Tate no Yuusha no Nariagari (LN) - Volume 3 - Chapter 10

Chapter Ten: The Third Wave 

I finished making Raphtalia and Filo’s new accessories just in time. 

“Check it out, the accessories you asked for. Raphtalia, you go first.” 

I had made a jade bracelet for Raphtalia. I gave it to her. 

“Thank you.” 

“The equip effect is Magic Up (medium). Your armor uses a little magic power to up your magic defense. This should balance that out. Thanks to you, I was able to make something nice.” 

A little while back, Raphtalia and Filo were able to save up a bunch of money at that hot-spring town we’d passed thorough. Because of that I was able to buy good materials that would have previously been out of my reach. That was what enabled me to make these good accessories. 

“I’ll treasure it.” 

“Are you sure that’s what you really want? I could make one a little more… fashionable.” 

“What are you saying? Do you think we are powerful enough to focus on fashion?” 

Well, well. If that’s what she said then I had no choice but to believe her. 

“Okay Filo, you’re next.” 

I gave her an amber hairpin. I’d focused on the details when I made it, so that it would look good on her even when she was in her bird form. When it was clipped to her down feathers they would fan out and look like a feathered hair ornament. 

“The equip effect is Agility Up (medium).” 

“Thank you, Master!” 

“That’s the best I could do with the materials we had on-hand. I might be able to make better ones later, but that’s the best I can do for now.” 

“It’s no problem at all. I only hope that I can put this accessory to its best use.” 

“Yeah! I’ll try hard too!” 

“I know you will. Both of you.” 

We’d finished out planning meeting with the support soldiers too, so I guess we were as prepared as we were going to get. 

Filo had shown some hesitation at first, having no idea what to expect, and no idea what the wave even was. But I convinced her that all we could do was tackle problems when they presented themselves, and she understood. 

We had plenty of medicine. As for the carriage… Our new one wasn’t ready yet, so Filo was pulling a luggage cart instead. 

That was fine. Unlike the other heroes, I would be spending most of my time in nearby villages protecting the people there. I’m not sure my participation was even necessary, but I could only imagine what people would say about me if I tried to sit this battle out. 

00:05 

There were five minutes left. Once we were transported to the wave, I’d have to figure out where I was and find some way to tell the soldiers. 

I changed my shield to the Chimera Viper Shield… 

00:00 

The time had come! The whole world filled with an echoing sound, like glass shattering. 

In the next second, our surroundings completely changed. We calmly surveyed our new surroundings. 

“Where are we?” 

Yup, we were near that village where the old lady had been sick. It would take one and a half days, at the very least, to get here from Castle Town. 

I looked up at the sky, and, just like last time, it was wine-red and covered in cracks like a tortoise shell. 

“Shield Hero!” 

The soldiers had been transported along with us, and they were running in our direction. Then I saw the other three heroes and… 

“Filo! See those guys running toward the cracks? Kick the spear and knock the other ones over. Don’t overdo it!” 

“Okaaaay!” 

Just as I’d asked, Filo removed her claws and ran for the heroes! 

She quickly caught up with sword, bow and spear. 

“What the?!” 

Spear turned around to see, and just as he did Filo kicked him, and he 

flew into the others, knocking them down. “AAAAAHHHHH!” They all fell like bowling pins, giving us time to catch up with them. 

Having seen the Bitch fly through the air, I was in a good mood. Filo really had held back, like I’d asked, and no one had suffered any 

serious damage from her kick. “What are you doing?!” Spear was in a fluster, shouting at us all. I ignored him and shot a cold 

glare at sword and bow. “That’s what I want to ask you, you idiots!” “What do you want?!” “Yeah! We have to destroy the monsters that are surging from the rift!” I was beyond being angry with these foolish heroes. I was just annoyed. “First you need to listen. We can take out the enemies later.” I ordered my support soldiers to head for the nearby village. They 

nodded and followed my orders, running for the village. “You are getting in the way of our mission!” “No I’m not!” Itsuki jumped back when I barked at him, shocked. He blinked. “Everyone calm down. Let’s think this through. I didn’t receive any 

funding, so I’m not fighting against the wave directly. The best I can do is protect the neighboring village—so that’s my job. Do you all understand this?” 

“Yeah.” 

“Sort of disqualifies you as Hero.” 

The group of heroes were glaring at me, but I ignored them and kept talking. 

“Okay, Ren, Itsuki, Motoyasu, your job is to take out the monsters that are coming from the rift. You can either take out the major enemies to do it, or you might have to attack the rift directly—I haven’t done it, so I don’t know.” 

“The rift is linked with the boss!” 

Linked. That was gamer-talk. Itsuki wasn’t taking this as seriously as he should, but whatever. 

“But you understand that my job is really important too, right?” 

“What?” 

Ren didn’t seem to understand. But hey, this world was basically the exact same as some game that he knew, right? He should understand everything about it. 

“And hey, where are the knights?!” 

The three heroes all shut their eyes when I shouted. 

“They’ll come later.” 

Maybe it was to help them find us, but there was a magic beacon of some sort glowing over us in the sky. They’d probably set their sights on that. 

“We’re a day and a half from Castle Town. They’ll never make it in time, you idiots!” 

“Then what do you want us to do about it?!” 

“You’re asking ME? I thought you knew everything!” 

I pointed to the soldiers that had come with me who were now running for the village. 

“Speaking of which, how did you get those soldiers to teleport here with you?” 

“Are you really asking me that? Don’t you know about battle formation functions?” 

“You mean party members? How did you trick all of them into joining you?” 

“That’s not it. You can appoint someone as a leader, and then make your party with that person subject to your leadership. If you do, they all get transported with you.” 

Could it be? Were there things they didn’t know about the waves? 

The soldiers had said that none of their superiors had sent out orders to join any of the heroes’ parties, but could it be because the heroes just didn’t know about the ability to do so? I was stunned into silence. That would explain why there were no knights here. 

“Well, let’s check up front. Who here looked into their help menus to learn about how to fight in the wave?” 

Nobody raised their hand. 

“I guess if you already know everything there is to know about this place then there’s no need for you to read the help menus or tutorials, is that it?” 

“Yeah, we already know everything.” 

“Exactly. Can we please focus on battling the wave now?” 

“Fine then. So what do other games call these battles against the waves?” 

“Huh?” 

“What are you asking?” 

“Shut up already, we need to go!” 

Itsuki ignored my question, turned, and started to run. 

“Motoyasu, you can see what I’m getting at. Can’t you?” 

“Uh… sure… an instant dungeon?” 

“That’s not it, it was a Time Attack Wave.” 

Ren... That’s not it either. I said, “Other games,” didn’t I? 

The game that he knew all about was called Brave Star Online, wasn’t it? 

“Guild wars, team battles, either that or large-scale battles!” 

In the game that I used to play, there were major events every week or so when the players fought against each other. If you were to use the support troop system, then the game would make sure there were more enemies appearing than you could manage on your own. So during the last wave, had the knights not made it in time I’m not sure we would have been able to keep the damage down to the level we did. 

“Look, even if you all have experience with the game system, you don’t have any experience managing a large guild, do you?” 

In large-scale battles, you had to prioritize cooperation. 

Though, of course, the ace-players, the heroes, would lead the charge. But in order to keep the destruction to a minimum, we were going to need the cooperation of the locals. 

If they couldn’t understand something that simple, then they were idiots. 

“I’ve managed a team before.” 

Motoyasu spoke up, but kept his eyes on Filo in her bird form. He probably didn’t want to get kicked. 

“Then why don’t you understand this?” 

“There’s no need to.” 

“What?!” 

“It’ll work itself out.” 

Jeez… and I thought this guy couldn’t get any more obnoxious—any more irresponsible. 

Bitch, that’s your job. That stupid rotten princess—as if she was intelligent enough to deal with responsibility like that. 

“I never had any interest in that kind of stuff.” 

Ren, the jerk. But I knew his type well enough. There were always one or two of them before a guild war, and I never enjoyed trying to talk to them. 

If someone like that was supposed to have been a guild master, I actually can’t think of any way that would be possible. How would the guild even function? 

“Anyway, we can only work with what we’ve got this time. But next time make sure that you link up with the knights!” 

I brushed them away with my hands, motioning for them to scurry off toward the wave. Ren and Motoyasu made no effort to hide their annoyance with me when they ran off. 

“All right guys, let’s head for the village. Raphtalia, Filo—you’re with us!” 

“Okaaaay!” 

“Understood!” 

We jumped in the cart and headed for the village as fast as we could. The soldiers with us had their own cart, and they managed to keep up with us. 

By the time we made it to the village, it was already overrun with monsters from the wave. 

There were black condor-like monsters, black wolves, goblins, and lizard-men. 

But the lizard-man didn’t look like a demi-human, not quite. It looked more… sinister. 

When I got closer I was able to see their names: Dark Condor, Black Shadow Wolf, Goblin Assault Shadow, Lizard-Man Shadow. Next to all their names, unmistakably, were the words: inter-dimensional. 

Like demi-humans, these shadow monsters disappeared like ghosts when you defeated them. 

They were a creepy lot of thugs. And the monsters were completely different than they were in the last wave. Weren’t there rules governing this sort of thing? 

Whatever, just leave it up to the heroes. They’ll take care of everything. 

And yet? There! 

“Hiyaaa!” 

The battle cry that had been splitting through the scene was coming from the old lady I’d given medicine too back when I was traveling through here. 

She was swinging a hoe with one hand and fighting with all her strength. The soldiers were all stunned. 

“Ah! Holy Saint! You were a big help! Hiyyaa!” 

She yelled a phrase of thanks to me just as a group of monsters surged from the wave. She swung her hoe at them. 

She was pretty strong actually, and her surroundings were littered with monster bodies. 

“Hey, you thank him too!” 

The lady’s son quickly bowed to me, like he had to do it all the time. 

“More and more monsters are coming out of the waves, you had better evacuate.” 

The soldiers with me were helping to evacuate the villagers. Amongst the chaos, we were fighting and killing monsters, but they kept on coming. It was going to be a hard fight, and we were going to have to focus on killing monsters. 

“Hiyaa!" 

The old lady was taking out enemies left and right. It was hard to believe that, only a month ago, she was sick in bed, on the verge of death. 

“I’ve got my old strength back, thanks to you, Holy Saint! Hiyaa!” 

I looked for her son and spotted him across the street, fighting monsters with all his might—but he wasn’t as strong as his mother. Some solders joined him, and together they were able to hold off the enemy. He wasn’t anywhere near as strong as his mother. 

“I might look old, but back in the day I was pretty famous as an adventurer. My level and my age are almost the same! Hiyaaa!” 

“Don’t overdo it lady!” 

I wouldn’t go so far as to call her an unmatched warrior or anything, but she was definitely one of the strongest fighters I’d seen. 

I held off the enemy’s attacks while Filo reeled back to kick them. They went down fast. 

It looked like I could count on the lady in battle, but I was afraid she’d keel over once the battle was done. 

“What medicine did I give you, anyway?” 

“Who knows?” 

Raphtalia was staring at the old lady, her mouth agape. We’d have to get the full story from her son later. 

Regardless, we needed to focus on getting treatment to the wounded. 

“Get all the injured people over by the cart! Keep them safe and away from the line!” 

I would call out commands and treat people whenever I had a spare second. 

“Hiyaa! Holy Saint! There are some weird ones showing up!” 

I looked in the direction she was pointing. There was a huge crowd of inter-dimensional Lizard-Man Shadows, but I could just make out something else among them—something large. It looked to be at least double the size of anyone else. 

“I’m going!” 

The leader of my soldier supporters ran in the direction of the large monster. 

“You idiot! Hold back!” 

The giant inter-dimensional Lizard-Man Shadow turned to the running soldier and tried to crush him with his giant sword. 

He dodged and tried to fix the defensive line, but there was no time! 

But then, without warning, the soldier’s necklace started glowing, activating some sort of instant effect before shattering. Then the inter-dimensional Lizard-Man Shadow’s sword rattled back, in shock from the strike. 

“What?” 

“What are you doing? Retreat!” 

“O… Okay!” 

Damn. The burden on the volunteer troops was too much. One attack shattered his defense necklace. The giant must have had an enormous attack rating. I would have to use my shield to stop its sword and rely on support to take the monster out. 

“Raphtalia, Filo. Come with me—we’re taking that thing down.” 

“Okay!” 

“Okaaaaay!” 

The three of us ran toward the giant monster. 

The inter-dimensional Lizard-Man Shadow swung its large, black sword at us. 

I ran ahead of the girls and readied my shield. There was a loud clang, and sparks rained down around me. 

Poison Snake Fang (medium) activated and poisoned the enemy. But it wasn’t very effective. 

I suppose it only made sense that poison would be weak against these reptile-like monsters. But it was never my plan to poison the thing. 

“Hiyyyyaaaaahhh!” 

Raphtalia thrust her sword into the belly of the inter-dimensional Lizard-Man Shadow and stopped him in his tracks. 

“AAAAHHHRRRH!” 

Filo’s clawed foot flew in a tight arc, connecting with the inter-dimensional Lizard-Man Shadow’s face. A portion of his head went spinning through the air. 

The giant fell forward and hit the ground with a deafening crash. 

“Whoa…” 

The soldiers whispered in amazement. 

“Thank you! If you hadn’t given us those items, Shield Hero, we would already be dead!” 

“Well, you made it out alive.” 

If I’d managed to save a life, then all that time I spent learning to craft 

items hadn’t been a waste. 

I felt enlivened. 

“All right! You all run to the next town and do whatever you can to protect it.” 

We should be able to protect the village we were in now with six soldiers, that old lady, and the adventurers that had happened to be in town when the wave hit. 

But there was another village close by. If we didn’t hurry over there, who knew what would happen to it? 

“I’m leaving some medicine with you all. This won’t be a smooth ride, but let’s get to the next village over!” 

The soldiers climbed into the cart I was pointing at. 

“Go!” 

“Hiya!” 

Filo got a grip on the ropes and ran off at full speed. 

By the time we made it to the next village, the soldiers wobbled out of the cart, having gotten motion sick on the way. I didn’t have time to comfort them. 

There were houses on fire, and injured villagers. This village looked worse off than the last one. 

“Hurry and help those villagers!” 

“Y… Yes, Sir!” 

We slaughtered monsters left and right, and waited for the wave to end. 

“Too late!” 

Three hours had passed. 

In that time we had managed to secure the safety of most of the villagers, and we were now focusing our energies on cutting through the hoards of monsters that continued to descend on the village. 

Most of the villagers had been evacuated, and we kept casualties relatively low. But I didn’t know how long we could keep their shelter safe from the hoards. We kept fighting. 

But everything was taking too long. What were those stupid heroes up to? 

“Hero, why not leave this village to us. You should find the other Heroes and assist them.” 

It was the young soldier who had originally approached me. 

“I don’t think I can do much to help them.” 

It was their job to fight the wave directly, and I’m sure they would just complain if I showed up. 

“But, Sir…” 

He wasn’t looking so good. His face was pale. 

He’d been fighting monsters for three solid hours. His stamina was going to give out soon. 

I was exhausted too. I could tell that Raphtalia and Filo were worn out too. 

“Hiya! Take that!” 

Filo kicked an inter-dimensional Goblin Assault Shadow, and it crumpled to the ground. She still had enough energy to keep going. 

Yeah, Filo would be fine. The girl was like a giant ball of stamina. 

“Can you handle it?” 

“Leave it to me!” 

I guess they had enough energy to keep going. 

“All right. Then I’m going to see what’s going on. I leave the village to you.” 

“Yes, Sir!” 

“Raphtalia, Filo, let’s go!” 

“Understood.” 

“Okaaaay!” 

We left the village to the soldiers and adventurers, climbed onto Filo’s back and ran toward the wave itself.