told her we couldn’t buy any.
“But I want to eat it!”
“Filo, if you calm down, then Mr. Naofumi will make you some. Okay?”
“Yeah, I’ll make you some for dinner. So chill out.”
“Really? You promise?”
“Yeah, whatever.”
I didn’t know what to do about the sauce though. I’d just have to mix some stuff together and hope for the best.
Filo finally settled down and started pulling the carriage.
Hm...
“Mr. Naofumi, what’s wrong?”
“Huh? What do you mean?”
“You’ve been lost in thought since you got back.”
“I was just thinking how all of this has left a nasty aftertaste in my mouth.”
“I know what you mean.”
She looked like she’d realized something.
“Mr. Naofumi.”
“What?”
She raised her face and looked straight into my eyes.
“Whatever happens, we can get through it. Just like we have until now. We just need to keep training.”
“You’re right.”
We were training to prepare for the unknown, for the unpredictable.
So we had to stay optimistic and hopeful. We had to keep moving forward.
“Let’s stick to the plan for now. Let’s go find those heroes.”
“Yes!”
“Okaay!”
So we left to look for the lazy idiots, wherever they were.
But I wasn’t looking to punish them the way they had when they’d chased after me.
I was doing it to help them, because I wasn’t the only hero that the world needed.
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