Chapter Ten: The Evil Researcher
After finishing our discussion with Mamoru, we stopped by the dragon hourglass to register and then decided to return to the village. I ordered the Shadow to remain in Mamoru’s castle and conduct his own autonomous investigation. A little spying couldn’t hurt.
“Bubba, welcome back,” Keel said.
“Naofumi, you’re finally back!” Ren said, coming out to greet us with Ruft and Wyndia. Eclair was here too. It looked like something was up.
“Dafu!” Raph-chan II was looking around the village, her fur standing on end.
“We need to tell you something,” Eclair said. “Someone entered the village from outside, and it’s causing a bit of trouble for Wyndia. She claims to be an ally of the past hero and doesn’t seem to be looking for a fight.”
“Something else happened while we were gone?” I asked.
“Yes. But she says she isn’t our enemy . . .” Ren replied.
“I thought it could be dangerous, so I evacuated the others from the village,” Ruft said. He was good at making decisions when they were needed. An excellent response to a potential threat.
“Her movements are so quick. We put Fohl on her to start with, to keep an eye on her, but she took an interest in him too and ended up keeping an eye on him, basically,” Ren continued. Why did these problems always have to keep happening, one after another?! I was getting pretty pissed off with everything.
“She said she wouldn’t do anything, but she’s going to mess up the entire lab!” Wyndia proclaimed.
“What did you say?!” Rat exclaimed immediately upon hearing that comment.
“Okay. Who is this person?” I asked. This whole situation was starting to feel pretty familiar.
“She’s a researcher working in this country. An ally of the Shield Hero of this time,” Ren reported.
“What? Raphtalia, can you go get Mamoru?” I asked her.
“Very well. I’ll be back right away,” she replied. She immediately followed my orders and used Scroll of Return to head back to find Mamoru. I wondered if it was too much to ask for a little time to relax. It was just one problem after another.
“Waah! What, what, what are you doing?” There came the shout from a filolial, almost like a scream. “Mo-chan, Melty, Master! Save me!” It sounded a lot like Filo. I was once again reminded how similar all filolials were in terms of personality.
“Hey! What are you playing at?!” Melty dashed over to help the filolial who was in trouble, shouting at the one tormenting her.
“They understand human speech. Quite unique monsters! Should I consider them a new breed, or maybe . . .” said their tormentor. She had long platinum-blonde hair and brown skin. She looked human. A little short in stature. Age . . . that was a tough one. Maybe slightly older than Rishia, maybe close in age to Ren. She was wearing a white lab coat. Her appearance—the atmosphere about her—was very much like the woman standing stunned at my side. This had to be the cause of all the trouble Ren and the others in the village were struggling to deal with. “They are so fluffy!”
“Stop that! She doesn’t like it!” Melty said.
“Everyone, just calm down,” I commanded. Predicting what was coming next, I used Float Shield to pin the interloper between two shields and turn her attention away from the filolials.
“What’s this?” the lab coat woman said. I thought she had noticed me . . . but then she immediately looked away and started looking at the Raph species.
“Raph?” said one of them.
“Oh my, these ones look a lot more docile. That one with the spear was a lot more guarded, while this little cute thing . . . Wow, it’s so fluffy,” the woman said.
“So she is the problem?” I asked.
“That’s right,” Ren confirmed.
“Brother! You’re back!” Fohl dashed over. “She’s a real fast mover. I got too close and she started to give me a full medical inspection . . .”
“Sure, that does sound rough,” I placated him. “Still . . .” The feeling coming from her really reminded me of someone else.
“What’s this? You seem to be taking an interest in me?” the woman said. Having finished her inspection of the Raph species, this eerily familiar woman finally turned to look at me. “I’ve heard a little about you from my friends in this village. You’re the Shield Hero who isn’t Mamoru,” she said.
“That’s right. And you are?” I asked—but I was pretty sure I knew the answer. This was the Whip Hero and researcher who Mamoru had wanted to introduce us to. I just needed to make sure.
“Little old me? I’m Holn Anthreya. My friends call me Holn,” she replied.
“My name is Naofumi Iwatani,” I said. Then I looked over at the woman with the same surname as the newcomer.
“From what I’ve been hearing from my acquaintances here, it seems you have one of my little old relatives here with you,” Holn said.
“Indeed,” Rat stammered. “My name is Ratotille Anthreya.”
“Does that mean I can go ahead and investigate everyone here in the village?” Holn asked.
“Of course not!” I snapped.
“Very well. I’ll just have to pick my moments,” she replied confidently. I could see why they had been overwhelmed by her.
“Can you lay off a little—” Melty started, warning Holn off, but I signaled for her to stop.
“You’ll only make it worse if you keep riling her up. You and everyone else, just take a step back. I’ll handle this,” I told her.
“I’m not sure that’s a good idea,” Melty said.
“Don’t worry. I can handle this. I’m going to have to talk to her at some point,” I said.
“If you say so,” Melty agreed. With her in the lead, almost everyone in the village went off on patrol. Anything could happen, after all.
“Ren, Eclair, you too. Wyndia, you help calm down the village monsters,” I said.
“Okay,” she replied. Everyone moved off.
“Raph,” said Raph-chan. Just for safety’s sake, I decided to keep her up on my shoulder.
“Let’s get down to things, then. Who are you? Mamoru wanted to introduce us, but you weren’t around,” I said.
“I bet he did. I’m the perfect little old candidate for this kind of situation. If he hadn’t brought me into this, then I probably would have moved on from my collaboration with him. Of course, I noticed something was up before that happened and arrived here on my own,” she said. She had her own unique tone to her voice, a different kind of arrogance than Rat. It was layered with flickers of confidence. When I thought about it now, I realized I’d never really asked Rat anything about her family. But I knew she was originally from Faubrey, so they were probably quite well off.
“Hey, Rat. Tell me a little about your family,” I told her.
“A bloodline of researchers, give or take. We do have distant connections to the heroes,” she said. So maybe it was a common surname among researchers in the future. “I was treated as a bit of an outcast among my family, due to the content of my research. Didn’t I tell you? The one in the lab coat who was with Takt was a distant relation of mine.” So maybe these two were also distant relations—but it was dangerous to just assume anything.
“I’ve taken a little old look around, seen the facilities you have here, and I have to say that our culture doesn’t seem to have developed much in the future,” Holn commented. “I would have expected it to be a higher level than this by now.”
“Thanks to the actions of the one behind the waves,” I said.
“I see. Well, that’s certainly a pain. Creating better things just to have them squashed down . . .” Holn lamented, shaking her head.
“There do seem to have been times during which civilization was more advanced,” I told her.
“Times change. Just like people themselves. The highest level we are allowed to reach is ultimately being controlled,” Holn concluded. I couldn’t dispute that. The fact that the Roman Empire had been advanced before the Middle Ages was a famous fact of Earth history.
“Enough getting-to-know-you banter. What do you want?” I asked. I wasn’t really sure if we should be showing the research of the future—and the products of that research—to someone like this. There was the possibility that our actions here were going to seriously impact the future.
“I’m a researcher who feels joy in the fulfillment of my little old curiosity. I’m just sniffing out somewhere else that catches my attention—just looking for another fix. If there’s anything you want to know, future Shield Hero, maybe we can think about it together?” she offered.
“Okay. I was going to ask Mamoru to basically set that up anyway. It seems that our enemies have attacked us and sent us far back into the past. We need to get back to where we came from. Any ideas about making that happen?” I asked.
“I knew that was what you were going to ask. Of course I did. I’m interested in that as well, so you can bet I’m going to help,” Holn replied, already checking the ground at the village boundary line as she spoke. “If you do want to show me more, we should do it in the research lab,” she suggested.
“Okay, let’s go,” I said. I left Melty, Ren, and Fohl on guard and took Holn and Rat with me toward Rat’s lab. Once we got inside, we headed over to a large terminal—basically a fantasy computer, a large stone tablet. I’d come here before for things like Raph-species health checks, but it really hit me again how strange this place was.
“The plants comprising this building are very interesting. Is this also technology from the future?” Holn asked.
“These were originally problem plants created by an alchemist at some point in the past. I used the shield to rework them, with help from Rat,” I said.
“I see. If I created anything capable of such trouble, of course, I would dispose of it at once,” she replied—subtly letting me know that she wasn’t the one who had made them. In that moment, I happened to meet the eyes of the mystery creature swimming inside the tank in the lab. It was watching us with really intense curiosity. Not for the first time I wondered exactly what this thing was. I recalled Rat calling it by name, sometimes—Mikey, maybe, or something like that.
Holn proceeded to clatter something into the machine, and a map of our village was displayed. The boundary was also clearly visible—I hadn’t looked at it closely before now, but it looked like leaves and branches.
“You can see that this area has arrived from the future,” Holn said.
“Sure,” I agreed.
“Unfortunately, I didn’t bring enough equipment with me to really analyze all this, so I used some of your facilities here. It seems like a network created by plants unique to your village was used to cut through time,” she explained.
“Do you mean our enemies used sakura lumina to set a trap for us?” I asked.
“I’m not suggesting so much. Just maybe that they used that outline as their target. Let me give you an example. What if your enemies were to cover the Shield Hero’s barrier with a highly viscous substance?” Holn asked.
“It would stick all over the barrier,” I said.
“The area covered by that would create the affected range. Then they reverse the protective power emitted by those plants, and it creates the intense technology we have seen used here,” she explained. I pondered that for a moment. It seemed Rat’s ancestor had a better handle on things than Rat did. Maybe her line wasn’t what it used to be.
“Archduke? Can you stop looking at me like that?” Rat asked.
“She does seem very skilled, in her little old way. Her research just leans a little hard into prioritizing monsters. What I can suppose from hearing the history of her research is that it has been considered evil by society, but the content itself is actually all above board,” Holn said. She really had Rat pegged already. Rat was a genius, but there was always a bigger genius.
“This looks like a complete upgrade,” I commented.
“Do you mean from me to her?” Rat asked.
“You bet I do,” I replied. Rat looked pretty upset about that. She did have some pride about her intellect.
“Do you want me to overstep the mark and cause some kind of magical apocalypse?” she asked.
“That’s the kind of mistake a rookie would make,” I replied. I couldn’t help thinking of a bioterror survival game in which evil was always resident. Zombies and stuff like that—seemed right under Rat’s umbrella. She had mentioned a magical apocalypse, so maybe the subtitle “Magic Hazard” would work. Rat was right about how careful she was, however, so there likely wasn’t anything to worry about—including her actually getting any kind of results. Her motto when handling the bioplants had been to proceed as carefully as possible. My involvement there had definitely helped speed things along. If I had left everything to Rat, who knew how long it might have taken?
“Let’s just take a look here, shall we?” Holn said.
“Hold on!” Rat exclaimed. Holn continued to clatter over the interface, and something that looked like Rat’s secret file was thrown up onto the screen. She was being hacked! I wondered if I should be laughing about this or not. Holn placed a finger on the stone tablet, and something like a liquid crystal screen popped out from it, displaying some blueprints. It looked like a 3D depiction of something or other. I’d actually seen it before, I realized, when I came here with Trash. It was a cart monster.
“Whatever are you making something like this for? There are so many limitations with a cart. It hardly seems worth it,” Holn said, quickly writing the project off.
“This is still just a monster that can’t move for itself, so it’s just a prototype. I’ll dispose of it once I get it worked out,” Rat replied. She probably had to make prototypes for all sorts of difficult-to-create monsters. It made her sound like a bit of a psycho, but I’d known that when I brought her into my team, so it was a little late to quibble about now.
“What do you mean by ‘dispose of it,’ might I ask?” Holn said, pressing the matter.
“I’m looking at remote experiments for bodies that don’t have their own awareness. However, I have others perform a neural connection,” Rat said.
“And you get results like that, do you? I guess research requires sacrifices,” Holn bemoaned.
“No unnecessary sacrifices required. You can’t be such a high level yourself, oh mighty ancestor, if you think work of this level requires sacrifice,” Rat shot back.
“Oh my, so aggressive with little old me! How amusing. As an ‘evil researcher’ myself, I’m going to have to put up a fight!” Holn enthused. I couldn’t tell if they were getting along or not, but I could imagine research from the past and future being merged together to create some kind of terrible monster.
“Very well. I accept that you know your stuff,” Rat finally said. “But there are some areas I won’t back down on, and I’m also going to show you that I’m superior in other ways.”
“An excellent reply. I’m a sucker for people who feel that way about things. I really am,” Holn said. She seemed to have taken a shining to Rat already.
“Back on topic then,” I cut in. “Can we get back to our time?”
“If we can find out what caused something, we can find a way to resolve it. I can see some leads here already. I hope you will allow me to collaborate,” Holn said.
“Great. Sounds like we’ve reached an agreement,” I replied.
“Indeed. Can I ask something? I presume this research is leading toward weapon-type monsters, correct?” Holn inquired.
“Actually, no,” Rat replied. “Archduke, you mentioned weapon monsters in another world, right?”
“I see. I’m not especially interested in something already completed by someone else, but I guess you could give me an outline,” Holn said.
“Okay, well, it was on a different world from this one, and it was a weapon made by a guy called Kyo,” I said. I explained to Holn about the weapon that had perverted the power of the Spirit Tortoise.
“That’s a bold move, using the power of the guardian beasts as the medium. And using all of that power, that’s the only thing he was able to achieve? Pathetic. What a complete waste,” Holn declared, shaking her head.
“It sounds like you think you could do better,” I said.
“Of course. I know I could. Good materials should naturally lead to a good final product. The best at their job take good materials and make something incredible,” Holn said with a wink. I could see what she was getting at. “There’s something else I should tell you, future Shield Hero. Among the holy and vassal weapons, there are series that allow for genetic manipulation. If you make use of those, you’ll be able to enhance yourselves a whole lot easier,” Holn informed me.
“Hey, just a moment there . . .” I started but then realized I had helped modify the bioplants myself. I guess that was pretty much the same thing. They sounded like higher-ranked weapons.
“I’ve heard you have an affection for that monster on your shoulder. Why don’t you make it even more to your tastes? Even stronger?” Holn suggested.
“Make Raph-chan stronger?” I pondered.
“Raph?” Raph-chan asked.
“She is already growing so much on her own,” I said. Raph-chan even had a tendency to develop as I desired. Based on Rat’s research into a carriage-type monster, I started to imagine her becoming a bus like a cat. I had already gotten to hug the tummy of a big Raph-chan, so next was a Raph-chan vehicle! I had an image of Raphtalia not being especially happy about that, likely with a sword to my throat. Nope, she really wouldn’t like it.
“Raph!” said Raph-chan. Perhaps sensing what I was thinking, Raph-chan climbed down from my shoulder and started walking around on all fours. It looked pretty cute!
“She’s doing pretty well with autonomous evolution all on her own. I think we’ll get better results without getting involved,” I said.
“That’s one take on it. Continuing evolution, even after the departure of their creator . . . I’ll give that some thought,” Holn said.
“I admit, when the other monsters in the village started to get taken over by the Raph species, I was a little worried,” I admitted. Just as we were discussing this subject, Raphtalia showed up.
“Mr. Naofumi! I’ve got Mamoru here with me!” Raphtalia said. That was a close one. She was about to hear my plans to modify Raph-chan. I’m happy I didn’t go too deep on that one.
“It looks like you’re making yourself at home,” Mamoru said.
“You bet. There’s all sorts of interesting stuff scattered around here. I can’t get enough,” she said. Holn and Mamoru sounded very friendly.
“Naofumi, I know you’ve already talked to her, but this is our researcher here in Siltran,” Mamoru said.
“Yes. It seems she sniffed us out,” I replied.
“You bet I did. We’ve just come to an agreement that I’m going to help return them to their own time. That said, as well as understanding the current situation, we also need to investigate all sorts of other stuff too,” Holn explained.
“I’m glad things are going smoothly,” Mamoru said.
“This whole thing is so much fun. I’d be upset if I wasn’t included,” Holn said. A big brain was definitely welcome—and then a flash of lightning hit mine.
“If we’ve been sent into the past, maybe we can get back via Kizuna’s world using Raphtalia’s katana vassal weapon,” I suggested. If we gathered everyone and moved in accordance with the wave summons, it would be a bit of a pain, but we could surely leave this time period. I looked over at Raphtalia, who checked her status and then shook her head.
“It’s no good. There’s no response,” she finally reported.
“In which case, I don’t think we can risk it,” I said. Then Holn stepped in.
“There are all sorts of reasons why a vassal weapon wouldn’t be responding. I can think of a few big ones, but even if you did manage to cross over, you could just be in the past of that world,” she pointed out. I grunted. That sounded all too plausible.
“Okay, then. So we need to investigate all we can to get us back home,” I said.
“That sounds like our starting point. I look forward to working together,” Holn replied.
“Great. Mamoru, sorry for dragging you out here,” I apologized.
“I wanted to bring you together, so it’s fine. Don’t worry about it,” he said.
“Descendent. Looks like we’re working on this together,” Holn said to Rat.
“I guess I don’t have a choice. Archduke, I’m going to start working with this ancestor of mine, and we’ll see how it goes,” Rat said to me.
“I’m counting on you. Let’s see what you can really do,” I told her. That was how the Whip Hero and Rat’s ancestor, Holn, forced her way into the village. My attempt at a snide comment, however, was completely ignored.
That night, I fetched some food from the stores, while everyone in the village headed into what I presumed would be an uneasy evening.
“Bubba, Bubba! Don’t we get to go to the castle the other Shield Hero took you to?” Keel asked.
“I’d like to know that too. I’m interested in seeing it,” Imiya added, both girls sounding very excited. Those two didn’t look at all worried about our situation. They were kids building a secret base . . . and when I considered their ages, “kids” was probably appropriate.
“This is a chance to come into contact with history! We are here in a place any historian can only dream of reaching, Queen Melty,” Eclair said.
“All true. My mother would have been as giddy as a schoolgirl to be here,” Melty replied.
“I wonder what is happening in Q’ten Lo during this time . . . The Shield Hero told me that Melromarc isn’t even in this world yet?” Ruft said.
“Indeed, it seems that way,” Melty responded, the three of them looking out over the unfamiliar mountains as they chatted. I saw those three together a lot. I might not have expected it, but they seemed to be good friends.
“How long do you think that unknown road runs?” asked a filolial to a Raph species.
“Raph,” came the reply, both of them expressing interest in the world beyond the village. They didn’t seem that bothered either. I guess that was impressive, from one perspective.
Still, I almost wanted to scream at them. The entire village had been set adrift in time! I had to believe they were all acting normally by pressing down all the fear they were feeling.
“Hey, Bubba! Can we leave the village tomorrow? I want to get out there and explore!” Keel enthused.
“Keel, don’t make any trouble for the Shield Hero. What you need to say is that you want to be of help to him,” Imiya suggested.
“Good choice of words! Thank you Imiya! Bubba! I want to help you out however I can! I can sell stuff and gather information, okay?” she said.
“You guys are pretty resilient, aren’t you?” I said, somewhat admiringly. I had been wrong to expect anything close to a rational reaction from this bunch. But having them fall apart wouldn’t have helped things much either.
“Everyone, I’m sorry, but I have to speak up. I think you are all going about this the wrong way. Wouldn’t it be prudent to at least show a little concern for what may happen to us?” Raphtalia asked, seemingly puzzled herself at this barrage of optimistic questions. I didn’t like to hear her say it out loud.
“Huh? What are you talking about, Raphtalia?! Bubba and the others have drilled it into us—we never know what’s going to happen with the waves, so we’ll never overcome them if we worry about everything that does happen,” Keel said brightly.
“You know what . . . I guess you have a point,” I said. It had been my intention to raise the villagers to be ready for anything, because anything could literally happen. They had been surprised by the bioplants, but after everything that had happened since then, they had gradually adapted to things. All the trials we had been through so far had trained them for exactly what was happening now.
“If it was just the sword guy and spear guy, I might have been worried, but we have Bubba and Raphtalia and Fohl and Melty here too! You bet we’re going to get back to our time!” Keel said cheerfully. Everyone within earshot seemed to feel the same, because they all looked over and nodded. Was she trying to earn some points with me? The cynical part of me wondered for a moment. Not Keel though—she didn’t have a bone so devious in all of her body. “I think Raphtalia will understand this next part, because she’s visited a different world many times. We’ve apparently come to the past, but for us, it’s basically like we’re in another world. That’s all. And thinking that makes it easier for us to handle. Now it’s our turn, nothing more,” Keel said. She had a point there too. Even better, our levels hadn’t been affected this time, giving us some more leeway.
“That’s true. Not much has changed from how we normally do business,” I admitted. As I already said when talking to Mamoru, being summoned to other worlds was already a thing, so time travel didn’t seem like such a quantum leap. Rather than being confused and concerned, this feeling of almost excitement in the air told me how tough everyone was—and how they were going to survive.
“Rather than leave everything to you, Bubba, we all want to do whatever we can to help you out this time,” Keel emphasized again. There was a saying: “Kids will grow up all on their own.” Seeing Keel right now, I really felt the truth of it. She was even teaching me a few things with the bravery she was showing.
“Okay then. It is easier to think of this as just having wandered into another world,” I agreed. I recalled what it was like when I first visited Kizuna’s world. Just me and Rishia, both level 1 and her the only one who could actively attack, and we had returned alive. Going back even further, I had been summoned and then framed in short order, and yet I’d survived that as well. We weren’t at such a disadvantage here. We could make it through this.
I considered for a moment that maybe Keel and the others were tougher than me, mentally.
“Keel is right. Brother, Sister, we must all do our best to return us to our own time,” Fohl added. It looked like I wasn’t the only one who had been affected by Keel’s words.
“You bet,” I replied. With that, some unexpectedly peaceful time passed in the village.
“Getting sent into the past, huh,” Ren muttered, looking like he was recalling something fondly.
“Was there an event like this in the game you used to play?” I asked him. When they were first summoned, Ren and the other two holy heroes had all operated based on knowledge from videogames they had been addicted to at the time. At a time like this, I kind of hoped such game knowledge would come in handy—but it was difficult to trust it. There was a high likelihood that such game knowledge was a trap, sent here in advance by the one behind the waves.
“Sometimes you played through an event from the past, perhaps, but I don’t recall the stages and events all being sent into a period of previous waves,” Ren said.
“Fair enough,” I replied. If there had been such an event in his game, he probably would have mentioned it before now.
“Maybe I should have followed the backstory for the game a little more closely,” Ren muttered. He could say that now, but there were plenty of people playing online games who only cared about leveling up and fighting other people. In the game I played, there had been folks who played along without any understanding of the backstory at all. They just found the best spots or events to grind out experience and didn’t bother with the overarching story at all. Ren seemed to know a lot about the main game he had played, but maybe now he had also identified something he had overlooked.
“Don’t worry too much about it,” I told him. “I’m sure the one behind the waves has scrambled everything up anyway.” I really wanted him to lighten up and enjoy life a little more, but having him act completely based on game information would be a mistake too. I had the same issue with Itsuki, both of them thinking in such extremes. It was exhausting. I suspected the strong sense of duty he had now was a rebound from his former lack of emotions—a kind of contradiction, in which having a strong sense of duty pushed him away from taking any responsibility. “Let’s not get too into it tonight, anyway. Rest up for tomorrow,” I told him.
“You should take your own advice, Mr. Naofumi. But, Sword Hero, in particular, you need to rest and be ready in case anything happens,” Raphtalia said. Ren nodded at her words.
“Okay. I’m still not quite in top form. I’ll go and get some sleep,” he said. He really didn’t seem to be in great condition. He had pulled his weight today when it mattered though, I’d give him that.
“Eclair, can you see Ren back to his house please? I’ll put Melty in Filo’s room, so you can concentrate on Ren,” I told her. Then I warned her specifically not to let him start doing practice swings with his sword in his room.
“Understood. Come on, Ren. Resting is also an important part of a warrior’s job. Not everyone can be like Hero Iwatani,” she said.
“What about me?!” I exclaimed. Everyone around me seemed to have such strange ideas about what I could do.
Then I recalled something. I needed to apply the mirror power-up method to everyone in the village. Raphtalia’s katana still worked here, pretty much, so I should be able to do it, and it would provide a reasonable boost.
“It is nice to know you are around again, Naofumi,” Ren said, and then Eclair led him away toward his house. As I watched Ren heading away, I almost felt pity for him. How much of myself was I mixing in, I wondered, that the youngest of the four holy heroes seemed the most aged to me in that moment? Having to deal with Motoyasu’s rampages for so long would probably do that to any man.
I needed to be careful. If things got too bad, I’d dump everything on Melty and make a run for it.
“Naofumi, do you need something?” Melty asked me.
“No. I wasn’t thinking anything in particular,” I replied.
“So why did you look at me like that? I had a nasty feeling for a moment there, I have to say,” she commented. The people around me were getting far too perceptive. I had to think for a moment about how to dodge this bullet.
“Hey, Melty, you came to visit me for a quick break from your royal duties, but it looks like you’ll be taking quite the vacation after all,” I said.
“That’s true—though I’d hardly call this a vacation. Spending time with you is just so utterly crazy, Naofumi,” she said.
“All of this is my fault, huh?” I asked. I was going to get angry if she blamed me for all of this. But I would admit I had plenty of trouble-causing enemies.
“I wouldn’t go that far. I’m capable of wandering into plenty of trouble even without you. I’ve just got a bit too accustomed to peacetime recently,” she said. She had been away from the front lines. Nothing really big had happened in the vicinity of Melty or Trash since the defeat of Takt. Then I showed up again and we were all sent back in time; I could see why she would want to complain. “I’m sure my sister is mixed up in all this. I’ve had enough of her too,” Melty said.
“We’re on the same page there,” I replied. “My side got some good hits in the last few times we met, but she’s not giving up,” I said. I’d turned her into a great ball of fire, and then she’d been smashed into the ground and whipped like a hundred times before actually being killed. If I was the one coming back to life after all that, I’d probably want to stay away from the sadists who did it to me. But it probably wasn’t enough to make that particular bitch reflect on or regret her actions.
“You seem to be suggesting I will be taking a break as queen, but that’s not my intention at all. I’m going to be meeting with people from Siltran tomorrow, as village representative, to arrange all sorts of things between us,” Melty said. “You continue your work as heroes in order to get us all back to your own time,” she commanded. Her face was starting to take on a regal aspect, a real sense of responsibility, far beyond her still young years. I did wish she could take things a little easier . . . but she was being a big help too. Summoned heroes could get involved in public life, but there were finer details they could never really touch or influence. You could make an excellent proposal, just to see it shot down without a second thought. In this world, it was the job of those running each nation to make an environment in which their heroes could move around freely.
“Like I said to Ren—just don’t collapse on us, okay?” I told her.
“If this much pressure is going to knock me out, I’ll never make it as queen anyway. I know I need some time to myself when I can grab it. To be honest, I’m most worried about Filo,” Melty replied.
“Yeah . . . I can see that,” I agreed. I could almost hear her voice calling out for Mel-chan and Master . . . and then Motoyasu shouting her name in pursuit. She would scream so loudly her scream probably would travel back in time.
“I need to do whatever I can for her sake. The bioplants growing in the village and the monster meat we can obtain from hunting are going to keep us alive for the time being. But if we are going to be here a long time, then we’ll also need to start thinking about acquiring some money,” Melty said.
“Good point,” I told her.
“You’re good at that kind of thing,” Melty continued, almost as though she was checking off some kind of list. “So I’ve got a proposal. Taking information-gathering into account too, I think we need to start trading.” I made a noise to show I was thinking. Trade was one way to naturally gather a lot of information. Luckily for us, I had already directed those in the village to trade as much as they could, and so we had lots of people skilled in the field at our disposal. “Even if we do have information from the future, we can’t be sure how it applies to the situation at hand,” Melty pointed out. That was true enough too. There were differing opinions on exactly what happened even for things like the Japanese history that I’d been taught in school. Records from the past could be very vague, and so Melty was saying events different from the hero stories she had heard could still very much unfold here. The one behind the waves was involved in all of this too, of course.
“We still need to get stronger, but we also need information and money. Naofumi, I hope you can handle that,” she told me.
“You hardly even have to tell me,” I replied. I wasn’t keen on Melty ordering me around. In the little time I had been away, she had really leaned into this queen thing. As I considered how much she had changed, I recalled what things had been like for us up until the Phoenix battle. That was basically back where we were now—nothing much had changed compared to that.
“Sounds like a busy day tomorrow. A lot of busy days are coming up,” I said. We faced problem after problem, but the way we had to tackle them wasn’t changing: become stronger and gather information with the final goal of bringing peace to this world.
Just as Melty and I reached this agreement about our upcoming activities . . .
“Bubba! You’ve got even better at cooking. I knew it!” Keel enthused after cleaning her plate.
“I had to cook a lot while I was away,” I said . . . A whole freaking lot.
“I’m so jealous! Next time you go to another world, I want to tag along! But actually, we’re in another world right now! I’m gonna get this done!” Keel shouted. The energy of the village was likely coming, at least in part, from Keel. Thanks to her, then, our first day in the past came to an end with everyone in the village seemingly feeling pretty optimistic about our chances.
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