Disclaimer: The Rising of the Shield Hero belongs to Aneko Yusagi. This story is non-profit fiction. I just wanted to write something about this series.
English is not my first language. If you notice poor grammatical structure, mistaken verbal tenses, wrong conjugations, etc., please tell me to correct it. For me, it is a language development experience.
Author Note: Merry Christmas and happy new year! After two and a half years, and many personal and work problems, I'm back with this story that I won't let die. I apologize for not having updated before, but as I said, I had many personal issues, but I'm already receiving the necessary help. My therapist even helped a tiny bit with this chapter by giving me ideas that I hadn't considered, but I will mention in the following posts.
The Shield Hero who came from another world
Chapter 11
Naofumi was nervous: the First Wave was about to start. He staved it off by checking if his party would do well.
He was quite confident that Ferrie would manage, since she had experience from both her past life and her adventurer background, but he needed to figure out the rest.
Raphtalia had been a child until just a couple of weeks ago, and had never been in a real fight: fighting monsters and creatures could be an useful experience, but he felt it wouldn't be enough to fight in the wave – would she be in her right mind as she fought the same thing that had taken her previous life away?
And even though the little ones (Aria and Terry) are monsters, had a born instinct to fight and survive, which gave him multiple reasons to be concerned, both about their danger and how Raphtalia would take this Wave.
And, finally, there was also Rino. Two days before, she had firmly stated that she intended to join his party. Initially, he had not been interested: he had hoped she would take a break after all that had happened to her in the previous days. However, he had then seen in her eyes something he had already seen too many times in his previous wars: the need to be useful, to focus on something, and to leave behind what was hurting her. From previous experience, he knew it wouldn't work... but at least it was a start for her.
With that in mind, he had also been busy securing the logistics for the Wave. He had stayed busy sharpening all the weapons for his party, and he had also crafted enough healing potions for everyone to carry at least twenty each. He wasn't sure if the kids could drink them safely, but he hoped it wouldn't be necessary.
"You need to calm down, Naofumi, you are putting my nerves on high alert," Ferrie said.
"Ferrie-san is right, Naofumi-sama. You have already checked everything we carry fifty times since yesterday, and we have a great plan to face the Wave in the mountains already," Rino said, confidently. Raphtalia and the kids agreed, the latter quite enthusiastically, given how meticulous their "father" was with preparations.
"There's a saying from my world, that no plan survives first contact with the enemy, Rino. If anything, unexpected happens, we might be caught off-guard, and I want to make sure we are ready for anything."
The entire party became silent: it was the first time any of them had heard anything like that. Ferrie was the one exception to the rule, having heard that phrase in her past life – but she had never understood it until she died from eating a poisonous potato.
"You might be right, Naofumi..." she acknowledged, "but if you don't relax, the Wave will be upon us, and you will be still checking all our equipment."
Naofumi sighed.
Ferrie is right, I should take a breather. The Wave starts in less than two minutes, and I should be confident about what we have planned and the equipment we have crafted. But... I still have the bad feeling that something will happen.
He stopped fidgeting with everything, and everyone stayed in a silence that quickly grew uncomfortable, weighing on them.
The waiting game... that's still something I have problems with. This sucks so much.
With thirty seconds left on the clock, Naofumi began to stretch out in order to ready himself for the fight – one advantage of being a war veteran was that he didn't really need to warm up. Ferrie and Rino promptly followed his example, while Raphtalia and the children just watched, since they had prepared under Naofumi's instruction.
Then, the countdown in Naofumi's HUD dropped to zero, and a brilliant light engulfed them.
When the lights disappeared, Naofumi noticed they had been transported to a valley with steep natural walls on both sides, which joined at a common point just a few dozen meters from where they had appeared. A quick check up of the map told him that the valley was just three hours away from the Dragon Hourglass in the mountains – close to their base in fact.
Any elucubrations were cast out as the sky's bright blue gave way to gloomy crimson, making visibility of the zone somewhat harder. Swirls of different colors, such as purples, greens, and blues, were drawn in the sky.
It looks like an aurora borealis, the Hero of the Shield thought.
"There are monsters coming out of the whirlpools!" Rino warned.
"Great, it's raining monsters," Ferrie said.
"Halleluja, I honestly prefer this to the alternative," Naofumi expressed. When Rino and Ferrie looked at him in disbelief, he didn't feel the need to explain. "It's better that you two don't know about that song, we have to focus on finding the Wave Boss and killing it as fast as possible."
"Then I'll go through the skies to find it," Aria said as she ran, transforming to take to the skies, with Terry right behind her.
"I'm going to find it before you, Aria, and show I'm the best of us! Don't go crashing into enemies in midair!" he taunted.
"Terry has a point," Ferrie admitted as the griffin girl took flight, angered by the Filolial boy's words.
"See it as training under fire," Naofumi commented as the monsters began to land on the ground. None of them had landed on them, but they were just a short run away from being in striking distance. "If either of them finds the boss, they'll let us know – but we have to start by killing as many as we can. Just, do your best to save your energy, we don't know how long we'll be fighting."
Ferrie and Rino nodded in understanding, and soon began to move towards the monsters, the same way they had planned in the previous days. Within a minute, they were deeply engaged in combat against the monsters.
"Are you all right, Raphtalia?" Naofumi asked the tanuki girl, who had stayed rooted in place.
"Naofumi-sama... I had my doubts before the Wave started," she said. Naofumi let her talk: he had expected she would freeze because of her fear of the Waves of Calamity, but if she could talk it, it was an improvement. "I'm here, in a place far from civilization, facing what destroyed my childhood and my village. What I'm feeling... here in my chest... I can't give it a name. I'm sure it's not fear, nor despair. It feels like melancholy, but I'm not sure if it's actually melancholy that I'm feeling."
"Going to war is not easy, Raphtalia," he said. "I understand your grief. It's a strange feeling, but once you come to terms with it, that same feeling will ensure you survive once again. You survived the first Wave by yourself, and whether your parents played a role in it or not, that proves you're strong... and now, you are here once again, wondering whether you should be here or not."
Raphtalia shook her head.
"That's not what I'm thinking off, Naofumi-sama. You are the Shield Hero. You can't attack your enemies, or at least do it in an effective way. You had Ferrie-neechan helping you to become strong, she became your fists and feet. But... now I am here too, to become your sword, the one that will protect you from the Wave of Calamity."
She quickly unsheathed her sword and started to run after Ferrie and Rino, in order to help them. She still felt that strong urge in her chest... but she knew she had to be there. Her body felt light at the thought, as she killed a monster.
"Damn, that girl has sure grown up," Naofumi commented. "Is this what my parents felt when they saw me and my brother grow up?"
Deciding he couldn't waste any more time, he turned his shield into the Two-Headed Black Dog Shield, intent on running to join his party – but suddenly he felt like his body was burning.
"WHAT THE HELL!" he screamed. The pain was such that he fell to the ground, and the chaos of the battlefield meant that none of his companions, not even Raphtalia, with her demi-human hearing, was able to hear him.
The pain invaded his body for a few seconds, only to disappear just as suddenly as it had come. Shaken by the sudden event, he looked down and patted his body to check whether something had somehow struck him without him noticing it, but found nothing. A check of his status screen, however, revealed there was something – but it was a pleasant something: somehow, his level had shot up all of a sudden, his physical and magic defense had surpassed the 600 value, and everything else had grown as well, even his attack stat – although it was still such a low number that he couldn't even laugh at it.
"How the hell did I go up forty levels all at once?" he asked himself, before shaking his head. "Never mind, not gonna look this gift horse in the mouth. I just hope it won't bite me in the ass later."
With that resolution, he stood up and began to run again. The stat increase he had gone through had also boosted his speed – ensuring that he not only managed to catch up to Raphtalia but also easily overtook her, reaching the main fight soon enough. Seeing that Rino and Farrie were fighting goblins that reached the girls' waists, he decided to change to a shield he got from using the tusks from a boar he killed back when he was still living in Aztlan, in that kingdom of traitors he'd rather forget.
"Boar Charge!"
And he kept running. Five goblins were run over in the first blow. The tree he found right after that couldn't resist the impact of his shield, and after breaking it, another two goblins were turned into mush, and finally his charge was stopped when he slammed into a rock wall.
"What the hell was that, Naofumi?!" Ferrie shouted as Naofumi attempted to climb out of the Naofumi-shaped two-meter-deep hole he had just created.
"For some strange reason, I got to level 72 all of a sudden and I may have underestimated what I could do," he admitted. "Lost my cool there for a moment, too. But can't let that stop us from focusing on the enemies. Come on, we have to keep moving forward and find the Wave Boss!"
The girls nodded, and followed Naofumi as he continued charging ahead, using his Sacred Shield to deal with large creatures that his HUD identified as orcs, while Ferrie and Rino dealt with goblins that were agile enough to dodge the shield.
And all three of them forgot about Raphtalia, who was now lagging behind and having to deal with more monsters – such as three orcs that she managed to kill after doing several attacks and feigns. Only to be quickly surrounded by more goblins.
"Don't forget me!" Raphtalia yelled before glaring at the goblins. "Where the hell do these little demons come from? They're more annoying than Cerberus blood clones."
Every monster standing before the young warrior was cut down by a sword. Unfortunately, the intensity of the fight meant that she was unable to see the direction her party members had taken. So, when she arrived at a fork on the road, even though she was in the middle of a fight with an orc and two goblins, she was unsure of which path to pick. In the end, she chose the path that went uphill, hoping to gain an advantage in fighting the monsters – not knowing that Naofumi and company had taken the other path, leading to the center of the valley.
The large number of monsters surrounding her meant that the next few minutes became almost eternal for Raphtalia, finally reaching a plateau that served as an excellent vantage point for seeing the entire valley as it was invaded by the forces of chaos. For a few seconds, Raphtalia saw the panorama she and her friends had to face.
We have to find the Wave Boss fast; until we do, monsters are going to keep falling, and it will become a problem I'm not sure we'll manage to get out of okay.
That was when she realized something else.
"Where's everyone else?"
Her thoughts were interrupted by a load rumble, and her attention was caught by an orc running towards her: rather than holding a weapon, the monster was holding a severed arm that was, itself, holding a large mace it clearly intended to attack her with. As for its torso, as if it were wearing a suit of armor, was what appeared to be the body of a woman wearing a white dress and veil, and a mysterious device glowing brightly from her waist.
Her fury increased by the monster's presence, Raphtalia went straight to the attack without losing sight of her opponent. However, when she attempted to attack, somehow a strong electrical discharge shot out from the orc, hitting her and throwing her back several meters. Raphtalia felt her muscles seizing up and then going numb from the shock – and then she realized that the sword Naofumi had given her had been destroyed in the process.
The orc, to her shock, seemed to be having an internal fight of its own, going by the way it was shaking its hands and head, but all too soon it ended its internal struggle, and Raphtalia knew she was going to be in a lot of trouble the moment it saw her. She was alone, and there was no one in position to support her. And, with the orc approaching, and the mace in hand looking as big as a sledgehammer, it was obvious she would die if she didn't act.
I can't allow that, I have to get out of here, I won't leave Naofumi-sama alone. In spite of the shock-induced numbing, she managed to drag herself to the edge of the ravine, noticing that the orc was hurrying its pace. No! I will not let this monster kill me, I will come back and destroy you before you destroy me, monster!
With effort, she managed to grab the edge and pulled herself over the cliff just before the orc could reach her. Unfortunately, the travel down the slope wasn't as smooth as she'd have liked: her ribs hit a rock, knocking the air out of her, and by the time she finished rolling and reached the bottom of the ravine, she had lacerations all over her body and some broken ribs.
Before she lost consciousness, she noticed that the orc, who jumped into the void behind her, was getting closer and closer to her.
Naofumi-sama, I'm ashamed for failing you.
It was the last thing the girl thought before falling into the darkness.
Naofumi, Rino, and Ferrie were now engaged in heavy combat against a considerable number of creatures, all of them coming from the wave that had been landing in the middle of the valley. Naofumi was front and center in their group, slamming every monster that attempted to run over him, and using Hedron Shields to blow up his opponents as they attempted to use numbers to overwhelm the group, creating gaps they could use to advance.
Rino, standing to Naofumi's left, was covering that side of him and killing the monsters coming from there, allowing Naofumi to concentrate on the front. Naofumi stole looks at her and was grateful to see she was well-focused in the fight. Her technique was good, she wasn't overextending herself to attack, and every monster she killed died carefully and decisively.
As for Ferrie, the most experienced fighter in his party, she was at his right, and her punches and kicks were destroying every enemy that tried to reach them from that flank. Not that he was too worried about that: no, what bothered him the most right now was that the back of the group was currently exposed, and plenty of monsters had attempted to exploit that lapse in their formation. All of them had failed, but it was still a mess.
"Where the hell is Raphtalia?" he asked. "We could really use her help right now."
"I only know that she's alive," Ferrie answered as she checked her status screen. Naofumi was not pleased.
"We have to go back and find her."
"Naofumi-sama," Rino replied, "Raphtalia is a good fighter, she'll be fine. And I saw Terry running in the direction we came from. If Raphtalia needs help, he'll be able to assist her."
Naofumi felt skeptical, but his train of thought was suddenly derailed by something crashing against his shield at full force. So hard, that Naofumi quickly realized that the only reason he was able to stand his ground was because of his mysterious extra levels: otherwise, he would have been sent flying back from the force of the impact.
In front of the group now stood a strange creature. It had four tentacles, all of which were sporting multiple blades aiming in all directions. On what should be its face, it had what Naofumi presumed to be its mouth on the center, while it had two pairs of eyes, one each above and below the mouth.
Before they could do little more than react to the eldritch abomination in front of them, the monster attacked the hero's party. Naofumi quickly blocked the strike, thanking his high defense for allowing him to tank the strike.
The other monsters quickly tried to mess with the group's mechanics, but the Shield Hero was faster than them, aiming his Hedron shields and letting loose. Rino and Ferrie didn't bother to watch the massacre, not only because they were certain the monsters would die, but also because they were focused on the abomination in front of them: the Wave Boss.
The monster, which their status screens helpfully identified as 'Interdimensional Human Eater', began to bounce around the battlefield with its spherical body, using the rough terrain and dead monsters' bodies to dodge the girls' attacks. However, even as it averted said attacks, his attempts to counter were equally futile, as Naofumi's stat increase was not only allowing him to move at four times his normal speed, but his reaction time let him block all the boss's tentacle blades. The only reason he couldn't catch it was the unpredictability of its bouncing.
"Stop bouncing all over the place, don't you see we want to kill you?" Ferrie yelled, annoyed at the elusive monster. That it's not only seemed to understand her, but also laughed at her, didn't help matters.
"We need to stop it for just one moment," Naofumi added, but it didn't matter how much Naofumi tried to read into the Wave Boss's move patterns – every time he thought he had it, the monster suddenly moved into another direction.
There are some moves that are obvious, he thought. If I use the Rope Shield's ability, I might be able to block it long enough to use Shield Prison on it!
With that decision made, he continued observing the beast, and eventually noticed something: every time he bounced off the cliff's stones, it favored moving to the left, and then followed by bouncing on two dead monsters' bodies. As soon as he realized it was about to repeat that pattern, he activated the Rope Shield, and suddenly two of its tentacles were entangled in a strong rope. The delay was enough to allow Rino to dodge another tentacle and cut the lower set of eyes with one slash.
The Wave Boss screamed in pain and attempted to counterattack. However, while it did manage to wound her in the torso, it left it wide open to a kick on the face, which allowed Ferrie to push it away – and straight into an open space.
"Shield Prison!"
The monster was suddenly enclosed in a sphere made of shields, and things went worse when Naofumi activated the Needle Shield. The interior of the Shield Prison was suddenly filled with dozens of stingers, and the monster was helpless in avoiding being pierced from all directions. A great roar filtered through the metal sphere, and the psychedelic tones permeating the sky vanished, restoring the sky to its usual blue, much to the group's delight.
However, the end of the wave wasn't the end of the problems, because, while no new monsters were appearing, there were still plenty of them in the valley.
"The monsters... do you think they're... calmer?" Rino asked, noticing that the monsters weren't moving with the same purpose as earlier. They were dangerous, still, but... right now they looked to be more manageable: the only issue was that there were hundreds of them left.
A loud thud caught the attention of the two girls, as they saw Naofumi laying on the ground like a sack of rucolu fruits.
"Are you okay, Naofumi?" Ferrie asked, running to his side immediately.
"I feel... like I just came down from the high of drinking ten pots of coffee," he complained. "I want to sleeeeeeeeep."
"Naofumi-sama, you can't, we're still surrounded by monsters," Rino replied, trying to get him back on his feet. "What happened to you?"
"Remember my levels shot up? Well, now they're back to normal, and I'm drained."
Before she could reply, Rino noticed something that alarmed her – something she didn't like at all.
"Erm, we have a problem, there's a large flock of griffins flying this way."
"Do you think Aria can keep them on the sidelines?" Naofumi asked, struggling to stay awake.
"No idea," Ferrie admitted with anguish in her eyes. "Her health bar says she's fine, but I haven't seen her for the entire fight."
Naofumi groaned, and making an effort, he managed to stand again.
"Alright, there's still work to do. And now, on top of the wave monsters we have to deal with this wave of griffins." He sighed. "This reminds me of the old days."
"I don't know what old days you have in mind, Fumi, but our future is not promising," Ferrie replied.
The three of them moved around, to form a new formation, their backs against each other. Most of the creatures present chose to attack the party, whereas the remaining ones decided they had better things to do.
That was when the griffins charged into battle... and, much to the three humans' surprise, the griffins went on to ignore them while attacking the monsters.
"Do you think Aria had anything to do with this?" Ferrie asked.
"I have no idea, Ferrie," Naofumi replied, looking at the surrounding carnage. "As far as I know, she's never dealt with griffins, so she shouldn't know the social etiquette of their species. But..."
That was when Aria chose to land next to them, grinning and excited. As she briefly explained to Naofumi, in spite of his worry that the griffins would target her for not belonging to their group, they had actually liked her, and they had been willing to join the fight on her side. Naofumi was glad for it, but his gut feeling was telling him something was off.
Far away from the battlefield, in Castle Town, Aultcray Melromarc XXXII was impatient. The reason: something was going to happen that day, and he knew the Shield Demon would be involved.
He had known that from the moment he saw that slave from Lurolona. Thinking of the girl, and the implications of what happened to that village, was more troublesome than he suspected. He would have to have Eclair arrested, or the girl would ruin his plans against the demon... something his own daughter's actions hadn't helped with.
All of his Shadows were now looking for the Shield Demon in the entire kingdom, and if his suspicions were right, so were those working for his beloved wife and the Church. Which complicated everything, especially after his mole in the Church revealed that Biscas was pulling plenty of strings through Melromarc, and his gut feeling was telling him he was plotting against his family.
He hated it, but he knew that, even in his current state, confronting him at that point wouldn't be the best of moves. What he needed to do was to win this match of wits the Church was playing, the one they thought he didn't know he was playing.
Consciously, at least.
Another matter of importance was the recent death of Gaelion, something he found boring, to say the least. At first, Mirso's governor had denied what Lord Ren had reported, but then his emissaries got creative and started spreading the word that Mirso was keeping dragon materials for themselves. Within three days, the Adventurers Guild was ready to bring Mirso to court for not reporting said materials, forcing them to admit the truth, that Gaelion had never actually attacked the town and that they had only had him killed to obtain riches that had never been in the dragon's lair.
He had promptly replaced the governor with a man of his confidence, who had quickly investigated and discovered the local priest had broken multiple vows: his vow of poverty (as he had been discovered hiding several bags full of gold in his chambers), of confession (as he had been revealing secrets the villagers had told him) and of chastity (as he was found to have courted numerous married women). Unfortunately, since those were all crimes against the Church's guidelines, all he could do was to have him sent to the Church to be punished. So far, no priest had been appointed to replace him.
His spies in Silesia had also revealed the King had been killed, and the "revolutionaries" had taken over the country. He had hopes that they'd be willing to open trade routes with Melromarc and was ready to use the Cardinal Heroes as bargaining chips, but he suspected they wouldn't be willing to accept such assistance, so things were only bound to get worse. And he couldn't even send more knights to reinforce the border, not when Melromarc was still beset by the Waves and by the false Shield Demons rampaging through the countryside.
Someone knocked on the door. Before he could reply, the door opened, letting through one of the head maids, the one that had helped raise his wife and daughters. Something was clearly bothering her: she looked worried, her robes were askew, and he could see some feathers stuck here and there.
"Your Majesty! I'm truly sorry to interrupt you, but your... personal project is causing a lot of trouble! I come here, searching for your help and wise advice," the matron said, embarrassed. Aultcray realized he had never seen the woman look like that.
He sighed.
"I can imagine how you feel, but, honestly, I also know very little about the subject. I can help you, though. First, we'll have to go to the kitchen."
"I am not convinced that it is wise, Your Majesty."
"Wise or not, it's what we have here."
"I don't know if it is the correct approach, but I'm here to serve Your Majesty."
"So, are you saying that, if this doesn't work, it'll be my fault?" Aultcray asked, even though he knew the answer in advance.
"Yes, Your Majesty. You've made a terrible mistake, even by your actual standards, but I'll be the first to admit, this... project of yours might save your skin, if you do it correctly."
"Those are harsh words you're saying to your king... but I know you helped raise my dear wife, so I know where her sharp tongue comes from. And her temper, as well."
"Her temper comes from the former Queen, so kindly don't blame me for it, Your Majesty."
"I... still remember." Mirellia's mother was one of the most terrifying people he'd ever met: even years after her death, the name of Olivier "Strongarm" Q. Melromarc brought fear even to the Seven Star Heroes. He still had the scars to remember that no one should mess with that woman if they wanted to survive intact.
Hell, Tyran and Silvertooth had needed to bring enough troops to outnumber her and her personal guard ten-to-one in order to kill her, and the only reason they had survived was because she was sick and had been running on a high fever for two weeks, one that would have killed anyone who wasn't her.
Simply put, she had been a force of nature.
Putting thoughts of the woman aside, Aultcray arrived at the kitchen and commanded to make food to feed anywhere between twenty and thirty people. He was certain the rest of the day would be a busy one, but it was a good distraction while he waited for news of whatever the Shield Demon was doing to reach him.
If they reached him, that is.
Like I said before, I apologize for the delay in this chapter. And the next one won't take THAT long. See ya.