I do not own Rising of the Shield Hero
Once again, biggest thanks to Ace-Triad for help correcting the SPAG of this chapter, and giving the villagers of Lute an actual country accent since I absolutely sucks at writing accent.
Also, special thanks for Fluffball13 for reading the first draft and give feedbacks. A lot of my initial ideas for expanding on Lute village actually come from her, since she has actual experience living in the countryside unlike me who lived my whole life in big cities.
More note at the end if anyone interested to see me blabber some more.
Mein cranks her neck as she slowly rises up from the hardwood bed frame padded with hay and covered with a sheet of monster fur. She twitches her shoulders, and slowly begins to swing her arm back and forth to shake away the ache.
It's a far cry from her own bed in the palace, with the soft cotton mattress, silky smooth blanket, and cloud-like pillows stuffed with soft feathers.
The undercover princess solemnly realizes she won't be laying back in her own back any time in the near future.
Mein's nap was not peaceful at all, since the damn raccoon cub woke the princess up twice by her ear-splitting noises. It was even worse than that period shortly after the birth of her younger sister, where both mother and father's attention are on the fussy little Wavespawn. At least their room was far enough that the brat's screech doesn't make the elder princess' ear bleed.
With a soft sigh, she pushes herself off the bed and onto her feet. At least she's sleeping in a real room and not underneath a mere fur tent to keep herself away from the elements - that's something to be thankful for. She leaves her room and walks down the stairs while keep flexing her arms to wring out the irritation.
The person behind the bar table is no longer the bearded man, but a middle-aged woman wearing a cheap dress and apron. Mein narrows her eyes behind the shadow of her leather hood when she sees the woman talking with the Shield Hero. Is this dirty old hag trying to charm her Naofumi too? Maybe trying to get away from her poor life and enter the life of nobility?
No, upon close inspection there is no usual sign of seduction at play. She is not trying to flash her skin at Naofumi, nor trying to get into bodily contact with the young man, with nary an enticing smile here and there. They are simply talking, even if Naofumi does have the corner of his mouth curved up in a content smile.
Speaking of the hero, he notices the princess in disguise coming down the stairs and waves his hand to get her attention, obviously not knowing Mein's attention is already trained on him. "Mein! You're just in time. We were talking about you."
"Of course, Master Naofumi. How may I help?" Mein laces her voice with false enthusiasm as she bounces up to Naofumi with a fabricated spring on her heels. That's when she notices a thick tome right on the bar table between the woman and her Naofumi. Even without flipping over the thick hardcover full of decorative runic symbols, she can see the yellow hue of the pages ravaged by time.
"I was talking to Mrs. Innkeeper here, when she gave this magic book to me." By comparison, it's easy to tell the young hero's voice has real eagerness by the way his body seems to be bounded by a restrained giddiness. It's like a baby bird who wants to start hopping and chirping around, but was afraid to be scolded by his owner.
Mein has to wonder what the big deal is about getting an old magic grimoire. Sure, they contain multiple spells in them than a magical orb that only has a single spell, but one also has to go through much more disciplined training to actually use the magic recorded inside.
"Ma left her old grimoire with me before she started her business in THE capital. She wanted me to follow in her footsteps, I reckon. But I had no talent for it." The eyes of the innkeeper's wife is downcast in an obvious display of self-pity. She quickly hides it behind a faint smile and looks up. "It's just gathering dust here at home. It'll be more useful to adventurers like you."
"Isn't it wonderful, Mein? You already know how to throw fireballs. Now you can learn real spells from this! Real, Magic!" The incognito princess can practically hear the capital letters in the Shield Hero's words while eyes beaming with sparkly excitement like when he first lay his eyes upon the Filorial from the merchant's wagon. He seems to suddenly remember something as his face becomes more subdued. "Wish I can also learn magic."
"You should be able to, Master Naofumi. The legendary heroes throughout history all have some kind of magical capabilities, at least according to the bards who sing their tales. Why, the last Shield... Hero." Mein, Naofumi, and the Innkeeper's wife all shudder at the same time when the King of Rape is mentioned again. "...was a very powerful warlock. His magic was more well-known than his Legendary Shield on the battlefield."
"Great! Maybe you can start teaching me after you learn some spells?" Naofumi picks up the tome from the table and hands it to Mein.
"Of course, and thank you, I will treasure it." Mein gives a small bow to both the Shield Hero and the innkeeper's wife to put up a grateful front. It's most likely useless to her, as it's obviously a very basic level grimoire, but at least it'll give her an excuse on how she learnt to use basic spells in their adventure.
Chapter 14: Dear Hearts and Gentle People
Their group should have left the village through the gate besides the inn and either went back into the King's Forest, or the opposite direction towards Harvest Valley. Unfortunately, Naofumi also learned the existence of a Filorial ranch on the other side of the sleepy village. It ends with their party wasting their time trying to cross Lute through the long way to satiate the curiosity of the Shield Hero.
The undercover princess decide a short stroll through the cobblestone road isn't worth the trouble to fight her Naofumi over. A certain demi-human in their group apparently disagreed.
"Oh, by all means, do enlighten us of your clever strategy, Shield Hero. Are we going to journey around the whole world for a chance to attack the monster Wave from their vulnerable backside too?" Lautrec's voice lack severity despite the obviously derisive words. It seems like the lizard man is more interested to simply trade some snide remark with the Shield Hero than questioning his decisions.
"IF we want to make any tactical maneuvers against the larger sized enemy, we need to use our smaller group and higher mobility to our fullest advantage. A steed would certainly help in that case, no?" It's clear Naofumi isn't taking the reptile's complaint seriously judging by the jovial grin on his face. Although he does make a good point, having a fast steed is useful in battle and outside.
Something like a demigryph is most definitely out of the question with how much they would cost. So it comes down to either a raptor or a Filorial. The bird simply has the Knight's dragon beat in their out of combat versatility with their long term stamina compares to the raptor's superior strength and speed in short bursts.
In fact, they can fit a carriage or a wagon for the birds to carry their party after getting their share of provision money for the incoming Wave. And after that... the whole range of glorious Melromarc is their oyster. "That's a very good point, Master Naofumi. Filorials are great at pulling carriages as you saw earlier with that supply wagon. We can have a base on the move after we get a bird."
"You think so? Guess it'll be our goal after this Wave." Naofumi's happy excitement balances out the lizard's annoyed scoff. He seems to skip his steps to the other side of Lute till they finally reaches the edge of the village.
Lute Village Filorial Ranch is a much fancier name than what the actual facility deserves, since it's just a barn that apparently doubles as a storage house and a collection of smaller stables connecting to a fenced off area where the birds are either enjoying the sun, or running around each other in circles. The quality of the building can be expected after seeing the old village inn. Not dilapidated by any means, but the signs of decay on many wooden planks still tell its age after exposure to the elements for many summers and winters.
"You want to have a better look at the big fluffy birdies, Raphtalia? Get on." The Shield Hero does not seem to mind the rather sorry state of the buildings. He sits his heavy fur bag aside, bends down on the ground to let his raccoon pet climb up his back and wraps her arm around his neck. The Shield Hero jumps up on the fence with an exuberant cry.
Mein gnaws her leather glove at the close proximity the damn cub manages to get with her Naofumi, as she shakes her head at Naofumi's somewhat childlike behavior.
Still, at least he is no longer moping about the bloodbath from the slum. That's something to be thankful for, at the very least. While the serious Shield Hero has his appeal especially when he says something very intelligent and insightful, the princess still prefers her Naofumi being more carefree when they aren't fighting or having serious discussions.
"Do you see that pure white birdie, Raphtalia? Isn't she pretty? I think I'll call her Cotton Candy." Naofumi's happiness seems to be infectious, as even his previous mournful demi-human pet begins to giggle over his shoulder.
The undercover princess briefly wonders how one can put two completely unrelated term like 'cotton' and 'candy' together to form a name, considering one is used to stuff blankets and the other is used to stuff one's face. She simply stuff it back into the darker recesses of her mind, filing it away as more of her Naofumi's exotic oddities due to being an otherworlder.
The princess turns her head to regard the Filorial that the Shield Hero is currently pointing to. It's a Filorial with a single crest plume and pure white feathers that makes her look like a snowball rolled onto the verdant grass field. Its size is smaller than the other birds in the fenced off range, indicating her lower level compared to her peers. Despite that, the other Filorials show obvious signs of submission towards snowball from the way they quickly scatter away or drops their body to the ground when the white Filorial strolls near.
Mein isn't an expert on Filorial breed, but it seems like this particular one belongs to some kind of superior subspecies if she manages to intimidate the others in the flock despite her lower level.
"Hey, look. Cotton Candy is coming to us. Come here, Cotton. I got something to feed you." Naofumi takes some rabbit pill jerky out of his shield and start to wave at snowball. She saunters over near the Shield Hero and his pet, lazily looks down at the meat in Naofumi's hand. Snowball bends its neck down to peck the bland looking meat for a few times first, it suddenly snatch the meat out of the young man's hand and gobbles the offering down.
It's probably not the best thing that Naofumi is feeding this ranched animal. Granted, Filorial has a reputation of being able to eat everything human can... and a lots of things humans can't. But ranch owners often subject Filorial of better pedigrees to a specific diet to develop them for speed, stamina, or strength.
"Guah!" The bird lets out a happy quack, her beak also twist around in what can be approximately called a smile. She turns back to blink at Naofumi twice, walks closer and start to lovingly nib his hair.
"Haha, that tickles. Do you want to feed Cotton Candy too?" Naofumi scratches the bird on the chin, making her cooing happily. He passes some meat to the Raccoon girl. Raphtalia smiles, and tries to hold onto Naofumi's neck with one arm while extending the other hand with the piece of meat in hand. The bird happily accepts a second offering.
Mein feels like she should tell her Naofumi to stop feeding the birds with the demi-human on his back. They can get into real trouble, if the ranch owner is raising her to be a competing racer in Zeltoble coliseum. Granted, the complain of a rancher living in the boonies is minor annoyance to one of the four Cardinal Heroes at worst, but couple that with Naofumi's rather... naive personality they can be fined a lot on top of the eight hundred silver debts Naofumi already promised to the Smith Demon.
One thousand silver for a custom made armor mixed with blue chromezoid is honestly an outrageous bargain even without the weapon and armor for their demi-human slaves. But paying a bunch of money to a ranch owner because the Shield Hero want to feed a bird is just dumb.
The undercover princess leans down into the fence and look at the smiling face of her Naofumi and the raccoon girl. The air around them seems to become still, the sunlight that shines down through the shadow of tree branches becomes brighter, and the big fluffy bird continues to gently nib at Raphtalia's outstretched tiny hand even after the last scraps of the morsel is gone.
Maybe she should leave them along for now... Yes, the Shield Hero won't be pleased if Mein disrupt him when he's clearly enjoying himself after his solemn moment from last night. It'll be counterproductive to the goal of seduce him if the Shield Hero begins to see Mein as a boring woman who disciplines him for every little action.
The ranch owner will just have to live with her Naofumi feeding their damn bird.
"Ya'll like any of my birds?" And speaking of the ranch owner... the man is standing right beside Naofumi now. As for how the hell Mein figured out the man with light brown hair and stubble is the owner and not one of the farmhands?
Well, the man is wearing a slightly more expensive looking black vest over a plain white shirt instead of some kind of dirty overall with dried up Filorial excrement stain, as is typical for the stablehands in the Melromarc palace.
Naofumi almost drops down from the fence with the sudden voice. Raphtalia lets out a startled cry as she tightens both arm around Naofumi's neck to not fall down.
"Whoa, steady there." The ranch owner quickly places one hand to the Shield Hero's back to hold the younger man up.
"Thanks, I'm coming down now." Naofumi scratches his hair sheepishly after he's caught in the act of climbing the fence and feeding the bird. The Shield Hero seems to realize the act is usually frowned upon by ranch owners. "Hope you didn't mind me feeding one of your animals with Raphtalia."
The ranch owner rests both hands on his waist and laughs. "Don't worry about it, friend. We ain't one of them' big ranches supplying the royal stables, or competing in the Zeltoble coliseum. Pa always say people who love Filorials can't be bad, cause' Filorials are the treasure of the world, ya know?"
The raccoon girl's arm slowly become loose around Naofumi's neck and starts to slip down. Mein takes a step up to catch her and put the demi-human girl down and away from her Naofumi.
"That's certainly one way to look at them... they are very cute." Naofumi scratches Snowball on the neck over the wooden fence. The big bird bends her neck down to nuzzle against Naofumi's face while letting out a happy cooing sound.
"Name's Bill by the way. Filorial Bill, so the folks in Lute all call me, named after my Pa, and him after his father. My grandpa started out this ranch." The ranch owner, now named 'Filorial Bill', extends his hand to Naofumi. The Shield Hero shakes the man's hand.
"So you are Filorial Bill III?" Mein can't help but quip from the side.
"Nothing that fancy, lass. People used to call me Little Bill when I was a wee lad. Grandpa was Old Bill, pa was Big Bill." The ranch owner shrugs his shoulder at Mein's snarky comment. "Now pa's Old Bill, I'm Big Bill and my little one is Little Bill. Not too confusing when you get used to it. Well, the kids in Lute call me a different name..."
"Good Morning, BJJ."
A choir of youthful voices chortles as a group of young teens turn around the corner of the large barn. The oldest of them were not over sixteen, and some were as young as Raphtalia. All of them wore wood pieces tied together with ropes as armor and carries wooden swords, spears and a few with small toy bows.
Speaking of the raccoon cub, she quickly hides herself behind Naofumi's legs after hearing the howls of other children. The recent experience of having rocks thrown at her by the human children probably made her much more cautious.
"And there it is... it's short for Bill Junior Junior." Filorial Bill III sighs as he shrugs his shoulder again.
The older kids in the group begin to wink and quietly whisper into each other's ears. Their faces contort into a barely contained blank mask when the ranch owner glares at them.
Filorial Bill scans his eyes through every single child in the group, his eyes stops and aims at a kid with short blonde hair. "Are you taking them for a scout, Raki?"
Mein was also taking her time to look at this group of rambunctious urchins. She realizes her previous assessment stand corrected. While it's true that they wear makeshift wooden armor, and mostly carry wooden weapons, a few of the kids have weapons that are clearly made of better-polished, curved monster bones. One would assume better weapons would be distributed to the oldest kids who have stronger developed bodies and presumably higher level, but one of the said children is around Raphtalia's age.
Some kind of social status. Maybe the kids with the better weapons have parents who hold more importance in the village like the elders, and the business owners?
As for the particular child Filorial Bill is talking with - the kid isn't the oldest, perhaps only a couple of years older than Raphtalia. His height and build isn't particularly noticeable within the group either. What does leave an impression however, is his weapon of choice. A blunt two-handed sword that seems to made of hard stone rather than some kind of wood or monster bones, all carried it with a single hand.
Granted, the sword is obviously balanced for a young child, therefore smaller and lighter than a real two hander. Carrying it single handed is also not as different as using a single-handed style when actually fighting with a double-handed weapon. But it's remarkable feat for a young child.
"Yes sir. We'll just take a short trip around the village. Get the young'uns familiar with their jobs and come back." Raki takes a look back at some of the youngest in their group. Some of them still have baby fat on their cheeks unlike Raphtalia.
"Don't wander too far, you never know where a high-level monster will jump out with the wave going on." Filorial Bill nods his head at the leader of the child scouts. He turns his head to look at Naofumi. "I know ya'll adventurers are busy... but can you keep an eye out for the young'uns?"
Naofumi's face turns slowly from the ranch owner to the group of kids, he slowly turns back to Filorial Bill once again with a crooked eyebrow. "Is it alright to let kids go out and fight monsters? I mean, they don't even have proper weapon and armor!"
"Hey! Who are you calling kids!?" One of the younger looking kid stomps on his feet. He begins to slap the Shield Hero with the flat of his bone sword. Said kid stops throwing his tantrum around when Raki pulls him back.
"Are you from the big cities, Mister?" The blonde scout leader turns his head side to side, he seems to try to take a better look at Naofumi. "I heard city slickers become craftsmen's apprentices. That's what big brother wrote in his letters. Out here, we learn how to live off the land when we aren't helping out Ma and Pa with farming, ranching and the harvest."
"Well, they aren't really going to go look for trouble in the wild. Mostly foraging some berries, mushrooms, herbs, and maybe thinning out the wood around so the village don't catch fire if something burns." Filorial Bill scratches his stubble with a slightly slumped shoulder. "Usually one of the veteran hunters lead them, in case they get attacked by a hungry rabbit pill. With the Wave going on everyone's working overtime to stock food and prepare defense around the village. That's why I asked if you want to lead them. I can't pay you in money since coins are tight now, but how about this? You take them with you for a round, I'll give you discount if you want to rent my Filorials, and even throw a few sack of Filorial feed when you need one of my birdies?"
"Oh." Naofumi blinks his eyes twice after learning this tidbit about how country kids live, it's almost like the young otherworlder does not know what to do with this information. Mein can't fault the young otherworlder, considering she herself didn't know about it before.
Granted, fifteen is more than enough to be considered an adult in glorious Melromarc. But for the children of the nobility, it's not uncommon for them to either attend one of the more prestigious schools around the world, or have a private tutor to study all the way into their early twenties. Sure, those with inspiration for martial careers could join as a knight's squire much earlier, but those are usually the second or third sons who don't stand to inherit much from their parents.
She gives another quick glance to the gathered village children, most of the older ones have thick calluses on their rough fingers.
"Don't worry bout' us, mister - we may be short, but we're tough enough' to survive ere' outside the big city walls." Raki slams a fist over his apron shaped wooden armor. He holds his two- handed stone claymore properly and makes a few swings in the air. His balance is at least good for a young amateur, even if there is no style to his movement. "We can take care of ourselves. Mr. Gaston taught us how to hunt monsters, and he's our best hunter."
"Yeah, he took back one of those huge porcupines the other day! Nobody else in the village can kill a porcupine!" One of the older kids begins to wave his arms around in big circle, like he's trying to show how big the monster is.
"Well, guess I can't stop you big fellas from going. Alright, we'll tag along to make sure the huge porcupine won't hurt you." Naofumi scratches the back of his head for a few second before nodding his head.
The kids all hop on their feet while cheering loudly, or chatting with each other animatedly about having an little adventure of their own with real adventurers. They begin to swarm Naofumi with questions, making him spin his head all around trying to answer them.
"Have you fought a dragon, Mister? We heard high-level adventurers fight dragons! Griffins too, but they aren't as cool as dragons, dragons!" "That demi-human looks scary, is he with you?" "Can you do some magic tricks, like Aunty Shena's mom?"
"I haven't fought a dragon yet, mostly been around the capital. I'm pretty new to this adventuring stuff myself. And yes, Lautrec is one of my companions." Naofumi bends his upper body down to run his hand through the hair of the smaller kids. The reptile in question lets out a dismissive snort from his nose when he's mentioned. "As for last question, I can't do any magic, but my companion Mein can. I have these with me though."
Naofumi opens up his cloak to reveal the balloons hidden underneath. The children jump back startled at the sudden reveal of the monsters. They begin to slowly come forward again when they realize the orange toothy abominations only rolls around on the ground after detaching from Naofumi's body. A few brave souls even get close enough to bounce the balloons under their hand, rising a new wave of happy screeches from the kids.
The raccoon girl quietly and carefully peeks out from behind the Shield Hero's legs to look at the enthusiastic child scouts, she quickly ducks right back into his shadow when Raki looks towards her.
"Hi, are you also training to be an adventurer?" The child swordsman waves his empty hand at Raphtalia, the raccoon responds by pressing herself closer into Naofumi's legs to hide herself behind his large cloak. The blonde boy quickly drives his stone claymore into the ground and hold up his empty hands. "Don't be afraid, I'm not going to hurt you. I'm training to be a knight just like my big brother Aki, big bro said a knight protect the weak."
"Yes... Yes. I help out Mast-" Raphtalia slowly peaks out from behind Naofumi once again to look at upbeat boy. She nods her head along before suddenly snaps her mouth shut and covers her hands over, mere moment before she blurts out Naofumi's true identity of a slave owner to everyone around. The quick motion makes her leather hood fall over her face again and muffles her voice. "Naofumi."
"Huh, that leather helmet is too big for you." Thankfully the boy seems neither observant, nor cynical enough to notice the raccoon girl's haste attempt at a cover up. He is obviously more interested at her comically large leather hood.
Raki gradually paces forward on his foot to walk around Naofumi and the kids crowding in front of him. The young swordsman unties the strap of his wood helmet to take it off his own head and hold it towards Raphtalia with his extended hand. "Take my helmet, it should fit you better."
The demi-human girl pushes her leather hood up her face. She stares at the hardwood helmet in Raki's hand for a moment as she reaches her hand towards Naofumi's pants. The cub pinches the fabric between her fingers and gives it a few timid tags to draw her master's attention.
The Shield Hero turns his attention away from the excited kids to look back at Raphtalia and the blonde boy with the wood helmet still in his extended hand. He quickly pieces together what is going on. "Are you giving your helmet to Raphtalia? What about you?"
"Don't worry bout' me, Mister. Raphtalia needs it more than me." Raki gives his own skull a mock punch with his free left hand with a reassuring smile on his face. "Big Bro always said I have a thick head."
"Thank you, I'll protect you from these monsters." Naofumi smiles and nod to the boy, he crouches down to his knees and places his hand behind Raphtalia's back to gently guide her towards the young scout leader. He turns to the boy with a smile and nod. "Say thanks to this nice boy, Raphtalia."
"Thank you." Raphtalia's face begins to turn red, it's hard to tell if she's embarrassed for her badly fitted equipment, Naofumi putting her in the center of the attention, or the fact she left the poor blonde boy hanging his arm for so long. She quickly takes the wooden helmet off Raki's hand, snatches off her leather hood in a flash and covers the bowl shaped hardwood over her hair and tie up the straps below her chin.
The blonde boy does not seem to bat an eye over the pair of round fluffy animal ears on the raccoon girl's head. He smiles just like Naofumi and nods back to both the Shield Hero and his pet. "No sweat, my Big Brother always said we oughta' help other people whenever we can. I hope I can be a knight like him one day."
"Well, I guess you guys are set. I'm going back to work, take care of the little ones for us." Filorial Bill gives Naofumi one last slap on the shoulder as he turns around toward the barn.
"Are you the Shield Hero, Mister?" The Shield Hero's eyes are focused on the retreating ranch owner's back till Raki's next question snaps him right back to attention. The other children and teens seem to slowly but surely quiet down.
"First. Don't call me Mister, I'm only twenty." Naofumi slowly turns his body to face the child swordsman. His face is carefully neutral, but the intense gaze of his eyes and the way he unconsciously faces his shield towards the child betrays his real emotion. "Why do you think I'm the Shield Hero?"
"My brother Aki wrote me a lots of letters, like how big the city and palace is, how the princess is very pretty, and the king summoned all four heroes." Raki once again seems to be either ignorant of Naofumi's trepidation due to his young age, or chooses to ignore it. He begins to extend fingers out of his left hand, and count it with his right. "You have a big shield on your arm, but have no weapons other than a short dagger and that woodman's axe on your bag. Daggers are too short to fight with shields, and a woodman's axe ain't a very good weapon."
The young boy drops his left hand and points to Naofumi's armor. "Your pretty armor looks goddamned expensive, so you have enough money to buy weapons if you can just get cheaper armor. You can only be the Shield Hero."
Naofumi simply freezes on the ground till he blinks his eyes a couple times at the young boy. "You aren't a teenage genius detective de-aged by some mysterious men in black right? Cause you just Detective Conan'ed the whole thing."
Raki slowly cocks his head sideways as his face slowly turns blank, the motion mimics the big birdie behind Naofumi perfectly. Judging from his completely dumbfounded expression, the kid has as much clue to what Naofumi said as the Filorial.
"Sorry, what I meant to say is your deduction is right on. I need to work on my disguise better in the future." Naofumi breaks eye contact with the child while scratching the side of his nose.
"Oh, I only noticed all the little things after thinking over big brother's letter. And we've seen enough adventurers passing through Lute to figure out the rest." The child fidgets on his own feet while looking left and right. His awkward shyness stays for less than a minute before a full grin seems to split up his face as his eyes shine with eagerness. "But oh boy! We're going to go on an adventure with one of the Heroes! This will be great!"
"You don't mind me being the hero of..." Naofumi's eyes moves back to look at the child once again, as his free hand seems to unconsciously move to brush against the smooth surface of his legendary shield once again. "...The Shield?"
"Of course not! You are one of the four Legendary Heroes! It doesn't get more exciting than this!" The blonde scout leader bends his legs down like he's about to leap up from the ground, as he stops before his feet leaves the ground and scratches his head while looking away. "Sorry, I got carried away. But you are one of the four Cardinal Heroes! Adventuring with you is once in a life time!"
Tsk, it seems like this little ramshackle village in the middle of nowhere is more accepting to the Shield Hero than the people living in the capital. It might make her plan to seduce and manipulate her Naofumi harder when he finds a group of people he can depends on, even if they are ignorant dirty commoners.
On the other hand, the villagers isn't bringing out the torches and pitchforks after learning Naofumi's true identity is a good thing, at least for now. They need a base to stage their operations each night with the raccoon cub's night howling problem.
The undercover princess gives a quick glance over to the children. Compared to those brats from the capital, this group of kids in the squalid village shows no hostility to the dirty little raccoon even after seeing her beastly ears. Her last attempt at dropping the cub failed because she suggested to leave the damn kid with the Smith Demon. Which in retrospect, was one of her worst schemes up to date.
Maybe the demi-human child will be more accepting to this quiet and unassuming village life style? It even suits her dirty commoner origins.
"It's great someone is willing to accept and welcome you, Master Naofumi. We'll be able to show the people of glorious Melromarc you are a true hero, not a demon or a future tyrant starting here." Mein quickly wraps her arms around Naofumi and uses her sweetest voice to whisper into the young man's ear. "And the children seem to take little Raphtalia well. Who knows, maybe we can even find a new home for her."
"You don't say..." Naofumi turns to look at the children. While they all give Lautrec a wide berth, some of the older children begin to talk with the rabbit man in their party. Younger kids on the other hand, seems to collect themselves around the raccoon cub showering her with attention and questions.
Raphtalia looks completely out of her depth at the onslaught of the village children's curiosity. She only manages to respond their question with one or two words while shifting her feet back and forth, occasionally give a pleading look towards the Shield Hero.
"What do you say we give the kids what they want, Master Naofumi? Let's show them how heroic you can be." Mein turns around to look Naofumi straight in the eyes and gives him a wink.
"I'm not too good with people... but guess I have to get over it sooner or later." Naofumi's face turns into a faint shade of pink again as he looks down for a short pause. He holds his head up high and steps forward with his right arm raised. This seems to get all the children's attention. "Boys and girls, I'm the Shield Hero Naofumi Iwatani, just as Raki guessed. And I'm going to... take you all on an adventure!"
It's not one of the greatest speeches the incognito princess ever heard, or even one of Naofumi's best speech for that matter. But from the way the children hop on their feet and screaming happily, they lap it up all the same.
The Battle Formation is a party based system that can stack multiple tiered bonus on a base five party formation. While it heavily restricts the individual party's movement, the buff in stats when stacked high enough is nothing to be scoffed at. The discipline to maintain the formation during the chaos of battle is often the difference between a fully drilled professional legion, and a group of newly drafted peasant levies... or even a veteran adventurer's group for that matter.
That was something Father was quite proud of back in his Great War days as a leader of the resistance cells, and later as one of Mother's top generals.
With the youth scouts from Lute divided into four parties of six, the Shield Hero quickly puts his recently learnt [Battle Formation] into practice. Having his own party being the literal spear head, while the four parties of children hang back in an approximated half circle.
Formation [Desert Lance], a low level formation with very high risk on the battle field, boosts the defense rating of party one and make enemies focus on them to either shield the much weaker party of two to five, or have them act as free range skirmish units. In this particular case, the intent of the Shield Hero is very obvious.
Then again, it's not like the low level monsters around the open plain of Lute is any threat to Naofumi's inhumanely high defense rating.
Mein stabs her long sword forward, quickly ending another red balloon's attempt to take a bite out of her Naofumi's shin guard. She gives a fast glance to the side, as the two demi-humans aren't having much difficulties either after settling into their own individual battle rhythms.
Kyubey moves forward and back like a quiet breeze, spins forward and back on his toe like a graceful dancer despite his form lacking the true elegance of a professionally trained fencer. Mein isn't exactly an expert on weapon combat, but from her eyes is certainly potential for him to become one of Melromarc's top duelists, if he learns the Aldori style like her.
Then again, it's not like she's going to spend her precious time that she can use for more suitable activities... such as putting her charms on her Naofumi, than teaching an animal.
Lautrec on the other hand, charges forward like a raging thunderstorm, or more to the point like an apex predator who is constantly focused on its next kill. He often hangs a little to the back or side waiting for a target to show up, and then suddenly charges forward to either hack it to pieces with his shotel, or stabs it with the dagger.
Mein is not getting in front, or anywhere near him for that matter, thank you very much!
The children from Lute aren't completely useless on their hunt either, they helpfully assist the Shield Hero's party with their toy bows, or stones tossed from some slingshots here and there. Occasionally one of the children with melee weapons would break formation and run forward to intercept one of the low level monsters that's about to creep up on their flank. They're certainly more helpful than the raccoon cub in their party, Mein gives them that much!
Speaking of which, the blonde leader of the Lute youth scouts quickly dashes out of his own group and swings his stone two-hander at another Eggy trying to make itself into Raphtalia's head ornament. Raki apparently hit the egg monster with such force, it bounces away a good twenty paces and shatters on a large stone.
Mein has to wonder what's the point of making a two handed great sword out of stone to begin with, if the thing ends up working like a club.
The raccoon girl on the other hand does not seem to fully grasp the intricacy of weapon design. She gives a shy nod to the boy who just saved her from another Eggy induced panic. "Thank you."
"Anytime." The leader of the Lute youth scout smiles at Raphtalia, he turns around to look at the Shield Hero. "We don't usually have this many low level monsters this close to the village. Guess they are more active in Waves."
Mein quickly look back to the quiet little village, the chest high wooden fence in the distance look roughly as tall as her extended hand. So maybe they are around five hundred to a thousand paces from the village? Not a hair's distance away to be sure, but not far in any definition either.
"Will you guys be alright out here? I didn't see any soldiers patrolling around the village." The corner of Naofumi's mouth curves slightly downward, a subtle contrast to his earlier expression of quiet contentment after finding acceptance amongst the village children.
"Oh, don't worry about us, Mister Shield Hero. We are tough to live outside the city walls." Once again, Raki hammers a fist on his chest, making a dull thud on his makeshift wooden chest plate. His confidence wanes after a short moment. "Well... we have a militia and hunters against wild monsters. It's them Waves gotten us worried. We heard what happened to Port Harp... and Lord Seatto. He was a hero back in the Great Wars, ya know? Lived through all them fights."
"Guess that's what summoned heroes like me is here for. We'll protect you from the Waves." Naofumi runs his hand through Raki's ear length blonde hair, making it more messy than usual. The boy simply chuckles at this.
"Missy, Mister Shield Hero said you do magic." The soft voice draws Mein's attention away from her observation. She looks around to see a few children that looks as young as Raphtalia gathered beside her. They big eyes full of expectation. "Can you show us some magic? Auntie Shena's mom can do magic, but she doesn't stay for long."
Mein's first instinct is to slap these dirty kids away, she's not a court jester to entertain gormless brats after all. A quick look towards her Naofumi's direction stops her cold in the motion under his intent gaze. She smirks at the bamboozled looking children as she slowly turns over her hand to point her palm skywards. "Sure thing. Watch this."
An orange colored ball of light and heat rises up from her hand among a wave of fascinated woos and aahs. She quickly slaps away the hand of a young boy that's about to touch her little fireball. "Don't touch it! They'll burn you!"
The head of the offended child seems to lower into his shoulder like a startled turtle. It does not seems to stop the other kids from marveling at an ember rising out her hand.
Mein looks around, it seems even older children begin to gather around her to see a magic trick display. She laughs and hold her empty left hand up just like her right hand and summons a second ball of fire. "Why settle for one when you can have two, and... why settle for two when you can have three?"
The children lets out an excited exclamation as the undercover princess tosses the fireball in her right hand up to summon a third fireball, and she begins to juggle three fireballs between her hands. It may look like nothing but a cheap party trick, but this was actually part of her fire magic exercises for as long as she can remember.
As uncle Aldrecht says himself: "Any laborious fool with a big enough mana pool can summon a bigger fireball. The finer control of your magic affinity separate a true artist from court jester."
Mein gives a quick glance towards Naofumi once again to see the approved smile on his face. She nods back to the Shield Hero, and tosses all three fireballs into the air to have them explode out into sparkles of cinder-like fireworks. A harmless spectacle, especially to the children growing up outside bustling cities. The kids clap their hands together, and a few even yells and jump on their feet to show their support.
"Can you... teach me?" Mein feels like someone pulling her sleeves. The incognito princess looks down to see the raccoon cub somehow manages to stalk her way near. The demi-human child eyes twinkle just like Naofumi's when first witnessing the glorious fluffiness of an adult filorial.
"Sure thing, little Raphtalia." Mein's mouth splits open as she runs her hand through the cub's hair, making sure to touch the soft raccoon ear once or twice seemingly by accident. "We'll see if you have the talent for magic first, not everyone can use them, you know."
"Oh... okay." Raphtalia's ears droops onto her scalp as she looks downcast once again.
"Okay, scouts! Let's not forget what we came for! The monsters are clear, let's gather the materials!" The leader of the Lute village youth scouts is completely oblivious to the internal political play within the Shield Hero's party. He jumps on a large stone poking out of the plain, clapping his hands together while shouting orders to the other children. "Wel, your team's the lookout for monsters. Everyone else, let's pick some flowers before the sun goes down!"
The children lets out some groan at the prospect of going back to work, but they still reforms their party and begin either scanning around the area or begin to pick plants off the plain.
Naofumi looks from east to west at the hardworking children, he finally decides to follow behind Raki to see what the child is picking. Mein quickly catches up to the Shield Hero with Raphtalia in toll. She sees Naofumi moving closer to the blonde boy and asks. "What are you guys picking?"
"Oh, all sorta knick knacks, Mister Shield Hero. Things we can eat, things we can make medicine, even things that mix into poison. Outta here in the boonies, ya need to get creative." Raki holds his back straight again to show Naofumi what's in his hands. He points at one mushroom with a white spotted red cap. "This we call redcap shrooms'. You can't eat it – it'll make your tummy rumble like someone tossed a fireball in ya. But if you crush it together with some icky weeds, you can get a useful poison to dip your arrow heads into. Helps drive them bandits and monster swarms away."
"Poison mushrooms, huh..." Naofumi takes a redcap from Raki's hand, he moves it to the Legendary Shield and absorbs it inside. The shield turns into the same shade of red with white spots decorating all over. "Huh, the [Redcap Mushroom Shield], gives me poison resistance. I wonder... can I stack my poison resistance so high, I become immune to poison effects?"
"That's how the Legendary Weapon works?" Raki blinks a couple of time. He begin to poke Naofumi's new mushroom shield with his finger, his finger slightly sink into the spongy surface. "Cool."
Their fooling around is suddenly interrupted by one of the sentries on the lookout because of one simple and short scream.
"Porcupine!" One of the older kid, probably around fifteen to sixteen summers propping his wooden target up and pointing his spear out at the charging swine with needles all over its body.
"NO! Run, Wel!" Raki tosses his gathered plants away and picks up his stone claymore. Before either himself or Naofumi has a chance to do anything the older boy is knocked flying back by the porcupine. He lands a good twenty paces on the ground and stays very still.
The alert smacks right into Mein's face once again, indicating the boy's Health has been knocked straight into the red by a single charge.
At least the boy fared slightly better than the Eggy...? The sight still makes Mein feel practically queasy inside as she pulls out her sword once again.
"Damn it! Revive him with potions, Raphtalia!" Naofumi runs toward the fleeing children and rampaging swine as he changes out the Redcap Mushroom Shield into his heavy stone shield and braces it against his arm and shoulder. The Shield Hero and the monster meet halfway between their sprint and rams into each other, neither side willing to give way.
"WATCH OUT SHIELD HERO, YOUR LEFT!" Another kid positively cries on top of his lungs as a second porcupine charges out of the woods and circles to Naofumi's left side before barreling towards the Shield Hero with its full weight. Unfortunately for the young man, he's still locked in a power struggle with the first monster so all he can do is put his left arm up before being knocked off his feet and pounced by two full-sized adult porcupines together.
The children seems to learn from the first boy's mistake, and begin to pelt the two beast scratching and gnawing at the Shield Hero with their stones and wooden arrows. Unfortunately for the downed hero, both monster seems to have high enough defense rating to completely ignore them.
"Why don't you pick on someone your own size!? You- you needle ass!"
And leave my Naofumi alone, the princess in disguise thought as she ignites one more fireball in her hand and tosses it toward the second porcupine's behind where its needle does not cover. The magic attack seems to fare better, since the monster at least rises its head in annoyance.
The needle covered swine leaps up from her Naofumi and begin to stampede towards her. That's admittedly not what she meant when she said 'picking on someone their own size' since the monster no doubt weigh twice as her, at the very least.
Wait, a monster covered in killer needles twice her size is charging right at her.
AAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHHH~ RUN!
Mein barely registers how she manages to spin on her heels and run towards the distant wooden fence of Lute. It's not the stone wall of Melromarc Castle, but putting something solid between herself and an over fifty stone monster can only be a good thing. Unfortunately, her hearing dutifully informs her that the monster is quickly gaining distance, probably on the account of her being a royal princess never having to train her sprinting abilities.
The princess quickly throws herself onto the ground to the side, getting a mouthful of grass and what else she does not want to think about. Although from the rumbling noise barreling past her, Mein did avoid being flattened by an angry monster. She quickly get up from the ground, sees the porcupine swinging around to snarl at her face to face...
...And stands up with a bloodcurdling scream as a short bolt slams right into its eye. Mein jams her long sword right up through the monsters chin into its head. The swine manages one last whimper as it crushes down sideways onto the ground, thankfully not on top of the princess turned novice adventurer. She looks back and sees Kyubey holding his gadget crossbow with his one good hand. With the immediate threat dealt with, the princess breathes out a sigh of relief as she slowly lets her head crash down behind her onto the soft grass that still faintly smell of morning dew.
For a moment, the princess almost deludes herself into thinking that this refreshing scent isn't so bad. Then she remembers there is still another porcupine still pouncing on her Naofumi, so she jerks up from her natural bedding. She sees the monster dead some distance away, right on top of Naofumi. A wooden spear went right through its head courtesy of their lizard man companion. He is currently trying to pull the weapon out by propping one of his clawed feet on the cheek of the dead monster.
"Nice of you to join us, my lady." The reptile looks up at Mein and gives her a toothy smile.
Mein quickly turns her head away to look for her Naofumi. Aside from his head looks even more like a roughed up bird nest and some tear in his traveling cloak, it seems like the Shield Hero is no worse for wear even after being pounced on by two adult monsters.
"Mein! You're okay! Ha, we made through another one!" The young man quickly throws his arms around the undercover princess to give her a tight embrace. He suddenly breaks their hug as he jumps back and looks frantically around. "Wait, what about that kid? His name's Wel, right? He got knocked flying. Is he okay?"
He spins around like a confused baby filorial for a moment before breaking into a dead sprint once again. Mein quickly follows after her Naofumi towards both their little raccoon pet, and the blonde child swordsman both kneeling around the downed older boy with the rest of the children standing around them like a human wall.
"Wel, how many fingers do you see?" Raki has a grim frown on his face as he holds up two fingers in front of the older child.
"Piss off, Raki. Little bugger hits lighter than you. Ha- *cough* ha." Wel simply slaps the blonde boy's hand away while he coughs and laughs at the same time.
"He's going to be fine after some rest." Raki turns back to give the other children a wave, that apparently eased their mind as they stopped crowding the downed child and take a few steps back. "Let's cut some branches and vines, make a couple of stretches and take Wel and our hunt home. I'd say we had our adventure for the day."
"Yes, from what I've seen, I certainly say you little ones did." A much more seasoned voice brings Mein's attention back. She turns around to look at the group of adult men with a single black filorial dragging the carcass of another porcupine with them. The man in the lead wears the same weathered brown traveling cloak, but has a distinct flame red tunic underneath to wrap over his bulging muscles. The as of yet unnamed hunter waves his tree trunk like arms around at the dead porcupine before finally settling onto his own chest and forehead. "Two porcupines on a day? Why, you little ones are outdoing me! Looks like I should have an early retirement, boys. Lute is in good hands."
His companions laughs at the over the top way the lead hunter plays up the fake drama.
The black filorial seems to be missing the joke, as he lets out a sad coo telling the muscle bond man how much he'll be missed.
"Ah, don't worry, Wolfgang old boy. I'm only kidding. What would this village do without its best hunter Gaston?" The hunter scratches his birdie gently on the chin, making it grumble in delight this time.
"Mister Gaston!" Raki jumps up to his feet. He quickly drags Naofumi over by the hand to meet the self-proclaimed best hunter in the village. "The Shield Hero is here! Isn't it great!? He'll help us defend ourselves!"
"The Shield Hero, you say?" Gaston walks forward and stops one pace before he bumps into the Shield Hero. Now that they are standing very close together, Mein can easily see how the muscle bond hunter easily stands a head taller than her Naofumi.
"Well, I better bring you to see old Georg."
End Note
Not sure if anyone noticed, but a lot of Lute village's child scout, mainly on how they use makeshift wood, bone and even stone equipment comes from the two Thea games. But yeah, the idea of the children from the world of Medea are considered legally adult comes from my messaging with Fluffball13, where she suggest manpower bleeding into Adventuring Industry would force the population to rely on children for a lots of jobs.
To some highlight Guest reviews:
I'm not sure the rabbit man's arm problem is only with the bones since I'm not an expert on natural born deformation. I kind of expect there's also a lot of things involved with both the blood vessels, nerves, not to mention Kyubey growing up only using one arm would probably require a lots of physical therapy to even learn how to use a new arm below his shoulder joint.
And on the possibility of Naofumi/Malty ship... I don't want to straight forward spoil too much. But yeah, he's already onto Malty as soon as the trial started. I'll leave it to everyone to figure out how it'll play out for now.
;)
To Night:
That would have been a fun idea for a non-canon omaka for sure! Although I don't have too much idea on how to expand it more. You do kind of give me an idea on how the mass exodus of demi-human away from Siltvelt may play out.
They are lead away by a mouse demi-human named Mickey, his hot tempered duck demi-human wizard friend Donald, and a good natured but scatterbrained shield using dog demi-human knight whose real name is lost to time, but is mostly remembered by his nickname 'Goofy'.