by Aneko Yusagi
Like I’ve just described, Filo is actually a monster. Monsters that you use in your team can be controlled with a monster control seal, which allows the owner to control the monster by hurting them if they disobey or ignore orders. It basically gave me the right to control her life and death.
It seemed that her owner, myself in this case, had the right to decide whether she participated in the class-up ceremony too.
“Guess I can control that too.”
A filolial growth chart appeared before my eyes, splitting off into many directions, each indicative of new possibilities.
And yet, I . . . .
“Filo, this is something you should decide on your own. It’s not my choice.”
I rejected the choice, and a new option appeared, asking if I would like the monster to choose on her own. I chose yes.
“Oooh! I can see so many things! Which one should I choose . . . ?”
Filo closed her eyes and an expression of joyful anticipation spread over her face as she considered the possibilities.
I could have chosen for her, but Filo should have some say over how she spends the rest of her life.
I decided to tell Raphtalia the same thing.
“Raphtalia. I already went over this with Filo, but after the waves are finished and I return to my own world, you need to live on your own. So you need to decide your path for yourself. Okay?”
“I would have been okay with any future you’d chosen for me.”
“You have to choose.”
“ . . . Very well.”
She nodded, looking somehow disappointed.
But it would be worse if I chose and later had to regret my decision.
I trusted her—that was enough reason to let her decide on her own.
So what would Filo pick?
I looked over to see that the feather standing up from her head was now glowing.
“Huh?”
The light grew stronger and seemed to vibrate before flashing brilliantly.
It was so bright that I was blinded for a moment. I blinked a few times to get my bearings, then looked again at Filo.
Her appearance hadn’t changed very much. But the vertical feather on her head seemed somehow more splendid than before.
It looked like . . . a small crown.
“The class-up ceremony was a success.”
“I see that.”
I opened up Filo’s status menu to take a look at what had changed. The star symbol that had been next to her level earlier was now gone, which probably meant that the level ceiling had been removed.
That must mean that she could now level far beyond the previous cap. I looked at her actual stats and discovered that most of them appeared to have doubled.
So that’s how powerful the class-up ceremony really was.
“Heh . . . This is pretty impressive.”
Filo’s stats had always been better than average, and now she was substantially stronger than she had been.
I decided to compare her stats to my own to see how far ahead I was only to discover that her stats had surpassed mine!
Of course, I meant compared to my stats before the curse had lowered them.
The only stat of mine that was higher than hers was my defense rating!
“I couldn’t pick . . . .”
Filo had turned back into her human form and came running over to me with tears in her eyes.
“What’s wrong?”
“I wanted to learn how to spit poison, but then, before I could pick one of the paths I wanted, another option showed up and picked itself.”
A while back we’d been fighting some monsters that were able to spit poison. Ever since then, Filo had sort of romanticized the notion.
She doesn’t need to spit poison because she already has a poisonous tongue.
“Well it looks like that cowlick of yours is glowing now.”
“Erm . . . .”
“Filo, don’t lose hope. When you start to get stronger, you still might learn how to spit poison.”
Raphtalia tried to cheer up Filo.
“Really?! Then I’m gonna try real hard!”
“Okay Raphtalia, you’re next.”
“Oh, alright.”
Raphtalia reached out and touched the hourglass, just as Filo had.
And just like last time, the soldiers in the room all knelt and poured a viscous liquid into the grooves on the floor. Just then—just like last time—a flashing icon appeared in my field of vision.
Right—I selected to refuse the choice . . . .
But just then, Filo’s cowlick split in two and one of the cowlicks came flying straight at me.
“Huh? What?! Filo!!”
“It’s not me!”
What did she mean by that? Did she mean that the new cowlick was somehow moving and acting on its own?
Raphtalia was looking over at us, her eyes wide and surprised.
“Mr. Naofumi?!”
The floating cowlick caused a new potential line of growth to extend from Raphtalia’s growth tree—one that hadn’t been there before—and the new growth line selected itself.
“Ahh?!”
Raphtalia suddenly yelped.
The whole area was engulfed in flashing, blinding lights. A column of smoke appeared. The whole thing seemed to be proceeding differently than Filo’s class-up ceremony.
A moment later, the smoke dissipated, and Raphtalia appeared standing where it had been, coughing, but looking otherwise healthy.
“Are you okay!?”
“Y . . . yes. I’m alright, but . . . .”
What was happening?!
I was worried, but I opened the status screen to check on her. Just as with Filo, the star had vanished, and most of her stats had doubled.
“What happened?!”
“I don’t really know. Some option automatically selected itself. It filled me with a horrible feeling of dread, but everything seems to be just fine.”
“Well that’s good . . . but what is going on? Why are your class-up directions being decided on automatically?”
“Who’s behind it?”
“I don’t know. But Filo’s cowlick was originally given to us by Fitoria, right?”
“You’re right. “
When we were in the middle of the whole princess Melty-kidnap debacle, we’d come across a legendary creature—the queen of the filolials herself.
Filo and the queen talked about a lot of things, and in the end the queen gave Filo this cowlick, saying that it would help her in the days to come.
She also did something to my armor—saying it would help us. In return, she only commanded that I find a way to bring the heroes together.
If I wasn’t able to get the heroes to cooperate, she warned that she’d have to see us killed.
“What does it mean?”
I looked over at the queen. Her eyes were shining.
“You don’t say? I’ve wanted to meet with the filolial queen for ages.”
“That’s not what I’m asking!”
The queen seemed to know a lot about the heroes, but according to Melty, she’d also spent some time exploring legendary lands.
Maybe she had a personal interest in exploring ancient legends?
Her daughter, Melty, harbored a deep-seated interest in filolials. Like mother like daughter, I guess.
Regardless, it wasn’t the time or the place to wax poetic on inherited traits.
“How are you two feeling?”
“I feel stronger than I used to.”
“The feather from the filolial queen . . . I wonder what it all means?”
The queen sighed, looking disappointed.
“I know that certain special tools can be used during the class-up ceremony to achieve certain special effects. I don't know what this means, but I’d like to assume it's a good thing.”
“Right . . . .”
“How much have their abilities improved?”
“From the look of it, most of their sta
ts have doubled.”
“DOUBLED?”
The queen was shocked. Was it safe to assume that the growth was more dramatic than usual?
The filolial queen’s feather had somehow affected the ceremony. If it had raised their stats more than usual, I certainly didn’t think that was anything to complain about.
“Typically the ceremony is considered a relative success if one of the items raises by 50 percent. Compared to the average outcome, this is very impressive.”
As for our stats, there are all sorts of them: HP, MP, SP, attack power, defense, agility, strength, and so on.
I could keep going into more subtle stats, but there are at least this many main ones.
Well, Raphtalia and the others don’t have SP. It might be a stat that only heroes share.
The “one item” that the queen mentioned referred to one of these stats. She meant that normally a stat, like attack power, would get a 50 percent boost.
“You don’t say? Guess we got a good deal here.”
But the two of them both seemed a little disturbed by what they’d been through. I guess I could sympathize with that easily enough.
Class-up . . . . As common a concept as it is in online games, the best thing about the system was that you had the agency to decide your growth path.
“Well . . . keep your chin up.”
“I feel . . . I feel sad.”
“I do too!”
“Shall we try to redo the ceremony?”
The queen suggested a redo. Was that even possible?
“Can you do that?”
“Normally it is only done for convicted criminals, but it is not impossible.”
Apparently the ceremony could be reversed.
This whole time I’d been thinking of it as an analog to the job-change system you find in so many online games—which was typically a one-time thing that couldn’t be reversed.
“With a ‘level reset’ we can return someone to a point at which they were unable to class-up. That will reset the changes, but they will also revert to level one.”
“Level one? That doesn’t sound good.”
Considering the situation we were in, if either Raphtalia or Filo were to drop to level one, I wasn’t sure we’d be able to carry on.
The next wave would be here soon, and I was sure we’d get involved in all sorts of petty conflicts before then.
Still, those sorts of punishments existed in games.
It seemed reasonable enough that they could exist in a world like this too.
The more I thought about it, the more it seemed wrong. How could you take all the work and effort someone invested in their leveling and just render it all moot in an instant?
“But what should we do?”
“I want to redo it!” Filo shouted. “I want to learn to spit poison!”
Her tongue was poisonous enough as is, but I’d leave that issue for another day.
“The feather on your head is what caused this, so I don’t think that will work. The same thing would just happen again.”
“Oh . . . .”
“Raphtalia? What do you think?”
“I didn’t really have an idea of how I wanted to progress. I just wanted to be stronger, and I’ve become stronger—so I’m fine with this.”
She was right. This co-opted class-up had resulted in much higher stat gains.
As a result, she was already much stronger than I was.
“Alright then . . . . Let’s head back to the castle.”
“Okay.”
“But . . . Pooooooison . . . .”
“You’re plenty poisonous.”
“But . . . .”
And so our bizarre class-up ceremony came to an end.
We turned, leaving Trash collapsed before the hourglass, and made our way back to the castle.
Chapter One: The Heroes’ Teammates
We took a carriage back to the castle, and when we arrived everyone was bustling to prepare the large hall for a feast.
“What’s up with all this?”
“We are preparing a feast for Mr. Iwatani and the other heroes. In celebration of their swift and decisive victory.”
“Hm . . . .”
I had been able to prove my innocence, and at least one major domestic dispute had been settled. I suppose that was worthy of celebration.
The hall was filled with long dining tables. Judging by the size and number, this feast was looking more expansive and impressive than the last feast—the one I’d fought Motoyasu at.
It had taken so long. I reflected on how long I’d been framed and persecuted. It felt like it had taken forever to prove my innocence.
I was ruminating on the past few months when the queen passed by. She was in deep conversation with a group of soldiers, nodding gravely.
“What’s going on?”
“Oh . . . .”
I went over and asked her what was up. She cradled her head in her hands and whispered an explanation, clearly distraught.
Apparently during the preparations, Bitch had shown up in the kitchen. She’d wanted to be the one to bring me my meal at the feast.
She felt bad. She wanted to repent. She felt, apparently, that delivering my food would be a step on her path to reconciliation.
Then she forcibly took my meal from the kitchen and came marching out into the hall.
However, the queen had been prepared for any potential mishaps and had given orders ahead of time to deal with any issues Bitch might cause.
In the end, it was Bitch who ended up suffering.
Before Bitch could serve me my meal, she was required to sample it for poison.
“So what happened?”
“She was taken to a hospital.”
Only a few hours had passed since she’d been read her punishment. How stupid was she to try something like that so soon?
My shield had given me resistance to poisons, so I’m sure I would have been fine. Still, recreationally imbibing poison wasn’t one of my favorite pastimes.
Bitch didn’t understand what “repent” even meant.
What was she thinking? Attempted assassination could get her the death penalty.
“How will she be punished?”
“I will see to it that she is. Bitch will only reap further hardships until she learns her place.”
“How are you supposed to punish someone so unrepentant?”
“At least we stopped her before she got too far. Had she pulled off her plan, I would have lost your trust—and I’ve spent too long trying to earn it.”
“Whatever. It was almost a sure thing that she’d try something. She never looked repentant anyway.”
She wasn’t very smart, but I suppose there was something I could admire in her stubborn persistence. What could get her so ruffled?
I could have gotten angry, but I decided to praise the queen for her foresight instead.
“Better keep a good eye out. If anything happens to me or my friends, that will be the end of our agreement.”
The queen had stepped in to help me, so I’d decided to trust her for the time being.
I was really hoping that that trust would not turn out to be misplaced.
“I intend to keep you safe. You do not even know how important you are to Melromarc and the world—but I intend to show you that as well.”
The queen, as befitting one in her position, apparently had the foresight to order a 24-hour watch over Trash and Bitch.
“You’ve got a watch on Trash? Even as he sits encased in ice?”
“Naturally. Until the two of them settle down and cease their foolish plotting, I’ll be receiving reports from my ears on the ground.”
“Good.”
The guests had begun to arrive. Once the hall was full, the queen began to make an announcement—full of royal bombast.
“I am Milleria Q. Melromarc. I would like to welcome you all to this feast, which is held in celebration, and to honor those of you who worked so tirelessly to end th
is painful chapter in our collective history. Please enjoy all that we have prepared for you.”
The gathered crowd broke into uproarious applause. This feast was nothing like the last one.
“Wow . . . .”
Filo’s eyes sparkled with unbridled anticipation as all the food was carried out from the kitchen and lined up down the center of the tables.
The room was divided into halves. One half was served buffet style, while the other half was waited on as if it were a restaurant.
The most important guests were seated on the full-service side of the room. If they were still hungry by the end of the meal, they were free to move to the buffet side and continue eating.
Some servants appeared with shining plates of food for our table, and it all looked so good I couldn’t stop smacking my lips.
I’d spent the last feast huddled in a corner, begrudgingly snacking on scraps. From where I sat now, that whole experience seemed like a joke.
“When we’re done eating here, you can still go to the buffet and eat.”
“REALLY?!”
“That’s what they say. You can eat all you want. But you have to stay in human form, okay?”
“Okay!”
We finished our expensive and refined plates of food. Filo quickly cast her gaze at the buffet and, receiving permission, jumped up and skipped over to it.
Quantity over quality, I suppose. It was a very Filo way to see the world. Or should I say she cared about the quality in addition to the quantity. She was insatiable in every sense of the word.
She reminded me of a younger Raphtalia in a way.
I looked over at Raphtalia.
“What is it?”
Raphtalia caught me staring at her, and she flushed, embarrassed.
“You’re still hungry too, aren’t you? Go get some more if you want it.”
“I can’t eat that much anymore!”
“You better think more about your health. With all the daily fighting and hardship, you’d better get as much nutritious food as you can—when we have the opportunity.”
Raphtalia sighed deeply. What did she want?
“Hey, Mr. Naofumi, what kind of girls do you like?”
“What?”
That came out of nowhere. But I didn’t have any girls that I liked at the moment.
Actually, the whole topic just made me think of Bitch. I wish she’d stop bringing up topics like that.
