Chapter 1: A Proper Setup
"What are you doing?" Melty asked.
"Isn't it obvious? I'm cleaning up." Naofumi swung a sledgehammer she found at a rundown 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?" Naofumi sighed.
"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.]" The melty touched the ground, causing it to rumble. Cracks shot out from her position, traveling across the ground until they reached and knocked down several buildings. "I mean, there are faster ways of doing this," Melty smirked.
"Show off." Naofumi threw away his hammer and walked over to a small tent. Pouring a glass of water, he handed it over to Melty before pouring himself a glass.
"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 either way."
"Well, when confirming with the shadows, it appears that many of the original slaves were found and were 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 mountains nearby for stone and sell that. We can even buy some filolial so we can transport them."
"I guess that could work; Melty, what's the area with the most wood?"
"That would be Riyute. They're surrounded by forest and swamps."
"Great, start drafting a trade deal with the lord. Once we get our bearings, we can start trading for much-needed material.
"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 walked across the village entrance. After a few hours, a rather short man with his
Several muscular bodyguards appeared and began lining up the slave children he had in tow.
In the lines were demi-human children, each one either having animal ears or a tail, with a few even having 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 brave 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, you're my new slaves.
A couple of the kids tried to speak up in outrage, but Naofumi's scowl silenced them all.
"As I was saying, you are now my slaves. Don't worry too much about it; I kept the seal on for two specific reasons. The first will not be mentioned, and the second is to keep you guys from lying to me. Liars are scum, and if you lie to me, I will happily laugh as you writhe in pain on the ground.
"Naofumi!" Melty scolded.
"Alright, I'll tone it down," Naofumi grumbled. "Anyway, take a look around. If the place looks familiar, then congratulations. This is your homecoming, and as you can see, the place got the shit beaten out of it. I'm the new lord, and if a couple of you all want to return to your normal lives, then I'm going to need the cooperation of everyone here. Am I clear?"
Naofumi looked over to the slaves, who all seemed 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 moved 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 of 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, so never, 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 the shock of a lifetime." 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." The crowd was surprisingly shocked at the answer and began to talk amongst themselves. Some even throw up their hands in the hopes of getting their questions 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 thanks to the generous donation from the Richnott territory, we all have new clothes prepared for all of you. Any alterations should be reported to Melty. Specific designs or other unnecessary designs will be on you, so don't bother asking. I'll give you until 1300 hours to get dressed and lined up at the hill." Naofumi ordered.
The slaves looked confused at the order and began asking around.
"I mean 1 o'clock."
The kids still looked confused, and a couple of them raised their hands.
"In one hour!" 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 scowled at 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 there 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 give them motivation to work harder—a foolproof plan."
"...How can one be so kind yet evil at the same time?"
"Don't forget, I'm called the shield devil for a reason."
/~/
Day 3
"Master! We're hungry!" A collective whined.
"The hell, this is your 7th meal today. And it's still breakfast!"
"But master." A beaver girl pouted. But Naofumi didn't fall for her begging.
"No. If you're hungry, go hunt and cook it yourself. I am no longer making extra snacks."
"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 was 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 could 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, the chances of complete and utter failure drop to 5%."
"What's the five percent then?"
"You."
"Well, fuck you too." Naofumi opened the book and started to glance over the medicine 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 mercenary army. But I advise against that."
"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 punched Naofumi's shoulder, but he didn't feel anything.
"Speaking of stone. How's the mining going?"
Melty stopped her assault and blushed a bit before grabbing a scroll from her Filolial's 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. It looks like we need to raise levels first before starting any real hard labor. I'll get Stern and the rest of the kids to make more hunting trips." Naofumi put the recipe book down and began reading over his weapon.
"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 burst 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 had 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 Saddena tried to comfort them.
"Oh my. Whatever happened here."
"It was terrwible, they were cwacks, monsters; it was scawy."
"Cracks? Does that mean... Raphtalia, where are your parents?"
"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 coughed to get all their attention.
"Sorry to ruin the heartfelt moment, but who are you exactly?"
"Oh my, a new face, and the princess too. Is this a friend of yours?"
"He's the n-new lord of this place." A kid replied, still crying.
"Lord? Whatever happened to Seatto?"
"He unfortunately fell in battle. Were you a villager of his?" Melty asked.
"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 to hit here."
"It was sort of a joint effort. After some investigating, we figured out the "knights" that attacked this place were indeed slavers." Melty explained.
"To kill the wave boss, enslave an entire town in just a few hours. Then sell most of the inhabitants, some even across the Melromarc border, over the span of a week. Slavery is more efficient than I thought. Perhaps."
"Naofumi, NO!" Melty demanded.
"Fine," Naofumi grumbled. He made sure to clear his mind of all his evil thoughts before continuing his talk with the killer whale. "So why come back here if you were so convinced Lurorona slaves were in Zeltoble?"
"Rumors travel far. There was so much talk about the shield hero being cleared of his crimes and taking over a town for the demi-humans only a few days after I began fighting in the arena. Life sure 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 along with the others bought by the crown soon enough."
"Really? That quickly."
"You'll be surprised at how cheap children can be. They can't do much hard labor, and leveling them up isn't an option as well. Since if they level up too far, the possibilities of revolt are extremely high. The only ones you have to watch out for are the real creeps. Like Xeal." Sadeena scoffed at the mere mention of his name.
"What an odd slave dynamic this world has."
"It's not that good of a system. Mother has been trying to abolish it for years, but with the war against and general opinion against demi-humans, it is getting harder and harder as time passes."
"Which will lead me to this." Sadeena picked up Naofumi by the forehead and raised him up to her height. She was not only surprisingly tall but also very strong as well.
"Even if you're the shield hero, I give you this single warning. If you cause 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 anyway, but sure."
"Then care to explain their crest?"
"Well, I was planning on removing it, but I found a very useful ability." Naofumi's shield enveloped itself in a green light, changing its 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 its effects for now; it's to make them stronger."
"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."
"Oh my. Does the slave crest really have that much potential?"
"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 by a puff of smoke, soon rising from the smoke seconds later in human form. She was extremely tall with long black hair in a ponytail and clothes that revealed almost everything. "Will this be a better form for little Naofumi?"
"Don't patronize me." Sadeena released Naofumi from her grasp and undid her ponytail, dropping her long, flowing hair that reached to her knees, alongside a bottle of what appeared to be wine 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 kicked the ground, making the earth between Naofumi and Melty shake as a large fissure formed in the ground. She then reached for the area she just cracked open and pulled out a large stone, where she placed two cups onto it.
Naofumi starts to slowly back away from the killer whale as she starts to pour in the wine. 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, but it was only when the 23rd shot came by that 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 were here to see this. Then I can only imagine the excuses at this point." Melty thought as she watched on.
Around the 32nd round, things started to heat up. Many of the village children in the area 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 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 have 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 had 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 great—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 just wanted to say, sir, shield hero. Congratulations." The embarrassed raccoon ran off to a seemingly pissed-off weasel immediately afterward, leaving Naofumi and Melty alone once more.
"What 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 of 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 girl's yell could start to be heard from the outside.
"Delia… DELIA!"
"WHAT!" The rabbit screamed back. Looking up, she saw a squirrel demi-human 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.
/~/
Character Entries Unlocked
Name: Delia
Weapon: None
Magic: Earth/Support
A rabbit demi-human with an attitude. She likes to dig burrows and tunnels in her free time. Adept at construction.
/~/
Name: Alia
Weapon: None
Magic: Earth
A squirrel demi-human. Adept at magic, likes farming and baking.