Chapter Twelve: Humming Fairy
We traveled through the night, putting plenty of distance between the town and us. By morning, we had reached the next town down the road.
“These criminals are wanted for crimes committed in the area. If seen, report them to the authorities immediately!” read a wanted poster pasted to a board in the new town. There were rough sketches of us, apparently drawn from eyewitness reports.
Good thing they’d only seen us in the dark. The sketches had very few details that could be used to identify us. Then I saw it... The poster included a sketch of Raph-chan. That would give us away in a heartbeat, so we’d have to hide her.
“Raph-chan. Sorry, but if anyone sees you then they’ll know that we’re the ones that freed Filo.”
“Rafu!” she barked. With a puff of smoke, she transformed into an ofuda that fit in my hand. The design on the slip of paper moved back and forth. I guess I could call for Raph-chan at any time.
Kizuna did the same thing with Chris.
As for Filo... Unfortunately she’d spent more time in the show, so the drawing of her was actually very accurate. No one would mistake her—she was a young girl with wings on her back, after all. Kizuna read the poster and said that it included information about how we had stolen Filo.
“Pii!”
Filo turned into her humming fairy form and hid inside of my armor.
“They say that news travels fast, but it’s kind of amazing that the news beat us here.”
“They made quick work of it, didn’t they?”
We could probably escape without too much trouble, but how long would we be able to keep it up?
“What did they do?” I heard a passerby comment on the poster. I decided to listen in on the gossip.
“They kidnapped that angel girl from the next town over—the one you could pay to see.”
“Are you sure a real angel didn’t come and take her? I heard she vanished.”
They were making it sound like Kaguya-Hime.
Considering how Japanese the country looked, I guess that sort of story fit with the scenery.
But maybe without even meaning it to be, the townsfolks’ gossip was pretty close to the truth.
We’d better keep moving.
“What should we do about leveling her up?”
Filo was at level 1, just like I’d been.
Man... What if we were all returned to level 1 when we crossed between the worlds?
“She’s like Rishia. If I’m with Kizuna then we won’t level up, but Rishia and Filo should get experience, so there shouldn’t be too much trouble. At least we got over the first hurdle.”
My own levels had progressed well, and I had managed to power up my weapons a fair bit, too.
But...
“The real question is what happened to Filo. Why isn’t she a filolial anymore?”
That’s right. Filo had been turned into something called a humming fairy instead.
She could still transform into her human form, but that would get us noticed by the authorities.
“Filo, I’m sure you already know this, but don’t transform into human form. They’ll catch you again if you do.”
“Pii!” she chirped from the space between my plates of armor. She didn’t seem very worried.
“I was hoping we could use Filo to pull a carriage for us. How are we supposed to get around now?” If we had Filo in her filolial form to help, we could have covered a lot of distance very quickly. I’d been counting on it, but it’s not what we got. Instead she was stuck as some other monster, something from this world.
“We could call for a human-powered rickshaw. We have enough money for it. What do you think?”
“... Who’s going to pull it?”
“Considering what we’ve got to work with, probably you, Naofumi. You probably have some skill that would make it easier, don’t you?”
“Ha! Don’t make me laugh!”
How awful would that be? Rishia, Kizuna, and Filo all lounging inside while I tugged at a rickshaw? But as for Filo, I could just have her pull it in her human form. We could go on a journey, pulled along by a little girl.
It sounded crazy, but Filo actually had pulled a carriage while she was in human form before. It wouldn’t look good, though—it wouldn’t look good at all. Plus, we’d really stand out in a crowd.
“Filo, do you want to pull a carriage?”
“Pii!” she shook her head no.
I had no idea what sort of creature a humming fairy was, but it seems they didn’t like to pull carriages.
For the moment, we needed to focus on keeping up our momentum. We didn’t need anything in the town, so we just walked right through it and kept on going. Once we were out of town, I took Filo out of my pocket.
She quickly turned into her human form and jumped in front of me.
“Whew!”
“We better not let anyone see you in human form, at least until we make it out of this country.”
“It was so scary!”
“I bet it was. You sounded really scared.”
“Thank you, master!” Her stomach grumbled loudly. “Master, I’m hungry!”
“Yeah, I bet you are,” I said, handing her some dried fruit we’d bought at the market.
She greedily stuffed them into her cheeks.
“I want...”
“Don’t talk with your mouth full.”
“I want more!”
Her stomach was actually rumbling as she ate. It was a pretty impressive feat. I wondered if it had something to do with the fact that her monster form was still a chick. Maybe she was still growing.
When she was in human form, she used magic to form her shape. But maybe when she crossed over to this world, her monster form was returned to a baby. I would have to find an authority on the subject to ask them about it.
“Kizuna and I won’t get experience from it, but we should probably take a road that will lead us to lots of monsters.”
“We could go fishing, too!” Kizuna said, grabbing her fishing rod and flashing a smile.
What was the deal with her? Did she really like fishing that much?
“Fishing huh... If you can get food for Filo we could do some—as long as it doesn’t take very long.”
“I can catch more fish here than I can in Japan, but it can take longer to get a bite.”
“No fishing then. Either that or break the rules and catch them with your hands or something.”
“I would never! There is a code of honor among us fishermen! I cannot break it!”
Kizuna was even more into fishing than I thought. But there must have been “illegal” ways to catch fish in a world like this. Maybe she could use thunder magic to hit a river with a lightning bolt, and then all the fish would just float to the surface. Seemed like a good idea to me.
Why did she have to be so particular about it? Is that what qualified her to be a hero?
. . . Yeah right.
“Well, hunting is easy enough, so I could always do that. You’ve got some more friends on your side, too. Just don’t forget what we came here for.”
“How could I? I’m here to find Raphtalia,” I said, touching Raph-chan’s ofuda. I seriously could not relax without Raphtalia nearby. I was almost thankful to Raph-chan for being there, because she was the closest I could get to Raphtalia for the moment.
Having her there made me feel a little better.
“Hey, master?”
“What?”
“Who is this lady?”
Filo certainly waited long enough to ask about Kizuna... They’d already spent the whole night together.
“I’m Kizuna Kazayama. Naofumi and I have been traveling together. I’m one of the four holy heroes from this world.”
“Oh wow! Nice to meet you, fishing lady!”
Filo had a tendency to refer to people by whatever they happened to be holding.
“Sorry, Filo, but Kizuna’s weapon isn’t actually that fishing rod.”
“That’s right,” Kizuna said, changing her weapon into all sorts of different things before Filo’s sparkling eyes.
“What? What? What? Wow!” Filo shouted while she followed the rapidly changing weapon with her eyes.
“So, Filo, what do you think I am?”
“Um...” For possibly the first time ever, Filo didn’t seem to know what to say.
Kizuna looked like she was really enjoying herself.
“Though I have to say, I don’t mind being called ‘fishing lady.’ I kind of think of myself that way.”
“Then stop playing with Filo.”
“I was just having a good time.”
“Okay, I’ll call you... Kizuna ne-chan.”
What? Filo actually learned her name?
But “ne-chan”? That felt kind of weird, considering how much Kizuna looked like a barely legal loli-girl.
“Naofumi, you look like you’re thinking about something nasty.”
She noticed! I looked away.
“Why are you looking away?”
“Do you care?”
“Maybe a little.”
“I just thought it was funny that she called you ne-chan, even though you look like an underage loli-girl.”
“Hey now!” Kizuna snapped.
Filo ignored our conversation and interjected, “I shouldn’t call you Kizuna ne-chan?”
“No, that’s just fine. Nice to meet you, Filo-chan.”
“Yay!”
“Shouldn’t you be Kizuna-chan?”
“Naofumi.”
I looked away again.
Kizuna and Filo shook hands, and then Kizuna changed the subject. “Okay, so how about we look for Glass while doing some monster hunting to help Filo-chan level up?”
“Good idea. I’m worried about her levels, but we can focus on them once we get somewhere safe.”
We had to focus on finding Raphtalia for now.
I activated the slave magic again to see if it worked. Just like last time, it didn’t.
We were going to have to depend on Raph-chan to find her.
What if she had been captured and abused like Filo had been? I don’t even know what I would do if that were the case.
If Filo was Kaguya-Hime, then Raphtalia... Raph-chan... was Bunbuku Chagama.
I just hoped it wasn’t Kachi-Kachi Yama.
“We’re going to stop in the towns we pass through, right?”
“Do we need to? We’ve got the shikigami to lead us.”
I guess that was true. But we should still try to gather whatever information we could. Who knew when we might need it?
“The demi-humans in this world are mostly elves and dwarves, right? People with beast ears and tails are sort of rare, right?”
“Yeah, I don’t see them very often.”
That didn’t bode well for Raphtalia. Someone might have tried to capture her.
I hoped she was alright, but I was starting to worry that she’d been captured just like Filo had. Hopefully, she was still with Glass and the others. Glass could probably protect her—she was strong enough to defeat the other three heroes without breaking a sweat.
We kept pressing onwards, helping Rishia and Filo gain some levels along the way.
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