After Raphtalia came back to the room, they spent most of the evening working on their studies, Raphtalia read magic books that the magic shop lady gave to them while Naofumi crafted potions from the herbs they gathered from the day before. Shortly after waking up, Raphtalia noticed cracks forming from the egg they bought from the slave trader.
"It looks like it's about to hatch!" Both of them walked over to the egg and noticed large cracks starting to form. Something that seemed to be feathers could be seen from the cracks.
"What is…" The egg popped open showing a little monster's head poking out.
"Cheep!" A small chick broke out of the shell allowing its pink feathers to be shown. Some of the shell was still on top of its head when it looked towards Naofumi.
"Cheep!" It suddenly jumped up to Naofumi trying to climb onto him. It made a few attempts to get to the top of his head, but always bumped back down to the counter. The chick started jumping and running around on the counter, upset at its setbacks.
"What is this thing? A PikuPiku?"
Naofumi knew the slave trader sold him a filolial egg with a chance of it being a dragon egg, but, then again, this was a product from the slave trader. It could have just been a cheap monster that looked like a filolial and he would argue that Naofumi didn't raise it right and that's why it looked different.
"No, I'm pretty sure it's a filolial. I haven't seen them up close, but I've seen other filolial chicks from afar and it looks the same... I think."
Naofumi raised his palm out to the little monster, and it jumped right on. From there it flew up to the top of his head using his hair to catch it from falling.
"Cheeep!" As soon as it landed it started jumping on his head and nuzzled his hair. Even Naofumi couldn't deny it was extremely cute.
"Oh, look! It thinks you're its mama, Mr. Naofumi."
"It's probably a type of imprinting." Raphtalia raised her finger to the little chick. It stopped jumping around to investigate the new scent.
"It's so cute." Right as she said that the little filolial looked at her with saliva on its beak and then bit down hard on her finger.
"Hey! I'm not your food." Naofumi covered his mouth as he gave a small chuckle.
"It's probably hungry, considering it was just born and all. We should head down to the vill…" A loud banging from their room's door interrupted Naofumi.
"Shield Hero! Shield Hero!" Naofumi begrudgingly went to answer the door.
"What is it?" When he opened the door an older man with a panicked expression was standing there panting from exhaustion.
"Shield Hero, Big Frogs and Salamanders are attacking the village. I know this village already owes you a great debt for defending us during the wave, but could you please defend the village once again?!" Naofumi sighed while casually rubbing the back of his neck.
"Why don't you go bother that knight? I'm sure he would be ecstatic to show off to the village."
"Sir Momon is not here! He left a few hours ago to dispose of the last of the remains of the wave monsters. He might not be back in time to help us."
Naofumi walked back into the room and looked out of the window.
'Wow, this village really can't get a break.'
Outside of the window, he could see over a dozen Salamanders and Big Frogs of varying colors and sizes making their way toward the village with more coming out of the swamp's border. Villagers scattered about trying to find weapons or improvising on their own to defend themselves. Raphtalia came up to Naofumi as he thought about the pros and cons of helping the village.
"Mr. Naofumi, we were planning on going to the swamp regardless, weren't we? Besides, those kinds of monsters will be easier to take down in an open field." Naofumi looked at her for a moment and nodded. He turned back to the old man, who was looking at him with concern.
"I'll help you…" The man's face lit up, but before he could thank him, Naofumi continued. "But only under two conditions." Naofumi raised his pointer finger.
"First, you must answer this question." Naofumi gestured to the top of his head. "Is this monster a filolial chick or not?"
"Cheep!" The chick greeted the old man.
"Ehh? Ah…" The old man looked at the chick and quickly nodded.
"Yes, that's a filolial chick. Now can you please…" Naofumi interrupted the old man, raising a second finger.
"Second, I want enough food that could feed an average filolial for a month. Payment for defending the village."
"Ah, yes, of course. I will even personally provide the feed and anything else to assist your filolial growth. Now please, help my village!" Naofumi smirked.
"Alright, I'll take care of the monsters attacking the village. Tell anyone who has proper training or weapons to assist us by killing any monsters that try to get into the village. The rest should be evacuated to any buildings outside the village's border just in case some monsters get past us." The old man nodded frantically.
"I get them ready right away! Thank you, Shield Hero!" The old man ran as quickly as he could to organize the village.
"Mr. Naofumi, why do you always insist on asking for a payment? We were going to head to the swamp to level up anyway. It feels wrong…" Naofumi rolled his eyes.
"Raphtalia, if you are good at something, never do it for free. Besides, if we don't take anything, they'll come to us every time there's a problem expecting us to just drop everything to help them. Now, go get your gear together, those frogs are almost to the village." Raphtalia just shook her head as she began getting her supplies ready.
While they were gathering up their gear, Naofumi noticed the chick kept chirping at them.
'I would like to bring it with us to level up, but at the same time I would hate for it to get lost or attacked during the defense and lose my investment.' After a little bit of internal debating, Naofumi decided to simply add the chick to his party but keep it here to ensure it didn't get in the way of the fight. If it got experience, great, if not, it would have more chances later.
After gathering up their gear and having their new filolial chick stay in the room, Raphtalia and Naofumi ran outside to assess the situation. The old man was trying his best to coordinate with the villagers, but the frogs were already near the village's border and began attacking the village's defense.
"Raph…" Before Naofumi could coordinate with Raphtalia, she dashed ahead, attacking a trio of frogs that were surrounding a group of villagers.
She cleaved through two of them, decapitating one and cutting open the throat of the other before they could react. Hoping to catch the third one off guard she began rushing towards it with amazing speed. Suddenly, out of the corner of her eye, she saw a fourth frog preparing to intercept her with its razor-sharp tongue. Just as it was about to hit, a glowing shield appeared in front of her.
"Air Strike Shield!" Naofumi ran up and bashed the frog attacking Raphtalia, pinning it to the ground.
"Raphtalia, I've got this one! Take care of the other one!" The frog squirmed desperately trying to escape Naofumi's hold, but to no avail.
"Right!" But as she turned to the other frog, it was already aiming to attack Naofumi. If it hit him now, it could deal some serious damage and they barely started the fight. In a moment of panic, Raphtalia threw her sword before it could attack.
The sword pierced right through the frog's skull getting lodged in its carcass. Quickly, she ran to retrieve her sword and stabbed through the frog Naofumi had pinned down. Naofumi stood back up glaring at Raphtalia.
"Raphtalia! What were you thinking!"
"It was going to hit you, Mr. Naofumi." She tried to defend herself, but she mistook what he was irritated by.
"I'm not talking about that! You rushed in with no plan, no help, and attacked recklessly. What would you have done if you were hurt, huh?! There could be dozens more of these things coming out of the swamp that we have to deal with!" Just as he said that a giant purple frog started hopping over to them flanked by two salamanders. Naofumi sighed.
"Raphtalia, I can only defend you if you are willing to hold back and allow me to. We must work together. Do you understand?!"
"I understand, but what if you get hurt? Didn't you get me this new gear so I could fight?" Before Naofumi could answer back, the frog shot out purple mucus from its mouth. Naofumi stepped in front of Raphtalia and blocked the shot before it could hit.
"We'll talk about this later. For now, just follow my lead!"
For the next hour and a half, the two of them continued fighting off the horde of swamp monsters, occasionally having coordination issues thanks to Raphtalia's more aggressive fighting style. As the fight went on, Naofumi noticed how more of the monsters were becoming exceedingly reckless in their attacks, almost manic.
'What the hell is going on? I've never seen monsters act this way before. Could it be that monster the villagers were talking about, but if that's the case, why haven't I seen it yet or heard any roaring?'
After two hours the monsters finally stopped attacking the village, but it did nothing to elevate Naofumi's worries. The last of the monsters practically had no self-preservation, simply throwing themselves at the defending villagers.
"Shield Hero!" The old man from before ran up to him from a nearby building. "Thank you so much for your assistance! I watched the whole thing, and I must say I am beyond impressed by your abilities. Without your help, I am sure this entire town would have been overwhelmed by such a large horde." Naofumi merely nodded.
"Just make sure you pay me before I leave." The old man gave a huge smile.
"Of course, Riyute always repays its dues." And with that, the old man joined the group of defending villagers in celebration.
While the villagers were celebrating the victory, Naofumi continued to look towards the swamp.
"Mr. Naofumi? What's wrong?" Naofumi had a bad feeling. Something caused the monsters to be like this, it couldn't be normal for monsters or animals to leave their habitat like this.
"Raphtalia, this isn't over." They both looked over to the swamp lining and saw three dark figures crawling out of the shadows. These things were nothing like Naofumi had seen before, cloaks covered their bodies and darkness seemed to seep from their bodies as they made their way across the field. Raphtalia turned towards the celebrating villagers.
"Hey! Get ready! More monsters are com.." Before she could finish, she and the villagers went quiet and had a blank stare as they looked upon the approaching figures.
"Raphtalia… What's wrong with you? Answer me!" Naofumi tried to get Raphtalia's attention but to no avail. When he forced her to look at him, he saw tears start to stream down her cheeks.
"No, not again. Nononono." She crouched down putting both of her hands against her head as she tried to fight off whatever was afflicting her.
"Mr. Naofumi, I can't… I can't do it. Not again. Please, Mr. Naofumi help me."
Naofumi couldn't understand what was going on, the only time he had ever seen Raphtalia like this was when they first met when he forced her to kill for the first time. He looked over to the other villagers only to see a much worse scene. Many of them were screaming and running away in terror or curling up trying to make themselves look as small as possible, but some just watched in horror as the figures started to approach them.
Naofumi decided to scan them to see what was afflicting everyone and a single status came up: [FEAR AURA].
'Fear? Those things have an aura that gives other creatures fear like it was a disease?!' He looked over to see the monsters slowly floating toward him, leaving a trail of withered grass and plant life behind. He remembered a type of undead like them when he used to play MMOs. Wraiths. Undead with no physical body able to phase through solid objects and suck the life out of the living.
"Raphtalia, I need you to snap out of it. Do you understand me? I won't hesitate to use the slave command." She nodded vigorously, as if pleading with him to do it.
"I command you snap out of it and fight those monsters!" An electrical pulse surged from Raphtalia's chest as she screamed in agony. After a few moments, the seal finally stopped inflicting the punishment. Raphtalia slowly stood back up, slightly shaken from the ordeal.
"A-Alright, I'm better now."
"Good, because those things aren't going to wait for you to recover." The three figures were only meters away now. Even at this distance, no face could be seen from the dark clothing they wore, only pure darkness.
Raphtalia quickly picked up and readied her blade. The wraiths, seemingly angered by her ability to fight, gave out an ear-piercing screech and started flying towards them in earnest. Naofumi changed to the Chimera Bone Shield, hoping its shadow resistance would protect him from whatever kind of attacks these wraiths had.
The wraiths immediately targeted Naofumi, brandishing their withered hands like claws, swiping at his shield relentlessly. He tried bashing one away and to his surprise, his shield was able to push them back. Naofumi was able to keep them at bay but with each attack, he could see his HP drop slightly.
"Dammit! Raphtalia, see if you can't damage this next one."
Naofumi bashed one towards Raphtalia and she swung her blade towards its head to intercept, hoping to hit a weak point, but to no end. Unlike Naofumi's shield, which made hard contact with the wraiths when he bashed them, her blade simply ripped through their dark cloak, leaving no visual indication that she did anything.
"I hit it, Mr. Naofumi! I don't know what, but I could feel my blade hitting something underneath the cloak!" Naofumi went to gauge how much damage she had done, and his heart dropped.
'How the hell are we supposed to take these things down!? Her attack barely did a thing!' It's not as if her attack didn't harm it at all, but it wasn't enough to destroy all three wraiths before one of them went down.
She kept swinging through the monster, dodging its wild swipes at her. The fight continued like this for a while, with Naofumi distracting them allowing Raphtalia to get some cheap hits on them. They had a pattern down, but things were still not looking good.
Realising they were in a bad position, Raphtalia tried to make an overhead swing, hoping it might eliminated one of the wraiths, but it backfired badly. The wraith immediately took advantage of her wide swing and got a hard grasp on her throat.
All Raphtalia could feel next was PAIN. Not the pain of being stabbed or choked, the pain of her throat being frostbitten, freezing pins and needles stabbing her neck, while the rest of her body felt like it was on fire from the inside. She tried her best to remove the hand, but she couldn't muster the strength to remove it.
"Raphtalia! Dammit. Get off me!" The other two wraiths gave cold lifeless chuckles as they gave him no opportunity to help her.
"Raph… *Whoosh*" Before Naofumi was able to disengage with the two wraiths, a huge blade flew past him and ripped straight through the wraith attacking Raphtalia. The wraith gave an ear-shattering screech before turning into dust. Raphtalia fell to her knees coughing while grasping at her throat.
"Shield Hero, I must thank you for defending the village while I was away. I would have hated to return to a dead village overrun by monsters." Coming from behind them, the dark knight Momon stood with a single greatsword on his back.
Author Note:
Sorry about the late chapter, a lot has been going on IRL since the holidays, one being I got the stomach flu. This chapter also gave me a little trouble as it was the first time writing a fight scene where it wasn't just Ainz dominating, so I hope it turned out alright. Thank you for all the support and I hope you enjoyed, now to the QA.
Q: Can Ainz level up?
A: Yes
Q: Can Ainz use Wild Magic?
A: No