Chapter One: Helping Others
“AHHHH!”
Filo carried us to the source of the screams. There we found a horde of monsters attacking a group of people.
The monsters were Spirit Tortoise familiars (bat type). That’s right— even though we’d defeated their master, the servant monsters were still marauding across the countryside.
They were the same type of monsters that we’d first encountered after accepting the mission from the queen. Since then we’d run into plenty of other types, but the bat-like monsters appeared to be the most plentiful.
“Let’s go!”
“Yes!”
“Hyaaa!”
I jumped out of the carriage and ran to shield the people from the attacks of the Spirit Tortoise familiars (bat type). I pushed the people back and readied my shield just in time to block a laser-like heat beam a monster shot at them. The monsters had a tendency to focus their attacks on the weakest member of a group, which made it difficult to effectively protect everyone.
“Hate Reaction!” I shouted. It was the name of a special ability my shield had, a skill that would draw the attention of any enemies in the area.
Being a human, I wasn’t able to see how it worked. But Filo was a monster, and she immediately turned to face me, her attention captured by some invisible force.
“Who are you?” one of the people shouted.
“We’ll talk later. If you don’t want to die, you all better bunch up in one place! I can’t protect you if you’re scattered all over the road!”
“Okay!”
The panicking group of people ran to line up behind my shield.
“Perfect. Shield Prison!”
That was another skill of mine. This one produced a cage of defensive shields to surround the cowering crowd.
“Air Strike Shield! Second Shield! Dritte Shield!”
I used three additional skills in succession, placing a few more lines of defense between the people and the monsters. The shields produced by the skills wouldn’t last very long, but it was better than nothing.
“Raphtalia! Filo! Think you can take care of those monsters before these skills run out of time?!”
“No problem!”
“Easy!”
Raphtalia steadied her grip on the hilt of her sword and was in the thick of it in a flash. Her blade caught the light as she furiously beat the Spirit Tortoise familiars (bat type) back. Filo quickly transformed into her filolial queen form and slipped her feet into a pair of claw weapons before quickly following Raphtalia’s sword with a flurry of fast kicks.
Both of them were very high-level fighters and had considerable power behind their attacks. If they didn’t hold back, both of them could make mincemeat of a monster with one hit. They didn’t hold back—dozens of the monsters fell with each swing of sword or claw.
The bats were obnoxious because of their chaotic flapping. But they weren’t very intelligent, and they didn’t try to escape or avoid our attacks.
“Hey, big sis!”
“I’m on it!” Raphtalia shouted. A second later and she was spring boarding from Filo’s back to knock a number of the monsters out of the air.
Heh. It was pretty impressive to see.
By the time the Shield Prison skill ran out of time, the majority of the monsters had already been defeated.
“Master! I think there’s a BIG one!” Filo shouted, pointing frantically. I turned to see what she meant, only to see a Spirit Tortoise familiar (yeti type) running towards us. It was another one of the Spirit Tortoise’s underlings, but this kind was much larger and more powerful. It was a giant yeti-like creature, but its back was covered with a large tortoise shell. It stood at least as tall as Filo in her filolial queen form, and its considerable strength was evident by its prominent bulging muscles.
The bat-like creatures were weak enough that an average adventurer would be able to handle a couple of them without too much trouble. But these larger yeti types were a powerful enemy to face. I’d seen very strong adventurers fail to defeat them many times. Anyone at level 25 or so could have handled the bat types, but I don’t think anyone under level 55 would survive a fight with one of those yetis.
Although, come to think of it, the bats always attacked in large groups.
Anyone at level 25 would be in real trouble facing down a crowd of them.
That reminds me of another thing I’ve learned since I was summoned to this world. Normal adventurers were only able to get to level 40 here, unless they performed some specific task. If you wanted to level up past 40, you had to procure the permission and support of the crown. Once you had those things, you could participate in a class-up ceremony, which utilized the dragon hourglasses to raise your level limit to 100.
So basically, to survive a one-on-one encounter with a yeti type, you would have to have already been through the class-up ceremony—a relatively rare thing, accessible to only the most experienced adventurers.
Still, weaker soldiers and adventurers might be able to defeat one if they had an organized formation and a solid battle plan, but it would take a long time.
“Think you can take him?”
“Leave it to me!”
“Alright!”
Raphtalia climbed onto Filo’s back and prepared to use one of her killing blows while Filo took off sprinting for the monster, prepared to follow up with furious kicks if necessary.
“Ying-Yang Sword!”
“Hyaaaaaaa!”
Raphtalia’s sword cleaved the beast in two, and Filo’s follow-up attack blasted the monster’s remains far into the distance.
“Whew . . . That should just about do it, right?” Raphtalia said as she jumped down from Filo, slid her sword into its sheath, and began to survey the damage.
She looked unfazed by the battle, which I probably should have expected considering how powerful Filo and her actually were. They weren’t just high-level warriors either—they were skilled fighters.
“Yeah! I don’t think there are any more of those monsters around here!”
“Great. Good job,” I said while walking over to the people that the monsters had been terrorizing. “Are you guys alright?”
“That shield . . . That mysterious power you used to protect us . . . Could it be? Might you be the Shield Hero?”
“I am. So what?”
“Thank you very much! I don’t know what would have happened if you hadn’t come along when you did!”
The people all stepped forward individually to express their gratitude.
“This is a dangerous place. Why are you guys still here?”
“Actually, we were starting a new village here.”
“Ah, I get it.”
We were looking for the other heroes, but in doing so, we were retracing the path the Spirit Tortoise had taken on its rampage. Naturally, we ended up meeting a lot of distressed people along the way, so we’d been taking the time to stop and help whenever we could.
But to tell the truth—and this is pretty common after natural disasters—I couldn’t bring myself to really trust the people we’d been running into. With all the chaos enveloping the countryside, there were definitely robbers and highwaymen out there to make a killing while they had the chance. Many of the ruined towns contained abandoned treasures that attracted thieves and other nefarious types.
“I have to check, just in case. You all, lay out all of your belongings before me.”
“. . . ?!”
The group of people suddenly looked less happy to see me. But I had to be sure. Since I arrived in this world, I’d found myself surrounded by some of the worst, most despicable people I’d ever met—and I didn’t have the time to waste helping a rag-tag team of bandits plunder the countryside.
“We found all of these things ourselves!”
I sighed. I should have expected as much. It was a good thing I decided to act on my suspicions. I mean, who knows what would have happened if I’d turned my back on them? It was a common tactic that these types liked to use. You’d get them out of danger and take them somewhere safe, only to realize they were waiting for a chance to put a knife in you and escape with all your valuables.
It’s easy to imagine that a new fantasy world would be amazing and chock-full of dreams. But this wasn’t that kind of place. It was a rough dog-eat-dog kind of place. Anyone arriving from modern Japan would have a hard time protecting themselves from all the real dangers out there.
Maybe it was the only way that these people had to survive. Even in the modern world I came from, there were countries and places where citizens really had to look out for themselves. I guess I couldn’t blame them.
“Ah, and I guess you think you have looters’ rights to this stuff? Whatever, I don’t want your stuff. We’re going to move on now. So try not to get yourself killed by all the Spirit Tortoise’s monsters.”
One by one, the people unsheathed their weapons and leveled them at me. I summoned all my apathy and turned to leave. The whole region had been thrown into chaos recently. What good did it do us to try and save people if those people all turned out to be lawless bandits?
“W . . . Wait!”
“You’re just going to leave us here?!”
“Who said anything about that? Didn’t I just save you from those monsters? I’m just saying that I’m not going to do any more for you.”
“Damn.”
The crowd all turned to look at the person who seemed to be their leader.
“I guess we better try to make it to safety before the sun goes down.”
There were still a lot of wild monsters roaming in the area. It looked safe for the moment, but they would be back—which reminds me of something I forgot to mention, a really nasty characteristic of these Spirit Tortoise familiars. When they died, their bodies would eventually spawn a lot more of whatever monster had fallen.
When the Spirit Tortoise awoke and rampaged across the world, it destroyed a lot of towns and villages along the way. All the dead things left in its path, including all the people, spawned vast numbers of more familiars.
The coalition army was doing all it could to deal with the remaining monsters, but it would be a while before it was able to get the monster numbers under control.
If anyone were to try and say that some pathetically weak crowd of looters could trek off into a dangerous region like this and get out alive, I’d have to shake my head. No one would say that if they had actually seen the conditions out here.
And there was nothing to be gained by death. Even worse, there was the risk that they might end up as a seedbed for new monsters while they were still alive. That had almost happened to a friend of mine named Keel— actually, he was from the same village as Raphtalia. While he was alive, he had been infected by one of the Spirit Tortoise familiars. Luckily, we were able to save him from death, but he was seriously hurt by the whole incident and was still convalescing.
“Aren’t you supposed to be a HERO? You really aren’t going to help us?”
“I never claimed to be a religious scholar. Besides, I don’t think anyone will mind if I don’t go out of my way to save a bunch of thieves.”
Raphtalia looked a little upset by my answer. Still, she understood that they were wrong, so she didn’t attempt to contradict me.
Filo was just staring up at the sky, completely oblivious.
The very fact that I wasn’t impressed or moved by all the extraordinary things happening around me spoke to how accustomed I was becoming to this world.
Sure, it sounds good to call it “rough and tumble,” but the truth was that this world was a stinking pile of garbage.
“You’d leave us here to die!? You . . . you murderer!”
“Whatever—I’m out of here. Filo! Time to get going.”
“W . . . Wait!”
And they took the bait. I smiled.
“What?”
“We’ll give you this. So please . . . please take us to safety.”
Each of the looters held out a valuable to me.
“I think I’ll take everything you’ve stolen.”
“Oh, um . . . very well.”
“Raphtalia, we better frisk them just to be sure.”
“Understood. You know, I knew it would end up this way.”
Raphtalia said softly as she patted down the looters to make sure they weren’t hiding anything else from us.
But of course they were. Lots of stuff.
“Damn! We risked our lives for that stuff—just to end up with nothing!”
“If you’re complaining, you must be alive, right? Here, climb on up. We’ll take you to safety,” I said, climbing up into the carriage. We left for the nearest village with fortified defenses.
“Have you guys run into any of the other four holy heroes?” I asked the crowd of looters in the back of the rattling carriage.
“Sure haven’t.”
That was the typical response. Sometimes we found someone who claimed to have seen them, but it always turned out to be a false rumor or a case of mistaken identity.
“Actually, I saw someone dressed all in black. He looked like the Sword Hero. I saw him running to attack the Spirit Tortoise,” one of the looters muttered.
“Are you serious?”
“I was focused on escaping at the time, so I can’t say for sure, but . . .”
“That’s fine. Just tell me what you saw.”
“The guy I saw—and I think there was only one—was running at the Spirit Tortoise and swinging a sword. I saw him shouting and charging at the giant monster. I didn’t see anything after that, because I was focused on trying to run away.”
“Where was this?” I asked, unrolling a map.
“Here,” he said, pointing to a town.
It was very close to the last location where Ren had been seen. The looter’s story sounded reliable.
The other heroes had all gone missing in different places, so it wouldn’t be unexpected to have sightings scattered all over the map. Unfortunately, that was exactly what made it difficult to tease out the rumors from the truth.
This story, on the other hand, sounded like it might contain a kernel of truth.
“You didn’t see anyone else with him?”
“I remember the Spirit Tortoise stomping everything, and then . . . no—I don’t remember. I was so focused on trying to get away.”
I had heard a similar story before. They’d said the Sword Hero charged at the Spirit Tortoise from the front. He was bold, or so they said. They hadn’t really been sure, because no one had been able to stop and get a good look at what was happening.
Every time I heard a story like this, the circumstances were always the same. Each witness had been caught up in the chaos and running for their lives when they caught the briefest glimpse of the hero. People mentioned that they had felt a glimmer of hope, a hope that was inevitably proven mistaken when the Spirit Tortoise marched on, undeterred, to destroy their towns and villages.
“That’s just like him, to get people’s hopes up and then not follow through.”
We had to make a small diversion from our course to accommodate them, but we visited a town that had been unaffected by the disaster.
The looters climbed down from the carriage, wearing strange expressions of disappointment.
Ever since we started our search, we’d had to devote so much of our time to helping groups of helpless fools. It was starting to feel like we were never going to make headway on our actual mission.
The seven star heroes had been sent to investigate the lands where the Spirit Tortoise had originally been imprisoned. I’d been waiting for a chance to finally meet them, but it was going to be a while until that could happen.
“Have you noticed that the signs around here use a different writing system than Melromarc does?” Raphtalia asked, pointing to a nearby shop sign.
“You’re right.”
The shield had the wonderful ability to translate speech for me, but it didn’t do anything to make reading and writing any easier. So even though we were still in the same world, there were other languages we had to worry about, too. What a pain. I wanted to yell at them to hurry up and agree on a standard. Though, come to think of it, my own world hadn’t been able to do that either. Oh well, at least my shield made it possible to communicate.
“Let’s leave the carriage at the nearest adventurer’s guild and head back to the castle for the night.”
“Alright.”
We had a number of transport options available to us—including a teleportation skill called “portal.” The skill was only available to heroes like myself, and it enabled teleportation to any place that we had already been. However, the skill did have certain limitations. You could only teleport to a place you had already been, and it had to be a place that you remembered well. Furthermore, the number of places that you could choose from at any given time was limited. Finally, it was impossible to bring any large objects along, like our carriage.
We stopped by the adventurer’s guild and flashed an official-looking document that bore the queen’s signature. When the staff saw it, they agreed to store our carriage without charge.
“Portal Shield.”
A portal to Melromarc castle opened, and Filo, Raphtalia, and the others followed me through it.
“We’re back!”
The unfamiliar town around us vanished and was instantly replaced by a scene we were well accustomed to: the courtyard grounds of Melromarc castle.
Filo shouted excitedly as she jumped through the portal. Then she quickly took off running into the castle interior.
She must have been off to see her best friend, Melty. Whenever she had a second to spare, she spent it playing with Melty.
“Welcome back, Naofumi.”
“How’s it looking? Any updates?”
Eclair and Rishia came walking over from the training grounds.
Rishia’s full name was Rishia Ivyred, I think. Yeah, that was it.
She used to be a member of Itsuki’s justice squad, but the team ended up betraying her and framing her for a crime. It was just like what had happened to me. They did it to kick her off the team.
The reason she had joined his team in the first place was interesting, too. She was the oldest daughter of a ruined noble family. Itsuki swept in to save her from a particularly thorny situation. So even though they’d treated her badly in the end, she didn’t blame Itsuki or look down on him. If anything, she still admired him—maybe even worshiped him.
She was a strange girl. She normally prefaced everything she said with a pathetic whimper and tried to hide the depression evident on her face behind a kigurumi. She didn’t exactly inspire confidence.
“Feh? Did I, um . . . do something wrong?” She asked. At the moment, she was wearing a kigurumi that was based on Filo’s filolial queen form.
“No . . .”
According to the old lady, the master of Hengen Muso fighting style, this sad weakling of a girl had a natural talent for the martial arts. The old lady had taken it upon herself to personally train Rishia.
Sometimes—I mean every once in a great while—Rishia pulled off a set of graceful moves, but she hadn’t yet achieved any sort of consistency.
In my own opinion, she seemed more like an “indoor” type than an “outdoor” type of girl. I figured she would be better at magic than she was at combat.
But like I mentioned before, people had actual stats in this world, and Rishia’s stats were so low it was hard to believe. The first time I saw them, I nearly screamed. So I was really looking forward to the day that her abilities blossomed. If they didn’t, she wasn’t going to be able to participate in any battles.
As for how she looked, well, her face impressed even the lecherous Motoyasu.
She looked younger than she actually was, and her hair was pulled back into an intricate French braid. Even I had to admit that she was just as attractive as Raphtalia and Filo were.
“Master Iwatani? Judging from the look on your face, you didn’t get any good news today, did you?”
That was Eclair. Her full name was Eclair Seaetto.
She was from the noble family that had once ruled the region where Raphtalia’s village had been. She was a master swordsman, and she had agreed to help teach Raphtalia and Rishia to wield their weapons better. To sum up her personality, she seemed to have a stick up her ass. She had long strawberry blonde hair and eyes so sharp they seemed to look right through you. From the very first second you saw her, it was clear that she meant business.
After all, she was a knight of Melromarc.
I’d only met a bunch of jerks since I arrived in this country, but if there was anyone in the Melromarc army that actually behaved the way you’d expect a knight to behave, it was Eclair. While that meant sometimes she came off as too serious for her own good, it also meant that she had exceptional manners and carried herself well.
She never made allowances for others—which was a great thing about her but could also be grating at times. And she had a beautiful face. Between Eclair and Raphtalia, it was hard to say who was prettier. Her skin was white and clear . . . Actually, I guess everyone around me was really quite beautiful, weren’t they?
And she was a force to be reckoned with on the battlefield. They say that God doesn’t give with both hands—but that’s a lie. Not that I cared. Raphtalia could have been the ugliest girl around, and I wouldn’t have treated her any differently.
“Mr. Naofumi? Are you thinking nasty thoughts again?”
“Of course not.”
Raphtalia was very good at reading my thoughts. Whenever I let my mind linger on something inappropriate, she could tell.
“Yes, well . . . Master Iwatani, I was asking if you had gathered any new information on this outing.”
“We heard some stuff, but nothing dependable.”
“That is too bad,” Eclair said, looking disappointed.
I could understand the feeling. After all the death and destruction that the land had experienced, how would it feel to know that the heroes summoned to save the world had gone missing?
“How many days has it been since we defeated the Spirit Tortoise?”
“About a week. Where ARE those losers?” We’d been looking for them for days. I could understand the difficulty if the Spirit Tortoise was still out there, but we’ve already taken care of that. I expected to know something about their whereabouts by now. Were they hiding in the mountains or something?
“We’ve widened our search area, but at the same time we’ve increased the number of looters and refugees we meet and have to assist. It doesn’t feel like we are making much headway.”
“I understand. If there is anything we can do, Rishia and I are ready to assist you. Just let us know.”
“I know, thanks. But I think it would be better if you helped the old lady train Rishia for now. Keel will be back on his feet pretty soon, and I’ll need your help getting him up to our level, too.”
“Very well. Though I must mention that, as the queen’s guardian, I often have to accompany her out to the Spirit Tortoise mountain.”
I already explained this, but the queen she referenced was the queen of the country that originally summoned me to this world, Melromarc.
She was married to the piece-of-trash king who’d relentlessly persecuted me since my arrival, and she was the mother of the wretched bitch of a princess who framed me. But the queen genuinely wanted to cooperate with me on behalf of the country and for the future of the world. She was very knowledgeable about legends and folklore, and she was fascinated by the waves of destruction. Whenever the waves came, she did all that she could to support me in my battles against them. She’d saved me from certain death more than once, so I tended to leave the strategizing up to her.
She looked like she was only in her late twenties and was exceptionally beautiful. She had a habit of covering her mouth with a folding fan. From the look of her, you would never think it was possible for her to have already had two children.
Both her husband and one of her daughters were the very definition of stupidity. Of the royal family, only the queen and Melty were decent human beings.
“Well, whenever you head out with the queen, leave Rishia with the Hengen Muso lady.”
“Fehhhhhh!”
The Hengen Muso master was actually an old woman that I’d saved once when I was traveling around the countryside peddling wares for cash. Her son was nursing her back from the brink of death, but the medicine he had wasn’t effective enough to save her. I used one of my shield’s abilities to make the medicine better and she was cured. But once she was back on her feet, she was more energetic than I could handle. I started calling her “old lady” back then—and as far as I know, it’s the only name she’s got.
She seemed to know everyone in some way and had apparently participated in many illustrious battles in the past.
The fighting style she employed, Hengen Muso, was thought to have been lost years ago. It was a very wide ranging set of tactics and skills that could be applied to a diverse set of circumstances.
She insisted that Rishia had an innate talent to learn how to use those tactics and skills, so Rishia had been training with the old lady out in the mountains.
“Sounds good to me. I really think that Rishia has been improving lately.”
“R . . . Really?” Rishia asked, looking encouraged.
“Of course you still have a lot to learn. But if you continue to make a sincere effort, I think you will do very well for yourself.”
“Thank you! I will!”
“Yeah, keep it up,” I said, disinterested. I made for the nearest doorway so that I could go pay my respects to the queen. “I’m going to go speak with the queen. Raphtalia. Stick with the others and help them practice their fighting and magic.”
“Understood.”
A whole week had passed since we defeated the Spirit Tortoise. But we still hadn’t found the other heroes. Each evening, after we concluded our search for the day, we teleported back to the castle so I could make my report to the queen. In return, she filled me in on all the reports of the lingering troubles posed by the Spirit Tortoise familiars. From the way things sounded, we still had a long way to go before those troubles were put to rest. So that’s how things stood.
At the time, I had no way of knowing that the very next day would bring enormous changes. Even if I had known, I wouldn’t have looked forward to it.
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