Chapter 75

Just a little before dinner, still only half way to Lerno, we stopped the wagon and decided to cook instead of just eating dry rations and water. Yes, we were told to 'make haste', but I couldn't help but be a little selfish now that I was with my party. It reminded me of home, and I knew there would be danger ahead.

"Let someone else cook." Old lady Ragnarok said tersely just before I started sharpening one of my kitchen knives to cut up some shark. "Come with me."

I considered saying no. Maybe adding a long description of where she could go, how she could get there, and with what she could shove up her butt while she walked. But after the initial itch from my horns stopped, I set down my sharpening stone and knife, turned, and asked, "Why?"

She sighed, "I am going to show you something, and you need to have your hands free."

Ever aware of the noise around him, Usa came around the back of the wagon, "Ah, I'll prepare the fish?"

I considered giving him a dirty look, but couldn't bring myself to do that to him. "Sure. Thin slices if you can."

"Yes'm."

And I followed old lady Ragnarok.

I kept my silence as we walked a little ways into the surrounding forest. After a few minutes we came across a small clearing with a few mossy boulders and a couple of really twisted trees. For a moment, I thought there might be something special about the trees, but a second glance told me they were just old and gnarly, perhaps recovered from a lightning strike long ago?

"This will do." She mumbled to herself, stopping, then turning to face me. "As much as you might doubt the next words out of my mouth, I am going to teach you something."

I looked at her, blinked once, but kept quiet.

"What you did to little Rishia was similar to something called a 'defence rating attack'. For a moment, that's what I thought you had done to her, until her Ki started to flow out of control."

I looked away from her, and I saw her frown at my sudden and apparent disinterest. But then I snapped my gaze back to her, "I've been hit with that before." I replied, "One of Glass's friends hit me with something that nearly flattened me, even with my defence."

"So you know its use. Especially against opponents with high defence. Someone like yourself, with your lack of direct attack power, can make good use of something like this. Provided you can do it at all."

"A shame it wasn't enough to defeat you. And that I was not there to witness it." Glass said from under my shirt.

I got a raised eyebrow from the old woman, but I waved a hand to clear the air of it. "Since I know you want to." I said, rolling my shoulders and relaxing a little, "Hit me with it." I held up a finger when her eyes went wide, "Just let me get my defence as low as possible first."

Two minutes later, I'd taken off the plated leather vest and pants, had them neatly folded, and set the Shield to the boring 'small shield' base form. I'd have used the Hagane red one, but it did have a little more defence.

Then, I pulled a potion from my inventory, and took a small sip. I nearly vomited it right back out again, but I held it down and saw my status gain a little grey (red I couldn't see) icon of a broken shield. "Defence weakening poison." I said after a couple coughs, "For Clive's arrows."

"I can't say I approve of poison."

"You don't have a say in how I save your world." I replied. "Before it wears off please."

I braced myself. Standing in front of her, feet apart, stomach muscles tensed, arms apart. "Pay attention." She said.

I took a deep breath, feeling just the barest hint of the power it used to bring me, and felt more than saw her reach back with her fist, then hit me square in the gut with an open palm.

Like a spike driven into my flesh, through my abdomen, and out my back just to the right of my spine, her attack hurt. It immediately reminded me of that time I got shot in the back by an Apollo Familia arrow, just missing my lung.

But.

She had hit me with an open palm. The sharp wedge of pain was from her Ki, ignoring the weird system of defence this world used and making a mockery of my braced abdominal muscles. It did, however, register with the world's system, and my HP bar dipped noticeably.

Despite the pain, I kept my feet, and the contents of my stomach, and managed to keep my reaction down to a pained face and grunt of escaping air.

"Not bad." She said, returning to a 'casual' stance.

"Ow." I replied, feeling the pain untwist itself from my gut. "I think I understand though."

"Oh sure, after one try." She sighed, "Fair is fair though." And she took the same stance I had.

"It's bitter." I offered her the poison.

She accepted the little vial, sipped, made a 10/10 Buckley's Face, and handed the vial back. Once she'd managed to untwist her face, she took a breath and braced for my attack again.

Her 'demonstration' was similar to how I did my 'Slap the Wave' strike. A punch that suddenly becomes an open palm, the speed creating a vacuum between your palm and opponent, usually explosively. But I didn't have that kind of speed, and that was, for all intents, a purely physics based attack despite the superhuman effort to generate it.

Then there was what Takemikazuchi liked to call, 'cotton fist'. When he wasn't more direct with me and my poor nose, he would sometimes hit me with a strike that would send me across the training hall, yet not actually hurt (unless I landed on a tail). Like getting hit with a car wrapped in enough pillows to stop it from hurting.

This 'defence rating attack' seemed a composite of the two. The explosive Ki, without an actual external explosion.

"Well?" She gave me an impatient look.

I wound up, took a practice punch to make sure I was exactly the right distance, took another breath, and gave her a good, old fashioned swing to the gut. As my fist came around, I pushed my Ki along as if I were about to work Senjitsu, but instead of making some sort of Seal with my hand, I opened my palm as I connected, and let the energy out and shoved it into her body, as if it were going to replace the kinetic energy of the punch.

For a moment, nothing happened. Then I realized the old lady's eyes had rolled up in her head and she had passed out on her feet.

I blinked, waved my hand in front of her face, then made sure she still had a pulse.

"I know you do not like her. But you did not have to strike so hard." Glass... yeah, she was teasing me.

"I didn't actually hit her. Not physically at least..." Nope, the old lady was statue still, alive but insensate. "Suppose I should get her back to the wagon..."

I made to pick her up, but felt something behind me. The physical presence was normal. Almost familiar, my tails only 'sensing' it as person sized. But after focusing on my Ki to hit the old lady, my internal senses were sharper...

And this presence was titanic.

I turned to face what ever it was, the Shield coming off my back and changing into the Shield of Marius in as smooth a motion as I could make it with the sudden slamming of my heart pushing adrenaline through me as fast as possible.

Long hair with the colour and vibrancy of polished wood, a pleasingly round face with noble Asian features, pale skin that almost seemed to glow with health, curves that were only possible with an exacting diet or a genius sculpture, and all wrapped up in a near scandalous Chinese dress with a shawl that floated behind her even as either end were wrapped around her upper arms...

If she wasn't setting off every instinct I had to fight or run, I'd have been asking her name.

"Wielder of the Holy Shield. Please, listen to me." She said with a clear, but desperate voice.

"Go on." I said tightly.

"Please, I beg you, you must destroy me."

"What..." That caught me off guard, "Why?"

"As I am, I cannot complete my purpose! So I ask one of the Holy Weapon users to help me!" She continued.

She seemed to glow a little, but I realized it was the gem on the front of the Shield lighting up. It was reacting to her? But...

"You're not actually here... are you?" I asked.

She shook her head 'no', "If you don't stop me, there will be so many deaths... unneeded extinguishing... I..."

And like a stiff wind through a bit of smoke, she suddenly vanished. The overwhelming presence was just... gone.

I held my place, ironically protecting the still insensate old lady behind me, then started to relax a little, "Glass? Oh right..."

"No I did not see. Your Shield is just as effective from the rear as the front when obstructing vision."

"Then... Did you feel it?"

She was silent for a moment, then a quiet reply, "yes."

Even with her detachment from the world's 'system', Glass had felt the spiritual presence I had. "Well, I'm not crazy at least..." I sighed, "Suppose I'll just... carry the old bat back to the wagon and have dinner... Yeah..."

My return to the wagon with an unconscious old lady in my arms caused enough of a stir she had woken up again. After I set her down and made sure she wouldn't fall over, 'the inquisition' started.

Or at least, it did after the first 'accusation'. "You shouldn't bully your elders!" Raphtalia said with an admonishing finger waggle.

"She hit me first." I replied with a shrug, but total honesty. "She showed me a similar move to what Therese hit me with, and in return I showed her I could do it too, once I knew what it felt like."

My explanation done, I accepted a cup of tea from Atla. And to my surprise, old lady Ragnarok said, "That's exactly what happened."

There was a round of looking between each of us, then back, then a group wide sigh. "You know, most people yell at one another before throwing punches." Fohl scratched his head, "But you figured it out on the first try?"

"Its a different version of something I've done before." I said, "I can't do it now, thanks to this world's weirdness. And I've only done it once, on an stationary target. Not ready for combat yet."

"Well at least you're not going to just dash off into battle." old lady Ragnarok sighed.

I motioned to Usa, who said, "Do not test something new in combat until you have mastered it in practise, or are left with no other options."

"We'll eat, clean up, rest and be there just a little after breakfast." I said, giving Usa a pat on the shoulder, "Fohl? We'll do some sparring before bed. Oh, Clive? I used a little, but this is for your arrows. Works great." I handed him the half empty vial of poison.

Fohl, now that I was working with him directly and not watching from the sidelines...

Jealousy. Jealousy and frustration. Now that his sister was no longer in direct need of his care, and apparently better at fighting than he was, I could tell it was eating at him. She was getting attention for something new as well. No longer ill, and incredibly outgoing, she was making friends and connections with people at super speeds.

I could also tell Fohl didn't like what he was feeling. And every time he made a little slip up following my movements, it would only add to his irritation.

"Okay okay, stop." I said as he nearly stumbled on a loose rock... for the third time. Instead of moving a half pace over, he had stubbornly stayed in the same place as we did a simple exercise of punches, kicks and stance changes.

The bright spot here, if there were any, was that he kept silent, obeyed, and looked sorry for getting it wrong. He was still humble, not indignant like Itsuki had been.

"You are thinking too hard." I said, "Don't get me wrong, thinking on your feet, in combat or otherwise, is a great skill to have. But when you overthink, and spiral into asking 'what if' instead of 'what now', you have problems." I gave the loose, mostly buried stone a nudge with my foot, "You also end up trying more than you need to to make up for the perceived shortfall."

"I'm sorry." He said, "I..."

I waved it off, "As hard as it might be, ignore your sister. You are siblings, but not the same." I gave his shoulder a pat, "Now, this time, I'm going to move into a position, and you will copy me as best you can."

The next morning, I could tell Fohl had 'figured something out'. I didn't know what, but while we all did a bunch of stretches to warm up for the day (even old lady Ragnarok joined in! Without complaining!), Fohl didn't spare his sister a second glance.

As we got closer to Lerno, the scent of 'farming' got stronger. Four of four worlds used animal based fertilizer, and it wasn't a smell you could really confuse with something else. To be fair, the aroma was by far the mildest I'd smelt, and had a mix of other stuff in it too. Flowers. A bit of rotting fruit. Wood smoke.

And while the smell wasn't all pleasant, the fact it was there told me that the village had resumed its former purpose that had been nearly, literally, devoured by the fruits of their labour. Normal life had returned.

The wagon ran over a vine that had grown across the packed dirt road, the bump and lurch of the wagon making me look about with a bit of alarm. "Have they not cleared the roads this far?" I asked.

"If they've been busy, it's not that surprising?" Usa said, "Even with your help with the foxberries, they had a lot of normal farmland..."

"Foxberries? You named a plant after yourself?" Glass asked.

I looked down my shirt and said, "After my wife, actually."

Tetsu chimed in with, "You should make her eat one before it's ripe. Heeheehee." This was followed by a bit of drool escaping her dragon-maw as she remembered how sour they were.

"I still have to try making a pie or something with them." I mused, "Anyhow, try not to run over too many more of those vines."

"I could just rip them up if you wanted?" Tetsu offered, I mean..." She made 'Issei grabby hands' with her big dragon paws.

"Only if they're in the way then."

We had missed some of the plants. However, the first thing I had done on realizing that, was check on them using the plant analysis skill. This told me two things, and both were pretty good. First, was the 'mutation' had stabilized. Second, it was apparently a result of cross-pollination or something more 'natural'. This had brought in a third factor, and that was a new kind of fruit, a weird peach shaped, banana coloured, grapefruit sized... thing.

"Shield Hero! Welcome back!"

We had all stopped at the edge of town while I examined the weird fruit, while the rest of the party stayed on guard just in case it was a repeat of the last time we were here. But this had caught the attention of...

"Ah, I remember you." I said, "These aren't a problem are they?"

It was one of the older farmers. Leather skinned with a big wide hat, he was all smiles as he trotted over to us. "These? No no! They're something similar to what we had before, but..." He lifted his hat, scrubbed at a mostly bald head for a moment, then put his hat back in place. "Well, after that, while we replanted the fields with our old seed stocks, these started appearing all over the place."

He reached up and plucked one from the weird vine/tree thing it was growing on, polished it a little on his shirt and offered it to me.

With a shrug, I gave it a bite, and yes, it was just as weird as it looked. Not bad, but with so many mixed flavours I couldn't think of how to make it into anything. Of course, when I didn't instantly fall over dead or something, Tetsu started looking for some to eat, and with a smile and 'go ahead' motion from the farmer, everyone in the party found one of their own.

After everyone was happily nibbling on one, the farmer started talking again, "It's become a bit of a specialty here, though, not as popular as your foxberry. I have some that isn't quite ripe when I wake up, just to kick me awake!" He laughed.

I almost choked on my mouthful, but it stopped me from saying 'I nibble on my wife in the morning for motivation too'.

But after thumping my chest a little to get the mouthful down I asked, "Have there been any other problems? We've heard there's..." His face told me everything, as he went from 'happy farmer' to 'concerned citizen'. "Tell me."

He looked like he was about to wave it off, but shook his head, "Come with me, I'll take you to the village hall."

My tone, and his reply, had my party at combat attention. So, like any combat situation with civilians involved, Raphtalia got up on the driver's seat of the wagon and offered a hand down to him, "Just point the way, we'll get you there."

"Aww... but..." Tetsu pouted.

"Don't worry." The farmer accepted the hand up, and I sat on his other side while the rest of the party piled into the wagon. "We've got lots of them, and they grow along the road too!"

Even with Tetsu plucking almost every fruit growing by the edge of the road the trip into the formerly overgrown town at a good speed. Any ceremony we might have had, with the people who saw us waving happily, was ruined by the dragon's constant 'nom nom nom' noises.

The town, looking at it now, was much recovered. Most of the damage from the bio-plant incident was repaired. Sure, there were still a lot of missing windows, bits of broken path, the fountain was still mostly wrecked, and it was clear something had been growing on a lot of the walls. But the people had recovered, and there were many small work crews doing bits of cleanup here and there. Again, clear signs of recovery.

Once we parked, Tetsu's 'punishment' for being rude, was to distract the curious citizens while we went inside... I think this was where we treated the people of 'vine poisoning'... yeah. Suppose 'city hall' would be the toughest building in town.

"Sir!" The farmer called out, "The Shield Hero has just arrived!"

No surprise the village headsman had the look of a farmer. Even so, he had an ever so slightly cleaner look to him. Cleaner clothes, but with hands just as tough looking as our guide's from long days working a field.

"Oh!" He stepped forward and grabbed my hand, shaking it up and down vigorously, "Welcome back! As you can see we are well recovered from that mess!"

I accepted the well meaning handshake, "Say... did the Spear Hero ever come back?"

This seemed to derail his next sentence, and he paused, let my hand go, and said, "Yes actually. He was alone though, save for a very well mannered filolial. Said he was sorry, and asked for an unripe foxberry."

Raphtalia laughed, Clive clicked his beak a few times, and even Usa chuckled timidly.

"What's so funny?" Fohl asked.

"Clive?" I looked over my shoulder at him.

He recovered from his clicking chuckles, nodded, and put a hand on Fohl and Atla's shoulders, leading them out onto the street.

"Good. Anyhow. Someone around here has sent reports to the Queen about a problem. We are here to fix it." I said.

The headsman blinked at my bluntness, but nodded, "I will explain what I know. While I do..." He looked back the way he'd come, "Bring it out!"

A delay, then a muffled, "Yes sir!"

"A little while ago, I got some reports of a mysterious monster."

"A? A single one?" Raphtalia asked.

"A single type, I think." He corrected himself, "A few of the smaller local villages reported a similar monster, local adventurers too. They've hurt, or even killed a few people as well."

Another 'off the field' farmer appeared from the back room with a crate in his hands. With a bit of a grunt, he put it down, then slipped a pry-bar from his belt and offered it to the headsman.

"We managed to take one down recently, which is why we sent the report to the Castle." He started cracking open the crate, "We've got a little hunter lodge here, so we started to preserve it, just in case, so if anyone did come to check on us we'd have proof."

"Smart boy." Old lady Ragnarok nodded, "Aulty-boy might have ignored it even then, but not Lady Mir."

The lid came off, and we all peered into the box.

"Huh." I said, while everyone else was making strange faces at it. "Not the weirdest thing I've seen."

It was a bat, more or less. More on the scale of a 'flying fox' (the largest bat, but with no relation to me), it had some very clear differences as well. First, one eye. A big singular eye in the middle of its forehead. Second, bird talons similar to a falcon. With a careful cracking of its jaw, it had needle-like teeth that were also hollow. Lastly, at least, last of its 'surface level' differences, was a shell on its back. This wasn't a 'carapace' like say an armadillo or insect, but a shallow dome of solid plated shell like a turtle.

"The heck..." I mumbled, "Anyone seen something like this before?" I asked, "Mind if I take this?"

"We were only keeping it for evidence, I'd be happy to burn it, if you didn't want it." He replied.

"Not the weirdest monster I've seen either. But I don't know this one." Old lady Ragnarok said with a shrug.

Raphtalia shook her head, Usa as well. And a moment later, Clive led Fohl and Atla back in, the two of them looking like they'd just tried the sourest thing in the world. "What even... oh..."

"Good timing." Raphtalia said, offering her water skin to Atla, while Usa did the same with Fohl, "Have you three seen anything like this?"

Fohl and Clive shook their heads, while Atla replied with a raised eyebrow and a, "Well, it's dead?"

Oh right, mostly blind.

"Okay. Let's try this." And I fed the body into the Shield.

?'s familiar (bat type) shield conditions met

"Ma'am?" Usa asked, likely because of my tails going all 'thoughtful' and visiting him and Raphtalia.

"I'm only getting half an answer. It's a 'familiar', like the Karma monsters on Cal Mira."

"So there's a bigger one someplace? A master?" Raphtalia asked.

"Probably-" I stopped as I saw Usa's head turn suddenly towards the door.

"Monsters!" Someone outside yelled.

"Stay inside." I said to the headsman, "Let's go." And led my party outside.

A cloud of those bats were approaching, and with a squint and a mental nudge to the Shield they all 'lit up' with those helpful little arrows.

"Atla, Fohl, Raphtalia, citizens. Clive, Usa, ranged." I said, putting on my mask as it appeared over the Book Shield. "Tetsu, wait until they're closer."

"A shame Kunshu isn't here." Usa said as he took a place beside me.

"Ooooo fast food?" Tetsu asked, "Gonna just duck under here..."

"What? No orders for me?" Old lady Ragnarok asked.

One of the incoming bats, around thirty or so all told, shot some kind of eye laser towards a fleeing citizen. That one was blasted out of the sky with an arrow from Clive's bow.

"Will you listen? Get the people indoors, or under something." I suggested since I didn't trust her in my party. "Storm cloud plan! Duck and cover!"

The monster's individual level, as reported by the Shield, was low, only 35. But with numbers like that, the citizens would be easy meat for them. Fohl and Atla would be able to kill one on their own, but they were up in the air...

"Storm cloud? You have a plan for flying monster swarms?" Ragnarok asked, picking up a fallen child as she ran from the monster cloud overhead.

"Of course. Tetsu!"

"Gimme the rock!" our Lucky Dragon said, "Yeah, I'm gonna... THROW!"

I pulled a football sized (and shaped) clay jar from the Shield, and lofted it towards Tetsu. Her big nimble dragon 'hands' caught it, and with a little hop hop on a hind leg, she heaved it into the air. The swarm itself saw it as a threat, and a little hole opened up in the middle of the swarm.

"Clive! Three two one!" I counted down, holding out a hand, then letting out a sharp (literally) slash of wind.

An arrow crashed through the clay football, and my wind spell dispersed the clump of black iron dust with a sudden whoosh of gritty black smoke.

"Dritte lightning blast!" Usa called out, pointing upwards at the iron heavy cloud of dust and monsters.

His beam of lightning, ripped upwards, and ignited the iron-dust cloud in a burst of rippling red sparks and crawling electricity. To be safe, I summoned all three of the Air Strike Shields, covering as much of the street as I could, while letting the people see the pretty fireworks and smoking monsters as they fell from the air, burning and twitching if not dead outright.

Then to my surprise, the headsman yelled out, "Don't let them get up again! Pitchforks! Spears! Help the Hero!"

It was almost comical how almost every door on the street suddenly slammed open to spit out one or two angry villagers with some kind of polearm in their hand. But instead of telling them 'no' I told them 'how'.

"Groups of two or three! If its moving enough to be dangerous, pin it down and call me! Don't risk anything if you can help it!" I called out, "Usa, Clive, Raphtalia! Pick a street and help! Bring wounded to me! Go go go!"

The initial fight and cleanup was over fairly quickly. My party spread out with the mobs of angry villagers, Fohl and Atla worked with the old lady, while Tetsu guarded me as I applied healing magic and medicine.

Just like the original disaster with the bio-plant, things were taken on systematically.

Until the first 'curve' happened.

"Kodori!" Raphtalia was running towards me with a child in her arms. A young man, maybe a teenager, was holding one shoulder while the other arm dangled limp as Raphtalia ran towards the little medic area we'd set up.

"Lay him down, what happened? Can you talk?"

The boy groaned, nodded, took in a sharp breath as I ripped his shirt off his back, and said, "I heard someone say it was clear, so I went outside to look. Then something landed on my back. It started to bite... I think..."

"I heard him cry out and turned around." Raphtalia said, watching as I worked, handing me a jar of water from a crate in the middle of the medic area, "I saw it, and killed it. It looked bad, so I ran back over here."

"Good work. This is going to sting. Bite on your shirt."

Raphtalia helped the boy stuff a bunch of his shirt into his mouth, and he screamed into it as I poured water over the wound. Claw marks, bite or two, and something... not his shoulder blade... The hell? It was the biggest wound on his back, but it wasn't bleeding as much as the others. "Okay, bite harder. This is going to hurt more..."

As if I were removing a deeply embedded tooth or claw, I put pressure past the 'lump' opposite the 'entry' wound, and started to rub in healing salve. Thankfully, it worked exactly as it did in other worlds (another 4 of 4 I was happy for!) and a palm sized disk of bloody turtle shell slid out of the wound amid the muffled screams of the boy.

I held the small clam-like disk of shell between my thumb and forefinger, and it reminded me of what had happened before, when the vines had started to grow into and through the people here. "It's an egg."

Raphtalia caught on, "Oh no... What... oh no! When we were out hunting on the way here, we didn't find many monsters!"

It had been oddly calm on the way here, sure the roads were starting to see better patrols now that Aultcray had been kicked out, but... "Damn! Here." I handed Raphtalia a vial of numbing cream and healing salve, "Where's the town elder!"

We were too late. The instant Raphtalia had clued me in to what might be happening, I started what most would call 'zombie prevention'. If it was dead, you burned it.

It was like they could sense it though. As soon as we started burning a couple of the civilians who had died, and all the monsters that hadn't been slaughtered from the last couple days, things started happening.

"Ma'am..." Usa called out, "Monsters coming in from the east!"

The vines and overgrowth around the village that acted like a natural barrier against monsters, left there by the original bio plant incident, started to shake and thrash around. Then, at the edge of the Shield's 'helpful monster arrow pointer' range...

?'s familiar (yeti form)

Two or so metres tall, it was still shedding bits of local monster off itself as it and a dozen more ripped through the natural fence of the town's border.

This was followed by a scream from the direction of the farms and their animal pens. Some kind of group response to one being in danger? Hive mind? Didn't matter right now, and of course, everyone was looking at me for direction.

I put my mask back on, just to hide my smile. "Civilians get inside the town hall. Anyone with a bow, get to a rooftop... Atla, Fohl, they're a bit beyond you two."

"Like we did in Riyute?" Raphtalia asked.

"Without the corrupt knights trying to kill us 'accidentally'." Usa added.

NOTES!

Sometimes, I really hate Naofumi. Or rather, his apathetic narration. It's really hard to get a read on how much time passes as the books go on, when he's just like... 'we spend some time' or 'a couple days pass'. Grr...

Anyhow. :)

Thank you for reading! And if you want to see any full colour art, join the discord!

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