Chapter One: Advance Payment
“This is . . .”
I looked at our surroundings. We seemed to be in a port storehouse. There was a large wooden crate nearby. The marking pin must have been attached to the crate.
“Yeah, that’s definitely a convenient skill. If we had to, we could just attach a pin to Gaelion and send him ahead. That might even be more — ”
I paused mid-sentence when I noticed S’yne peering at her weapon strangely.
“That ——— pretty ——— ”
“She says that was pretty dangerous,” the Keel-like stuffed doll replied.
“What was?” I asked.
“My master says that using her weapon in its weakened state to transport multiple people at once is dangerous. If something went wrong and the teleport failed, it’s hard to say what would happen.”
S’yne was using a vassal weapon that belonged to a world that had been destroyed. Its translation functionality was already failing. The weapon’s other powers were also slowly dwindling away, bit by bit.
“So we just barely made it and another attempt would be dangerous, in other words,” I said.
“Correct. Your idea could work, but it would be a gamble. Would you still like to try?” the doll asked.
“And I’m guessing it would still be dangerous even with less people,” I replied.
S’yne nodded.
“So much for that. Us heroes will be on portal duty for the rest of the trip then,” I said.
Some kind of teleport mishap was not something I could risk at the moment. I’d just be happy with the fact that we’d managed to take this much of a shortcut.
S’yne bowed her head apologetically. I ruffled her hair a bit as a sign that she shouldn’t worry about it. She jerked her head back up quickly and seemed to be blushing slightly.
“Did that bother you?” I asked her.
She shook her head and then smiled really big. I guess that meant she didn’t mind me ruffling her hair, but why was she smiling? I thought she was supposed to be the cool, unaffected type. That smile was out of character. Or was this one of those things where the girl falls in love with the hero when he rubs her on the head? Surely not.
“My master says that she will come running should anything happen, regardless.”
“Thanks. But last time she was asleep and didn’t even notice. Let’s try to avoid that.”
“She says it won’t happen again.”
Just as I finished settling things with S’yne, Atla’s ears began twitching and her tail flicked back and forth a couple times.
“Hm? I sense the arrival of a new enemy,” she said.
“Huh? Where?” I asked.
We were in a port storehouse, after all. It was possible a security guard had mistaken us for thieves or something. I wondered if we should try running. I had a feeling that would be difficult with our numbers.
“Nowhere. It’s just a hunch,” she replied.
“Don’t say misleading things like that!” I snapped.
“You’re being overly cautious, Atla,” said Raphtalia.
“Whatever. Let’s go,” I said.
We all climbed on Gaelion’s back and thus began our journey.
Judging by our progress, riding Gaelion was quicker than traveling by boat or carriage. I guess that was only natural, considering we were flying.
“Kwa . . .”
“Gaelion says we’re heavy. He says we’ll need to travel with less people if we want him to fly for extended periods of time,” said Wyndia.
She was complaining on Gaelion’s behalf. I turned around and counted how many people were riding him. There was me, Raphtalia, Sadeena, Wyndia, S’yne, Atla, and Fohl. Yeah, that did seem like too many people to be riding him, to be honest. Gaelion could transform into a rather large dragon, so we’d all climbed on like it was only natural. But I could definitely see how seven people might be a bit heavy, especially if we wanted to prioritize traveling fast.
“Kwaaaaa . . .”
It was clearly no small effort for Gaelion to continue flying. I could sense him concentrating his magic power into his wings as he flapped them.
That reminded me. Rat mentioned that it was difficult for dragons to sustain flight over long periods of time. I looked back at the others again.
“Maybe it should just be me and Wyndia while traveling. I’m already going to be bringing the others to us using my portal, after all,” I said.
“That might be a good idea. All of this swaying is starting to make me sick,” Raphtalia replied.
She didn’t look so good. Now that I thought about it, even riding in Filo’s carriage had made her sick in the beginning. Maybe motion sickness was a weakness of hers.
Then Fohl made a retching sound. Him too? I’d never experienced motion sickness myself, so I couldn’t really claim to understand. It sure didn’t seem fun, though.
“Brother, you and Raphtalia lack discipline,” said Atla.
She seemed completely unfazed. If anyone, it should have been her that got sick easily. Her recovery really had been a little bit too successful.
“Wha ——— ?”
S’yne didn’t seem to be particularly bothered.
“Oh my!” Sadeena squealed playfully.
“Sadeena, you better not go transforming into your therianthrope form here,” I said.
If she changed into her big, fat killer whale therianthrope form while we were flying, Gaelion was likely to run out of strength and fall out of the sky.
“Kw-kwa . . .”
“He says he needs to rest,” said Wyndia.
“I guess we’ll just have to take a break,” I replied.
I wasn’t too excited about taking a break since we were in a hurry, but I could understand. We touched down in a meadow to let Gaelion rest.
“It’s not often that you get to experience traveling by flight. This is fun,” Sadeena said.
“It’s going to take more than fun to solve our problems,” I retorted.
After a few moments, a faint rumbling sound came from Gaelion’s direction.
“Kwaaaa . . .”
“Gaelion says he’s hungry.”
“He just ate!” I shouted.
I’d fed him plenty just before we left. What did she mean he was hungry already?!
“I’m sure he used up a lot of magic power flying with seven people on his back. It only makes sense that he would be exhausted and get hungry, don’t you think?” Sadeena suggested.
“I guess that does make sense,” I said.
So by flying, we could ignore troublesome terrain, but fuel efficiency would drop. Yeah, it would probably be best to have Raphtalia and a few of the others stay back at home while we were on the move, although it’s not like there weren’t monsters up in the sky. In fact, Sadeena had already dropped several of them out of the air with her lightning magic.
“Should we return to the village and feed him? Or should we just go kill some random monsters and feed him here?” I asked.
Gaelion was a dragon, right? If I didn’t need to cook the food, then it would probably be quickest to just kill some monsters in the area and he could eat those. If I got lucky, I might even end up getting some new shield materials.
“You want to hunt?” asked Raphtalia.
“Sure, why not?” I replied.
“Then hunting time it is!” Atla shouted. “Do your best, Brother! Let’s give Mr. Naofumi a reason to praise us!”
“A-Atla! Wait! Ugh!” Fohl moaned.
Atla just up and ran off all of a sudden, and Fohl went chasing after her.
“I guess we might as well look for monsters while we’re waiting on Gaelion’s magic power to regenerate,” said Raphtalia.
“Sounds like a plan. Should I go look too?” Sadeena asked.
“I guess it’s settled then, although we could use magic water to forcefully regenerate it,” I said.
I had been making life force water for our training. It restored magic power too, but we needed a lot of it for our training, so I was always worried about my stock. It required more materials to make than one might imagine, and it sold for a pretty good price too. Since I’d taken on Itsuki’s debts, I wanted to avoid being wasteful. It had only been several hours since starting our journey, after all. It probably wouldn’t be good to push too hard right from the start.
“Alright, Gaelion and Wyndia, you two rest and save up energy for the remainder of our flight,” I said.
“Wh ——— ”
“You’re coming too, S’yne. Other than that, we need to think about the weight. From an offensive perspective, I’d like to take Sadeena, but . . .” I trailed off.
“Oh? But?” Sadeena asked.
Hypothetically speaking, if Sadeena lost it and attacked me, I wasn’t sure if I’d be able to restrain her with just Gaelion and Wyndia. Wait, why was I worrying about Sadeena anyway?
“Sadeena, surely you wouldn’t attack Mr. Naofumi at a time like this, right?” asked Raphtalia.
“Of course not!” Sadeena replied playfully while shaking her head.
Yeah, I couldn’t believe a word she said. But messing around could’ve gotten us killed, so I’d like to think even Sadeena wouldn’t do anything like that. To be honest, this flying around thing was more troublesome than I’d expected. We had to deal with people getting sick. Also, flying for long stretches was a problem too.
Hmm . . . Maybe it would be better to bring Filo or her underling and travel by carriage, after all. That’s how we’d gotten around in Zeltoble. I guess getting around was still a headache even with a portal skill. I mulled over our options as we headed out to hunt monsters.
“Hmm . . . The monsters around here are different than the ones in Melromarc,” I commented.
“Yeah, they are,” Raphtalia replied.
We’d just killed a monster that resembled a hedgehog. It had a ridiculously long name: zenith blue needle rat. We’d also seen some indigo lizards and a bunch of other monsters that I’d never seen in Melromarc.
Of course, I’d implemented numerous power-up methods, so none of the monsters we ran into presented much of a challenge. Our current party was kind of like an all-star lineup of my best fighters. It would have been worrisome if we had been struggling. And we were still in the fields, so it wasn’t like this was an area where powerful monsters would show up.
Regardless, even weak monsters could unlock new shields with stat boosts. It would be foolish to ignore that. All of the tiny +1 bonuses added up over time. I had a feeling the time was coming when I would need to just travel around the world gathering new monster materials to raise my stats. But for now, I needed to gather materials whenever I had the chance. I absorbed the monster parts into my shield.
“I should have Ren and Itsuki travel around the world, defeating monsters and gathering materials like this too,” I said.
Heroes couldn’t share experience points, but materials were another story. That was another way we could cooperate to help each other.
“Don’t you think we should probably get this Q’ten Lo business taken care of first?” Sadeena asked.
“I th ——— ”
S’yne said something and nodded.
“I guess so. But we need to make sure to do little stuff like that too, or who knows when we’ll end up regretting it. Time is limited, so we can’t afford to waste what little we have,” I said.
S’yne was clapping now. Whose side was she on anyway?
“Being a hero sure is tough,” Sadeena said.
“Yes, those have been my thoughts exactly, ever since I started to use the katana vassal weapon. Just like Glass said, ‘With great power comes great responsibility,’” Raphtalia replied.
That did sound like something Glass would say. I hated to break it to her, but great power was for making sure you got your way. But if I said something like that, it’d just make Raphtalia angry, so I kept my mouth shut.
“In any case, should we go ahead and take what we’ve gathered back to Gaelion and then some of us can head back home?” she asked.
“I guess so. And then I think I’ll have him take us a bit further today. It’s not like he can’t fight while in the air. I’ll just take Wyndia and continue on with the three of us,” I said.
“Understood . . .” Raphtalia replied with a hint of regret in her voice.
“I’d like to stick around and make sure you’re safe since the enemy is after you, but . . .” I added.
“You leave little Raphtalia to me, little Naofumi,” said Sadeena.
She tapped her hand against her chest in a show of confidence. I probably could trust her to keep Raphtalia safe too. Plus, Ren and Itsuki were still back at the village. Raphtalia would probably be a lot safer there than alone with me.
With that in mind, we took the monsters back and fed Gaelion before continuing on with fewer people to make flying easier on him.
It had been around two days since resuming our journey, and there hadn’t been any attacks on the village so far. We’d made it about two-thirds of the way to Siltvelt. At our current pace, we’d probably end up in Siltvelt by tomorrow. We’d basically managed to squeeze a two-week trip into four days. That was fantastic. Gaelion’s flight speed and our portal skills made for a pretty great combination. Of course, Siltvelt wasn’t our final destination, so it wasn’t like our journey had come to an end.
“Kwa! Kwaaa!”
Gaelion had been in a really good mood lately. According to Wyndia, it was because I was giving him more attention.
“Alright, I guess that’s far enough for today. Let’s go ahead and head back to the vil — ”
Just then, I noticed something stirring up a cloud of dust as it barreled toward us from the rear. What now?
“Kwaaaaa!”
Gaelion got into a defensive stance. I shifted my gaze toward the source of the cloud of dust. I was considering using my portal to flee, depending on how things turned out, but . . .
“Aha! I knew that was you, Masteeerrr! Heeeyyy!”
Filo waved to me as she came running up in her filolial queen form.
“Rafuuu!”
Raph-chan was still riding around on Filo’s head, like usual. Seeing her made me feel all warm and fuzzy inside. That’s what I was thinking when all of a sudden —
“As the source of your power, I command you! Let the way of the universe be revealed once more! Wash away the abomination that stands before me!”
“Drifa Aqua Blast!”
A magical attack came flying toward me from just behind Filo. Almost completely by instinct, I threw my shield up and batted the attack right back at the caster.
“Whoa!”
The person who had cast the spell dodged their own spell by a hair’s breadth. I’d figured out who the caster was the moment I heard her voice.
Soon after Melty and Filo had left to go leveling — around the time of the attack on the village — Melty hit the level 40 cap, so they decided to head back. That night, Fitoria asked Filo to meet up. It had been a while since Melty had seen Fitoria too, so she was really excited.
“Long time no see,” said Fitoria.
“Yes, indeed! Thank you for all of your help stopping the Spirit Tortoise in Melromarc,” Melty replied.
“Don’t mention it. Taking care of that was partially my responsibility from the get-go.”
Melty was overjoyed by Fitoria’s kind attitude and the presence of all the surrounding filolials.
“. . .”
“Rafu!”
Raph-chan was still sitting on Filo’s head. For some reason, Fitoria glared at her for several moments.
“Hmph . . .”
“Rafu, rafu!”
Raph-chan was squeaking as if she were lecturing Fitoria and it left an impression on Melty. So she asked Filo what Raph-chan was saying later, and apparently it was something like:
“It’s only proper to make your request directly instead of trying to get what you want through manipulation that causes others trouble. I’ll make good use of the power you were using to try to manipulate the heroes, so don’t expect me to return it.”
Huh? Did that mean Fitoria had been using Filo to try to manipulate me?
Who knows whether it was actually because Raph-chan had lectured her or not, but Fitoria let out a deep sigh and began talking.
“Fine. The fact that my methods didn’t seem reasonable is a failure on my part, anyway. In that case, allow me to be more direct this time: I’ve come to request your help,” Fitoria stated.
“Umm, what can we do for you?” Melty asked.
Filo responded with a quizzical “hm?” and Fitoria went on to explain the details of her request to Filo, Melty, and Raph-chan.
“And then you came to find me?” I asked.
“Yeah. Fitoria wants you to help,” Melty replied.
“I see. Thanks for the details. But that will have to wait,” I said.
“Even after hearing the explanation, that’s all you have to say?” Melty asked.
“What else would I say? Things need to be handled in order of priority. Tell Fitoria not to come to me with annoying problems that she can’t solve on her own,” I replied.
I was guessing Fitoria had only come to me because she couldn’t solve the problem on her own, and I didn’t feel like obliging a demand like that. Not to mention, Fitoria was ridiculously strong. I couldn’t imagine myself being able to handle a problem that was too much for her.
“And besides, I’m right in the middle of working on improving relations between the four holy heroes, just like Fitoria asked me to do,” I continued.
Ren and Itsuki still had problems, but we’d resolved our differences. And as for Motoyasu, all said and done, I figured he’d be fine left alone. In fact, I preferred not having him around to deal with.
“I’ll take care of it for her once I’m done dealing with my own annoying problem. Until then, she’ll just have to wait,” I said.
“Hm? Okay. She wants to know how long that will take,” said Filo.
She must have received a communication from Fitoria.
“Who knows? I hope to get it over with as quickly as possible, but I have no idea,” I told her.
“She says that’s not helpful,” Filo replied.
“Hell if I care. Tell her to help herself, then,” I said.
“Umm, Naofumi, at least let us finish explaining first,” said Melty.
“I have no desire to hear what the actual request is. I’m sure finding out would just get me tangled up in a bunch of trouble,” I replied.
Melty let out a deep sigh.
“So what’s this advance payment you mentioned? Money?” I asked.
“All you think about is profit, Naofumi. No, it’s not money. Fitoria bestowed several helpful blessings on me and Filo,” Melty replied.
“Blessings?” I asked with a confused look on my face.
Filo and Melty both nodded.
“You can see Filo’s stats, right? Why don’t you take a look?” Melty said.
Just like she suggested, I checked Filo’s stats. I was at a loss for words. They had all more than doubled. Her stats were now just slightly below what they’d been when we faced the Spirit Tortoise.
“I’m not really sure, but she did something that raised our overall attributes in exchange for lowering our levels. She also took care of my class-up,” Melty explained.
“What do you think, Masteeerrr? There’s no way I’ll let Gaelion get the best of me nooow!” Filo exclaimed.
“Gyao, gyao, gyao!”
Gaelion started growling at Filo threateningly. I sighed. But Filo sure had come back a lot stronger, even though her progress had really just been thanks to the advance payment from Fitoria. I had a feeling it still wouldn’t be nearly enough to offset the hassle of whatever it was she wanted me to do.
“I’m sorry, but if she thinks I’m going to quietly give in because of a huge advance payment like this, she’s a fool. I refuse! I refuse her advance payment!” I shouted.
“I find it hard to understand why you’re giving Fitoria a hard time,” Melty replied.
“Buuuut . . .” Filo moaned.
“Gyao, gyao, gyao!”
Gaelion was laughing at Filo in a ridiculing manner. With an advance payment this big, there was no doubt that the request was going to be a massive headache.
“Either way, it will have to wait! Filo, you understand that certain things take priority, right?” I asked.
“Yeah. Master decides what order things need to be done in,” Filo replied.
“Exactly. I knew you would understand. Good girl,” I said.
“Eh, heh, heh . . . I understand!”
“Seriously? You know what will happen if we refuse, right?” Melty asked Filo.
Melty was starting to panic, but that wasn’t my problem.
“I’ll accept the request, but it will have to wait. We have our own situation to deal with too. Fitoria will have to wait in line,” I said.
It only made sense to prioritize Raphtalia’s problem at the moment.
“If she absolutely can’t wait, then I can send Ren and Itsuki from the village to take care of it. Would that work?” I asked.
“Huh? Umm, she says it has to be you and me,” Filo replied.
I knew it. If she wasn’t willing to ask Ren and Itsuki, that probably meant there was some kind of personal circumstances involved. It might have been something that would benefit from a strong defense, but I was sure Ren and Itsuki would be able to handle pretty much anything with their attack power. Or it could have been something that didn’t require fighting skill at all.
“Then that settles it. I’ll take care of it later, so she’ll just have to wait until then. End of discussion!” I snapped.
I wasn’t going to let myself be taken advantage of by giving in to that selfish bird queen’s strong-arm tactics. I’d keep her waiting a while to make her pay for even trying such a thing.
“Or what? Are you going to say you’ll kill the four holy heroes over something like this too, Fitoria?” I asked.
I almost felt like I could hear her stamping her foot on the ground bitterly somewhere far, far away. Deep down, she might not have been all that different from Filo, after all.
“It seems like she gave in,” Filo said.
“That’s good to hear,” I replied.
“She saaaid, ‘Don’t come complaining to me when you end up regretting this later.’”
Regretting what? I wasn’t going to fall for her lame attempt to provoke me. Besides, if I was going to regret something, I’d much rather regret it after I had finished cleaning up the mess with Raphtalia.
“Rafuuu!”
“You’re such a good girl. Yes you are!” I told Raph-chan.
It had been a while since I’d seen her. I spent a few moments petting her and enjoying the texture of her fur.
“So what are you doing in a place like this, other than putting off helping Fitoria?” Melty asked.
She was watching me pet Raph-chan.
“Oh yeah, that. It turns out we have to go to a little country called Q’ten Lo,” I replied.
I told Melty and Filo about the issues surrounding Raphtalia’s birth. If I didn’t address the problem, the development of the village would most likely suffer.
“We have no choice but to go, and we’re right in the middle of our journey there now,” I explained.
“Soooo in other words, it’s all because Master made big sis wear that miko — ”
“Filo, if you say one more word, I’m going to pet Gaelion,” I threatened, cutting Filo off.
“Kwa!”
“Noooo!”
When that successfully managed to shut Filo up, Melty smacked her palm against her forehead in disbelief.
“Don’t use Gaelion to harass others!” Wyndia snapped.
She sure was annoying.
“Have you told Mother about this?” Melty asked.
“Umm, no,” I replied.
I’d completely forgotten about going to tell the queen. There were diplomatic aspects to the issue as well, so I guess I probably should have.
“Alright, I’ll send you back to the village, so you go tell the queen for me, Melty. This is a good stopping point for today, anyway. Let’s all go back together,” I said.
“Wait a minute! Don’t push your problems off on me!” Melty shouted.
She looked angry, but I just ignored her and teleported everyone back to the village.
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