by Aneko Yusagi
“Maybe because I already own her. The ofuda might not work the way it should, because I already have a monster spell cast on her.”
These people were real creeps. Based on how upset she’d sounded earlier in the day, I assumed that they were treating her terribly. But they were people, so neither Kizuna nor I were going to be able to attack them. That left us with Chris, Rishia, and Raph-chan to rely on.
“Rishia, do you think you can take him out while he sleeps?”
“Feh... I can try, but I don’t know if I’ll be able to.”
Damn it... We didn’t have any way to make this guy pay! I didn’t think it was a good idea to trust Rishia with the job. And Raph-chan wasn’t strong enough to attack a person on her own.
“There are some things we could do to raise Rishia’s attack power, but it’s probably not worth the risk of being discovered. Let’s focus on escaping while we still can.”
“What about Chris? If he’s strong enough to handle it, we should let him.”
“Pen?”
“If we let Chris do it... he won’t just hurt the guy. He’ll probably kill him.”
How strong was this shikigami of hers?!
“If we take the ofuda off of her back, will she be free?”
“It won’t be so easy to get it off. Many ofuda have special magic applied to them...”
“This one doesn’t seem to be working properly, though, so hopefully we can just rip it off.”
“Pii...”
“If it has a lot of different settings and effects, then it could cause trouble.”
It might kill her if she got too far away from her master—or it might tell him where we were. We were right in front of him.
I looked into the optional effects of the magic spell I had applied on Filo to see if there wasn’t something I could do to make escape easier. The magic spell itself was a very powerful one. I decided to try to activate it.
“Filo, this may hurt a little bit. Bear with me.”
I activated the monster spell and checked to see if it was working properly. A magic circle appeared in the air over Filo’s stomach, and she began to writhe in pain.
And then the ofuda peeled up and twisted on her feathers.
When she realized the ofuda was loose, she cocked her head to the side and started pulling at it with her beak.
I guess a little strip of paper and a powerfully applied monster spell weren’t in the same league.
“Piii!”
“Kizuna, Filo is about to pull the ofuda off. The birdcage seems to be connected to it, so we’d better destroy it.”
“Are you ready?”
“Yeah. I don’t see any alarms on it. Even if there was one, we don’t really have a choice here.”
“Okay,” she said. Then she drew her tuna knife and quickly sliced the cage to pieces.
The cage clattered loudly to the floor in chunks. At nearly the same moment, the monster spell circle on Filo’s chest sparked, and the ofuda peeled off completely.
I immediately deactivated the monster spell. Filo transformed into a human and threw her arms around me.
“Master!” she shouted, raising her head to look up at me. “You’re here! You’re really here! This isn’t a dream, is it?!”
“I’m really here. It’s not a dream.”
Filo was on the verge of tears. She was finally standing right before my eyes.
“Rafu?”
Raph-chan poked her head out and barked at Filo.
“Hm?”
“Rafu!”
“Master, what’s this thing? It kind of smells like Raphtalia!”
Her sense of smell was as good as ever.
“Her name is Raph-chan. She’s a creature called a shikigami. We made her out of Raphtalia’s hair, so that’s probably why she smells like her.”
“Oh wow! Nice to meetcha, little, big sister!”
“Rafu!”
They smiled at each other. I started to smile, too, when...
“What the hell?!”
The sleeping man jumped to his feet—very awake. He clearly knew that he was about to lose Filo—the goose that laid his golden eggs.
“Who are you?! Show yourselves!” he said, pulling a katana out from under his pillow. “That bird is mine! I’ll take her back now!”
“Damn...”
Kizuna’s skill must have stopped working, because once the man noticed us, we quickly came back into full view.
“Boo!”
“How did you manage to get the servant ofuda off of her? No matter—I’ll cut you down and take her back!”
I felt something snap, like a string pulled too tight. It must have been the limits of my patience. Was I letting this guy get away with too much?
“Okay... So you beat up my friend here, and now you’re going to act all tough?”
I didn’t feel like holding back anymore. Making this guy suffer was my highest priority.
“Rishia, Kizuna, I want to give this guy a taste of hell—any problem with that?”
“We’re not going to run away?”
“Run away? Ha! Not until I torture this guy and destroy his soul.”
“Ra! Fu!”
What’s that now? Raph-chan understood how I felt? She was smiling devilishly.
But that’s not the way that Raphtalia would have responded, so that made it clear that they had very different personalities. Raph-chan was an individual.
I took slow steps toward the creep that had captured and profited off of Filo. He had to pay. He had to pay for what he’d done.
“Stay away! Hya!”
The man swung his sword, but at nearly the exact same second, the Nue Shield’s Night Terror effect activated.
A low rumbling emanated from the shield and echoed through the room. Is that all it did?
A split second later the man yelled, “Stay away...”
“Kyaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa!” A shrieking, high-pitched, nearly supersonic voice split through the room. It sounded like nails on a chalkboard, only much louder and longer.
Kizuna, Chris, Rishia, and Filo all immediately covered their ears.
“Feh...”
“What’s that sound?”
“Ah... Ugh...” The man who owned the show tent started shaking.
“Ahhhhhh...” His face quickly twisted into one of extreme terror.
“No! Stop! Stay away!” he shouted, shaking his arms and running over into the cover of the room.
The shield must have had a powerful effect on the enemy—he looked like he was crippled with fear. It must have dug deep into his subconscious fears and brought them to life in his mind.
“Rafu!” Raph-chan puffed up her tail and a started to cast a spell. It looked like she could use the same kind of magic that Raphtalia could—illusion magic.
I squinted in the dark and could just make out the owner of the show, cowering and running from something. It looked like a ghost or something... Was the skill using his past traumas to torture him?
“How can you turn against me? How can it be?!”
It looked like he might have been having hallucinations—like maybe all the poor things he tortured for his business had risen up to exact revenge on him.
“Someone! Someone please!”
No good. I couldn’t have him yelling for help.
I walked over to the cowering businessman. He was terrified and randomly swinging his sword, so I grabbed him by the shoulders to stop him.
“What do you want?!” he yelled and swung the sword at me. I stopped the blade.
There was a loud clang when it hit my shoulder.
Then Lightning Shield (medium) activated and electrocuted the man. He twitched violently in front of me.
“But how... You... You monster!”
“Calm down... The terror has only just begun.”
“Naofumi... you sound so villainous,” Kizuna said.
“You’ll pay for what you did to my friend. Shield Prison!”
I wouldn’t take
damage either way, so I enclosed myself in the prison with him. Then I shoved the Nue Shield against his ears and blasted him with Night Terror. That’s when I realized I could control the volume of the shrieks.
“Ahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh!”
The man’s screams echoed through the prison. They were loud—and annoying.
“Fine then... Maybe you’d rather answer some questions. Where, and how, did you get your hands on Filo—I mean, on this angel?”
“Why would I tell you?!”
“Don’t want to talk?”
I raised the Night Terror volume even higher.
“Gyaaaaaaaaaaahhhhhhhhhhh!”
I turned the volume back down and told him, “I suggest you start talking soon. Personally, I’ve got no problem with watching you suffer all day long.”
“Whh... I...”
I smiled, and the man’s eyes filled with terrified tears. He must have been leaking everywhere, because a liquid seemed to be running down his legs.
But that wasn’t nearly enough to make up for all he’d done to Filo. She must have been terrified! I don’t think any of the creatures whose misery he’d profited from would be close to satisfied yet.
“See?”
“My parents gave her to me! They said they found her unconscious!”
“Who are your parents?”
“They’re nobility in the town!”
So they found Filo when she was unconscious, thought they could make money by showing her off, and captured her. What creeps!
“Who else is helping you run your show?”
“I’m nobody! I was just tasked with the running the show, as a representative of a local family!”
So there were clans that basically ran the town here? The place was organized like the Edo period, so maybe they were magistrates. It sounded like people were in positions of power strictly because of their families. I decided to ask Kizuna about it later.
I’d probably gotten all the information I could out of this disgusting businessman.
“Thanks for the information. As a reward, I’ll provide you with supreme terror. Did you think it was already over?”
“Rafuuuuu...” Raph-chan cooed, seemingly enjoying the sight. That’s it, Raph-chan. We can enjoy his misery together!
“Ah... Ahhhhhhhhhh!”
You know, there’s really nothing better than watching someone you hate suffer. It was such a relief to watch this piece of trash howl in fear. If only I could make Trash and Bitch suffer like this, back in Melromarc.
“Ahhhhhhhhhhhhhhh!”
He was leaking liquid from all the holes in his body and vomiting, but I kept on dealing him more terror. I liked watching him writhe and struggle.
Finally, like a switch had been flipped, his eyes rolled back into his head, he foamed at the mouth, and then he fainted.
“Don’t think that passing out will save you.”
“Rafu, rafu!”
I pressed my shield against the man’s ears and continued to use Night Terror.
Even though he was unconscious, it still seemed to be working. His limp body started to twitch. He might have been asleep, but I was injecting terror into his dreams.
I liked this skill. I could use it to torture people. I’d have to remember to use it the next time I came across a jerk like this.
It was a psychological attack, so there might be people that it wouldn’t work on.
No matter—I continued using Night Terror to fill the man’s dreams with fear while I waited for the Shield Prison around us to disappear.
“Ew...” Kizuna muttered, looking down at the unconscious man.
He had leaked all manner of things from every part of his body, and his face was still twisted in terror, like he was being tortured in his dreams. He looked like someone that had seen one of those videos that would kill you if you watched it. He had an unbelievably violent and pained expression on his face.
Humans were actually pretty tough. They could go through all of this and still not die.
“Feh...” Rishia was scared of the man’s pained expression.
If I used Night Terror on Rishia, she’d probably lose her mind in a heartbeat.
Not that I would do that...
“Alright, we got our revenge. Now let’s split.”
“Right... Remind me never to piss you off. But you know, saying ‘let’s split’ like that makes you sound like a criminal.”
We had just committed a crime, hadn’t we? This was illegally breaking and entering—even if we were rescuing a hostage.
“Thank you, master!”
“Yeah, yeah.”
A loud beeping sound rang out through the night outside.
I opened the wooden shutters to look outside, and I didn’t like what I saw. The building was surrounded by scowling men.
“You think they’re out to expose the crimes of the show?”
“I doubt it. I think they must know we’re here.”
We’d used Kizuna’s skill to stay hidden, and we hadn’t run into any guards on the way in, but there was still a chance that we’d been noticed without knowing it.
“Come out and surrender!”
Yup... There was no doubt what they were after.
The townspeople had gathered around the building to find out what all the trouble was about.
“What should we do? How are we going to get away with all those people out there?”
“Rishia, I’m sure you know the answer to that. Think back on all the time you spent with Itsuki...”
“Feh? We would all proclaim Itsuki the Bow Hero and fight on his behalf.”
That’s what Itsuki did? What an idiot.
Well, I guess the Bow Hero was a pretty famous person back in Melromarc. He could probably use his notoriety to get out of a tough spot. He might not have had to escape all the time.
“So how do we escape?” Kizuna asked while Filo threw her arms around me.
Before answering, I invited Filo into our party and waited for her to accept.
“Here’s the plan: Portal Shield!”
I chose a location outside of town that I’d registered before we snuck in to save Filo.
In a flash, our surroundings completely changed, and we were safely out of trouble.
I hadn’t known if we were going to be successful in our attempt to free Filo, but I had always planned on using Portal Shield to escape.
“Wow!” Kizuna yelled, quickly looking around to get an idea of where we were. “That’s totally different than Return Transcript!”
“You mean the rules are different?”
“I guess? This skill of yours is great for getting away from a pursuer.”
“Let’s hope it worked.”
It was the middle of the night and very dark outside, so I would be surprised if anyone could figure out where we’d vanished to. We’d be in trouble if anyone recognized us—you could never be too careful.
“Anyway, we’re done here, so let’s split.”
“Okay!”
“Alright!”
“Oh jeez, I guess we still have to run for it.”
So after teleporting to the edge of town, we took off running into the night.
Chapter Twelve: Humming Fairy
We traveled through the night, putting plenty of distance between the town and us. By morning, we had reached the next town down the road.
“These criminals are wanted for crimes committed in the area. If seen, report them to the authorities immediately!” read a wanted poster pasted to a board in the new town. There were rough sketches of us, apparently drawn from eyewitness reports.
Good thing they’d only seen us in the dark. The sketches had very few details that could be used to identify us. Then I saw it... The poster included a sketch of Raph-chan. That would give us away in a heartbeat, so we’d have to hide her.
“Raph-chan. Sorry, but if anyone sees you then they’ll know that we’re the ones that freed Filo.”
“Rafu!” she barked. With
a puff of smoke, she transformed into an ofuda that fit in my hand. The design on the slip of paper moved back and forth. I guess I could call for Raph-chan at any time.
Kizuna did the same thing with Chris.
As for Filo... Unfortunately she’d spent more time in the show, so the drawing of her was actually very accurate. No one would mistake her—she was a young girl with wings on her back, after all. Kizuna read the poster and said that it included information about how we had stolen Filo.
“Pii!”
Filo turned into her humming fairy form and hid inside of my armor.
“They say that news travels fast, but it’s kind of amazing that the news beat us here.”
“They made quick work of it, didn’t they?”
We could probably escape without too much trouble, but how long would we be able to keep it up?
“What did they do?” I heard a passerby comment on the poster. I decided to listen in on the gossip.
“They kidnapped that angel girl from the next town over—the one you could pay to see.”
“Are you sure a real angel didn’t come and take her? I heard she vanished.”
They were making it sound like Kaguya-Hime.
Considering how Japanese the country looked, I guess that sort of story fit with the scenery.
But maybe without even meaning it to be, the townsfolks’ gossip was pretty close to the truth.
We’d better keep moving.
“What should we do about leveling her up?”
Filo was at level 1, just like I’d been.
Man... What if we were all returned to level 1 when we crossed between the worlds?
“She’s like Rishia. If I’m with Kizuna then we won’t level up, but Rishia and Filo should get experience, so there shouldn’t be too much trouble. At least we got over the first hurdle.”
My own levels had progressed well, and I had managed to power up my weapons a fair bit, too.
But...
“The real question is what happened to Filo. Why isn’t she a filolial anymore?”
That’s right. Filo had been turned into something called a humming fairy instead.
She could still transform into her human form, but that would get us noticed by the authorities.
“Filo, I’m sure you already know this, but don’t transform into human form. They’ll catch you again if you do.”
