This is a Full Metal Alchemist and Rising of the Shield Hero Fanfiction only.

As I walked into the apothecary I pretty much as ready to hear that the medicines I made were garbage, I never done this before in my life so my lack of experience would be something I have to acknowledge, the little experience I have is thanks to the memories I got from the previous shield heroes.

I could also think that he could call them garbage to either lower the price that he pays for them or to protect himself by stating that his medicines are of a better quality, let's face it, if I was an immoral person, as soon as he mentions my medicines are a good enough quality to be promised a good price, I could turn around and open my own medicine distribution business, I won't, but I could.

As I placed the bottle on the counter the man looked at it, then he smelled it and finally he tasted it, really dangerous again if I was immoral, that could have been poisoned. He looked at me and at the now-closed bottle.

"How long has it been since you know how to blend medicines?" I looked at him and have no desire to lie, I told him the truth, ever since I unlocked the ability in one of my shields. So I told him at most two days.

He smiled and began to laugh, "Well if you got this done with only two days of experience and some hand me down equipment I gave you, I got to say, I will be very happy to purchase as much medicine as you can provide, indeed, the people of this city will be better off since you appeared in their lives, even if they don't know it."

He took the bottle and placed it beneath the counter, "I will pay you six silver pieces for every bottle of this medicine, and since you will provide me with medicines of this quality I will also pay to improve your blending equipment. Call it an investment on a fruitful friendship."

I had nothing to say except thank the man for this and I could practically feel him smiling as we left his business. "So Raphtalia, you did a wonderful job what would you want as a reward?" Raphtalia was not even listening she was looking at some kids pay with an orange colored ball.

The thing must be made using the skin of one of the orange balloons, heck I got plenty of those and Aunty Winry taught me how to sew to repair my clothes, and uniforms, so making a ball shouldn't be that much trouble.

I still don't know why she would want one, she has gone up against orange balloons for an entire day, you would think she got tired of being around them, heck some of them still are trying to bite into my limbs right now. If they were a little friendly I guess they would make wonderful pets but doesn't seem to be the case.

I made the ball and I realized Raphtalia was looking at the kids play and she completely ignores me the entire time I was making the ball. "Raphtalia could you look over here, I got something for you to play with." I handed her the ball and her tailed began to wag if she was a dog I would say she was really happy.

"You can play with that after we get done working each day, now come on, we still have all these pieces we got from the monsters to sell. If we get done soon why I could play catch with you how does this sound?" Honestly, if her tail wags with a little more strength I will not be surprised if she started to hover.

As I said this one of the kids came and snatched the ball from her. "A lousy demihuman has no right to own a ball like she was a real person. Beat it stupid demi, this is my ball now!" There are a few things that trigger in me this level of rage, and bullies just happen to be one of them.

Ever since I was in my basic education, kids used to make fun of me because my father was called by many the Casanova of Central. They called my father every insulting name for a dog they could think off, but it was when they called my mother a bitch that I reacted like I am feeling right now.

"So you like the orange ball I made, why your friends don't have a third ball, why don't I give you three another ball for you to play with." I put my hand inside my cloak and took hold of one of the orange balloons that has been trying to bite me. I managed to get him loose and I looked at the punks, the smiling punks that dared to bully Raphtalia.

It was by accident that she looked at what I was holding, she began to yell for them to run away, they ignored her till they saw the orange balloon who looked at them with this sadistic glee in his eye and licking his own lips. They saw that and the took off leaving the ball I made for Raphtalia.

I let go of the balloon and he bounced on the ground before jumping under my cloak and tried to bite me again. "Master, you can't do that to them, you will get in trouble." I guess Raphtalia was more worried about me than I realized.

"Why would I be in trouble Raphtalia? I was just going to give those three the punishment they deserve for insulting you, taking your ball, and basically bullying you. I still think this orange balloon could be an excellent pet, don't cry, nothing bad happened."

I swear the balloon bite down on me extra hard when I said that, call me crazy but I think these homicidal creatures understand exactly what I am saying sometimes. "No, I don't want you to get in trouble because of me, I rather them taking the ball than you getting hurt because of me!"

Raphtalia was crying, heck, I pulled her close and put my fingers through her hair trying to calm her down. "Come on, you know I don't like to see you cry, we need to go back to that dumpster of a room and sleep, we got a lot of things to do tomorrow, the waves are coming we need to be ready."

As I made it back to the room she sat down on one of the twin beds in our room. I am simply too tired to undress, I simply decided to drop on my bed and try to get to sleep. I know this is going to be hard since the first day we slept in the same room I figured she suffers from night terrors.

It happened when we had to camp out the first time, she was so scared and crying I tried to reassure her that she was safe but she kept asking for forgiveness to her mother then to her father, that is when it hit me, she feels guilty that she survived the first wave and they didn't. I have to do something about this, have to get her to face her fears somehow, or else I will never be able to sleep at night. Yep, need my sleep.

I got pretty used to making medicines as we walk through the fields, and having some nearby helps if she ever starts to cough, but I need some minerals, some metals and such I am out of options because I already mastered all the plant-based shields, and the monsters are giving me really low experience.

I decided to ask someone I trust for some advice, he is from here, and well he probably knows what we can handle since he probably gives this sort of advice to adventurers all the time in his business.

We both walked towards the counter and I looked at the person I needed to talk with, "Erhard you know the kind of gear we got, so is there a town nearby? A town with a mine of some kind? I need to find myself a good source of metals."

Erhard looked at Raphtalia and then at me, "Well seeing that you probably have a few levels on you, and the gear you bought from me, I guess the nearest mining town is a nice peaceful place named Lute. The only problem is that monsters around that town tend to be a little bit more vicious than near the Capital, so you two should really be careful."

I looked at him and began to shake my head as he finished saying that, "I know you are saying it for Raphtalia, this city sure is creepy the way grown men act with little girls, you are a bunch of lolicons and I am surprised that hasn't become a new religion."

He glared at me and began to laugh, "If this city has a lolicon church, then you Roy are the unofficial archbishop of it. Stop kidding around, I only said it because I don't want to lose two of my best customers."

I was about to tell him we were his only customers but I am simply not as cruel to do that to him. "Well thanks for the advice, come on Raphtalia we got a long way to go and only three more weeks before the wave comes."

As we left Raphtalia became quite and as we walked in the open fields she became really quiet, that was making me nervous. "Why do you have to risk fighting the waves?" Didn't someone tell her, I think the slave merchant even called me by my title, why would Raphtalia need to know that.

As I wondered what a bunny looking monster jumped at me and bit my hand, the wound began to bleed covering my hand and as I tried to get the monster to let go the blood that came from my wound covered my other glove. I have no torches, I can't even light one, and this rabbit monster is digging his fangs into my hand.

"Raphtalia take out your knife and kill this thing." I held the monster with my other hand pushing both towards Raphtalia but she was in a ball, 'I can't do that, if I stab that, he will bleed, I don't like blood, please don't ask me to do that."

I guess this was the first thing I will do to get her to get over her own demons. "Raphtalia, I can't do anything, my hands are wet with my blood, and I can't cause damage to this monster with just my shield. I need your help, I will not be able to fight off the waves of calamity if you don't help me."

She finally stopped crying, "You really are going to fight against the waves of calamity?" I told her I had to, I am the shield hero it is my duty, but without her help, I might not even be able to do that. She jumped from where she with her knife in hand and she ran towards the rabbit monster I was holding, she stabbed it clean through.

"You really are the shield hero then, alright, I will help you. I thought it was a lie that slave merchant said when he called you the shield hero, but I see you didn't lie to me." She took medicine from my belt pouch and splashed it on my hand, damn, that hurts, she began to laugh as she saw how much pain I was in.

She looked at me with a smile, "That only means you are getting better right?" I swear some time in the future I will remind her of this. Little kid trying to act all grown up. I hate to admit it but it is rather cute.

I fed the rabbit monster to my shield and sure enough it unlocked another shield, I placed my ripped gloves in a transmutation circle with few rags, I did the necessary things and the gloves mended. Raphtalia looked at the whole thing with this awe look on her face.

"It is nothing Raphtalia, I am an Alchemist by profession you know, with enough materials I can do something this basic, then again without healing my injury like you did I probably couldn't do it." She looked away acting all shy, I guess I am getting used to having Raphtalia around I decided that once she learns to fight and gets over her fears I am going to have that slave crest removed.

I think someone will eventually try and take advantage of the fact she is a slave to use that against me, and she deserves better than this, the slave merchant pretty much forced the slave crest on her and that simply is not fair, if she wants to be my companion or have the crest on, I am going to give her the choice, she deserves it.

As we walked towards the town we realized that those rabbits are no better than those balloons, honestly, we could not walk ten feet when another one of these creatures tried to attack me, or maybe they are attracted to us by the smell of blood on my shield. I don't even know if I can wash it.

As we finally made to Lute, we killed ten of the rabbit monsters fed three of them to my shield to master the shield that it unlocked and walked towards the nearest merchant to sell the pelts that I managed to get from the remaining rabbit monsters, it seems the shield that unlocked gave me the ability to butcher animals and a passive bonus to the quality of things I got from the animals that I cut apart.

"Hey, how much for this pelt?" He looked at it for a little while and then looked at me with a smile. "This is really a really good Usagi pelt, I say about three silver pieces each." Not a bad price, so I decided to sell them and maybe be able to stay here rather than go back to the capital, for some odd reason I felt like tonight I should be as far away from the capital as I could be.

"Hey, do you happen to know of a mine where a guy could get some metals? That would really help me out." The same guy who bought the pelts looked at me and became really quiet it seems this made him think about something unpleasant.

"You wouldn't know it but this place was a really popular place for people to come to work in that a mine, but ever since the last wave, well monsters decided to move in and it made the entire mining company shut down, nobody will go down there, and they say the capital summoned heroes to help."

He looked at me, "I don't know about these so-called heroes but if you ask me they are not doing anything other than enjoying the high life at the expense of us common folk." I guess I understand where he is coming from, and the fact that I don't think the other heroes take this situation seriously doesn't help matters.

"Well, I am going down to the mine, let's see if I can do anything help clear it out. Do you think that would help your town a little?" He began to laugh and said that if I did manage to clear out the mine then people could earn a decent living again, if I managed to do that well then I would really help them out, he might even give me a discount for any future purchases I make with him.

All in all, I don't think this is a bad deal, get a discount on things I might need and help a bunch of nice people, the term win-win suddenly came to mind. We both walked down the slope that leads to the mine and we began to see the damage the monsters were doing, and we even saw the remains of what looked to be miners that didn't quite make it.

This was not what Raphtalia expected, she was shaking so bad I was genuinely concerned. As we stepped into the mine I saw that the mine was littered with half broken mining tools since they are broken why not put them so good use, I repaired most of them as much as I could using what little iron and materials I could find.

I fed some of them into my shield and again the shield opened two shields, one that increased my success at mining by telling me where to strike, and a minor improvement on quality of the ore mined. The other shield was not that exciting or useful at first, a rope shield, I am not even kidding a shield that looks like it was a bunch of rope rolled up to look like a small shield.

I kept looking at most the equip skill was that it would allow me to use the rope as an actual rope, it generates it from itself, and the second ability was something that I found strange, Air Strike Shield, "Might as well try it, AIR STRIKE SHIELD!" The second I did, a see-through shield appeared right before me.

I touched it and realized this shield was made of energy and it was solid enough to stand on, and take a significant hit without breaking, this means using this skill I could literally make a platform to get to higher ground or make a trap for enemies when they tried to reach us simply by placing this shield over a deep pit.

I began to hit it hard and realized that if I could summon it as I imagined to send it towards an enemy then it would be a strike using a shield that looks like it can float in the air. I guess that is why this skill is called like that. I ended the shield by concentrating and picked up a pick, "Is something the matter Master?" Raphtalia was concerned about me, well that was rather nice of her, I better think of something nice I can do for her as a means of thanking her.