by Aneko Yusagi
The wriggling internals moved, then stopped, then they shook with such force I thought the stomach would tear… then… then I could see…
“Huff!”
“It was… a bird that I knew on its side. She was covered in the rotted liquid of the dead dragon.
“Huff! I finally made it out!”
Filo seemed to be in a good mood, and just fine, despite climbing from the stomach of the beast that had eaten her.
“Filo?! Are you all right? Are you hurt?!”
“I’m fine!”
“Then… Then what was all that blood when the dragon ate you?”
“Blood? Oh, yeah, when the dragon swallowed me it pushed on my tummy, and I threw up.”
What had she been eating? Oh yeah, all those tomatoes! That must have looked like blood.
That’s right… She’d been stuffing her face with them for hours.
“Don’t scare me like that! I thought you were dead!”
“An attack like that? That didn’t hurt one bit!”
This bird was a monster. I guess she really was a monster.
Man… She’d really given me a scare.
“Master, were you worried about me?”
“Whatever.”
“Master! You’re embarrassed!”
“Want me to give the eulogy at your funeral?”
“No! But I’m happy! Don’t you start thinking about buying a replacement for me!”
Right… Well, she was okay.
Filo stood there smiling, which annoyed me. She better remember all this.
“Anyway, what happened?”
“Well, the dragon swallowed me, and then when I was in his tummy I walked around and found this weird, glowing purple crystal.”
Could it be that the dead dragon was reanimated by this purple crystal?
Filo had ripped her way out of the corpse. In its chest… Could it have been the heart?
But why?
Because it was a dragon? Even though it was dead, could it be that the dragon’s latent magical power had gathered in the heart and crystallized?
“So what was with the crystal?”
“Ugh! Blech!”
I guess that was the answer… she’d eaten it. Her stomach looked like it was glowing too.
Geez… I could have hit her.
“There was a little left over. Does Master want a snack?”
She held out her little wing, and there was a purple crystal shard there in her hand.
What the hell?
I broke it in half and the let the shield absorb it.
I knew it… My tree wasn’t advanced enough to unlock anything.
“Raphtalia is hurt, so you and I are going to clean up this dragon.”
“Okay!”
I swear… This bird was going to put me in the madhouse.
Good think I didn’t let myself get consumed by anger.
I’d switched to the Curse Shield to avenge Filo, but I’d almost been completely consumed by hatred.
If Raphtalia hadn’t stopped me, I would have burned the dragon completely… and burned Filo too.
Rage… That shield was cursed.
It took me over to accomplish its own ends.
Had I let it take me over, I would have gone on to kill the other heroes when I finished with the dragon.
“Yummy!”
“Filo! That meat is rotten, don’t eat it!”
“Meat that’s just starting to rot is the best kind, Master!”
“It’s not ‘just starting,’ it’s completely rotten!”
We kept on cleaning in our half-hearted, playful way. Soon enough, the dragon was gone.
I’d absorbed everything I could, but the tree wasn’t advanced enough to unlock anything.
Even still, the bones and skin seemed like they would be useful materials, so I took a portion of them and loaded up the carriage.
Epilogue: As a Shield…
“Yes, it’s a curse.”
We returned to the village and rushed to the doctor to see if we could get treatment for Raphtalia.
“It’s also very strong. The mountain dragon was in possession of such a powerful curse?”
“Well… No… Actually…”
I wasn’t sure if I should be honest about what happened. I was at a loss.
“Yes, I accidentally let the dragon’s meat touch me, and it burned me like this…”
Raphtalia spoke out and caught my eye as if to confirm that it would be our secret.
“Can you do anything for her? We can pay whatever you need.”
Raphtalia was a girl. She didn’t deserve to go through life covered with these dark, horrible scars.
“Well, there is one thing…”
The doctor went back into his room and returned with a bottle that was filled with a clear liquid.
“This is very strong… I don’t know if it will heal her though.”
“What is it?”
“Holy water. Curses are best removed by holy power…”
“Oh…”
The Shield of Rage would not only hurt its victims, it would curse their wounds so that they wouldn't heal.
It was sounding more and more dangerous. It was imbued with a counter attack that didn’t distinguish between enemy and ally.
And I’d seen the shield’s tree, and it had not progressed at all.
It had only been for a short time, but now I knew that I couldn’t unlock that shield.
“We’ll soak these bandages in holy water for now…”
He did so, then took the sopping bandages and wrapped them around Raphtalia’s dark scars.
“I can’t say for sure if this will work… If you are able to, you should go to a large city and procure yourself some holy water made by the church.”
“How much would we need to heal her?”
“Honestly… the curse is very strong. I don’t know if you can cure it… how did the dragon…?”
It had been me… It was my fault. But apparently the curse was strong enough that people would believe that it was done by a dragon.
“Ok… How much medicine have you made?”
“I’ve just made a little. Beloved Saint, please help the sick.”
“Sure.”
I left Raphtalia with the doctor and went to the building that was filled with sick people.
You could tell that the medicine had been made by a professional.
It completely healed the disease that I had been unable to take care of with my own medicine.
I watched the patients there, sleeping soundly, and felt relieved.
I wanted strength… I wanted to be strong enough that I wouldn’t have to depend on that shield.
I wanted to be able to heal people, not curse them! It was because of my weakness. That was the root of it. I hated my weakness.
Filo had survived. She was fine. But there would be a time when she wasn’t, when she would need me. When she vanished from before my eyes, I completely lost myself.
I let the thought linger in my mind. This was no game.
If someone dies, they won’t come back to life. I found myself staring at the cemetery behind the building.
They’d betrayed me… tricked me! That was even more reason for me to… to protect the people who believed in me.
I went back to the doctor’s and found Raphtalia sitting there, wrapped in bandages. I apologized.
“I’m sorry.”
“It’s okay.”
“But I…”
“I was more afraid of you leaving… of you going somewhere far away from me.”
“What?”
“That power, it wants to take you somewhere far way. That’s what I felt, anyway. So if I was able to stop you, to keep you here, then these scrapes are a fair price to pay.”
She smiled, and I felt a sharp pang of emotion.
I had to protect her. I HAD to. I made up my mind never to lose myself to that shield.
And then… I realized that running from
loss… That running from loss was a kind of loss itself.
“Raphtalia… You jumped into battle to prevent this, didn’t you?”
“What?”
“When we fought the dragon, I ordered you to retreat. But if you had, you couldn’t have protected me.”
I’d been wrong. Just protecting… just running… wouldn’t be enough.
All I could do was protect.
But… But as I protected them, I need to make sure the enemies were defeated… so that I wouldn’t lose my friends.
All this… all this pain was because I wanted to run from loss.
“You’re wrong! I … I ran ahead for you, to satisfy myself.”
Raphtalia leaned forward and forcefully rejected my theory.
“Courage and recklessness are not the same thing. I’ve been reckless, and you kept trying to reign me in to protect me… But I… But I…”
Without even thinking about it I reached out and touched her cheek. A tear raced over my fingers.
“Just like courage and recklessness are different, so are caution and cowardice. You’re no coward. No one can protect a coward.”
So I wanted to lead the charge. I wanted to stand at the front so that I might protect Filo and Raphtalia.
Back on the mountain, had I been at the front, I could have sent out an Air Strike Shield, and Filo could have used it as a springboard. Then the dragon wouldn’t have eaten her.
I was afraid of losing her.
“So don’t worry about it. Look at how much practice we got, and we didn’t lose anyone. We can use what we’ve learned in the future. We’re stronger today then we were yesterday.”
Raphtalia’s eyes filled with tears, and she nodded along.
“Yes… Don’t rush too far ahead… Don’t hang too far back… It’s a difficult balance.”
“It is, but I think we can do it. Just remember that the Shield Hero, that’s me, stands at the front of the line. Protect yourself, and if you find yourself free, protect others. That’s easy.”
“When you put it that way, it does sound easy.”
“It will be easy.”
“Is Big-Sister okay?”
Filo had stuck her head into the room, and was looking over at Raphtalia nervously.
“I’m okay.”
This would be a day for Raphtalia to rest up. Filo and I went outside.
“Master!”
“What?”
“I used to think that I wished I could stay a human forever… because you and her are so close.”
She was in human form, and was smiling.
“But I couldn’t. It’s fun to pull the carriage, and I was just fooling myself because I wanted you to like me. Even if I pretend to be like you, I can’t do it!”
“…”
“But, Master? I’m the same Filo, no matter what shape I am.”
“That’s true.”
I’d been surprised when she’d turned into a human, but I don’t think I had treated her any differently. Even still, I did treat her like a child.
“I’m me, Master is Master, and Big-Sister is Big-Sister, right? You can’t be anyone but who you are, and I… I can’t be a real person. But even still, there’s no one out there that can replace me, is there?”
THAT’S why she’d turned into a person?
I nodded in response to her barrage of questions.
“But, you know what? I like you, Master! I like you just as much as Big-Sister does! I’m going to be the best Filo I can be!”
“That’s… good.”
Who would have thought Filo would lecture me on these things?
Protecting everyone was supposed to be MY job, but I noticed, with amazement, that I wasn’t upset with having the job stolen from me. I wonder why?
“You know what? For Master and Big-Sister, I’m going to do all I can! I’m gonna try real hard, yup!”
“You better. Protecting you is my job, after all.”
“Yup!”
We spent the rest of the day relaxing in the village.
The next day we worked hard to try and wipe out the disease for good.
The doctor asked me if I could do anything, and I set about making medicines. We ended up finishing earlier than we’d thought we could. I had thought that he could teach me something about medicine and healing, but I didn't’ know enough, and I didn’t want to be in the way.
“Thank you so much, Beloved Saint!”
A young girl from the sick house waved to me and said thank you.
Did I… protect them?
I made up my mind not to run. If I ran, I couldn’t protect the people I needed to protect, and I’d just save my own life—but make it not worth living.
I wasn’t alone anymore.
I was a parent to Raphtalia and Filo now, and I needed to do whatever I could to make the world better for them, to make it into a place where people could live out their lives in happiness.
“Mr. Naofumi?”
“Master!”
“Huh? What’s up?”
I’d been walking around the peaceful village when Raphtalia and Filo called out to me.
“You looked really… concerned?”
“Yeah!”
“Don’t worry about it.”
“But Master! You’re such a worrywart! Of course we worry.”
“A worrywart?”
“Yeah. These days all you ever say to us is, ‘Are you all right?’”
“She’s right. But you don’t need to worry anymore.”
“But I…”
“Don’t treat us like children anymore. We are thinking about our own affairs.”
“Yeah!”
“I know now that you care about us… but in the exact same way, we care about you too, Mr. Naofumi. We’ll be fine if we stick together.”
“Yeah!”
“You’re right.”
Raphtalia was growing. She had her own thoughts and her own feelings, like her inner maturity had caught up to her appearance. I couldn’t treat her like a child anymore.
We were a team now. I guess.
Worrying about things on my own wasn’t going to do anyone any good. I couldn’t bring peace to the world by myself. One look at the waves of destruction made that immediately apparent, and it was even more true for me, the Shield Hero, who couldn’t even attack on his own.
If we wanted a world of peace, we’d have to make it together.
“All right. Let’s do this… together.”
“Oh! Master smiled!”
“She’s right. And it wasn’t some weird, fake smile, either. That was real.”
The two of them were smiling back at me.
Heh… Was that supposed to be me? Did I never smile?
Whatever.
I was smiling now.
I wasn’t alone anymore.
Because I had friends I could depend on.
Special Extra Chapter: Presents
“Mr. Naofumi, I can see steam.”
That day we’d been rolling down the road in Filo’s carriage when I spoke to Mr. Naofumi.
He’d said that we were on our way to a town with hot springs, and I was getting excited to arrive.
“Huh? Already?”
“It’s stinky!”
Filo looked back from her place at the front of the carriage and made a face.
“That’s sulfur. Hot springs often smell like that.”
“Are hot springs yummy?”
“Hot springs aren’t very yummy on their own. Hot spring eggs are good though.”
“Hot springs lay eggs?”
“No, no. They boil the eggs in the hot springs. There are hot spring rice cakes too, though maybe not in this world.”
Mr. Naofumi was taking his time and responding to each of Filo’s questions.
“We’re going to sell medicine here, right?”
“Yeah. I’m going to get us a room at the inn. Raphtalia, you take care of the sales.”
“Okay.”
�
��Considering that it’s a hot spring and all, we should take a little break and relax here. Two or three days should do it.”
Filo and I broke into giggles.
We’d been traveling so much lately we didn’t really get any time to relax.
Especially Mr. Naofumi. He was always making medicines or working through the accounting books, or studying magic. He didn’t get to rest at all.
I thought that taking a few days to relax sounded like a great idea.
“That sounds like a wonderful idea, Mr. Naofumi.”
“So we can play tomorrow, right, Master?”
Well, I still need to work on these medicines, so I can’t relax too much. But I can probably stand a good soak in the springs. Filo, get ready to stop.”
“Okay!”
There were many doctors and caretakers visiting the springs, and they bought Mr. Naofumi’s medicines from us quickly. Soon, we were sold out.
So we went back to the inn and went for a soak in the springs.
“I’m going to go see Master!”
“No, you can’t. You’ll just annoy him.”
“But, it will be fine. He likes me.”
“What will be fine?! That’s the men’s bath. You’re a girl, right?”
But Filo wasn’t listening. She had climbed up on the fence dividing the baths and jumped over to the other side.
“Master! Let’s play!”
“Filo? Oh, okay. Make sure you get way down in the water. You want to be up to your neck.”
“Okay.”
I could hear Mr. Naofumi and Filo’s voices coming from the other side of the partition.
What the… I sort of felt like I had lost.
I sat in the water and let my eyes wander to a sign in the corner. It detailed the history of the spring.
There had been a silver boar? When the villagers defeated the boar, the hot springs appeared where he’d fallen. The history was written like an old story.
It also said that the hot spring was a spring of love.
If a man and woman entered the spring together they’d be bonded for life.
And now Filo and Mr. Naofumi were soaking in it together!
“Ugh…”
I was starting to feel hot from sitting in the water for too long, so I decided to get out.
When I got back to the room, Mr. Naofumi was there too, having left the baths early himself. He was studying accessory making.
