The next day, without any further delay, I focused on hatching my filolial eggs. “Yuki, Kou,” I called, “I want you to take the filolial chicks out to level up!” “Leave it to us!” “Roger that!” Little filolials of all different colors chirped, bowed, and hopped up on to Yuki’s and Kou’s backs. They set off. I had hatched about one-third of the filolial eggs, but not a single one of them was the same color as Filo-tan. I couldn’t afford to take any more breaks. One can’t quit in the middle of raising filolials, I say. Father stopped by my room and looked around. “Motoyasu, this is getting a bit out of control,” he said. Filolial chicks, chirping merrily, covered every inch of the room. “There will be even more tomorrow,” I informed him. “No kidding. It’s not too many?” Father asked. “Father, what are you saying?” I cried. “This isn’t nearly enough!” “So many filolials! Awesome!” Sakura said. “It’s an entire army of filolials,” Father said. “How are you going to feed them all?” “They can take care of themselves, I say!” Father glanced at me. “That’s frightening. That many could make whole monster populations go extinct.” Oh, Father, what in the heavens were you saying? Yes—as the number of filolials increases, the number of monsters will naturally decrease. I was creating a paradise! Regardless, I didn’t have nearly enough filolials to cause any serious problems. And so I continued to hatch and raise the filolials. Still, I didn’t see a single filolial with the same coloring as Filo-tan. I fell to the ground and wailed in misery. How could it be? I had bought every single filolial egg from the monster trainer, but I had yet to hatch Filo-tan. Father had told me he had purchased Filo-tan from that same monster trainer, but had he been wrong? Had I been wrong? What could I do? At this rate, any criminal off the street could end up buying Filo-tan! What could I possibly do? I had already reached my borrowing limit from Siltvelt. I had no choice but to come up with a new plan. “Okay, now it’s my turn to level them up!” chirped Sakura. Yuki had just gotten back from classing up a group of filolials. They were progressing smoothly. I had to devise a new strategy. Oh, my beloved Filo-tan, where could you possibly be? My heart cried out in agony! I, Motoyasu Kitamura, vowed to chase Filo-tan to the ends of the earth if I could only find her there! But before that, I figured I should go rob some bandits. “While searching for the Claw Hero, I’ll go hunt some thieves to make more money!” I announced to Yuki, Kou, Sakura, and Father. “Sounds good,” said Yuki. “Are thieves yummy?” asked Kou. “Motoyasu, please do me a favor and prioritize finding the Claw Hero,” Father said and turned to Kou. “And, Kou, you can’t eat people. You know that!” “Aw man!” Sakura was riding piggyback on Father with a sleepy expression. I watched her for a moment. Oho? Was it just my imagination, or did Sakura almost smell like Filo-tan? No, it must have been my imagination. “All right, I’m out, I say!” “Take care. I’ll also head out with Sakura a bit later,” Father said. That’s pretty much how we spent our day-to-day in Siltvelt. Each day, Father rode Sakura to different places around Siltvelt and told me all about what he saw. Father seemed to have an entirely different personality from the first go-around. Sometimes he went out on adventures without Sakura, and he told me about his various battles as he gained practical combat experience. “This world is so amazing, isn’t it?” Father told me. “It’s incredible how many different races there are!” As Father earnestly helped the local population with its problems, he only wanted to see more and more of the world. “You wouldn’t believe this,” Father said. “I only saw it for a moment, but there was this therianthrope that looked like a panda! I had no idea there were ones like that. I saw elephant and hippopotamus therianthropes too. They looked like serious heavyweight fighters.” “It means the world to me that you’re enjoying yourself, Father,” I said. A panda therianthrope, hm? I couldn’t help but feel like I had some sort of memory about a panda therianthrope, but I really had no clue as to what. “It’s so cool seeing so many types of people. I suppose we’ll all have to fight the wave of destruction together . . .” Father trailed off. Father’s eyes twinkled with hopes and dreams! He had completely changed since the first go-around. But we had just three more of those peaceful days in Siltvelt before the wave of destruction arrived. “It sounds wrong, but I’m kind of looking forward to the wave of destruction,” Father said. “I was the same way. My heart was dancing with anticipation before my first wave of destruction,” I informed Father. I could remember it clearly. Applying the knowledge I had gained into action against chimeras, unleashing my skills for the first time—it had been a really fun battle. But if I remember correctly, back then Father had an uncomfortable expression. After the wave, the crimson swine informed me that Filo-tan’s big sister was being held as a slave. Without realizing that Father and big sis were actually happy together, I challenged Father to a duel. It was the worst mistake of my life. Fortunately, Father mustered the might of his wisdom and used it to utterly defeat me. Only Father could win a war with his wits alone! He had me down for the count when the crimson swine intervened to engineer a worthless, false victory for me. I was such a fool for challenging Father to a duel. There was no way for me to even land a hit against him! I was the real loser. I must learn that sort of fighting spirit from Father, I say! Even if it meant dragging my own dead body through the mud, I vowed to find my beloved Filo-tan.
Anyways, I went out and earned a bit of money from bandit-hunting. I figured I would go back to Melromarc later and buy some more filolials from a different monster trainer. Those were some dull days, now that I think about it. But what happened the next day changed everything.
“So the seven star hero in charge of Shieldfreeden and Faubrey is being dispatched to help fight the wave of destruction?” Father was asking. That’s what the shusaku representative had just told Father and me at the morning meeting. “Shouldn’t Siltvelt be fine with Motoyasu and myself?” “That may be true, but we tend to work in cooperation to protect our neighboring countries. Understandably, Shieldfreeden’s seven star hero is concerned about the disappearance of the Claw Hero.” “I see.” “Of course, we believe that with the Shield Hero alone he could safely get us through the wave of destruction,” the shusaku added. “So you’re just being careful?” Father asked. “Exactly.” Father waved me over and whispered into my ear. A secret, I say! “If I’m remembering correctly, isn’t Shieldfreeden a pretty extreme country? I’m sure they’ll treat me well since I’m a hero, but I’ve heard that they have human slaves there.”
“That is correct,” I told Father. I, Motoyasu Kitamura, had never been to any slave country besides Melromarc, but I certainly got the sense that they didn’t treat people well in Shieldfreeden. The slave hunters targeted demi-humans, but since there were so many demi-humans, I supposed they went for human slaves instead. “What’s the right way to put it?” Father continued. “Based on the standards from my world, Shieldfreeden is kinda like a country of Vikings, right? Really militaristic.” “Perhaps,” I said. Father nodded. “But here in Siltvelt, race is really important, right?” Now that he mentioned it, the lion therianthrope had talked about this sort of thing before. Father went on to explain the history of Shieldfreeden to me. Siltvelt was founded by followers of the Shield Hero and the upper class was a famous line that continued for generation after generation. So Siltvelt had a solidified aristocratic class. The four races in the upper class were the shusaku, genmu, aotatsu, and hakuko—the four holy beasts. However, in a great war long ago, the hakuko were forced to take responsibility for the defeat and ever since have remained the lowest among the four ruling races. But overall, those four races had excellent combat strength and continue to be upheld in society and by the government of Siltvelt. “So,” Father continued, “people who couldn’t follow the racial hierarchy of Siltvelt went on to found Shieldfreeden.” Shieldfreeden—established just 100 years ago—had a short history in comparison to Siltvelt. It was a country with a frontier mentality. “I heard that ordinary citizens from common races—not the four top ones—who couldn’t bear the hereditary class structure created Shieldfreeden,” Father explained. “I must say, I don’t follow,” I declared. “Well, just think of it as low-wage laborers deciding to move elsewhere. Siltvelt doesn’t have a system where humans are supreme like Melromarc. But there are so many different races of demi-humans that any system that allows for hereditary rule or wealth will end up discriminating against groups that are less fortunate.” I figured that Siltvelt and Shieldfreeden weren’t so different from our own worlds. It appeared that discrimination and inequality existed no matter the world. “But listen, Motoyasu. It’s probably best not to ask anyone how Shieldfreeden claimed the land for its country in the first place or what happened to the people who originally lived there. I think it’s an ugly tale,” Father said. “I see. It’s a history very similar to the world that I came from.” “Me too. That’s the kind of history a country like that will have. Long ago, humans and demi-humans had a war over slavery in Shieldfreeden. So by all appearances, it’s supposed to be free of discrimination.” “‘By all appearances,’ you say?” “Well, I’m not sure Shieldfreeden is as equal as it claims to be,” Father said. “But that’s just my impression. One way or another, at the current moment, demi-humans are controlling the country and it seems to be pretty stable, so I could be wrong.” “Would you have wanted to go to Shieldfreeden?” I asked Father. Father thought about it. If the time loop ended up resetting and we needed a different place to go, we may as well consider Shieldfreeden. Of course, only if Father desired it, I say! “I’m not sure. Are you talking about if one of us dies and we have to start over?” “Just so.” If we didn’t understand what kind of country we were going to, even if the time loop resets, we could end up failing all over again. If Father, rather than myself, could retain his memories after the time loop, I would have no concerns whatsoever. But if I couldn’t start remembering any details about the world around me, we would end up making the same mistakes over and over. “If possible, I think we should avoid Shieldfreeden. I think it would end up being pretty similar to what we’ve already gone through. In fact, if the Shield Hero were to go there, the country could get belligerent, as they expect heroes to have a lot of strength on the battlefield,” Father concluded. So that’s what Shieldfreeden was like. Not too different from Melromarc, I guessed. “On top of that, the aotatsu—who are one of the leading races here in Siltvelt—may be starting to gain power in Shieldfreeden.” The aotatsu, huh? I felt like I had seen some around before, but I couldn’t recall. “You don’t see a ton of them around here in Siltvelt. They’re here, but they have about as much authority as the hakuko. I’ve heard that at one time in the past, the hakuko drove them out of Siltvelt, but I haven’t looked into it enough to be sure.” Which meant that, in essence, Siltvelt was split between the shusaku and genmu. Oho? I suddenly felt like I had heard somebody say once that those two races were the more moderate factions. So it wouldn’t be unusual to assume that radicals would rise up eventually. Father turned back to Wer—Werwer, was it? “So when will the seven star hero arrive?” he asked. “We have an official audience with them tomorrow around noon,” the shusaku said. “Got it. We’ll try to be in the castle at that time, then.” “That would be greatly appreciated.” And that’s how the meeting ended. As we left the conference room, I noticed that Father’s shoulders were sagging and he had a troubled expression as he looked out at Siltvelt. “The wave of destruction, the Seven Star Hero . . . I suppose it’s good that we’ll finally get to meet them this time.” “Indeed.” “Thanks to your strength, Motoyasu, we’ll be all right, but . . .” Father trailed off. Father was exactly right. If you befriend other heroes, you could be much stronger together. That’s why I gave Father my precious filolials to be his friends! So long as the filolials and I were around, Father had nothing to fear! Sakura seemed very attached to Father, and the rest of the filolials had a good relationship with him as well. “All the women attack me and none of the men understand me,” Father was muttering to himself. Now that he mentioned it, Werwer and the old genmu both had sent their female relatives as prospects to be Father’s wife. “Anyways, we can focus on finding new friends after we fight the wave of destruction,” Father said. “Of course!” I declared. “Eclair also went out, didn’t she?” Father paused. “Okay, so in terms of urgent matters, we have to prepare for the wave of destruction and find the missing Claw Hero.” “According to Yuki, they still haven’t found him,” I said. “Yep. People are investigating what exactly that beast was doing disguised as the Claw Hero. Supposedly, it was a beast that was sealed away in another country. But being that it was sealed in another country, they can’t confirm what it was.” “Shall I, Motoyasu Kitamura, go help with the investigation, Father?” “I guess so. You were the one who brought down that beast, after all. Of course, we’ll need your help when the wave of destruction hits.” Beast Spy ended up taking out that monster all on its own, I recalled. When I gripped my spear, I could still feel its anger toward the fox beast. Most surely, Beast Spy was designed to take out fiends like that! While we were talking, we went out to the castle garden. “We’re going to practice our formations, everyone,” Yuki called. “Let’s do it!” Yuki was leading the other filolials through training drills in preparation for the wave of destruction. “Yes, ma’am!” they chirped in unison. “So many . . . filolials . . .” Father whispered. Father was expressing his wonder at Yuki leading such a mighty, disciplined formation of filolials! Those same filolials that I purchased were well on their way to becoming mighty warriors. They did make the castle garden pretty crowded though. “Isn’t their training getting in the way of everyone at the castle—” Father began. “Father, don’t say such nonsense! Yuki is a magnificent leader of the filolials, I say!” A number of demi-human soldiers who had gotten caught up in Yuki’s training drill appeared to be confused. Since the drill required beast transformation, the movements were considerably difficult for them. But now that I thought about it, there were also demi-humans that could transform back in Father’s village before. In particular, I remembered a pig that could turn into a dog. I think she was quite attached to Father’s cooking. “Well, if the training drills are going smoothly, hopefully that means we won’t have too much trouble with the wave of destruction,” Father said. “I certainly hope so!” Our preparations continued without interruption. That night, I heard Father organize and prepare our personnel for the coming wave of destruction.
No Comments Yet
Post a new comment
Register or Login