Chapter Two: Gratitude for Life
So what was next?
I was wondering that very thing when I remembered the extra medicine I had left over from the wave of destruction. I’d made a whole bunch, just to be safe, but at this point it probably made more sense to sell off what I didn’t need.
“Let’s stop by the apothecary and then head to the weapon shop.”
“Mr. Naofumi, take care that you don’t get too careless with your money. If you keep doing things like you just did, you’ll only make life harder on yourself.
“I know that”
“Our current equipment is just fine. Why bother thinking about it until you are sure that you need it?”
“…”
Well, I guess she had a point after all. But compared to the other heroes, we were using junk. I still thought that getting Raphtalia better equipment and then moving on to fight stronger monsters would be the best strategy…
“And besides, we just got new equipment a few days ago. Just imagine what the weapon shop owner would say.”
“Yeah…”
She was right, the old guy had given us a lot of help. And he’d given us new equipment while including the trade-in value of our older stuff too.
Whatever we got from him now probably wouldn’t be substantially better than what we already had.
The weapon shop owner was the only person that had helped me out after those bastards framed me—I liked the guy. Everything we currently had equipped, Raphtalia’s weapons and my own armor, we’d purchased from him.
So I wanted to keep patronizing him, and I wanted to pay him back for all he’d done.
“Fine. Let’s save up for a while.”
“Okay!”
Granted, it wasn’t a BAD idea to buy new equipment after our wallets had gained a little weight.
“Okay, let’s head to the apothecary.”
I poked my head into the shop, and when the owner saw me, he let a smile play over his face.
“What? What is it?”
This guy normally looked pretty sullen, which I assumed was some kind of business strategy on his part. So what was he looking so happy for? It set my nerves on edge.
“Oh not much. I’ve been waiting for you to stop by. Waiting for a chance to say thanks, you know?”
“For what?”
I looked to Raphtalia. Neither of us knew what he was talking about.
“I have some family in Riyute. They say that you saved them. They asked me to help you out if I ever ran into you.”
“Hmm… You don’t say.”
The wave of destruction had occurred near a town called Riyute, where I’d based my operations for a time. In the midst of all the chaos, I’d dedicated my energies to the evacuation effort, and the town ended up fairing pretty well because of that. When the wave had passed, the Riyute villagers had all lined up and said thank you to me. Apparently this guy’s relatives had been among them.
“So anyway, in thanks I’d like to…”
The owner took a book off of the bookshelf behind him.
“What’s that?”
“You sold me some lower-level potions earlier, which leads me to believe that those were the only recipes you knew. This book has better recipes, for mid-level potions. I think you are probably ready to take them on.”
“…”
I hesitantly opened the book on the counter. It was pretty old, and the cover was well worn. Even still, I could only discern some of the characters written there.
But I couldn’t read them.
“Th…Thank you. I’ll do my best.”
He’d gone out of his way to be nice to me, so I didn’t want to let it go without at least saying thanks. The book probably contained recipes for medicines that would sell for a good price.
“I’m glad to hear you say that.”
Ugh… I hated the pressure of having to respond to people’s kindness. I’d given up on trying to read it since I didn’t understand the language they used to write things around here. I suppose I should make a more sincere effort.
“The owner of the magic shop wanted you to stop by too.” “Magic shop?” “Mr. Naofumi? It’s a shop that sells books to teach magical spells.” “Oh, I see.” I’d seen the shop in town but had assumed it was a bookstore. Thinking
back on it then, I remembered seeing a crystal ball in the back of the shop. “Where’s the shop?” “Right on the main street. You can’t miss it.” Yes, I remember seeing it. It was the biggest, or second biggest
bookstore in town—I mean magic shop. “Excellent. So what can I do for you today?” “I was hoping you would…” He ended up buying the medicine off of me for a better price than I’d
gotten yet. I bought some new materials with the money, and went looking for the magic shop.
“Oh! The Shield Hero! I have to thank you for saving my grandchild.” “Right…”
I didn’t actually know who she was talking about, but it must have been one of the villagers in Riyute. The old lady who ran the shop had run to politely greet me at the door.
I call her an old lady, but she was a pudgy woman dressed like a witch.
“I heard you wanted to see me?”
I looked around the shop I’d previous misconstrued as a bookstore. The shelves were lined with old, dusty books, and there were a number of crystal balls lined up behind the counter. There were some staves and wands around… pretty much what you would expect for a magic shop.
Come to think of it though, I had no idea how you were supposed to learn magic.
“Before that, is this young lady your only traveling companion?”
“Huh? Oh… yeah.”
I caught Raphtalia’s gaze, and we both nodded.
“Then wait right there for a moment, please.”
She went behind the counter, took a crystal ball off of the shelf and began chanting a spell over it.
“Yes. Now then, Shield Hero, please look deep into the ball.”
“Um… Okay.”
I had no idea what to expect, but I looked deep into the ball.
Something was shining, but I couldn’t really see anything in particular.
“Yes, yes, it seems that you, Shield Hero, are suited to learning recovery and support magic.”
“Huh?”
Was she looking to see what kind of magic I was best suited to?
If only she’d told me earlier, I would have had some idea of what was going on… Oh well, it wasn’t like I had any room to complain, but she could have explained herself a little better.
“Next I’ll take a look at the nice young lady behind you.”
“Yes, Ma’am.”
Raphtalia stepped forward and looked deep into the crystal ball.
“Yes, yes, that only makes sense. The young raccoon girl seems best suited for light and shadow magic.”
“Why do you say that it only makes sense? Is that common knowledge?”
“Yes, the raccoon people are said to control phantoms that contain both the refractive properties of light and the indefinite properties of shadow.”
I was starting to understand. They were like the raccoons or tanuki of my own world. In my own Japan, people often said that tanuki were shapeshifting creatures that could take on human form. Apparently that way of thinking was something our universes had in common.
“Okay, so what is all this about?”
“Yes, well, this is what I was hoping to give you.”
The old lady said, and handed us three books.
More books! I couldn’t read them at all, not a single word, but everyone was showering me in books that day.
“I’d really like to give you a crystal ball, but if I did I would put myself
out of business…”
“Why’s that?”
“Don’t you know, Shield Hero? If you can free the magic that is sealed in a crystal ball, you’ll learn it instantly.”
What?! So I could learn to use magic even if I wasn’t able to read the books?
“Quite a while ago, the country went ahead and ordered a large number of crystal balls for the four heroes. Haven’t you heard anything about this?”
“Not a word.”
Thanks to that Trash, no doubt. He must have given the crystal balls to the other heroes after I’d left.
He went out of his way to intentionally exclude me from everything… Ugh… Just thinking about it made me want to murder the man.
“The magic books are not an easy read—that’s for sure. But if you apply yourself, you’ll eventually be able to learn a good amount of spells from those.”
That was probably why there was only one crystal ball, but a wide variety of magic books. Of course, they were only worth something if you were capable of reading them.
“I’m sorry…”
“Oh don’t be! Just getting these books will be a huge help!”
Raphtalia smiled and answered. I nodded along.
“How much magic do you think we can learn from these?”
“Well, those are all books for beginners. For anything more advanced…
Think I could ask you to purchase anything additional?”
“Oh, sure.”
“I could probably teach you the spells myself, but the Shield Hero is very busy, is he not? I suppose you can’t just hang around the castle town?”
“That’s true.”
She did have a business to run, after all. She was cutting into her own profits to give us these books, so it didn’t seem right to complain about it.
“Thank you.”
I said it in a rather difficult way, but we received the books she offered and left the magic shop.
“Geez…”
I sighed without thinking. I had never really liked studying, so what was I supposed to do now?
Anyone with half a brain knew that the best course of action would be to buckle down, learn to read, and then study the books to learn new recipes and magic.
Of course that’s what they would say.
I found myself wondering if there was some skill I could equip to make it easier, something like “other world language translation.” There might have been medicinal recipes stored in the shield somehow. If I looked for them, I might even find them. But what would end up taking more time? Learning to read or finding the shield that would give me the recipes directly?
The reading might be cheaper but if you considered the time investment it wouldn’t be. And it would entail getting new materials to experiment with also.
I still kept coming back to the idea of the translation skill, and every time I thought of it my desire to learn to read just shrunk even more.
“Let’s study up on that magic!”
Raphtalia said to me.
“But I don’t know how to read the writing here…”
“I know. That’s why we should do it together.”
“Yeah… I suppose that only makes sense.”
It did seem like a good idea to get some new recipes under my belt.
“That reminds me—how much time do we have until the next wave comes?”
“Huh? Oh, wait a second.”
I referenced the icon in the corner of my field of vision.
Apparently this whole system was called “status magic” and everyone in this world could use it.
As for me, my attack rating was as low as possible, but my defense rating was through the roof.
Among the other icons there, there was another one that only the heroes could see. I focused my energies on it, and a clock appeared that indicated the amount of time remaining until the next wave was to arrive.
It looked like forty-five days and fourteen hours.
“Looks like we have forty-five whole days!”
So they didn’t come every month?!
Well, it’s not like we had two months or anything, but that reminds me of something: we hadn’t been summoned here until after the first wave had already come. That meant that the frequency could be different than we had previously thought. If I thought about all the time I’d spent on my own before I teamed up with Raphtalia, it seemed to add up.
Over one month left some room for interpretation. “Well, having extra time is a good thing.” And if I thought about all the preparations we really should be making,
it wasn’t exactly like we had time to spare. “Anyway, are we done here, for now?” “I think so. Let’s see. We reapplied the slave curse, sold our extra
medicines, and got those books from the magic shop. That should be it.” I went over it all with Raphtalia. If we forgot something and had to
come back, we’d just lose that much time. “Then let’s get some breakfast and go level up.” “Okay.” I was surprised with the meal. My sense of taste had finally returned. I’d nearly forgotten how delicious food could be. It was invigorating.
Mortar Shield: conditions met Beaker Shield: conditions met Druggist’s Mortar Shield: conditions met
Mortar Shield: ability locked: equip bonus: new compounding
Beaker Shield: ability locked:
equip bonus: liquid compounding bonus
Druggist’s Mortar shield: ability locked:
equip bonus: collection skill 2
We finished our meals and decided to leave the castle town and make our way to Riyute. There should be some monsters along the way that were perfect for leveling up at our current levels. Unlike the other heroes, I didn’t already know where the best leveling up and hunting spots were. So I either needed to find them myself or ask around and see what I could get other people to tell me.
I opened the map and gave it a quick look-over. There didn’t seem to be anywhere that was very convenient, but it seemed like there were a few spots that would work well enough for our purposes. Granted, it wasn’t a race—but even still, the idea of falling behind the other heroes grated on my nerves. And besides, fighting an unknown monster, and winning, would get me new skills and shields to work with. It didn’t seem like a bad idea.
I’ve neglected to explain myself fully. There are a bunch of different forms my shield can take, and they all have different abilities. Unfortunately, most of them were just status and ability boosts, so they weren’t a ton of help at the moment.
They were mostly defense boosts because I was working with a shield… at least that was my theory. Even still, aside from defense boosts, my agility, stamina, magic, and SP ratings, everything except for attack, were rising as well. That was how I was able to make it through the last wave unscathed. We were walking down the road. “You know, I wonder if I could absorb the enemies from the wave into my shield?”
We’d left in a big hurry, so I hadn’t even thought to try it. But I definitely wanted to try it now, as I needed to do whatever I could to make my shield stronger.
We were approaching the fields around Riyute, and there were dead enemies from the wave laying around here and there.
Inter-Dimensional Locust Shield: conditions met Inter-Dimensional Lower Bee Shield: conditions met Inter-Dimensional Zombie Shield: conditions met
Inter-dimensional Locust Shield: ability locked: equip bonus: defense 6
Inter-dimensional Lower Bee Shield: ability locked: equip bonus: agility 6
Inter-Dimensional Zombie Shield: ability locked: equip bonus: inventory rot resistance (small)
I butchered the enemies further to see if any of their parts would result in additional shields.
But apparently there wasn’t enough of the materials remaining for most of them, and I was only able to unlock one more.
Bee Needle Shield: conditions met
Bee Needle Shield: ability locked:
equip bonus: attack 1
Special Effect: Needle Shield (small), Bee Poison (paralysis)
I figured that was pretty much what I’d expected, and we continued on to the village. On the way, we came across a group of villagers removing a chimera’s corpse.
“Hey.”
“Oh! The Shield Hero.”
No doubt thanks to what we’d been through during the wave, the villagers greeted me warmly.
“Was this guy the boss from the wave?”
I looked at the size of the body and felt sweat drip down my forehead.
I don’t know how to describe it. It was a chimera, but there was something about it that made it look different than the other monsters I’d encountered in this world. I don’t know if it was the coloring, or some other more biological characteristic. It was hard to describe in concrete terms.
“It’s a terrible thing.”
“It sure is.”
I agreed with what they were saying. It looked like the other heroes and knights had torn the thing apart for materials. The basic shape was still intact, but the skin and flesh were torn to shreds in places.
“Can I have a little of it?”
“Of course. We were just wondering what we should do with it. We were going to bring it back to the village and process it into equipment. Sound good?”
“Not a bad idea, but it doesn’t look like there is anything of use left.”
The skin was all ripped up, so they couldn’t make any good armor from it. Still, they might be able to find a use for the flesh and bones, and maybe the snake tail.
The head hadn’t been cut off. It looked like there were three heads, and yet…
Raphtalia and I set to work butchering the remains and letting the shield absorb whatever it could.
Chimera Meat Shield: conditions met
Chimera Bone Shield: conditions met
Chimera Leather Shield: conditions met
Chimera Viper Shield: conditions met
Chimera Meat Shield: ability locked: equip bonus: cooking quality improvement
Chimera Bone Shield: ability locked: equip bonus: shadow resistance (medium)
Chimera Leather Shield: ability locked: equip bonus: defense 10
Chimera Viper Shield: ability locked: equip bonus: skill: Change Shield, Antidote Compounding up, Poison Resistance (medium) Special Effect: Snake Venom Fang (medium), Hook
The last one seemed to have a lot of good bonuses, and the defense rating was pretty high.
But to equip it, it looked like you needed to be at a pretty high level, and on top of that you needed to have a lot of other chimera shields unlocked. I wouldn’t be able to use it for a little while, but I got the feeling that it would be my main shield by the time the next wave arrived.
“What are you doing with the rest?” “We were just going to bury it, so take whatever you like.” “Hm…”
It felt like it was going to waste somehow, but still… it looked like there was only flesh and bones left. The bones should keep just fine, but the meat? I couldn’t think of anything to do with it but dry it out and make jerky. Not that it looked like it would taste good.
But hey, I bet they could be materials for some kind of magical potion, but even if they could be, who would buy them from me? I had no idea. They’d give me trouble if they started rotting, and what if I stored them improperly and it came back to life or something?
Sure, the same could be said about the bones, but I still felt better about them than I did about the meat. At the same time, what was I so worried about?
“All right, we’ll take what we can carry.”
“There’s quite a lot though, Hero.”
“You’ll let me store it in the village, won’t you?”
“Well, if that is your request, Hero…”
“You can hang up the meat to dry. If someone who wants it stops by, go ahead and sell it. But set aside a little for me. It might make you enough money to rebuild. If the meat and bones came from the wave of destruction, there must be some people who will want to study it. You could make some money that way.”
“I suppose you are right, Hero.”
The villagers wanted money to rebuild, so they followed my instructions.
I let the shield absorb the guts and anything that looked like it would rot quickly, then we set off for the village. When we arrived, dusk was already on us.
The village was half-destroyed, and the remaining villagers were all living in the relatively unaffected buildings. The village chief prepared a room for us in the inn, which seemed to be in relatively good shape, and so we were able to get a good rest that night.
“I’d like to stick around and help them rebuild, but I don’t think we have the time to spend worrying about all this.”
The villagers were doing all they could to take care of us. I could understand being grateful for my help in disposing of the chimera corpse, but I didn’t know how to feel about the free room and board.
“I know how you feel. I sure wish we could do something to help them all.”
Some of the literate villagers drafted me a table of characters so that I might learn how to read their language.
It was something like the A I U E O tables in Japanese, or the alphabet in English.
Later that night, I got Raphtalia’s help, as she could read a little. I had her pronounce each character so that I could compare it to my own language. Then I drafted the answers, in my own language, onto the chart.
I imagined that they combined characters to make words, so any translation work would be hard-going. Even though, it wouldn’t be impossible.
I sat down to work on some medicines, and while I was working, I struggled to memorize all their strange symbols.
No Comments Yet
Post a new comment
Register or Login