Chapter 3: Moving On
As the trial came to an end, Naofumi was thrown out of the castle and was left to fend for himself. Storming down the streets of the castle town in a rage, Naofumi passes by many citizens giving him looks of disgust and fear, making several snide comments as he pass by.
"Looks like the demon showed his true colors today."
"I won't even be surprised if he stole that egg from someone else."
Naofumi would often hear all of these insults and continue to walk past, gaining more hatred for the people of Melromarc for turning on him so quickly, soon starting to question if he should even fight the waves for them and let them handle it since they didn't need him, until he ends up bumps into something as hard as a brick wall. Naofumi being knocked off balance ends up dropping the egg out of the incubator, he goes to catch it but it's caught by someone, Naofumi gets on guard ready to fight the person that grabbed his egg, only to feel relieved when a familiar face invites him inside.
"So I guess you don't fall for the royals bullshit?" Naofumi asked, still annoyed and angry.
"I may have known you for about a day and a half. But that trial was pretty sketchy. His "name" is Belokaus by the way."
"What?"
"The slave trader, he calls himself Belokaus. Of course, we can't really trust if that's true or not."
"I guess never know then." Naofumi gets out of the chair he was sitting in and heads towards the exit. "Well thank you for believing in me and all, but I have to go now."
"Where too exactly?"
"I'll figure that out along the way. The faster I get more coins, the faster I can ditch this town."
"And what about your unhatched pet?"
"I SAID I'll FIGURE IT OUT!" Naofumi yelled back.
He stares at Erhard for a bit before calming down, lowering the tention in the room.
"Need me to take care of it then?"
"That depends, are you planning on hard boiling it for lunch?"
"No. I just feel like it'll be safer with me, as opposed to being carried around with you trying to fight monsters all day?"
"You…, you have a point, but this egg is the only thing I have left, I can't just give it to a random weak shop clerk!" Naofumi insulted.
Erhard swiftly pulled out a sword and swung it at a mannequin holding some cheap clothing, severing off its head in instantly.
"Kid, I'm level 87 and I classed up a long time ago, weak, isn't something you should use to describe me."
Naofumi couldn't speak a word, astonished by the quick performance from Erhard.
"Look kid, it's just a suggestion, but at least take some clothes so you aren't running around in your sleepwear." Erhard tosses a pair of shorts and a cloak at Naofumi's face. Seemingly as revenge for the insult earlier.
"But."
"I found it in the clearance bin so it should only cost about five copper. You can pay me back later if you want, I didn't really care for that set."
"Umm, thanks." Naofumi replied. He places his egg on the table and quickly changes into his new clothes before heading to the door.
"Hey, kid!" Erhard called before he left the door, prompting Naofumi to turn around.
"Be safe out there."
Naofumi nods his head before leaving the store.
"Wait."
"No, I not joining you."
"Alright fine." Naofumi leaves the shop once more after entering a second time.
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Naofumi catches a balloon out of the air and places it on the ground before stomping on it. Due to his low attack stat, it took him around 5 minutes of constant attacks to pop it.
Several other balloons would attach onto him in the process, and bite down on him in an attempt to deal damage. But all of them are unable to hurt him due to his large defense stat negating all the bites, making a very slow cycle of Naofumi ripping a balloon off his torso to kill before grabbing the next one and repeating the process.
Level Up: You have reached level 3.
"Fifteen minutes for a single level. Excluding yesterday's experience, and the time it took to kill that balloon, I'll be too under-leveled when this wave hits. Hell, I'll be lucky if I don't die before even get to the wave." Naofumi says as he absorbs the skins of the balloon he just killed, unlocking the Orange Shield and Yellow Shield and continuing to farm some of the monsters in the area until dusk.
"I still have no idea how to even find a wave, does it just spawn randomly and I have to find it. Do I even have to level for any of this? Ugh, questions for later."
Entering the gate, two guards give him a stink eye as he passes by, and several other civilians run away at the sight of him. Except for a few who are either packing or just ignoring his existence. Of course, Naofumi did the same, he just ignores everyone as he walked into an alleyway, soon jumping a fence and silently breaking into a stable so he could go to sleep, only to repeat this for a few days."
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After three days of constant grinding, Naofumi wakes up in a pile of trash and heads back into the forest once more for levels. Originally, he had a way to get water from the stream located in a safer area of the forest, but the food was his main issue since he couldn't kill any monsters that had meat, which forced him to rely on non-poisonous mushrooms and other edibles he could find in the wild.
"I don't want to go to other areas for food this time, but I'm getting really annoyed that I can't find shit here. I swear I need better levels so I can kill this rabbit thing, and maybe then I can get a proper meal." Naofumi complained as he checked his status. He was able to get to level 4 by killing the balloons for a few days, but the exp gain was too low, and it seemed like it took more exp to get to the next level, adding a new problem to the list of situations.
While walking back from the forest he came across some leaves which he ended inspecting to see if they were edible. Picking one up, he bringing the leaf towards his mouth before his shield started to glow. Curious, he placed a leaf inside of his shield and a pop up arrived in his face.
Leaf Shield Unlocked, Equipment bonus: Harvest Skill 1.
"So it's not just limited to monsters then. I wonder what else I can use." Naofumi looks over to a tree branch on the ground and places it into his shield as well.
Twig Shield Unlocked, Equipment bonus: Harvest skill 1.
"Well i guess they all can't be god like, it is a stick." Calling it quits for today, Naofumi gathers as much of the herbs on the ground as possible and heads back into the castle town. Heading over to his usual alley spot, he stomach starts to growl as he get more hungry. With no other choice, Naofumi gathers all the monster scrap from his trash pile, and heads over to a booth in the merchants square.
The booth owner was just finishing up a sale with another adventure before Naofumi showed up. Seeing his balloon rubber hit the table, he starts to count all the scraps on the table with a grin on his face. "Hmm, all of these together, I can offer you, three copper, for the entire batch."
Seeing through his lie immediately, Naofumi slowly reaches under his cloak. "You offered the last person one copper for every two balloon skins. So that's at least twenty-eight copper coins going by your logic, and a basic understanding of math."
"I don't recall doing that, but you must know I have a business to run so I-."
He said before being grabbed by Naofumi.
"Well, If you insist, maybe I can offer a second batch. These ones are still fresh so maybe they'll go for more."
Naofumi said, opening his cloak to reveal several orange balloons biting down on him. After a few minutes of terrorizing the man, Naofumi is soon walking away with his copper pieces, with a little extra the after his little meeting with the shop keep, telling him to spread the word on what happened or they shall get the same treatment.
Deciding to head back to the stables after having a rather bland meal, Naofumi passed by Elhart's shop.
Looking through the window of the shop, he notices that Elhart wasn't at the counter. Looking around even more. He is surprised to see that his egg was still on the counter where he left it, giving him a slightly better reason to trust his blacksmith friend. Heading inside, He drops five copper on the counter as payment for the clothes. Then he dropped some extra as thanks for egg sitting, leaving the store afterward.
With one last stop, Naofumi heads into the apothecary and drops his bag on the counter.
As the shop owner looks inside, he inspects several of the herbs Naofumi brought him and gave him two silver and thirty copper for the whole batch. A little skeptical, Naofumi asked a few questions while visibly reaching into his cloak to intimidate the shop keep.
"Is this all I can get from this batch?" Naofumi asked.
"I gotta say, these are some of the best herbs I've seen. But this is the best I can offer you. Unless you wanna make potions with them?"
"How much can I get with potions as opposed to just the herbs."
"They may take longer to make. But they make 5 times more coins than just gathering the herbs. The waves also made the potion market skyrocket, making these babies fly of the shelf!" the shop laughed.
"I didn't think I'll make more from the herbs, I just wanted the answer from you."
"Kid, I'm not afraid of balloons. If you're here to do proper business, then I don't really care what you did."
"The princess is starting to make these a common occurrence at this point." The owner muttered.
"What was that?"
"Oh nothing to important, just make sure you get me some more of these okay."
"I'll bring back a full bag tomorrow." Naofumi replied.
Taking his coins. Naofumi exits the store and heads out into the castle town streets. He was going to usual alleyway, but couldn't
He thinks of sleeping in the forest, but that would be even riskier due to the monsters that could destroy it, and possibly him in his sleep. so the inn would have to do for now.
Heading inside, he paid for a room, and took several precautions before he even sat on the bed so he could feel safe. He moved the drawer in front of the door to prevent anyone from getting inside, and made sure the window was locked so it would be impossible to get in without alerting him. He would not make the same mistake as last time.
And with a somewhat successful thief proofing his room. Naofumi finally settled down on the bed ready to sleep. Being the first bed he had in days that wasn't made out of garbage. Naofumi succumbs to the comfort of the mattress, and falls asleep almost instantly.
A few hours after falling asleep, Naofumi is quickly woken up to the sound of a crack. As he looks at the window to see who's breaking in, he finds nobody there. The doors and windows don't seem damaged at all, which is very weird to him because he could have sworn he heard a crack. Questioning his sanity, he takes a closer look at the windows until he heard another crack, quickly looking toward the source, he sees the egg is starting to break. Naofumi panics for a moment thinking he damaged the egg somehow during his sleep, but all his fears are thrown away as a tiny bird with pink feathers and blue eyes hatch from it. Naofumi looks in awe as the bird jumps on his head.
"So, this is what a baby filolial looks like, they look so adorable too," Naofumi commented. Looked at the bird once more. Looking at her feathers as it reminds her of a tree back from his world, soon coming to a decision.
"Alright then, I'll call you Sakura."
"Pio Pio" the chick chirped happily at its new name.
"Alright, when morning comes, we're going straight in. I should probably absorb this egg first to see what I get."
Monster User Shield: Conditions met.
Monster Egg Shield: Conditions met.
"I'll read the stats later. As of now, it's time to rest for tomorrow."
Naofumi now finding new hope, he heads to sleep so he can be ready for tomorrow.
A/N: There's a place, in the sun, where there's hope for everyone.
Special Thanks to Axel Emiya for editing
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