by Aneko Yusagi
“… Mmm…”
I stretched and decided to turn in for the night. I turned around and locked eyes with Raphtalia. She was asleep, though. Apparently, she was right about to start crying.
“Ahhhh!”
I clamped my hand down over her screams, and she calmed down a little. I held her against my chest and ran my fingers through her hair.
And that was it. She was much easier to calm down than she had been. I made to let her go, but she started to cry again. I guess there was no getting around it. We slept together that night.
… Cold. It was cold.
I could feel the sun on my face, and I opened my eyes. Raphtalia should have been sleeping with me, but I saw her across the room, curled into a ball in the corner.
“What’s wrong?”
“I’m sorry I’m sorry, I’m sorry I’m sorry!”
She was apologizing so furiously something had to be wrong. I arched my eyebrows and soon found out why I was so cold.
Yes… She had peed the bed.
I guess she thought I would be mad.
I didn’t know if it was normal for a ten-year-old to pee the bed, but I couldn’t get mad at her if she was staring at me with terrified eyes like that.
I walked over to her. I reached out my hand, but she curled away from it.
“Oh come on…”
I set my hand on her shaking shoulder.
“It doesn’t matter if you peed the bed. Let’s just hurry up and get this stuff washed and changed.”
We’d need some equipment.
“Um…”
Raphtalia was looking at me in confusion.
“Aren’t you mad?”
“What’s the point in getting mad at a repentant person? If you feel bad, I won’t be mad.”
The sheets were dirty. I wondered how much the innkeeper would want for the trouble. Regardless, I’d take the blanket for myself.
I went and explained the situation to the innkeeper, paid for the sheets, and then ran to the weapon shop to procure some new equipment.
The water from the well was very cold. I ran the sheets over the washboard and packed them away. On our way out to the fields, I found a tree branch to hang them on.
“Okay then…”
Raphtalia kept walking beside me like she was the worst thing in the world. It was getting on my nerves.
“I told you not to worry about it!”
“… Okay.”
… She was an honest kid. But if she lost her motivation, it would be a problem for me too.
“Ah…”
Her stomach was grumbling again.
Her face flushed red from embarrassment.
“Want to get some breakfast?”
“Um… sure.”
She took hold of my sleeve and walked next to me.
“Cough…”
“Okay, well, here’s your punishment. You have to drink this medicine.”
I handed her the bottle.
I guess she had some kind of disease and would need to have the medicine regularly.
She sniffed at it and crinkled her nose in disgust. But by thinking it was punishment, she drank it down with some effort.
“Ugh… It’s so bitter.”
“You can handle it.”
She finished the bottle and looked, for a moment, like she might throw up.
By the way, I was able to sell the medicine we’d made for a good price. It wasn’t very high quality, but apparently supply had been running low.
Chapter Fourteen: To Take a Life
We walked through the fields and based our operations in the woods and mountains.
We were fighting much more smoothly than we had been. I guess we’d gotten the hang of it.
We were also doing well when it came to herbs. It didn’t take long to fill our bags with loot and herbs.
That was when it happened.
We’d been fighting monsters that resembled, for the most part, inanimate objects, but finally an animal-like monster appeared.
It was like a giant, brown… rabbit?
Usapil.
Weird name, if you ask me.
“Booo!”
The Usapil looked us over for a second or two before rushing at us with its huge front teeth bared.
“Watch out!”
Probably thinking it looked weak, Raphtalia was already locked on. So I ran in front of her to cover.
Kiine! Kiiine!
The Usapil dug its teeth in, but just as before, it didn’t hurt at all. Apparently my defense rating was really high.
“Got it! Stab it!”
“Ahh… I…”
“What is it?”
“It’s alive… and it… it’ll bleed!”
I tried to figure out what she wanted to say.
“Just deal with it. We’re going to have to fight lots of living things.”
“But… but…”
The Usapil kept biting me, over and over.
“Just do it! If you don’t, I won’t be able to watch out for you.”
Sure, we’d spent time together, and grown a little attached. But I still needed her to fight for me. If she couldn’t do it, I’d have to return her and get a new slave, one that could fight.
“Hiya! Hiya!”
Raphtalia let out a child-like scream and stabbed the Usapil, time after time, in the back.
When she pulled out the knife, blood sprayed.
“Ah…”
The Usapil collapsed to the ground and rolled back and forth. Raphtalia watched it there, and then kept looking at the blood on her knife. The color left her face, and she looked like she was going to run off.
But there was no time for sympathy. We’d have to do the same thing hundreds, if not thousands of times.
“Boo!”
Another Usapil appeared from the shrubbery and bounded towards Raphtalia with its teeth out.
“Ah!”
I dashed between them and deflected the Usapil attack.
“I’m sorry. I know it’s really my responsibility, but I can’t do anything but protect others. That’s why you have to do it.”
The Usapil buried its teeth in my arm as I spoke.
“I have to get stronger. I need you to help me.”
If I didn’t, there was no way I could survive what was coming. The time was set. The wave of great destruction would be coming in just a little over a week.
If I had to face it at my current level, I wasn’t sure if I could survive.
“… But…”
“In just over a week, a wave of great destruction will wash over the world.”
“What?!”
“That’s why I have to get stronger. Before the wave comes, I have to be strong enough to meet it.”
Raphtalia listened in silence but was shaking in fear.
“You’re going to fight the wave?”
“Yeah. That’s what I’m here for. I’m not doing it for fun… If you think about it that way, you and I are very much alike. Not that I’m in a position to speak, since I am forcing you and all.”
“…”
“So don’t give me a reason to let you go.”
I didn’t want to. It wouldn’t be good for anyone to put her back in the cage in that tent.
I had no money. If I didn’t sell her off, I couldn’t buy a new slave.
“I understand… Master. I will… fight.”
Color slowly came back to her pale face. She nodded. Then she turned to the Usapil and stabbed it with her bloodied knife.
She looked suddenly determined. Her eyes were fixed.
The Usapil was rolling over at her feet. She looked at it, and then slowly closed her eyes. She stepped forward and corrected the grip on her knife. She was going to dissect it.
“Leave that to me. This isn’t all your responsibility.”
“Okay.”
I took a dissecting knife from my bag and went to work.
This was reality, not a game. If I could have, I’d have looked aw
ay. But that wasn’t an option.
It was my first time butchering an animal, but it was something I’d have to do to survive. When I first saw the Usapil’s blood on my hands, I understood how Raphtalia felt.
Also, apparently I couldn’t use weapons in combat, but I could use them to carry out tasks like this. Granted, there were lots of times in life when you needed a knife, so it only seemed natural.
I butchered the two Usapils and let the shield absorb them.
UsaLeather Shield: conditions met
UsaMeat Shield: conditions met
UsaLeather Shield: ability locked:
equip bonus: agility 3
UsaMeat Shield: ability locked:
equip bonus: dissection ability 1
I turned my shield into a UsaMeat Shield and stood up.
“Master, please, um, don’t… abandon me.”
Raphtalia was looking at me, pleading with me. She looked hurt.
She must have really not wanted to go back to the slave trader.
She cried in the night, had a disease, and was skinny as twigs. If I weren’t careful, she’d end up dead. And that wouldn’t be good for anyone.
I momentarily smiled at the thought of dying and bringing that woman down with me. But back to reality: that wasn’t an ideal scenario.
“If you do your job, I won’t abandon you.”
And I’d be really in a tight spot if she died.
… Yes, anything with the same gender as that woman…ugh, her!
My head was spinning. I had to stop thinking about it. It was painful. It was time to think of how to use this slave to get stronger.
EXP 7
Raphtalia EXP 7
“I want to… To help you… Master.”
Raphtalia was behaving like a new person, attacking and killing Usapils left and right. Once, she even dashed off to attack one before I’d had a chance to secure it and hold it down.
This was good, even if it seemed a little violent.
What I was doing wasn’t a good thing. Everything was just for me, and it was self-centered.
But hey… I didn’t really have a choice, did I?
We decided to stay in the woods that night. We found a clearing, stacked some firewood, and built a fire.
We picked some herbs that seemed to be edible and boiled them with the Usapil meat for dinner.
There was some meat left over, so we skewered it and grilled it by the fire.
I was planning on going back to town by evening tomorrow, but I wasn’t sure if we could sell the meat. I wasn’t even sure if we could eat it, but my Vision skill was saying that it was edible.
Once the cooking was done, I took a nibble to test it. There was nothing wrong with it.
It was rubbery, though, and I couldn’t taste it. Was it gross?
I hadn’t done anything to it but cook it. So it was probably pretty flavorless.
My cooking ability lit up and told me that the quality was “pretty good,” so it couldn’t have been that bad.
“Here. Eat up.”
I passed her the pot of stew and a skewer of meat.
“It so yummy!”
Her stomach had been rumbling in anticipation, and her eyes lit up when she bit into the food. She ate it as though it were the most delicious thing in the world.
After the day’s fighting, I was at level 10, and so was Raphtalia. She had finally caught up with me.
I turned my attention to compounding work by the light of the fire.
With the money I made from the medicines, hopefully, I’d be able to afford us some better equipment. I made the most expensive medicines I knew of.
I ground herbs in the mortar and pestle and wrung their juices into a beaker.
You’ve made medicine!
You’ve made a nourishing drink!
I’d made all the recipes I knew.
So I’d reached the end of the usefulness of compounding 1. Besides, these two recipes were what I stumbled upon by luck. I was running out of materials to compound.
And most of my results were not very good.
“… Cough.”
So, the medicine was wearing off. I passed her another bottle in silence, and she drank it in silence. Anyway, we’d both have to be stronger.
“We’re going to take turns watching the fire. You can sleep first and… I’ll wake you up when it’s your turn.”
“All right.”
She was so agreeable and honest. She was acting like a completely different person from when we first met.
“Good night.”
“Ah… Yeah, night. Oh hey, we’re going to sell it off tomorrow, so you might as well sleep on the sheepskin blanket while we have it.”
While cooking, I’d used the fire to smoke out the bedbugs and lice from the blanket, and I passed it to Raphtalia. It wasn’t that thick, but in combination with the rest, it should be pretty warm.
“Okay.”
She sniffed at the sheepskin and made a face.
“The smoke?”
“Yes. It’s very smoky.”
“Yeah, I bet.”
“But it seems warm.”
She lay down and leaned against my back. Then she closed her eyes.
I kept on practicing compounding, and tended to the fire, waiting for Raphtalia’s inevitable outburst.
Geez… just how long would we have to live like this?
At the very least, we’d need to live like this one more week.
I didn’t want to think about it, but if we didn’t get better equipment, we might just end up dead.
… It would happen pretty soon. By the third day, I was getting a good handle on the timing.
“… Mmm…”
Raphtalia slowly raised herself up and rubbed her eyes.
“Hm…?”
“You awake?”
She didn’t cry.
Oh, that’s it. Her back was touching mine when she slept, so the warmth must have made her feel better. If she could sleep and touch another person, maybe she’d be all right?
“… I’m hungry.”
She was still hungry? After eating all that?
“Here you go.”
I gave her the rest of the grilled meat, though I’d been saving it for breakfast. She ate it up and seemed to enjoy it.
“Okay, I’m going to try and get some sleep. Wake me up if anything happens.”
“Okay!”
She nodded as she chomped on the meat.
I’m glad that she was happier than she used to be, but she was turning into a little piggy.
Chapter Fifteen: Demi-Humans
We switched off sleep-shifts, and before long morning had come.
By noon, there were already new problems.
We were out hunting Usapils.
“Ah…”
The knife I’d given Raphtalia snapped with an audible crack.
“Here, take it.”
I didn’t really have a choice, so I held out my work knife to her. She took it and killed the Usapil that was biting me.
“I’m so sorry.”
“Nothing lasts forever. It just broke. It’s no big deal.”
It was just a cheap thing, and we’d never even had it sharpened.
“Let’s just head back to town.”
“Okay.”
We’d accrued a sizable amount of luggage. Dividing it between the two of us, we set off for town.
Also, I was now at level 11, and so was Raphtalia.
On the way back to town we ran into a few monsters, but Raphtalia was able to dispatch them with the little utility knife.
Back in town, we sold all our loot and medicine and ended up making 70 pieces of silver.
“I wonder what happened.”
“The knife?”
Raphtalia and I were eating at a food stall.
It looked like we were making enough money to survive. If I could cook Usapil meat, we could eat for free. That took a little pressure off.
I didn’t know where
to go, but I knew we needed to get good equipment and keep leveling up.
“Hey, Let’s go to the weapon shop.”
“Okay.”
Rumble…
I heard a stomach rumbling behind me.
“I’m hungry.”
“Didn’t you just eat??”
What was this, puberty?! How many times did she need to eat every day?
“Ha…”
Engel’s coefficient was about to jump through the roof. If we didn’t go hunting, she’d eat me out of house and home.
“What I’m saying, man, is this: give us the best equipment you can for 65 pieces of silver. Throw in a work knife, too.”
The weapon shop owner slapped his palm to his forehead.
“I guess I’m at fault too, giving you such a cheap one… but you still need to take care of your weapons.”
“Sorry. I was using it like it had a Blood Clean coating. Bad idea, huh?”
Right, the balloons, Mush, and Eggugs were all basically inanimate. Sure, the Eggug had some liquid inside that you had to watch out for. But the Usapils bled, and that must have affected the knife. On top of that, we never cleaned or sharpened it, so that just made it break quicker.
“But you know, it’s only been three days since I saw you guys last. You’re looking much healthier.”
“You think?”
Raphtalia shot him a professional smile. What did he want to say?
“Hm? And you look so happy too.”
“I am!”
This was the perfect place to haggle.
“Hey, put most of that 65 pieces of silver into the weapon.”
“What about you?”
“I’m fine.”
“Really?”
Raphtalia looked up at me, confused.
“Do I look like I need something? Geez…”
In all the fighting we’d done so far, I hadn’t been hurt even once. But the other heroes had warned me. The Shielders were strong in the beginning but fall behind as the game goes on.
So I wasn’t going to waste resources on myself until we got far enough that the enemy’s attacks started to hurt me.
“Hmm…”
Raphtalia was acting like she didn’t get what I meant. She was hugging the ball I’d given her.
