AN: Split the chapter into two parts because it seemed a bit much to suddenly go from 3k words to 7k a chapter.
~~o0o~~
"A travelling merchant, you say?"
Once it seemed like he could be spoken to without breaking into fits of laughter, the Village Elder approached the Shield Hero and invited him in his home to discuss his reward for preventing the Ryute village's undue demise in the jaws of taxes.
However, Naofumi kept insisting that he had already been rewarded and no recompense was necessary until Raphtalia slapped him over the head, forcing him to compromise.
Seeing this, the governor instead offered to issue a Commercial Bill of Passage.
"Indeed. That way, you would be able to make profit while bypassing the usual process of checking identification and paying the tolls to sell your wares. You specialize in creating medicine, yes? In times such as these, it is in great demand and you would have customers lining up for you in no time."
"Hmm..."
"You have a filolial to get you around already. All that you're missing is a wagon for your wares, which we could easily provide from one of our spares." The governor smiled wryly. "It's the least we can do after all you've done for us."
Seeing that the offer was made in sincere gratitude, Naofumi nodded. "I'll try it. I accept your kind offer."
"Splendid! I'll make the arrangements as soon as I can," the elder said happily, "Oh, Shield Hero, if I may ask you a question."
Naofumi raised an eyebrow at this. "Sure."
"Who is this lady archer of yours? I must say, she made quite an impression," the old man asked, chuckling.
"Oh, her? She's...an acquaintance from back home," Naofumi answered cryptically.
~~o0o~~
Kuro was bored.
When she saw her Master would be off helping the reconstruction efforts and test out the new carriage they got, she excused herself and went off hunting in the forest to level up. But this day wasn't fated to be interesting. Even the monsters died too fast for it to be any challenge.
As she looked around listlessly for a source of entertainment, her eyes caught on something moving in her peripherals at which she immediately shot. When she stepped closer, it turned out to be just another usapil.
She turned to leave, but a thought then occurred to her.
Shirou had made a rabbit dish once. Would these taste something similar? It's not like she even knew how to cook something like that, so maybe she'll ask Naofumi.
Though…hmm...
A cut there, and a cut over there should get the skin off...cut it this and that way should get rid of the blood, and then...
Huh. That seems like it might work. Why not?
Soon enough, Kuro had become the owner of ten nicely browned rabbit kebabs. Picking one up, she took in the smell that reminded her of garlic and ginger, and muttered a quick "Itadakimasu!" before she took an experimental bite.
"Huh," she muttered, looking at the cooked meat in her hand with a raised eyebrow, "Didn't know I had it in me."
…'Sella and Shirou could probably do much better, though,' she thought to herself. 'If I'm right, today would've been pasta day back home. I wonder how everyone else is doing right now after that fight.' They must be mourning, thinking she was dead...
A thought made her give a bitter chuckle. They weren't originally related, but with the Class Card, she must've inherited whatever gene was responsible for her big brother's tendency of getting dragged into all sorts of trouble.
Kuro threw herself into getting acclimated to the world to distract herself, but the homesickness bubbled up in quiet moments like this. She barely got to live and have fun with everyone for a few months after getting her own body before being thrown into another world again, all alone this time.
'Will I ever get to have one of Sella and Shirou's meals with them all again?'
"Hey lass! That smells great!"
Gah!
Kuro turned to the voice, only to blink when she realized she had a group of villagers boring holes through her newly prepared skewers.
"Think I could have a bite? I'll even give you some bronze for it," offered the grisly villager who called out to her.
Broken out of her funk, the gears in the white haired girl's head turned, and a smile that was schooled to appear polite instead of devious appeared on her face.
"Well, since you're offering..." she said conversationally, handing over one of the kebabs she made. As a few coins fell into her extended hand, she listened intently to the villagers watching the exchange.
"I mean, I could go for a snack..."
"Eh, what's a couple bronze here and there?"
"Man's gotta treat himself every now and then."
Well then. Good thing she still had a few usapils left to cook, and there were plenty more in the surrounding area.
...
"...then one of the villagers came and offered me money for the kebabs, and the rest is history," Kuro concluded upon being asked to explain why she was manning a kebab stand of all things after Naofumi, Raphtalia and Firo got back from their carriage test drive. She handed them a kebab each, letting Firo bite the pieces out of the skewer in her hand with happy chirps.
Skeptically, her Master took a bite, Raphtalia shortly following suit.
"Naofumi-sama, this is as good as your cooking!" Raphtalia exclaimed.
Kuro looked on to Naofumi, waiting for his reaction.
"It's okay," he concluded after swallowing.
Unexpectedly, Kuro actually brightened up at the lacklustre proclamation.
"I know right? I'm surprised I could even make it this good. This is my first time doing something like this," she admitted, exchanging another kebab for coin as she spoke, "My brother could probably make it much more tastier though."
"Honestly, both of you, making something this good and then just calling it "okay"..." the tanuki girl muttered as she chewed on the meat.
The Shield Hero looked at the small crowd, most of them making comments and noises of contentment, then at the sack of coins on the shelf behind the counter, humming.
They could probably do something with this idea too if Kuro hunted some monsters on the road but…
"It's a real shame we don't have anything like a portable gas stove. We wouldn't be able to make a fire for this in the middle of town," he commented, pursing his mouth.
"Yeah, it's a shame now that you- wait, wait," Kuro stopped in the middle of her sentence, raising a pointer finger.
The rest of the party watched with raised eyebrows as the Servant raised a hand with closed eyes, and magical energy coalesced into an odd knife with a red blade.
The knife had a ruby in its pommel that Kuro gave a twist, and the blade was engulfed in flames.
"Why am I not surprised? Of course he would have something like this," Kuro commented in fond exasperation, twisting slowly on the pommel until she had a small flame, then pulled the guard apart into a bipod and set the device down behind the counter.
Naofumi blinked. "Is…is that a stove dagger?"
"Apparently," the Servant confirmed.
He nodded, staring at the device for a few beats. "Do you…?"
"I can recall an entire array of vaguely sword-shaped cooking tools if I try," she confirmed again with a nonplussed expression.
"Kweh!"
"Huh?" Kuro turned to see their filolial gobbling the rest of the kebabs she was cooking. "No! Bad Firo!"
Ignoring the commotion, Naofumi fiddled around with the knife.
Well then. Maybe they can do something with this after all…
~~o0o~~
It couldn't be helped, Kuro supposed. Back home, she acted like the rest of the kids. It was mostly to fit in, but she had a lot of fun doing it because it wasn't something she was supposed to get to do. Still, the act got tiring from time to time so she frequently sought out Rin and Luvia for intelligent conversation and banter.
So Kuro would be hard pressed to disagree if someone said all that happened when she was summoned was that her body had caught up to her mind.
Combined with the fact that she'd just shown her actual personality from the start and some doting on Firo when she was just a bird…
"Master! Auntie! I'm hungry!" complained the angel-like child with a cloak draped over her, hanging off Naofumi and Kuro's arms, who was actually Firo.
Still, there was a wide array of insults and monikers that Kuro wouldn't have been surprised at being called, but "Auntie" was not one of them.
The party stopped in front of what looked like a weapon shop.
"Old man! Open up!" Naofumi started banging on the shop's door impatiently.
Shortly, a bald, black bearded man opened the door, squinting at them with an annoyed expression.
"What gives, Shield Boy? I closed shop hours ago..." he trailed off, raising an eyebrow at Firo and Kuro. "Couldn't you have waited until tomorrow to show me your new girls?"
"That's not it!" Naofumi growled, pushing his way through the door and motioning the rest of the party in.
"Sorry to bother you so late..." Raphtalia apologized sheepishly.
"Master, who's this man?" asked Firo, blinking at the bald man, "Oh, it smells like food!" she then exclaimed, immediately switching tracks.
"Well...I was cooking up a late dinner. Why don't you join me and we'll talk about it over some food, then?" the man offered good-naturedly.
"Really?" the angel girl asked, then promptly ran off to the backroom where a pot of stew could be seen. With a puff of smoke, the girl was replaced with the large form of a white and pink Filolial Queen, who picked up the entire pot, and looked like she was about to swallow the entire thing when a voice called out icily.
"Firo."
The moment her name was called, the big bird froze on the spot.
"Firo, put down the pot, turn back into a human and say sorry to the mister."
With careful motions, Firo put the pot down and became a little girl again with a puff of smoke, the cloak she was covered in earlier now in tatters.
"Sorry, mister," she apologized sheepishly.
"Good," Kuro sighed, taking her hand off the hilt of a pitch-black sword on her hip. "Come here."
"Thank god for that sword. I nearly had to waste 200 silver on a high grade seal just to get her to listen," Naofumi complained, rubbing his eyes.
Originally, the party came to Castle Town to check what species Firo was with the monster trainer (see: slave trader), who identified her as a Filolial Queen and asked to borrow Firo for the night to examine her. Naofumi agreed, but then Firo transformed and threw such a massive fuss that Kuro lost her patience and traced Hrunting, whose anti-beast properties of the sword could be perceived as an aura of bloodlust that easily overwhelmed anything and anyone that fell into the category of "beast" or had features of one. Of course, the sword terrified the filolial girl into obedience and made the rest of the tent's occupants collectively recoil just from presence alone.
This of course, made the slave trader look between Naofumi and Kuro with reverence in his eyes. Kuro absolutely hated it.
"You've found yourself a partner in crime...as expected of the Shield Hero. His companions truly don't disappoint. Shall I be expecting her to make use of my services?" he asked with anticipation in his voice.
"No," Kuro snarled the answer at the simpering man, picking Hrunting up from its spot to rest it in front of the slaver, making him take full brunt of the bloodlust the blade exuded to make it clear what she thought about the slave trader and everything he represented.
The Archer wished she could just hypnotize herself into forgetting how it just made the slave trader look like he was about to pass out in ecstasy.
Anyways, the impact the sword made was enough that even though the Hrunting on her hip was a papier-mache version that only had the barest hints of the original's aura, Firo relented and became obedient the moment her hand was placed on the handle of the sword.
Much could be said about their parenting skills or lack thereof, but the girl could turn into a strong monster at a moment's notice that couldn't be corralled the same way children usually are if she threw a tantrum.
"Do you know what you did wrong?" Kuro asked the pouting girl coming out of the smith's backroom, who shook her head at the question.
The Servant rubbed her temples for a moment before explaining. "When someone offers you something, it doesn't mean you can have all of it. Would you give them all of your food if they asked?"
Firo shook her head again. "No, maybe some if they were nice."
"Exactly. So when someone offers you something like food, you wait for them to give it to you unless they tell you to take as much as you want. Understand?"
The bird girl nodded. "Sorry Auntie."
Kuro sighed again, patting the girl on the head. "It's fine, you didn't know."
The old man stared. "Shield Boy, did you find your long-lost sister or something? She's like you, but in a different way."
"Or something," Naofumi replied.
"Why is Kuro Auntie, but I'm Big Sister?! You knew me for longer!" Raphtalia complained, indignant.
"That's what you're upset about?" Naofumi asked in exasperation.
"Hm?" Firo looked at the tanuki girl with a puzzled expression. "Master is Firo's Papa, and Auntie is like Master but she smells like iron instead of funny smelling plants. Oh! And she gives me yummy food!"
"It's always about food with you, isn't it?" Raphtalia asked rhetorically, sighing. "If I fed you lots, would you call me Mama?"
"I'm not your father! I'm your rearer!" Naofumi denied vehemently.
Kuro raised an eyebrow at the Shield Hero. "Master, you said Raphtalia was like your daughter. What's got you so against being called Papa by the one you literally raised from birth?" Or hatching? Egg? Whatever, he knew what she meant.
Naofumi stubbornly harrumphed in response.
"Huh? Firo calls Papa Master because Auntie calls him that too," Firo said, adding her own two cents.
"Naofumi," She said, pointedly using his name this time, "You should really just let her call you her papa. You don't want rumors of this girl being your slave, do you?"
"Urk," The Shield Hero grimaced, knowing Kuro was right about that. The people of this country were hypocrites of the highest order, sure to raise a fuss over an innocent-looking girl like her hanging out with the Shield Hero and calling him 'Master' even though that's what the Mmelromarcians think everyone that wasn't human should call them.
"So...look, not that I don't enjoy watching, but why are you guys here?" asked the smith awkwardly, causing Naofumi to snap to attention. "It's a late introduction, but I'm Erlhard, a blacksmith. I'm the owner of this shop," he introduced himself, facing Kuro and Firo.
The filolial girl waved enthusiastically. "Firo is Firo!"
"'Sup. I'm Kuro, recently summoned archer," the Servant deadpanned, earning herself a raised eyebrow that expressed disbelief.
"Right, now that we got that out of the way," Naofumi redirected the conversation, "Do you know anything about clothes that transform with the wearer?"
"Does this look like a clothes shop to you?" asked Erlhard back, gesturing at the various weapons and armor on display.
"Are you telling me to take a naked little girl who can transform into a monster to a clothes shop in the middle of the night? With my reputation?" the Shield Hero retorted.
"Point," the smith acquiesced, sighing. "I'll ask around and meet you tomorrow…"
"When and where?"
"...if you let me take a look at your lady friend's sword while you're in town," Erlhard finished with a smirk, "I don't think I've seen anything like it before."
Kuro looked at her Master in askance.
"It's your sword. You decide," he stated drily.
However, what came through their connection diferred.
'It's fine, I trust him. He's helped me out a lot when I needed it and I want to see his reaction.'
The white haired girl replied with a mental nod, then unfastened the blade from her belt, placing it in front of the smith on the counter, whose brows rose to his nonexistent hairline as he took in the strange design; a twisted core, sharp ridged and serrated edges, all pitch black. He couldn't even tell what it was made of.
The smith grabbed it by the handle to inspect it closer up when he suddenly found himself no longer in his shop.
He looked around in alarm, finding nothing but red. The sky, the grass, his hands, the monster in front of him - everything. The grass stained red with the blood of the bodies sprawled on the ground, his gauntlets slick with the blood of his friend dying in his arms, the monster covered with the blood of all the adventurers sent to hunt it down that it eviscerated.
And the sky?
The sky was crimson red from the setting sun by sheer coincidence, as if it was set up by a higher power to compliment the scene unfolding in front of Erlhard in order to create a morbid painting.
Rage grabbed him, rising from the pit of his stomach to encompass his entire being, and escaping through his mouth in the form of a guttural roar.
This monster killed his friend! And by the gods, if it was the last thing he did, he would kill it KILL IT KILL KILL-
And just like that, he was back in his weapon shop, surrounded by the most expensive and eye-catching display pieces he made to attract customers. He didn't have any hair to be bloodstained, he wasn't wearing torn and damaged armor, and his hands weren't covered in the blood of his friend. In fact, there seemed to be a conspicuous lack of red in the room.
Good gods, he hadn't felt such bloodlust since - since the incident that took Reinhardt from him and ended his adventuring days, making him decide to become a smith instead.
As Erlhard bowed his head and rubbed his face to recenter himself, his eyes caught on the vicious-looking pitch black sword on his counter. When had he dropped it?
Wait, the Shield Boy-
"We'll meet you tomorrow morning at your shop!"
The smith caught a bit of green armor before the shop's door closed and he was left alone with the silence of his empty shop.
He shook his head. Honestly, a girl that could turn into a monster- or was it the other way? And the Kuro girl- she carries around this. The hell sorta sword exudes bloodlust?
"Where the hell do you find these friends of yours, Shield Boy?"
