Prologue: Humble Beginnings

Rain poured down from the heavens as dark gloomy clouds covered the sky, blocking out all the sun's rays. The leaves shook with each drop pelted them, the dirt soaked and turned to mushy mud, the animals hid in their burrows or inside hollow trees to stay dry.

On such a gloomy day, a lone man rode his carriage through the heavy rain, pulled along with a filolial, a white bird the size of a horse with the strength of one and more. He sighed as he felt the rain pelting against his leather poncho, pulling his hood further down as he looked up at the dark cloudy sky, "What a day… it was just sunny moments ago, and now it's raining cats and dogs…"

'I should have left earlier… those clouds are such obvious signs…'

"Hm?"

He quickly pulls his mount's leash, stopping his bird in its steps.

In front of him is a wooden cart, toppled over and demolished beyond repair. Its wheels were broken into splinters and the main body was torn completely in half. Not only that, there were several bodies lying about, pale skin getting soaked in both the rain and their own blood.

From how pale and faded the bodies are, he reckons they have been dead for quite a long time. Whatever did this have not been merciful, a lot of them are missing limbs or a good chunk of it blown away by something. One even had half of his head bitten off by something with strong jaws.

Getting off his carriage, he searched the cart for any survivors or anything that can help identify the perpetrators. Sadly, all he found are bloodied bodies and nothing more. "No survivors. Damn, I guess I was hoping for too much–"

"WAAH! WAAAH! WAAAAHHHHH!"

Cries of an infant caught his attention. He quickly dug through the wreckage, unwillingly pushing aside a dead woman to find a small bundle of blue cloth. In it, is a small crying baby.

'She must have died protecting her…' He thought as he glanced at the dead woman that was on top of it, 'A mother's love never ceases to surprise me…'

Gingerly, he picked up the crying infant, gently rocking it to try and calm it down. "There, there, little one. It's okay. Nothing's going to hurt you." After a few long seconds, the infant slowly calms down and their cries are reduced to sobs.

'I can't just leave a baby out in the wild.' He thinks to himself, 'But Lurolona has no orphanage as far as I can recall, and the closest one is at least a week by travel…'

"Heheheh~!"

The baby broke into giggle much to the man's confusion, before wincing in pain as they pulled free a strand of his beard. "Owowow! You have quite a grip, don't cha?"

"Hahaha~!"

"…"

Seeing the once crying baby break into laughter, he came to a decision. One that he knows would change his life forever.

…

"Easy… easy…"

My hands shakily hold the two bottles filled with two very important liquids over the funnel. Taking a deep breath to relax my nerves, I slowly and steadily pour them in and watch the Green Plant mixture mixed with the Aero Flower compounded fluid in the beaker.

The green and blue mixtures swirled around in the flask for a moment, before their colors blend together to form into a fluid the shade of sea foam.

"C-Could this be…!"

I remove the funnel and appraised the completed mixture. A tense moment later, the notification of the item is revealed.

[Recovery Medicine (Advanced)]

"There's an additional description…! Yes, yes! YES!"

I couldn't help myself and let out a loud cheer in my lab. At last, I've completed it! My new potion! I knew using Aero Flowers would work! If that flower could be used in healing ointments, then it could probably be used as a potion ingredient!

Normally Recovery Medicines were split into three tiers: Weak, Normal and Strong, and they were all used for minor wounds and simple diseases like the common cold. But thanks to the addition of Aero Flowers, I got to a new tier! And by its description, it should be stronger than even the strongest tier Recovery Medicine!

The only issue I had with it was that the balancing ratio for Aero Flowers to Green Plants had to be extremely precise. Even a slight change to it would ruin the mixture and turn into this useless, and luckily harmless, grey sludge. That would raise its price to the range of silvers.

That wouldn't work as a commercial product for the common folk. It was way too expensive and too difficult to mass produce. Such a shame, considering how easily found Aero Flowers were in the wild.

Maybe it can work as a high-class product for adventurers? Or as a luxury item for the nobility? Maybe I'll advertise this as a made-on-request item.

*knock**knock*

"Liya? What's with the shouting? Is everything alright in there?"

"Yeah, gramps! Just finishing up my latest experiment! Which is successful, by the way!"

"Oh, that sounds great! But you do remember to finish up the order of normal recovery medicine, right?"

"…oh crap."

"I take it you forgot? You better hurry, because I'm leaving by noon!"

"O-On it!"

I quickly moved my hands and began my work to fill up the rest of the order.

My name is Liya, a 20-year-old apothecary and part-time adventurer.

I possess scruffy shoulder length silver hair and big bright yellow eyes. My facial features and bodyline are what many would call affectionately feminine and cute, exotic even due to my unusual eye color.

Too bad I'm a guy. Such features would only cause countless misunderstandings about my actual gender and age. It didn't help that I'm shorter than most guys in my age group. Even a few women are taller than me!

If you are wondering where I am, this is my home in the forest where I lived with my adopted grandfather and apothecary mentor, Hohenheim. I usually just call him gramps.

He found me in the rain in the hands of my dead mother when I was still a small infant, and has raised me on his own ever since. When I showed interest in his work, he enlisted me as his apprentice and showed me the ropes of an apothecary. Everything I know, I've learnt from him.

Even now, after graduating from my apprenticeship, I still work with him here to create many medicine and potions to sell. Which is what I'm in a panic of making.

There's a small fishing village over the hill that goes by the name of Lurolona Village. Me and gramps often earn our income by selling medicine to the village's general store among several others, which isn't much but just barely enough to buy our meals.

That's what the part-time adventurer comes in.

Adventurers often earn quite a bit of money depending on the rank, even the lowest ranked adventurer can earn quite a lot in comparison. I'm currently in the lower ranks, and I can still earn about more than enough to better our average income in the long run. It also helped that the city has more than enough adventurer jobs for me to take.

Not today, though. I'm currently on my day off to help with gramps's apothecary work.

After a quick check over the hastily made medicine and the antidotes, I load them all in a large crate and load that crate into the wagon parked outside our small cottage in the forest; my apothecary mentor and adopted grandfather is sitting at the driver seat waiting for me with his white filolial Blanc.

He was adorned in a light grey tunic under a brown coat with a pair of black pants tucked into some leather boots. A small leather bag was sling over his shoulders that housed his medical supplies. He also had an axe strapped by his hip for reasons he repeatedly refused to tell me.

He really liked bringing that axe around with him…

I myself was in my usual attire of short-sleeved white and blue tunic with a leather belt around my waist, black pants and brown boots. I also had a pouch to store the coins I have hanging on my hip, as well as the hunting knife strapped on the back of the belt.

"You finally done?" He asked me.

"Yeah." I nodded as I prop myself onto the ledge next to him, handing a jerky to the white gluttonous bird to snack on as we went on our way, "Got too into the experiment that I forgot about the orders."

"The one with the Aero Flowers?"

"Yup. And I've succeeded! Check it!"

I took out the newly made advanced Recovery Medicine for him to see. He took the glass tube from me and swirled the blue liquid around.

"Advanced? Huh, that's a new one. You really outdid yourself, Liya. Didn't think that adding Aero Flowers to the recipe would create this."

"I know, right? Aero Flowers are good for making healing ointments and salves, and those just hasten the healing process and nothing more. So, I thought that maybe I can add that into the Recovery Medicine to boost its recovery strength. Took me about several dozen failed attempts to get the right ratio."

"That's what that pile of grey sludge in the corner of our lab was?"

"Yeah, unfortunately…" I didn't know where else to put it until I figure out if it was harmful to the environment. "It's not poisonous, if that's what you are wondering."

"So, does that medicine even work?"

"Not sure. I haven't got the chance to test it yet."

"You better not cut yourself just to test it's effectiveness, you hear!? I didn't give that knife to you for that."

I nervously chuckled at that. Maybe I'll catch some Usapils later to check the medicine potency… They are going to be dinner anyway, so it should be fine.

"And here are the last of them. You should have enough stock to last the next couple of months or so."

"Oh, thanks again, Hohenheim. Your medicine has been a great help to the village. You wouldn't believe the amount of injuries those fishermen can get within a day."

I placed down the last of our crates on the floor with a heavy sigh and walked out of the storeroom, just in time to see the general store's owner, a dog demi-human lady handing over a pouch of coins to gramps.

Lurolona Village is a fishing village primarily inhabited by demi-humans, which is an outlier in the kingdom we are in. Melromarc is a human supremacist kingdom, where demi-humans were often discriminated against and even publicly abused on a daily basis. It is not rare to see demi-human slaves in chains working the fields or doing demanding manual labor around the kingdom's borders.

Lurolona is different, as not only it is populated by demi-humans with proper rights and jobs, they are also protected by Lord Seaetto, one of the few noble lords that treats them like normal people. No slavers or raiders may dare try to deal with this village while under his protection, while normal trades are allowed.

Despite the long distance, due to gramps' regular trades with Lurolana, I ended up spending the majority of my childhood growing up in this village, being friends with all the demi-humans living here.

To me, this village was just as part of my home as the cottage in the woods. All the villagers here were basically my extended family.

"Sup, Liya~!"

"…hey, Sadeena…"

I let loose a small sigh before turning to face the orca demi-human lady entering the store and walking towards me with a waving hand, or fin would be more accurate.

Adorned with the skimpiest attire someone who isn't an aquatic demi-human would normally wear, the bipedal orca named Sadeena walked into the store. She is this village's strongest fighter and resident treasure diver. Normally, she'll be out fishing with the anglers and fishermen, or salvaging sunken ships for underwater loot to sell, but I guess today is her day off.

Or her second one, or third, that depends. To be honest, despite her loose demeanor, she does handle herself seriously.

Most of her time, anyway.

"Hey, Sadeena." Gramps greeted her, "Not treasure hunting today?"

"On my way to it." She noted with a smirk as she leaned on my head to my annoyance, "Heard my favourite little brother was around, so I came by to see your cute face before I go."

"Don't call me cute!" I stated angrily as I pushed her flipper off my head. Seriously, she does this every time we meet! Sure, she is technically taller than me by about a couple of inches, but still! I'm still a fully grown man!

"Just face it. You are cute."

"Am not!"

"Are to~"

"Sadeena, don't you have somewhere you need to be?" The general store owner tells her.

That got the orca woman to get her hand off my head and leave, but not before she gave me a tight squeeze.

As you can see, our relationship is more or less a form of younger brother older sister dynamic. Although to be fair, she is older than me by about four years, give or take. Now if only she can just act more mature most of the time…

"Liya!"

I turned around just in time to grab the running dog demi-human kid by the name of Keel as he jumped onto me. Close behind him are a racoon demi-human girl called Raphtalia and her best friend Rifana, a weasel demi-human girl.

"Keel. What did I say about leaping at me?"

"To do it every time we meet?"

"That's not what I said and you know it, you little brat!"

I rub my knuckles against his scalp hard, getting a squeal from him as a response. That got Raphtalia and Rifana to giggle at our antics.

These three young demi-human children are often under my ward when I was younger, often as their babysitter whenever I came by with one of gramps' weekly medicine deliveries. They ended treating me like a dependable big brother and them being the younger siblings I came to care about.

Particularly Raphtalia, whom I had the unfortunate luck of being the one that helped deliver her birth. I would have never thought something the size of an infant could come out of a human being, especially from a woman's… you know.

Sadly, once I had begun my part-time gig as an adventurer, I could only come to the village every couple of weeks.

"So, you guys are keeping out of trouble?" I asked them.

"Yup—"

"Keel ate a poison mushroom and got really sick."

"W-What, Raphtalia! You traitor!"

"And he shared it with everyone."

"Rifana!"

"…Keel." I look at him with a frown. His guilt is as clear as day to me. That got me to lightly bonk him in the head, "You idiot. It's common sense to NOT eat any strange mushrooms you find in the forest. You are lucky the antidotes are enough to cure you."

"I-I was just curious! A-And, you make medicine from mushrooms too, right? So, they all can't be—OW!"

"Not by eating it raw!"

I bonk him in the head for that response before starting my lecture on the dangers of eating wild mushrooms to him.

No wonder there's a shortage of antidotes lately… Hopefully, this would teach him to not get himself poisoned again from eating random wild mushrooms.

Although considering that it was Keel, I'm crossing my fingers on him.

East of Lurolana lies the port town of Lola, another town where we had dealings with the local general store. It's a port town whose harbour is where all sorts of goods from the islands off the coast are traded and sold at, all from fruits to vegetables to other produce like seafood, as well as where the ferry service for the Cal Mira Islands is located.

It also houses a branch of the Adventurer Guild where I operate from. I'm not here for my adventurer job today, though.

Lola is also where the smithy that I had left my weapon at for the past couple days for some maintenance is at. The last request I had undergone had kind of left some minor undesirable marks on it that might cause some trouble down the line if not taken care of soon.

And today I'm here to see if they have finished it.

"Kagu, are you there?"

"Oh, Liya. You here for your weapon?"

The blacksmith, a muscular tanned woman by the name of Kagu walks out from behind the counter with a grin while hanging her leather apron to the side. She has dark grey hair and onyx black eyes, and is wearing a dark blue overall over white shirt that could barely keep her pretty impressive bosoms, along with brown leather boots and gloves.

Kagu is the owner of the town's only weapon shop, and is this town's best smithy when it comes to weapons and armor. She's the one most of the adventurers would go to for any new weapon and armor. Her services are pretty hefty, but are fair most of the time.

"Yup. Is it done?" I asked.

"I had finished fixing it up. Just let me get it for you." She told me as she rummaged about under the counter, "I still can't believe you use this as your weapon. Wouldn't something less complicated be more effective? Like a sword, or a club?"

"It just feels right, you know. It also helps that it has pretty high stats."

"You sounded like a seasoned warrior there. Are you sure you are an apothecary?"

"It's still my main job."

"If you say so. Oh, and here she is."

She found what she was looking for and placed my weapon on the table.

At a glance, it doesn't look to be a weapon. A leather wrapped hilt with a pointed steel pommel with thick steel crossguard with an embedded circle of bronze in the middle of it, and what could only be described as an arrowhead where a blade should be.

By appearance alone, people might call the thing unfinished, or a rush job.

But looks can be deceiving.

Picking up the hilt, I swung it about and on que, the arrowhead flew out with long chains connecting to it. I swing the chains around about as effectively as a whip can, spinning it about the place while occasionally twisting it around my body. Once I'm satisfied with it, I retracted the chains back into the hilt with a tug of my wrist.

The weapon was called Chain Sword, a unique weapon I found on some street stall a couple of years ago. It was obvious that the seller is marketing fake magic weapons for a high price as a scam, all except for this beauty here. Unlike the others, the thing had a pretty high attack stat despite its appearance.

It was only after I purchased it at a ludicrous price (All that requested money… gone like the wind…) and swing it about that I uncover the hidden whip mechanic.

It's a tricky weapon to use, but after many painful practices with Sadeena, I've managed to learn how to wield it as effectively as any weapon. People still gave me looks for using it, though.

"No matter how many times I see you use it, it never ceases to amaze me." Kagu noted in awe.

"You've done a great job as always, Kagu." I noted as I slipped it on my custom holster for it on my hip, "How much do I owe you?"

"Well, it's one hell of a weapon to perform maintenance on. Those chains of yours are hell to mend. Not to mention I have to also rewrap up the handle with brand new leather wraps."

"Which all adds up to…?"

"About 20 silvers, give or take."

Yikes, that's quite a sum. It's… about half my monthly earnings. Do I even have that many on hand right now?

A quick check in my pouch, a grimace later and I placed about 10 silver coins on the counter, "Is it okay if I pay the rest tomorrow? I don't have that many on hand right now."

"Hm… fine. Only because you are my most faithful customer."

"You say that to everyone who comes here."

"But you are my best regular." She noted with a wink, "And the cutest looking~"

"Ugh…"

I groaned at her teasing before leaving the shop, gramps's wagon was still out there waiting for me. Blanc snuggled up to me, before diving into my pocket and plucking out a jerky to snack on.

"Didn't you just have your dinner moments ago, you sneaky glutton!?" I scolded him, the filolial only gave me a cheeky squawk in response.

"You finish?" Gramps asked me as I got into the wagon.

"Yup, good as new. But I now owe Kagu 10 silvers tomorrow."

I better go for some good requests tomorrow to make up the loss. I think there are some Porcupine subjugation requests on the board. Their hide does sell quite a bit of coin.

"Oof. Well, at least adventurers earn quite a lot to cover the cost, even if most of their earnings are gone after all the weapon and armor maintenance. I can spare you some money if you—"

"No, no, it's fine. I'll figure something out."

The last thing I need is to start getting into gramps's savings. Our medicine does sell well enough, but considering gramps' age, he could hardly afford to make that many trips all the time anymore.

Maybe we should start advertising my new Recovery Medicine (Advanced) soon. I could test it tomorrow when I go out for a request.

"I better work hard tomorrow…"

…
To be continued…

Welcome, those who came over from my discontinued series by the same name, and newcomers from far and wide of the internet; welcome to Shield Hero: Chains of Fate.

For those who are wondering why I am rewriting this whole thing, well…

I've joined the Shield Hero discord (the invite code is: /shieldhero), and one of them really dug into me for my hero weapon replica and pointed out how impossible that is in canon lore. So, after getting roasted on for my idea, I decided to switch things up a bit and just went with the hero companion route instead.

So yeah, Liya still get what is essentially a Combat Cross from Castlevania: Lords of Shadows series. But he would be a part-time adventurer while working as an apothecary.

With that, I wish for all of you to be of good health and thank you all for reading this!

*Sup! So, this is the rewrite of my rewrite of my Shield Hero OC fic. This time, I'm going to make a few changes so that it would be more than just a Canon rehash.