How did my life come to this point? I'm Naofumi Iwatani and I was once just a normal guy living his life, then I was pulled from that and warped into a world that was like the Midevil Dark Ages- no, that wasn't right. It was like a video game, as this world was filled with knights, kings and queens, monsters, and magic. But to top everything off I was one of the legendary heroes of the world, aptly titled the Shield Hero, and a magical shield was practically fused to my arm. It was the job of me and three others who were pulled from their home worlds to save this world from waves of powerful monsters who were trying to destroy it.
So with all that in mind, what would you assume I would be doing in my spare time? Maybe training and getting ready for the next monster attack, trying to explore and find things to help fight, or some other thing a legendary hero would do? It would make sense considering my duty and what I need to do. But as I stood in the middle of the road I pressed my fingers against my closed eyes as I tried to find the words to say as I stood over a little girl who looked about twelve years old, surrounded by other kids who looked her age.
"Is she dead?" A girl asked in a chipmunk squeaky voice, squatting down and poking the other girl with a stick, her canine ears folded back and her brown tail laid on the ground, everyone gasping at the question as they looked up at me. How did I go from being the hero of the world to basically a daycare worker/nanny?
"No," I sighed, "No she's not dead," I informed them all, gently grabbing the wolf girl's head and shoving her back. "Not yetanyway. If she doesn't start to listen to me then that'll be a different story, isn't that right, Atla!" I said directly to the girl on the ground, who whimpered and moved a bit, making the girl with the stick epp and jump back and everyone sighed in relief.
"M-master." The girl squeaked out, trying to push herself up off the ground but her skinny twig arms trembled and she crashed back to the dusty dirt road. "I-I… ok. I'm fine…" She tried to assure me, making me roll my eyes as I squatted down, lifted the girl in my arms, thankfully she was as light as a feather, and stood back up before resituating the girl so her face was revealed. The girl's face was smeared with yellow dust from the dirt road, and her long white and black hair was a mess and in knots from bedhead. Her face was tinted red and black bags were under her eyes. She was supposed to be in bed still as she wasn't feeling well, but the girl listened as well as a rock, hence why she was in the middle of the road impersonating a speed bump.
"If you're fine then I'm the future Queen of Faubley." I spat as the girl pulled herself closer to me and rested her head against my white shirt. Her round white and black tiger ears lowered as she wheezed out. Which may have been an attempt to get me to feel sorry and get out of a scolding, though that didn't sound like something Atla would do. She was more akin to puffing her cheeks out and pretending not to hear me, or just saying 'ok' and walking away, nothing to actually say she was sorry for not listening. "I'm getting you back to bed and you need to stay there," I told her as I started to walk forward, the crowd of other demi-humans quickly going back to whatever they were doing beforehand. But this just caused the girl to whine a bit more.
"I'm… not… sick…" Atla weekly repeated herself as she gave weak pants for air, it was clear that the girl was indeed sick despite what she was trying to say to me. "I'm… not… sick… not again."
But I didn't listen to her as I got her back to the little medic building that we had in the village. Nothing too big, it was about the size of one of our cabins that had I white sign with a red line with two snakes encircling it. Inside there were a few medical cots set up, a desk, and a dozen shelves with dried herbs and medicines on it. Normally there was someone who worked in the medic building, but they were nowhere in sight, probably out gathering more herbs or maybe something to eat.
"Where's your brother at?" I asked as I took the girl to one of the cots, a brown blanket tossed on the ground, where the girl should have been the entire time, and laid her back on the bed.
"Water." She squeaked out, wincing as she tried to turn onto her side, but I reached my hand out to stop her, knowing she was already trying to escape her bed rest.
"He's going to get water, or you need water?" I asked her, getting a head nod from the girl. Which didn't answer my question, but I guessed it was probably both. She probably sent her brother out to get her some water but used it as a way to get him to leave so she could escape. But she probably tired herself out getting as far as she did and needed a drink at the moment. So reaching behind me I untied the brown leather water vessel from my belt, pulled the cap off the horn-shaped vessel, put the hole to her lips, and gently held it up.
Soon the sound of the girl's GULP GULP GULP filled the air as she drank from the bottle. She didn't pull her lips away or try to signal that she was done until the bottle was emptied. Only then did she spit it out and take deep breaths, gasping for breath in but wheezing and squeaking as she exhaled.
"Ok, wait here and your brother should be back soon," I ordered her and turned to leave the medic building, figuring the other white tiger demi-human should be back soon. But the boy was going to get an earful about this sooner or later. His sister usually managed to get away from him, but in her sick and weakened state, there was no reason that should be happening. "Rest and get better," I ordered sternly, glaring down at the girl, though her eyes stayed shut due to her blindness.
"No, not sick!" She tried to tell me again and even tried to sit up. But after managing to raise her head a couple of inches from her pillow he body gave out and her head was swallowed by the fluffy white pillow once again, a rainbow of feathers shooting out of it. I was getting ready to get after her again, she needed rest and there was no shame in that. But before I could she squeaked out. "Not… not again…" before letting out a sniffle.
Upon hearing this I froze as I looked at Atla, her body starting to shiver as her shoulders bounced a bit. I hadn't completely forgotten about how the girl was when I first met her as she was sick and lying in a cage. She had been too weak to walk and barely talk, not too different than how she was now, though what she had now was just a bad flu or maybe a case of food poisoning- that's what I get for letting the Sword Hero try and cook dinner for the entire village on his own. But due to a powerful batch of potions made from Yggdrasil leaves she was cured and was able to learn how to walk, fight, and cause her fair share of issues like the other demi-humans in town did, not that the trouble was anything bad just childish things like accidentally kicking a ball through a window. With how well she was doing nowadays it could be easy to forget that there was once a time when she was so sick it was assumed she was probably just going to die in the cell I found her and her brother in.
"Atla." I sighed after a couple of seconds and walked over to the girl and sat on a wooden stool that was by her bed, her brother probably had been using it to sit and keep an eye on the girl, and sat so I was looking at her face.
"I-I don't w-want to go back to being l-like that." She stuttered out, tears slowly falling down her face, sparkling as the sun's light hit them. "I-I'm your s-s-shield. I n-need to-to be strong to do t-that." She said, throwing out her self-appointed title.
"Listen," I sighed, reaching my hand over and gently placing a hand on her forehead, which was practically burning hot, making her tiger ears perk up as she breathed in and out. "You're not going to be like that again. You're cured of that and it won't ever come back. But that doesn't mean you won't ever get sick again. And just because you're sick that doesn't mean you'll never recover." I tried to explain, "Understand?
"But…" She said, bringing her arm up to her nose and wiping it clean of the snot that was starting to drip.
"But if you don't rest so you can recover, then you might make it to where you can never fully recover from it." I pressed on, moving my hand up to her head, and gently petted her head, a trick that I learned to help demi-humans calm down, though I only did it to the demi-humans in my party or in the village. Doing it to a random demi-human I didn't know would definitely lead to unwanted consequences. "So rest!" I ordered her one final time, making her whimper and growl a bit, and hearing the defiant growl made me smirk. "And I'm going to stay here until your brother gets back to make sure you do," I informed her, removing my hand from her head, moving the stool to the wall, and sitting down, sighing in relief with my back resting against the wall. But I returned my hand to the girl's head, I had dealt with demi-humans long enough to know they liked to be petted in times like this, and helped calm them down especially when they were little like Atla.
Atla did seem to calm down as I stayed there, she had even stopped crying after I told her she wasn't going to go back to her old state of living. So she just laid there, leaning her head into the pets as she breathed steadily. The only thing that could be heard was the sound of her breathing, the light breeze outside that rushed through the open windows of the med building, and the sound of the bugs buzzing outside. Thankfully all of this was happening on the rare calm days that showed themselves once in a blue moon, the last thing I needed was to be fighting bandits trying to raid the village and worried about whether Atla was captured or trying to fight them.
"M-master," The girl said softly, making me turn to the girl. "Thank you for staying with me and making me feel better."
"It's no problem Atla, but I'm not making you feel better. Rest is doing that," I said, resisting lecturing the girl about how she should just stay there even if I wasn't there, but I figured it could wait until later and either way, it would fall on deaf ears.
"C-can I ask you for a favor?" She asked next, keeping her face pointed forward instead of towards me like she normally would.
"What?" I asked, "I'm not letting you out of bed until you sleep, so don't bother asking." I said, raising an eyebrow at her.
"No that's not it." She said, slowly shaking her head before letting out a cough as her eyebrows furrowed. "No, never mind, it was stupid." She admitted, her cheeks growing a bit more red.
"Come on, Atla, tell me" I groaned, it was weird seeing the girl being so sheepish about something. Considering it was the same girl who tied up her brother so she could sneak into my room, being embarrassed didn't seem to be her style.
"It was nothing!" She insisted, puffing her cheeks out before sighing and turning to me. "I-I know you're not one… But you do so much for all of us and kind of act like one… just for now… could I call you dad?" She asked, her entire face turning red as she turned her face away from me, causing my eyes to shoot open wide, I hadn't been expecting that question from her. "See it was a stupid-."
"Go ahead, kid." I sighed, rolling my eyes again as I continued to pet her, "Only if you promise to try and sleep though!" I told her, making her whip her head to me, a small smile on her face.
"Deal… Dad." She said, taking a deep breath in and a shaky breath out before wiggling in the bed a bit to get into a more comfortable position before sighing in relief and a smile on her face. As I kept petting her head soon the girl's breathing steadied out and a light snak escaped her lips as she softly snored. But I stayed by her side and continued to pet the girl, just like I said I would. Though I closed my eyes and rested my head back against the wall. Off in the distance, I could hear kids playing, the sound of something being chopped on the cutting board- Raphtalia was on dinner duty tonight, and the sound of metal hitting metal, probably from weapons training.
"Atla! I'm sorry it took so long! I had to boil the water and find someone to cool it!" Someone said as they burst into the med building, "Oh Master Naofumi!" He said, making me open my eyes and see who it was, though it wasn't too hard to guess. A tiger boy who looked about 14 years old, his white and black hair cut short beside a braid that fell down the side of his head. He wore a black shirt, brown pants, and brown leather boots, and in his hand were a few water vessels in his hand.
"Sh," I said, raising a finger to my lips before nodding my head to the boy's sister, who was still snoring away. "Leave those here. I got things handled here, go have some fun, Fohl." I said to him. He first gave me an uncertain look before nodding his head, dropping the waterskins at the counter, and leaving, realizing that it wasn't exactly a request, leaving just Atla and me in the medbay.