Chapter Two: Poison
It was the morning of our third day in Siltvelt.
Around the clock, pig after pig launched amorous attacks on Father. Even with Éclair on guard, the pigs’ attacks didn’t slow down. It was a deplorable state of affairs.
Whenever the pigs swarmed en masse, Father cut his way out of them one way or another, sometimes with Sakura’s help, other times by simply running away as fast as he could. Of course, I, Motoyasu Kitamura, helped him out whenever I could.
Even at night, from my window I could see and hear plenty of rowdy people out and about in the castle and the town. I could also hear distant howling. This was a city—no, a country—that truly never slept, and it was a mess.
Apparently, Sakura also had to help Father fend off attacks at night from different monstrous demi-humans, vampires, and all sorts of nightmarish beasts. Werner told us that it was because Siltvelt’s chain of command was all out of sorts, for which he sincerely apologized.
Well, even if it was, it certainly was not my fault. I simply killed an entire room of traitors.
I can’t help but wonder how Father got through this crazy situation in the first go-around. Maybe he had been powerful enough to create a protective sphere to sleep through the night. Or perhaps Filo-tan’s sister protected him.
“Motoyasu,” Father said to me, “day and night, they’ve tried to trap and seduce me in every way you could possibly imagine. But all their efforts have just had the opposite effect. I don’t know if I’m even interested in marriage anymore.”
“Opposite effect, you say?”
“Yeah . . . Women are scary,” Father murmured, trailing off. “I’m finally starting to get what you’re always saying, Motoyasu,” Father said. “Even I’m starting to see the women coming at me as pigs.”
“Naofumi’s becoming more like Motoyasu!” Sakura chimed in.
“Well, no, I hope not,” Father quickly corrected. “I’ve just gotten bored of all the marriage proposals. I’m ready to go out and level up a bit.”
“If that is what you desire,” I declared, “I, Motoyasu Kitamura, shall ensure that you do not befall any danger whatsoever!”
“Yup. I knew you were going to say that, so I was trying to avoid mentioning it,” Father said. “Anyways, I heard that the Siltvelt seven star hero is coming to meet us after our lunch meeting today. Once that’s over, I think I’ll be free to do whatever, so long as we stay in Siltvelt.” On our way to our meeting, Father had figured out our plan for the day.
I forgot to mention that over those few days I had also decided to conduct some research on the life force of special filolials. In a country as diverse as Siltvelt, I wasn’t surprised to hear that there were one-of-a-kind filolials in the castle town. One of the Siltvelt ambassadors who had escorted us here introduced me to a number of local ranches that bred filolials.
“That means we’ll class up the filolials afterward, I guess,” I said to Father.
“That would make sense,” he replied. “Since the meeting should end just after noon, at that point we can just do our own thing until you’ve finished classing up the filolials.”
“We can meet up at the portal, I say.”
“Sure. Once you set a location, it’ll be easy to meet up there,” Father said. “And once we head off to fight the wave, I figure there’ll be a lot of chances to level up.”
“I would think so.”
“Thanks, Motoyasu. Again, I’m really grateful for all your help.”
The magnanimity! “Don’t waste your words on the likes of me!” I cried.
“You don’t need to be humble,” Father said. “It’s only thanks to you that we’ve been able to get this far.”
And with that, we headed up to the terrace provided exclusively for Father’s use, where we would have our lunch meeting.
In the back of my head, I remembered Father’s explanation from the first time we were summoned. I really was so grateful for Father. And for Yuki, Kou, and Sakura too, I say!
Meanwhile, our cook had set plenty of food on the table. I noticed that a number of prominent Siltvelt leaders had been assembled.
After Father sat down, one stood up and announced, “Let the meal begin!”
Everyone put their hands together in deep prayer and muttered, “We thank our lord the Shield Hero for all that he has provided us. Thanks to Him we can eat and become strong. May He have the strength to continue to protect us all.”
“Protect us all,” the room echoed.
What a weird prayer.
Then everyone started eating with the clink and clatter of the silverware.
“Sakura, say ‘aaah!’”
“Aaah!”
Father was feeding Sakura. How delightful! It reminded me a bit of Father and Filo-tan. How strange. As a matter of fact, I felt like I had seen that exact same scene before.
“Sakura, why aren’t you eating the food on your own plate?” Father asked her.
“This food? Wellll, it’s poisoned!” she chirped, pointing at her plate and cup. “Aaaand I don’t feel like it.”
“Poison!?”
In an instant, the whole room froze in place.
Father took a spoon to Sakura’s plate and examined it closely. Since he had probably learned countless poison-detection techniques on our journey, he must have been able to deduce whether or not the food was in fact poison merely by looking at it!
“It’s a fast-working neurogenic killer poison,” Father said, “but no, not just that. It can even work on filolials.”
My God! Father even researched poisons that could affect filolials. His intellect was unparalleled! Now that he mentioned it, I noticed that neither Yuki nor Kou were eating their food either.
I could never forgive such an act of barbarity!
“Yuki and Kou, did you notice that it was poison?” I asked them.
“We didn’t say anything because it was such a nice meal, and everyone else seemed to be enjoying it,” Yuki said with a shrug.
So classy! But I had come to expect such impeccably refined behavior from a thoroughbred filolial like Yuki.
“That’s right!” Kou agreed.
Is that why Sakura’s plate of food had taken so long to arrive? What contemptible fools! My filolials had sniffed out their plot in the blink of an eye!
“Is there anything in your food, Motoyasu?” Sakura asked.
Now that she mentioned it, I had started to notice yesterday that all of my food had been poisoned. But it was so pathetically weak that I could simply ignore it. At my level of strength, that kind of poison wouldn’t even make me blink.
I paused in thought. “Now, say, what exactly is going on here?”
Father looked around the room with that old piercing glint of discernment in his eyes. The Siltvelt leaders finally started to move, looking back and forth around the room uncertainly.
Father had a look that was as cold and sharp as ice. There was an intensity in his look that I had never seen before. I couldn’t bear it anymore!
“This is unforgivable!” I bellowed. “Who prepared this food? Take the chef out right now—and execute him!”
“Execute the chef?” Father cried. “Motoyasu, the chef isn’t responsible for this.”
The leaders in the room glanced around at each other. It appeared that even after I killed that conniving lot, there were still some troublemakers around.
“I suppose you’re right,” I said. “But a crime like this—attempting to assassinate filolials, I say! We need a punishment that will make the perpetrator regret having ever been born into this world!”
“I don’t disagree,” Father said. “If the filolials hadn’t noticed, they might have died.”
“I got it!” I exclaimed. “While the perpetrator is still alive, I’ll remove his skin and wear it as a costume for your enjoyment, I say!”
“My God, Motoyasu, how did you even come up with that? Please calm down!” Father pleaded. “I’ll find a proper punishment, don’t worry. Please just wait a minute.”
The room had erupted into chaos. The Siltvelt leaders were kneeling on the ground in front of Father, profusely apologizing. They promised countless times to investigate where the food had been prepared right away.
Father was sitting on the Siltvelt throne, and he did not look pleased. The other day, Father also had an unhappy look on his face when they made him sit on the throne, but that was nothing compared to his expression now.
Surely that was because they had tried to assassinate the likes of Sakura and myself! Sakura was sitting on Father’s lap as he stroked her feathers. It was absolutely adorable.
I renewed my vow to smite all of Father’s enemies. From his mighty position on the throne, I was confident that he would uncover the truth of what had happened.
“Naooofumi! Don’t stop!” Sakura whined.
“Just a minute,” he cooed. “I’ll pet you later.”
“Just now we are preparing a list of potential suspects,” the shusaku leader was telling Father. “Please wait just a little longer.”
“That won’t do,” Father said. “You’ll just choose your own political enemies or find some other way to take advantage of us.”
“N-n-never!”
Under the piercing power of Father’s glorious gaze, the shusaku couldn’t even move. That shusaku representative . . . what was his name again? I was very confused by the situation, I say.
“Mighty Shield Hero, please calm your anger and let us find the perpetrator!”
But Father wouldn’t be moved by such a pathetic plea.
“I was calm,” Father said. “In fact, I was calm this whole time. I was calm until someone tried to kill my friends. Every second of every day you’ve bombarded me with marriage proposals and all sorts of obscene, disgusting incidents, and I always took care to ask them as politely as possible to leave and not cause any problems for anyone—all because Siltvelt did me the favor of taking me in. But considering that Siltvelt has attempted to kill Sakura here, who just so happens to be the member of the opposite sex that I’m closest to, just to get closer to me—if this had just been an ordinary mistake, then that would be a different conversation, wouldn’t it!?” Father was talking quickly, rattling on and on.
Of course, I agreed with everything that Father said. But we couldn’t afford to give our enemy a chance to strike!
“I’m over here,” Father railed on, “being polite, doing my best, but does anyone in Siltvelt even care? No! Maybe I should explain myself more clearly. Yes. Everyone who’s trying to get near me, who’s trying to hurt my friends—whoever you are, it should cost you the price of your life! But no, that’s not enough. It’s worth the life of everyone involved in the crime! I think that sounds about right. If you give me the lives of every single person involved in this ridiculous assassination attempt, don’t you think that might settle things more fairly?”
“P-p-perhaps! Shield Hero! P-please calm down!”
As terrified as all the Siltvelt leaders already looked, Father didn’t stop there.
“Before we even think about war with Melromarc, we need to take care of this country. We need to expel the pus of this festering, rotten country first.” He paused. “Okay, I have an idea. Go down the street and shout as loudly as possible—tell everyone to get out of the way. I’m going to show you all something.”
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