by Aneko Yusagi
He’s learned a whole bunch of stuff, but lately he hadn’t made anything of quality because we didn’t have any good material.
“Hey Raphtalia. Come take a look at this.”
He noticed me come into the room and indicated that I should sit next to him on the bed. He had a bottle of medicine in his hand.
“Okay.”
Mr. Naofumi had noticed how bad the scars on my back were, and so he applied medicine to them.
Thanks to his effort, the skin on my back now felt much better than it had.
Suddenly the story of the couple in the hot springs came back to me.
“Mr. Naofumi…”
I gathered my courage and dropped the towel I was wrapped in. I wanted him to see me.
He had trauma from a past relationship with women, and so I wasn’t sure how he would feel about his kind of thing.
But I wanted him to know how I felt, so I just followed my heart and acted.
“What… What do you think…?”
Aren’t I… attractive? Mr. Naofumi…
Mr. Naofumi was watching my back, and he seemed at a loss. I was sure he knew what I meant, and I was waiting for his answer…
“Well, I think it’s looking a lot better. You’ve changed so much since we first met.”
So he… Mr. Naofumi looked at my nakedness without even flinching. He just looked at me, observing.
Actually, I was the one getting emotional. I felt dizzy.
“Oh? Is that… um… all?”
“What else is there?”
“Oh, nothing.”
“If you don’t get dressed then you’ll catch a cold…”
“Ah! Big-Sister is naked!”
Filo entered the room and threw a fit.
She jumped out of her dress to get naked herself then ran straight at me. This wasn’t a game!
“I want to play too!”
“No! Stop it!”
Oh no… I was so close to making my deep confession to Mr. Naofumi.
Evening fell, and we got ready for bed. Filo was already deep asleep next to me.
“Um… Mr. Naofumi?”
“What?”
He was still making medicines and wouldn’t sleep for a while.
This was my chance. I had to let him know how I felt!
“Um…”
“Huh?”
Mr. Naofumi was looking at me.
Maybe it was because of the hot springs, but my face felt hot. I felt like I was boiling, but I had to try.
“Mr. Naofumi I… I… I like you.”
“Oh yeah?”
I did it! He knew! I felt like my heart could fly.
“I like you too… Like a daughter.”
It was like he’d thrown water on me. I sunk to the floor.
Ah… He treated me like a kid because he thought he was my parent.
But I’m not a child anymore! I’d told him that time and time again, and yet…
“Yeah, you’re an adult now…”
Right, he’d never say that to me.
He was so… dumb! But that was what was so great about him.
I… I wanted to take another step, but it didn’t seem like the time. I didn’t think it would work.
The ideal would be him coming to me and telling me he loved me. But that would never happen because of the trauma he’d experienced. So I would have to tell him first—then we could be together.
But what would I have to do to get him to notice?
Then I remembered a story I’d heard when I was a little girl.
My mother had said that she had realized she was in love when my father got her a present.
Yes. That was when I decided what I should do.
I’d have to get him a present that would wake him up and make him notice me!
Mr. Naofumi let his Shield absorb all kinds of things because it would make him stronger. So I’d have to find something that would make me stronger, more powerful, so that he’d realize I was an adult when I confessed! Then he would notice me!
The next day I walked around the town and tried to gather information.
“Are there any rare materials around?”
Had I just picked some normal or well-known item, Mr. Naofumi wouldn’t be impressed. I needed something legendary.
When we set out to make Filo’s clothes, we’d had to go exploring in ruins. If I found something similar… something that couldn’t be procured without a bit of danger… Yes… then he would notice me!
“Something rare? Well the Gaggoko hot spring eggs are pretty famous, and delicious.”
The innkeeper thought for a moment before he answered me.
“That’s not what I mean. I mean something more…rare. Like a pretty stone or something?”
“Maybe like Lachium?”
“What is that?”
“It’s a very rare mineral that can only be found in these parts. Wizards and alchemists will pay very high prices for it. Locals value it because it’s supposed to help people in their love lives.”
That’s it! If I found something so rare and valuable by myself, Mr. Naofumi was sure to be impressed!
And it helped with your love life? Perfect.
“Where can you find it?”
“I hear you can find it off in the mountains. But it’s pretty difficult to find.”
“I know.”
“They say you can find Lachium in Gaggoko nests.”
I kept on asking questions until I found out where you could find the Lachium ore.
Then I got ready and left to find it.
“Should be somewhere around here…”
I held a map in one hand while I climbed a volcano.
It smelled like sulfur, and was hot.
The innkeeper had said that there was a monster that lived at very high elevations, and that you would have a very good chance of finding Lachium under its nest.
That monster itself was not uncommon, but it was uncommon to make nests. It would be drawn to the spot by the magic in the stone.
Then I found it… the nest I was looking for.
“Ah…”
Because I was looking off at the nest, I’d turned my eyes high above me, and then, with a bang, I ran straight into something.
“Ouch.”
I fell off my feet and hurt my butt. Then I looked up at the thing that I’d hit.
“Oh… Big-Sister!”
Filo was standing there, with a paper in her hand just like me.
The paper was probably a map.
“Filo?! What are you doing here?”
“That’s what I was about to ask you!”
“…”
What was going on? My women’s intuition started whispering in my ear.
It said that Filo was my enemy, that she was trying to take Mr. Naofumi away from me.
And she’d been saying it for weeks. She’d never let me have Mr. Naofumi.
I had to get to the bottom of this.
“Filo, I’ll ask you again. What are you doing here?”
“I, um… I heard that there was a rare kind of food up here!”
Now that she mentioned it, the innkeeper had mentioned something about a Gaggako hot spring egg.
That must be what she was talking about.
“If I bring that delicious and rare food to Mr. Naofumi, he’ll pat me on the head and tell me that I’m his favorite!”
“He will not!”
What was this kid thinking?
“What about you Big-Sister? What are you doing out here! You’re keeping secrets!”
Filo turned her head in confusion, and I had to admit that she was kind of cute. But if I lost Mr. Naofumi to this cute face, I’d be in misery.
Whatever happened, I just couldn’t lose to her!
“Fine then, let’s see whose present Mr. Naofumi likes the best!”
“Fine! I won’t lose.”
The competition was on.
“Hiyaaaaaaaaah!”
“I won’t lose!”<
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Filo started running up the sharp incline, and I ran after her. I overtook her soon enough.
This is what I trained for, moments like this!
Even if Filo died, I wasn’t going to lose to her.
“Guggaga?!”
The Gaggoko screamed when it saw us running for it. It was a large, round, white bird.
“Out of my way!”
“Excuse us!”
Filo ran into the nest, but I reached under it for the shining stone I saw there.
But just then a monster appeared behind us, drawn by our shouts and filled with murderous rage. It ran at us.
“What the…”
We both looked at each other, as if to confirm what we were seeing. We’d taken too long to notice.
“Buruheeeeeeeeeeeee!”
It was a silver boar.
The Silver Razorback had been drawn by our shouts and was running straight for us.
It was bigger than Filo.
What would happen if a monster that large ran straight into a Gaggoko nest?
The whole nest, with us in it, flew into the air. We were suspended there, in the air, for a moment.
I had seen it. Under the Gaggoko nest, there had been a large, shining stone. It must have been the Lachium ore.
I saw that same ore now, shattered to dust by the impact, raining down around us.
At the same time, the egg that Filo had been looking for flew past us, suspended in the air like everything else.
“Gugguga! Gugguga!”
The Gaggoka raised its wings and flew away.
Then, with a crash, we all fell down to that steep slope…
“Ah….”
“Ugh! The eggs! Our food!”
We both realized that we’d lost the things we’d come for. We both looked to the source of our failure, and then looked to one another.
“Big-Sister…”
“Yeah…”
The Silver Razorback seemed to understand that he was in danger now, with all our wrath directed at him.
“Buruhee?”
The boar began to tentatively step backwards.
Had he turned and fled slowly, he must have known that death was waiting for him.
But even if he did turn and flee—that wouldn’t change his fate.
The Silver Razorback turned…
“Hey! He’s running!”
“You think you’re getting out of here alive?”
“Buruheeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee!”
The boar let out a terrified scream.
“Whew, that was tough.”
“Ugh… the egg!”
We looked all around the mountains after our encounter but never found what we were looking for.
At the very least, we had a local Silver Razorback to take back with us. I let Filo carry it.
“Where did you two go? I’ve been looking for you.”
Mr. Naofumi was waiting for us at the gate to the town.
“Oh you know…”
“Huh? What’s that Filo? I’ve never seen a monster like that before. Let’s butcher it and let the shield absorb it.”
“Okay.”
“Uh huh. Well, I was in the mountains looking for something when this thing showed up and gave us trouble. Me and Raphtalia took care of it.”
“Wow! Or would you rather butcher it and eat it? It looks like a boar, so we could make boar stew?”
“Yeah! That sounds good! Make it!”
“Ahhhhhhhhhhhhhhh!”
There was a crowd of people pointing, shouting, and running at us.
“Dammit! Let’s run!”
“Okay!”
Mr. Naofumi and I took off running.
The both of us did not have a very good reputation in Melromarc, so we ran into people that hated us pretty often.
So we were used to treatment that way, and when we saw people pointing at us we ran off instinctively.
But…
“Please wait! Wait! Please, please stop!”
Something seemed strange. So we stopped.
Then we noticed that the villagers were smiling and beckoning for us to come back.
“You have hunted a Silver Lord for us!”
“Silver Lord?”
“Yes, it’s a beast that we use in a prosperity ceremony in these parts. Will you let us have it?”
Yeah… When we’d been in the hot spring, I think I’d seen a picture detailing something like that.
So this was the monster from the picture.
The villagers insisted that the boar was not particularly good for materials, but that they would buy it from us for a good price.
In the end, Mr. Naofumi and all the villagers praised Filo and I for our job. Mr. Naofumi sold the boar to them, and even gave us all the money from it.
“Um…”
“We were on vacation, and you guys went out and used your own time to kill that thing, right? The money is yours, buy whatever you want.”
“Big-Sister…”
“Okay.”
Filo and I were thinking the same thing, and we both took the money that Mr. Naofumi was offering us. Then I went for a walk. There were certain materials that Mr. Naofumi had wanted for his accessory-making. I bought them and gave them to him as a present.
“What is it? I said you could buy whatever you wanted. This must have been expensive.”
“It’s from both of us. We wanted to give you a present because you always take care of us.”
“Yeah! It’s a present for you, Master!”
It would have been easy enough to take it all… but Filo and I had earned it together, and we both really wanted the same thing. We just wanted to express our gratitude to Mr. Naofumi, and so we did.
“Oh… okay.”
Mr. Naofumi smiled awkwardly and then reached out to kindly pat our heads.
“Raphtalia, Filo, thank you. I’ll treasure it.”
Ugh… There he was, treating me like a kid again.
The jerk… He’d never see me as a woman!
Right, Filo?
“Yup!”
We turned to face one another, and nodded in agreement.
The Rising of the Shield Hero Vol. 2
(c) Aneko Yusagi 2013
First published by KADOKAWA in 2013 in Japan.
English translation rights arranged by One Peace Books
under the license from KADOKAWA CORPORATION, Japan
Written by Aneko Yusagi
Character Design Seira Minami
Cover Design by Yusuke Koyama
English Edition Published by One Peace Books 2015
One Peace Books
43-32 22nd Street STE 204 Long Island City New York 11101
www.onepeacebooks.com
Table of Contents
Prologue: Shared Pain
Chapter One: Egg Machine
Chapter Two: Gratitude for Life
Chapter Three: Filo
Chapter Four: Growth
Chapter Five: Kick and Run
Chapter Six: Wings
Chapter Seven: Transformation
Chapter Eight: Carrot and Stick
Chapter Nine: Rewards
Chapter Ten: Traveling Merchant
Chapter Eleven: Travel by Carriage
Chapter Twelve: Rumors of the Heroes
Chapter Thirteen: Take Everything but Life
Chapter Fourteen: Magic Practice
Chapter Fifteen: Why it Was Sealed
Chapter Sixteen: Invading Vines
Chapter Seventeen: Improving the Product Line
Chapter Eighteen: Diseased Village
Chapter Nineteen: Curse Series
Chapter Twenty: The Shield of Rage
Epilogue: As a Shield…
Special Extra Chapter: Presents
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