Chapter 2: A proper set up
"What are you doing?" Melty asked.
"Isn't it obvious, I'm cleaning up." Naofumi swung a sledge hammer she found at a run down house's walls. The very unstable building couldn't stand anymore without its foundations, and it fell to the ground.
"One down… who knows how much to go."
"Let me rephrase that last question. Why are you doing that?"
"If we ever want to replace the houses, we need to get rid of the old run down bricks. I thought you out of all people would know that."
"[All Zweite Fissure.]" Melty touched the ground and it immediately started to rumble. Cracks shot out from her and traveled across the ground, until it reached and knocked down several buildings. "What I mean, is that there are faster ways of doing this."
"Show off." Naofumi threw away his hammer and walked over to a small tent. Pouring himself and Melty a glass of water, he sat down on the ground and drank.
"So, what were you doing while I was taking down building after building."
"Good or bad news?"
"You choose the order, I'll be disappointed in either way."
"Well when confirming with the shadows, it appears that many of the original slaves were found and was either handed or taken from the owners."
"And what of the bad news?"
"It seems that all the adults died, so only the children are left."
"How convenient." Naofumi groaned. "Not only do we have zero trade of any kind, but I also have to build a village with the combined effort of 13 year olds."
"Actually, a good majority of them are ten."
"That does not make things any better. I'm so stumped that I can't even figure out any ideas to make this shit work."
"I was thinking that we could mine out the mountain's valley for stone, and sell that. We can even buy some filolial so we can transport them."
"I guess that could work, perhaps we can set up trade for some other resources other villages lack. Melty, what's the area with the most wood?"
"That would be Riyute. They're surrounded by forest and swamps."
"Great, contact the lord there and tell him we want to set up a trade deal. You work on the specifics of the trade contract while I get the villagers in line."
"Why am I getting the difficult job!" Melty complained.
"You know a lot more about this stuff than I do. The most village building I know of is a couple of simulator games."
"I'm surprised mother wanted to make you a lord."
"I was thinking the exact same thing."
/~/
Naofumi walks across the village entrance. Slaves being lined up in rows by several muscular men. Across the line are children with the properties of animals, everyone Naofumi walks past has either a tail, animal ears, or even wings much to Naofumi's amusement. Everyone else in the line looked back at Naofumi with a bit of fear in their eyes. A couple tried to stay confident, but would back down the second he got closer.
"Alright you idiots, welcome to your homecoming. Starting today, much to the annoyance of the princess and all the couple of you. Are now becoming my slaves."
A couple of the kids tried to speak up, but Naofumi's scowl silenced them all.
"As I was saying, you are now my slaves. Don't worry too much about it though, as I kept the seal on for two specific reasons. The first will not be mentioned, and this is to keep you guys from lying to me. Liars are scum, and if you lie to me, I will kick you in the shin while you're writhing in pain on the ground."
"Naofumi!" Melty scolded.
"Fine. Anyways the second reason as to why you're here is because this is your village, and as you can see, it got the shit beaten out of it. If you all want to return back to your normal lives, then I'm going to need the cooperation of everyone here. Am I clear!"
Naofumi looks over to the slaves who all seem to be too scared to even answer him. A couple of them even cried when he looked in their general direction.
"Well I left an impression."
"Being a brutal dictator doesn't make you a good leader."
"Never said I was trying to be one." Naofumi pushed Melty aside and pulled out a piece of parchment.
"Alright then. Before we start, are there any questions? And yes, this means you can speak."
A couple kids immediately raised their hands, so Naofumi chose at random and chose a dog kid.
"Yeah, where are we getting released?"
"When I say you do, next." Naofumi pointed over to another kid, this one being a girl with squirrel-like features.
"A-a-are you going to h-hurt us mister?"
"That depends, do your jobs, you'll be fine. Be defiant, and you'll be feeling a shock?" That question immediately put a good majority of the kids at ease, but a few of them still raised their hands.
"Alright last one. What the question, weasel kid?"
"Um yes. Are you perhaps the shield hero?"
"Yes, is that truly all?" The crowd starts to talk and even several more kids throw up their hands in the hopes of getting their question answered, but Noafumi silences them all once more.
"SHUT IT! That was the last question as of now. If you have any more, then ask me later." The crowd groaned as Naofumi started to write down on his paper. Now go grab a shovel and meet me by that hill in 0900 hours."
The slaves looked on confused at the order.
"I mean 9 o'clock."
The kids still looked confused, and a couple of them raised their hands.
"In thirty minutes." Naofumi slapped his head out of annoyance. "Seriously, can none of you read a damn clock."
"Sorry master!" A good majority of the kids ran off to find a shovel, while a couple of them walked off as they gave a scowl towards Naofumi.
"Well that was a speech."
"Thanks."
"That wasn't a compliment."
"I know. You want to join them?"
"What are you having them do exactly?"
"Funeral for their families."
"Really? I don't think I ever saw myself saying this. But that was actually very nice of you… what's the ulterior motive?"
"What. You're saying I shouldn't allow these kids to have closure."
"No, I'm asking why you're allowing them to have closure. Don't think you can fool me."
"Well you're correct about their being an ulterior motive, but do keep in mind that these children have just gone through some traumatizing event. So I'm using this moment to both help them bury the past, as well as giving them motivation to work harder, a foolproof plan."
"How can one be so wholesome and evil at the same time."
"Don't forget, I'm called the shield devil for a reason."
/~/
Day 2
"Master! We're hungry!" A collective of whined.
"The hell, this is your 7th meal today. And it's still breakfast!"
"But master." A beaver girl pouted. But Naofumi wasn't fooled and ignored her.
"No. If you're hungry, go hunt and cook it yourself. I am no longer making extra snacks that's not Breakfast, lunch, or dinner."
"Aww." The group of kids all sadly walked away with their daggers, and entered the forest.
Naofumi continued on his task of breaking down the remaining houses with a sledgehammer, until Melty came to him riding Hamon.
"Naofumi, Naofumi. We found the jackpot."
"I'm listening."
"The abundance of herbs we found during yesterday's expedition were of high quality. Now with this, the apothecary at the castle town said we could sell it for 1 silver per ounce, but I was thinking we can make it into medicine, and sell it for 22 silvers per bottle." Melty pulls out a book from her Filolial's bag and hands it over to Naofumi.
"You figured out all of this in 15 hours?"
"Of course. A princess must be prepared to adapt and strive in any scenario. Hamon here is one of the royals fastest Filolial, so I immediately ran back to town to get these checked out. Trust me, as long as I'm here, chances of complete and utter failure are dropped to 5%."
"What's the five percent then?"
"You."
"...Well fuck you too." Naofumi opened the book and started to glance over the recipes. "So I'm assuming we're building a trading empire then."
"Of course. We have many routes. Fishing, stone trade, monster hunting. Unless we want to try the Zeltoble approach and build a private army. But that has a very little chance of success."
"All this confidence and planning and you're still afraid of the dark. Looks like being a kid doesn't change, even if you're royal."
"You shut it, I am not a kid." Melty proceeded to continuously jab Naofumi's shoulder, but he didn't feel a thing.
"Speaking of stone. How's the mining going?"
Melty stops her assault and blushes a bit before grabbing a scroll from her Filolials bag. "Not well. We are trying our best, but it seems that a bunch of ten year olds at level one don't have the necessary strength to move a bunch of rocks."
"I thought so. Looks like we need to raise levels first before starting any real labor then. I'll get Stern and the rest of the kids to make more hunting trips then." Naofumi swung the sledge hammer and knocked out a bunch of bricks, bringing the house down.
"Who is stern?"
"You know, the dog kid, one of our best fighters, surprisingly feminine despite being a dude."
"Oh, You do know that his name is Keel right?"
"Really? Must have confused it with another part of a ship then."
"What?"
"Doesn't matter. I- what the!" Naofumi jumped back as the ground beneath him bursted open.
"Master, Master!" A girl with rabbit ears appeared from the hole in the ground.
"What the."
"Sorry, I was making a tunnel system for my burrow until Alia told me that Sadeena has returned."
"Who?"
"No time to explain, follow me." The girl went back underground, leaving Naofumi and Melty confused.
"Did you ask for a secret tunnel?"
"That's what I was planning on asking you. How do we even follow here?"
/~/
"Sadeena you're back!" Several kids whined. When Naofumi and Melty came over, they saw a killer whale being surrounded by almost the entire village, every kid bawling their eyes out as Sadeena tried to comfort them.
"Oh my. Whatever happened here."
"It was terrwible, they was cwacks, monsters, it was scawy."
"Cracks? Does that mean… Raphtalia, where are your parents?"
"T-they're." The raccoon girl starts to cry as Sadeena brings her into a hug. The rest of the kids also converge into the killer whale, and do a group hug.
"I'm so sorry to you all. I should have been here to help."
"D-don't be. It was impossible to t-tell." The kids continued on with their group hug, until Naofumi coughs to get all their attention.
"Sorry to ruin the heartfelt moment, but who are you exactly?"
"Oh my, a new face. Is there a friend of yours?"
"He's the n-new lord of this place." A kid replied, still crying.
"Lord? Whatever happened to seatto?"
"Also dead, now who are you?"
"Perhaps we should have this talk away from the children. I don't want them to know."
"I'm fine with that, follow us."
/~/
"Zeltoble?"
"Indeed. I saw that the town was run through when I returned from my trip. I thought it was slavers at first but I never would have expected a wave would hit here."
"It was sort of a joint effort. But the slavers getting several slaves over the line is insane."
"They do indeed work fast. Perhaps."
"Naofumi, NO!" Melty demanded.
"Fine."
Naofumi cleared his mind of all his evil thoughts, and continued to talk to the whale. "So why come back here if you were so convinced Lurorona slaves were in Zeltoble?"
"Rumors travel far. There was so much celebration about the shield hero being cleared of his crimes, and taken over a town for the demi humans Life works in mysterious ways."
"So if you knew, why act dumb around the kids?"
"Reassurance. I want kids to know that everything will be fine. I already had enough earnings from my previous matches to buy some of them back, so I'll be shipping them back home soon enough."
"Really? That quickly."
I
"You'll be surprised at how cheap children can be. Only the real creeps take them and even if they do, they get bored in like a day or two because they can't do any real work. Leveling them up isn't an option as well. Since if they level up too far, the possibilities of revolt are extremely high."
"What an odd slave dynamic this world has."
"It's not that good of a system. Mother has been trying to abolish it for months, but the opportunity of free labor intrigues people."
"Which will lead me to this." Sadeena picked up Naofumi by the forehead and raised him up. The killer whale was surprisingly tall and not so surprisingly strong to the shield hero. "If you end up causing any harm to these kids and especially little Raphtalia. I'll use your body as a lightning rod. Are we clear."
"Not that I was planning to hurt anyone anyways but sure."
"Then care to explain their crest?"
"Well I was planning on removing it, but I found a very useful ability." Naofumi shield enveloped itself in a green light, changing it's form to that of a silver shield with the slave crest symbol engraved onto it. "It seems that being a slave actually powers the kids up, which is why I'm keeping them under key for now. Once I leave this world, it'll give them a huge survival advantage against other factions trying to enslave them again."
"And may I add, security. Naofumi can track the slaves down in the event they are taken, making it trivially easy to prevent another situation like last time from happening."
"Is that true?"
"Yes! Now let me down you overgrown lump of bubbler." Naofumi swings his arms in an attempt to escape from the killer whale.
"Oh my. You have a harsh way of treating women." The killer whale is enveloped into a puff of smoke, soon rising from the smoke seconds later in a human form. The woman is extremely tall with long black hair in a ponytail, and clothes that reveal almost everything. "Will this be a better form for little Naofumi."
"Don't patronize me." Naofumi is dropped to the ground as Sadeena undoes her ponytail, dropping her long flowing hair to her knees, and releasing a bottle of what appears to be while from it.
"Fine, I'll accept your excuse. But there's only one thing I need to do before truly accepting you as a lord." Sadeena kicks the ground, making the earth between Naofumi and Melty shake as well as making a large fissure in the ground. She then reaches for the area she just cracked open and pulls out a large stone, where she places two cups onto it.
Naofumi starts to slowly back away from the killer whale as she starts to pour in the whine. But a quick grab on his collar prevented him from escaping.
"Come on, it's just a drinking contest. Let's see if you can truly hold your liquor, shield hero."
/~/
Naofumi is forced to have a drinking match against Sadeena. At first it was going well. Both parties drank their respective shots and continued on, but it was only when the 23rd shot came by was when Melty thought something was up. Not only were Naofumi and Sadeena still going strong, but neither side seemed to show any signs of wavering any time soon.
"If only sis was here to see this. Then I can only imagine the excuses at this point." Melty thought as she watched on.
Around the 32nd round was when things started to heat up. Many of the village children in the area all gathered around the makeshift table to watch the battle. Sadeena after all this time seemed to start showing signs of becoming drunk, while Naofumi was still fine, even after all the drinks he had.
"Looks like… little Naofumi can hold his drink."
"Never said I couldn't. By the way, I'm not paying for any potions if you end up becoming sick because of this."
"No need to worry about me. This whale can certainly… certainly hold her drink." Sadenna pulled out another bottle, this time being under her loincloth, and poured another shot.
Naofumi immediately tossed the cup away, and forced Sadenna to grab another bottle before continuing. By the time Sadeena came back, the entire village was there to watch the great Sadenna fall. The drinks kept pouring in as Sadeena seemed to half bottle after bottle ready in some obscure place, only for Naofumi to drink through it all without any effect on him. At one point, the killer whale got extremely frustrated, and placed a bowl of fruits on the table.
"Forcing me to use my secret weapon. You're a tough one." The killer whale grabbed one of the fruits and put it in a barrel of water the kids dragged over.
"This wine here is one of, if not the strongest wine you can legally acquire. A true test to see if- WHAT HAPPENED TO THE FRUIT!" The killer whale panicked and immediately checked several of the kids' mouths to see if they taken any.
"Calm down, none of them touched it. I've been eating them since you put them out."
"But that was 7 fruits."
"Sorry, were they expensive?"
"Naofumi. You just ate the equivalent of 7 barrels of wine, don't you even feel anything!" Melty exclaimed.
"Not really. The taste was gr- wait did you just say 7 barrels?"
The killer whale had no words. She looked over to the empty bowl of fruit and fell to the ground.
"Umm… will she be okay?"
"Yeah, this tends to happen a lot. Alright, you guys know the drill!" Several of the kids all came over and hoisted Sadeena over their shoulders. They then carried her over to the tent and laid her to sleep.
"Finally, it's over." Naofumi got up from his rock table and stared at the kids looking at him.
"What are you waiting for, get back to work!" Naofumi yelled, sending all the kids away. As the kids ran off, one Raccoon girl stayed.
"I-I just wanted to say sir shield hero. Congratulations." The embarrassed raccoon ran off to a seemingly pissed off weasel immediately afterwards, leaving Naofumi and Melty alone once more.
"The hell is that supposed to mean?"
/~/
Bonus Story: Digging a hole.
"Alright everyone listen up. We need to get this burrow/tunnel system in tip top shape for master Naofumi."
"Yes Delia." A group of 6 rabbits and 3 moles all saluted to their boss. A young white rabbit girl wearing a blue dress.
"Great. Donfay, Hyram, and Qutellin. Take your route and expand across the housing district. Ivan, Terrance, and Laurium. Gather your hollow out this area. Finally, Jane, Lucy, and Lygar. You do your best to keep the foundation okay."
"Yes Delia." The groups all started to dig their separate paths, digging upwards and hollowing out the areas around them. When Delia was about to start helping, a girls yell can start to be heard from the outside.
"Delia… DELIA!"
"WHAT!" The rabbit screamed back. Looking up, she sees a squirrel with an extremely big and fluffy tail.
"Alia, why are you yelling?"
"Sorry Del, but Sadeena. She's back."
"For real."
"Did you say Sadeena?"
"Is she really alive?"
"Shut it! Let her finish." Delia ordered, silencing the kids.
"She's on the beach right now. That's why I came to grab you guys."
"That's amazing. We should tell lord Naofumi."
"Yeah, but I want to see big sis."
"Then I guess someone is going to have to go… not it."
"Not it!"
"Not- damn it."
"Delia, watch your mouth."
"Don't mother me Alia." The white rabbit went back into her burrow and started to dig towards Naofumi's current location.