Prologue: Cal Mira Superstitions
The rhythmic sound of the crashing waves was soothing as I gazed at the blue ocean and sky.
“The beach is so peaceful. It’s hard to believe that the ocean is so rough out there.”
“Mr. Naofumi, isn’t there still a storm raging off shore?”
We were at a resort island called Cal Mira, but we weren’t there to relax. The island was in the middle of an activation phenomenon, so we’d come to reap its benefits.
The activation event was something similar to what happens in scheduled MMORPG events. It was a set period of time where the amount of experience points received by players was dramatically increased. So while the phenomenon was occurring, we would receive much more experience than usual for the same amount of battling.
Experience points seemed like such a strange idea, but I’d gotten used to it. This was a completely different world, after all.
“See? If you squint way out at the horizon, you can just make out some black clouds.”
“Hm . . .”
I strained to see them, but it was so far away that I couldn’t be sure. I guess I did see a dark line over the ocean.
The waves looked higher out there too. The breeze was wet.
“Raphtalia, you seem to know a lot about the ocean.”
“Well, I am from a fishing village. I have a sense for these things, I guess.”
“Oh yeah.”
Why were we relaxing and watching the waves roll by? Well, we did have a fair amount of time to kill until we could act on the next phase of our plans.
To explain what I was doing in a completely new world, I should explain from the beginning.
My name is Naofumi Iwatani. I used to live in Japan as a member of a normal, modern society. I used to be a university student with otaku tendencies.
One day I stumbled into the local library to kill time and found an old-looking book called The Records of the Four Holy Weapons. I started flipping through it and before I knew what was happening I lost consciousness and woke back up in a new world, apparently summoned there to serve the role of one of the characters that had been described in the book: the Shield Hero.
The book had told the story of a disastrous phenomenon called “the waves of destruction.” These waves were threatening to destroy the world. Standing against it were four heroes, each summoned from another world, each wielding a legendary weapon.
The weapons were the sword, spear, bow, and of course the shield.
Sure, the shield doesn’t really count as a weapon per se. Nevertheless, that’s the role I was summoned to play.
But the book wasn’t complete. The text continued just until the section detailing the Shield Hero, and from that point on all the subsequent pages were blank.
And that’s pretty much how I ended up here.
Anyway, this world was very different from my own. People here accrued levels and experience points, as if it were a game.
Whenever you battled and defeated monsters, you were awarded a certain amount of experience points, which would raise your abilities and level.
They called this system “status magic.” Whenever I concentrated on it, I could see my various status attributes and their values spelled out before me in mid-air.
It was an interesting world. It rewarded you in direct proportion to your efforts.
But the Shield Hero was really a defense specialist. I was only able to defeat monsters indirectly.
If I didn’t have party members to battle with, I was severely limited in what I could achieve. It was essentially impossible for me to defeat a monster on my own.
But it wasn’t all bad. The Legendary Shield had a whole host of abilities and skills that I could use.
The Legendary Shield itself grew more powerful by absorbing monsters and various materials, and it could transform into other powerful shields.
So the plan was to level up and grow as powerful as I could before the waves came.
Unfortunately, it didn’t really work out that way. The country that summoned us, Melromarc, clung to a historical vendetta against the Shield Hero.
Because of the persecution I experienced, I was unable to recruit party members of my own. Eventually I was able to recruit someone, but just when I thought I’d earned her trust and appreciation, she betrayed me. I was framed for a crime and sent out into the streets penniless and alone.
It was a very dark time, but I eventually found a party member— actually I purchased one. She was a slave when I bought her, so she didn’t really have a choice in the matter. Nevertheless, together we were able to face the first wave of destruction and come out of the ordeal alive.
That doesn’t sound very good, and it wasn’t. But it is the truth.
The slave’s name was Raphtalia, and she was only a young girl. I purchased her for a paltry sum and forced her to fight monsters on my behalf.
“What should we do next?”
“We can’t go out into the open ocean until the storm blows over, so I guess we’ll just kill time here on the island.”
The girl next to me on the beach, the one who now cared for me sincerely, was Raphtalia.
She appeared to be around 18 years old, but in truth she was younger than that.
She was a demi-human, a type of person that existed in this world. There were different races of demi-human, among which she was a tanuki-type.
If you think of her as a girl with tanuki ears and a puffy tanuki tail, you’ll be pretty close to what she looks like.
She had a symmetrical face framed with smooth red hair. Her skin was white and fine like porcelain.
Ten out of ten people would call her beautiful.
Demi-humans grew differently from normal humans. Even if they were young children, their bodies grew in proportion to their level, not their age. Because Raphtalia started battling with me when she was only a small girl, her body grew into a young woman nearly before my eyes. This unique way that demi-humans grew up meant that she was actually younger than she appeared to be.
When the first wave of destruction washed over the world, it took Raphtalia’s village and family with it. In the ensuing chaos, she was captured by slave traders and forced into servitude, leading to an extended period of darkness in her life.
In the end I bought her as a slave, and the rest is history.
After I was betrayed, framed, and persecuted, I lost the ability to trust others.
But I was eventually able to put my trust in a slave, knowing that she had no option but to tell me the truth and could never betray me.
It may seem ridiculous, but Raphtalia was eventually set free from her life as a slave—then she voluntarily became a slave again to earn my trust. I might have lost faith in humanity, but I wasn’t so far gone that I could witness such sincere devotion and remain unmoved.
Now she is my most trusted ally.
She was a very serious person.
Her sense of purpose was her highest priority—one that she never forgets. When my temper gets out of control and my language gets rough, she’s always there to reel me back in.
Because of the loss and suffering she experienced during the first wave, she was extremely dedicated to fighting them.
She didn’t want anyone else to endure the hardships that she’d been forced to suffer through.
To put it plainly, I respected her very much.
“Filo.”
“Whaaaat?”
I called out to Filo. She was just down the beach, swimming and playing in the water.
“We’re going to head over to the market. What do you want to do?”
“I wanna keep swimming!”
“Fine. Swim all you want.”
“Okaaaay!”
Filo was the second friend I’d made, after Raphtalia. She was a monster and a young girl at the same time.
We received a stipend from the crown after surviving the wave of destruction, and I used the money to participate in a lottery game where you choose a monster egg from a crate for a set price without knowing what kind of egg you are going to get. Filo was the monster that hatched out of the egg, but for some reason she eventually acquired the ability to transform into a young human girl with small angel-like wings on her back.
When she was in human form she looked like a blonde-haired, blue-eyed girl of ten.
Her hair was glossy and smooth. Her eyes were clear and blue like the sea, her skin white like snow. She looked like a foreign pop idol who ran around barefoot, a snapshot of carefree youth.
One look at her face and you knew that she was as naïve and carefree as they come.
Her innocent face and expressions and her absurd, playful antics always cheered me up.
Sometimes she took things a little too far and could be irritating, but even that could be endearing.
Her real form was a filolial queen. Filolials were giant bird-like monsters with a penchant for pulling heavy objects (like carriages), and when raised under certain mysterious conditions they can mature into filolial queens.
She was much bigger than I was when in her filolial queen form, and she looked something like a mix between an owl and a penguin.
Filolials were giant birds, but for all the power they held in their legs, they were unable to fly. It might help to think of them as this world’s equivalent of ostriches.
Her feathers were mostly white, though there were patches of pink here and there.
There was one other thing immediately noticeable about her that differentiated her from other filolials: she had a giant feather crest that rose vertically from the top of her head.
When she was in human form it manifested as a huge cowlick in her hair. It was very distinctive and memorable. It was her trademark.
She looked like she was around ten years old, but if you didn’t take her seriously you’d end up in a lot of pain.
She was very quick on her feet and much stronger than she looked. I’d grown to trust her with my life.
As for our levels, I was at level 73, Raphtalia at 75, and Filo at 76.
Those two were my only party members, and my only real friends.
To be honest, I was starting to think that I needed to recruit someone else.
If this were just a game, then we should have been able to overcome any difficulty just by leveling up enough to overpower the enemy. But this was reality, albeit a different one than I was accustomed to. No matter how high our levels got, we were eventually going to need another pair of hands.
“How should we prepare for the next wave?”
“I think we need to find another party member.”
“What about Melty-chan? She proved herself powerful during the time we spent together.”
“Melty? Sure, she’s powerful enough. But I don’t think we can just commandeer her for our own purposes.”
Melty was Filo’s friend and also the princess of Melromarc.
A lot had happened and we’d ended up fighting with her for a time, during which she had demonstrated what a powerful fighter she could be. But the waves were dangerous, and it didn’t make sense to put the heir to the throne in the line of fire.
Oh, that reminds me. I mentioned that I had been framed for a crime. Melty actually had a lot to do with that.
But to explain I need to back up and tell you a bit more about the country that summoned me to this world: Melromarc.
Melromarc had a religious vendetta against the Shield Hero.
The national religion was called the Church of the Three Heroes, and they worshiped all the heroes aside from the Shield Hero. So the citizenry had always equated the Shield Hero with villainy and deceit.
Now you might be wondering why a religion like that would even exist.
The roots lie in Melromarc’s widespread human supremacy and the oppression of the demi-humans that accompanied it.
As you might expect, there were countries that embraced the opposite of that philosophy. There were demi-human supremacist countries out there too, places where humans faced unjust discrimination.
Melromarc had a long history of war with one of those countries, where the demi-human population had long worshiped the Shield Hero among the other gods of their pantheon.
When I was summoned to Melromarc, the king who was serving at the time immediately discriminated against me, then saw to it that I was framed, prosecuted, and sent out into the streets penniless and alone.
But a royal conspiracy alone isn’t enough to explain everything that happened next.
The world was currently under the existential threat of the impending waves of destruction—there was no time to spend dilly-dallying over how to treat the Shield Hero.
The true ruler of Melromarc was not the king, but the queen. The queen sent Melty as an intermediary between myself, the Shield Hero, and her father, the king.
Melromarc was traditionally a matrilineal country—all the true power lay with the queen.
When all this happened, the queen was traveling around on diplomatic missions to try and rally the disparate nations of the world against the threat of the waves.
It was a particularly perilous time for diplomacy. Realizing the threat of the waves and the need to call on the heroes, an international agreement had been reached. The heroes would be summoned by a mutually agreed upon country. But in the queen’s absence, the king had teamed up with the Church of the Three Heroes and summoned the heroes to Melromarc without conferring with the international body. Understandably, this act of defiance angered the rest of the world, and the queen had her hands full simply trying to prevent the outbreak of war, which seemed imminent.
Were it not for the efforts of the queen in those dark days, Melromarc would probably no longer exist as a sovereign nation.
At the time, Raphtalia and I had no way to know what was really going on. After surviving the first wave we slowly saved money by selling various trinkets. That was the only way to secure the funds necessary to update our equipment from what we’d started with, which wasn’t anywhere near powerful enough to ensure our survival.
Our traveling merchant life was boring but had plenty of advantages. Of course, I hid my identity as the Shield Hero and instead called myself the saint of the bird god, because Filo was pulling my carriage and she really stood out in a crowd. Citizens actually started to respect the saint of the bird god.
We were eventually able to secure better tools, materials, and equipment through my mercantile efforts. In the end, we managed to become at least as powerful as the other heroes.
But the Church of the Three Heroes didn’t like the idea that I was traveling free under a pseudonym.
The other three heroes had caused some trouble on their travels, and it was starting to foment doubt among the populace. Realizing that its status as the national faith might soon be shaken, the church decided to become an active player in the events unfolding in Melromarc.
They concocted an elaborate plan to tarnish my reputation further. I was accused of kidnapping the very princess that the queen had sent to repair the strained relationship between the king and I: the heiress of the throne, Melty.
The crown sent the other three heroes to bring us back in while we fled from them in an attempt to prove our innocence.
Along the way we ran into all sorts of trouble. We battled the very same nobleman that had once imprisoned and tortured Raphtalia. And we had to take down a massive monster that he had released from its magically sealed prison.
There’s more. We ended up running into the queen of the filolials after that fight, and finally, after the smoke had cleared, the church decided to dispense with its shadowy operations and came after us directly. They called it a holy war, and they were out for blood.
In the end I was forced to use my last resort. The cursed, dark side of my shield contained an unbelievable power, and I used it to destroy the head of the church itself: the high priest. At last, my innocence was proven to the people.
The queen returned to the country and heavily punished her husband, the king, and Melty’s bitch of an older sister—the one who had originally framed me. She had their names officially changed to Trash and Bitch.
At long last, things were as they should have been from the very start. I was considered equal to the other three heroes, and my actions were officially supported and sanctioned by the crown. Finally, we were free to dedicate our efforts to fighting the waves.
Or so I thought. It wasn’t long before new problems started showing up.
“Why did they have to be our enemy? I wanted to invite them to join our party.”
“I know how you feel. They were very powerful and kind. They were the kind of people we could have depended on.”
“. . . Yeah.”
On the ocean voyage to the Cal Mira islands we had coincidently shared a room with two other adventurers: L’Arc Berg and Therese.
L’Arc seemed really nice, like a dependable older brother type of guy.
He was very experienced in battle, he was considerate, and he was fun to be around. To be honest, I didn’t hate him.
Therese was very skilled with magic, and because my party didn’t have a lot of back-row support, she was a very valuable asset during the time we spent together.
Both of them had been extremely powerful in comparison to other adventurers I’d met.
But in the end they turned out to be compatriots of the enemy we’d met at the end of the third wave of destruction: a mysterious woman named Glass.
During our exploration of the islands we found an underwater temple. Venturing inside, we found a dragon hourglass, which was a mysterious object that counted down the time until the next wave of destruction appeared. The wave came, and after a large battle, we fought an Inter-Dimensional Whale, which was the wave’s boss monster. Immediately after the monster fell, L’Arc and Therese turned on us.
The battle was one of attrition and ended with their retreat. I don’t know who would have won if we had continued to fight.
So we survived another wave, but the mystery at the core of the phenomenon had only grown deeper.
When L’Arc and Therese retreated, they disappeared into the dimensional rifts that occurred during the wave. I tried to follow them, but we were too late.
What were the waves?
When I first arrived in this world, I thought they were a phenomenon where endless waves of monsters poured from dimensional rifts. But after listening to the things L’Arc and Glass had said, I wasn’t so sure they were a natural phenomenon anymore.
They had to be something else. L’Arc and the others had made it clear that their end goal was specifically to kill the heroes.
“There’s no point in worrying about it. Let’s go kill some time at the market.”
“Good idea.”
We were stuck on Cal Mira for the time being.
The storm at sea would calm down eventually.
The massive monster boss we’d defeated out at sea had already been hauled back to the island.
The monster was an Inter-Dimensional Whale.
The thing was so massive that I wasn’t going to be able to use any of it for materials until the villagers on the island managed to break it down a bit —and apparently that was going to take a while.
“Look, Mr. Naofumi, they’re selling accessories.”
“Oh yeah?”
I looked over at the shop she was indicating and could hardly believe my eyes.
“What the hell?!”
The prices were absurd. I get that merchants want to get what they can from their customers, but there have to be some standards! I glared at the shopkeeper.
Had he set the prices up to say . . . double the market value, I could have overlooked that. You have to expect that sort of thing in tourist areas. But did he really think he was going to get away with charging four times the market value?
“Hey.”
“Yes, yes! Step right up! What can I do for you?”
“Don’t you think your prices are a little high?”
I pointed to a necklace hanging from a rack behind him.
Dummy Sapphire Necklace (Magic +) quality: poor (concealment) normal
Had we been in Melromarc, every one of his items would be considered terrible in their price class.
The guy had even used concealment magic on his items to hide their inferiority. If you didn’t look closely, you would have thought they were pretty good.
But the prices were set so high that he was charging prices higher than even the most expertly crafted accessories could command. Four times higher. I’m all for getting what you can out of customers, but there has to be a limit.
I looked over his other accessories to make sure that his pricing was consistently crazy—it was.
He could scam people if he really wanted to, but I wished he would do a better job of it.
“Please understand. The prices are the result of our isolation. These islands are very far from the main continent, so the prices need to be a little higher to pay for their shipment.”
“A little higher? Is that why you’ve used concealment magic on them?”
“Well, this is a business. Importing the materials costs me quite a lot.”
I didn’t like the look on his face. He was going to try and play innocent.
He thought I was just another complaining customer, and he waved his hand to send me away.
I could have called for the queen. Or I could have used my hero status to give him a lecture. But I decided to talk to him as a fellow businessman instead.
“Have you ever heard of this guy?”
I flashed the accessory dealer certificate that I had.
It was a real certificate. I’d received it through some connections I’d made when I was pretending to be the holy saint of the bird god.
The guy that had given it to me was very well established in the community—a famous man. His seal of approval had an impressive effect on everyone I showed it to.
The dealer immediately reacted to the paper. He twitched, a wince of sorts. Then he took it and carefully read it, pouring over all the minute details. As he did, the color drained from his face.
“I can think of some people that might be interested in hearing about your business practices. I’ll be sure to remember you.”
“W . . . Wait just a second!
In a split second he bounded over his table of wares and threw himself at my feet, petitioning for mercy.
“What do you want? I’m a busy man.”
“I took another look at the prices and realized that I had accidentally attached the wrong price tags! I’ll change the prices to what they were originally supposed to be, so please wait just a moment!”
“Nah, don’t bother. I’m not doing anything but having a chat with some of my friends back on the continent.”
“W . . . Wait! Please! I’m going to sell them at a 30 percent discount!”
“30 percent off those prices? I don’t know about that ...”
“No, 30 percent off of the proper price! Of course!”
“Thanks, but no thanks.”
“Wait! 50, no . . . 60 percent off!”
“I wonder where my friend is these days? I’ll have to look him up when I get back ...”
“S. . . 70 percent!”
“I’m pretty sure he was part of the national merchant’s guild ... ”
“80! 80 percent off!”
“I’ll tell him that there was this guy who used concealment magic on terrible items and that he sold them for 400 percent the market value. Can you believe it?”
“90 percent! I’ll give you a 90 percent discount!”
That was probably about as good as I could hope for.
“Sold.”
There was nothing worse than building a business on intimidation and power. This guy would use people’s mortal fear to try and turn a deal. I was pretty sure that if the merchant guild found out about him they would shut him down.
That’s fine with me. He deserved whatever he got.
“I’m not telling you that you have to take slim margins and sell tons of stuff. You just have to be reasonable. In the end you only harm the industry —you only harm yourself.”
I would have said the same thing to a merchant who sold his products at substantially under market value.
It might look like what they were doing was good and nice, but in the end it only accelerated deflation. Lower prices weren’t always the best option.
If there were merchants that wanted to charge substantially over market value, they needed to be in competition with another merchant. That was the only way to stabilize prices.
Considering how far Cal Mira was from the mainland, it was only natural that prices would be somewhat higher.
From my time in the market, it didn’t look like there was any other business that was really in direct competition over accessory prices. Either this guy was chasing them out of town or he was cornering the market in some other way.
If there were no other shops offering competition for the same articles, then he could just raise the prices to whatever he wanted, and customers would have no choice but to buy from him.
And if that happened, the association of merchants would lose the trust of the people.
“If you’re going to turn a profit, at least make sure the customer is smiling when they hand over the cash.”
“What do you mean?”
“Think about it. We’re in the middle of an activation event, aren’t we?”
“Well, yes ...”
“Then why don’t you spread a rumor? You could say that accessories formed with ore from the islands raise the level up rate for the wearer. Or something like that.”
“What?”
“Don’t you get it? You just have to spread the rumor. You don’t have to actually improve the efficacy of the item. You only need to spread the superstition. Think about it. Everyone that has come here to level up is excited about leveling up. They already want to buy something to help them.”
It was the same concept behind local good luck charms and amulets.
Even if they didn’t actually have an effect, the wearer felt like they did.
“I think I see what you mean!”
I’d used that strategy in the past, and it had worked for me.
If I heard that a village needed medicine, I went and sold it to them. If they need pesticides, I went and sold it to them. I did the same with food. The price was higher than it probably should have been, but the customers went away happy nonetheless.
In the end it isn’t the price that matters—it’s the satisfaction that the customer feels when the deal is done.
The merchant seemed excited by the idea. He nodded and stood back up.
“You understand the rest, right? You keep an eye on what the customer thinks they want to pay, and then you try to get a little bit more. As long as you do that, the customer will leave satisfied. Then they believe in the superstition that they are leveling faster than they would have without it. They tell their friends all about how well it works, and then more customers come to you.”
I didn’t know if he could actually expect such a dramatic effect or how long the effect would last. But it would probably work for a while.
During the activation event, the experience points awarded for battle were higher than usual. So the adventurers on Cal Mira would already be leveling up faster than they were used to. Once they noticed the effect, they wouldn’t be able to tell what was the result of the activation event and what was due to the accessory. Then they would buy into the rumor that the island ore was somehow special—and they’d be happy about it.
If that went on for a while, then the number of people using the accessory would grow, and that in turn would lead to wishful thinking, leading even more people to believe in the power of the accessory.
“I’ll try your suggestion right away!”
The merchant handed me the necklace I had been looking at. Then he closed up shop and got to work.
“Whew.”
I did a great job with that one. In the end, I’d gotten the necklace for free.
“Mr. Naofumi ...”
Raphtalia looked disappointed. She sighed and slapped her palm to her forehead and moaned.
I guess it did kind of look like I picked a fight just to cheat the guy.
“He deserved it. He disrespected the very idea of business.”
“I understand that, and yet I feel like we’ve just led him to shadier practices.”
“True, but that’s just how people work. They love superstitions.”
The queen came walking over and called out to me.
“What are you doing in a place like this, Mr. Iwatani?”
“What’s the matter?”
“The preparations for the meeting are complete. The other heroes are waiting.”
“Okay.”
I guess I’d gotten wrapped up in the conversation. Time had slipped by faster than I’d expected.
The queen led, and we followed. We were heading for the castle-like inn that we’d been staying in since we’d arrived in the islands.
We arrived at the inn and followed the queen up a flight of stairs.
“The other heroes’ party members are waiting in another room. What would you like Ms. Raphtalia to do?”
“Um ...”
The last time we’d had a meeting of the heroes it had been back in Melromarc castle. During the meeting, Raphtalia had gotten in a fight with some of the other heroes’ party members.
It wasn’t really her fault. A certain few of them were really selfish and cruel, and they were prejudiced towards demi-humans.
Just because the national ruler publicly declares something bad doesn’t mean that the racism inherent in society just vanishes. People were mean to her just because she was in league with the Shield Hero, never mind that she was a demi-human.
“At the moment, the majority of the heroes’ compatriots are wandering around the island freely. Still, I can have a room prepared for Ms. Raphtalia, if you would prefer that.”
The queen meant to imply that the easiest solution would be for Raphtalia to take this as free time and go somewhere else to avoid unnecessary conflict.
Raphtalia had figured that out as well. She nodded. “I understand. I’ll just be off then.” “I’ll call for you if we need you. Just do whatever you like until then.” “Alright.” I parted ways with Raphtalia, and the queen led me into the meeting room where the other heroes were waiting.
No Comments Yet
Post a new comment
Register or Login