by Aneko Yusagi
“I’ve been curious about something.”
Ren raised his hand.
“What?”
“You’ve been referring to Itsuki as ‘master’ but don't attach a title to either mine or Naofumi’s names. Why is that?”
“Because the Sword and Shield Heroes have clearly not been performing as well as Master Itsuki has. That should explain the difference.”
What did he just say?
I’m used to dealing with crazy people by this point, but that was just too much. What would make them think that? I looked around at the crowd, and each member of Itsuki’s party, save one of them, seemed to be in agreement.
It was Rishia that seemed to not share in their opinion, the girl that Itsuki treated like a servant. I couldn’t tell how she really felt, but she did seem stressed by the disagreement.
Ren sighed loudly.
“Just when I was wondering what you’d say . . . .”
I couldn’t believe he had the gall to even mention our “activities!” And this from Itsuki, who snuck around and did his work in secret. How did he think the rest of the country saw him?
He might have liked the idea of fighting for justice in the shadows—but no one knew who he was, and no one talked about his “deeds.”
“Activities? Is Itsuki, by far the most boring hero around, trying to act like he’s done more than we have? You know, I haven’t heard anything about what you’ve been up to. No one talks about it.”
“Well, maybe that’s because, unlike Ren and Motoyasu, I haven’t been running around trying to get people to praise me. The best work goes unnoticed—that’s just how it is.”
Itsuki shot back, apparently surprised that he was being challenged.
What was that supposed to mean? No matter how you looked at it, it seemed like Itsuki was the one concerned with his reputation.
Did he just like to fancy himself an angel? Oh Itsuki, so brave! So noble! Saving the world and not even looking for credit!
“You fool . . . . Are you berating Master Itsuki?
“What are you going to do about it? I’m not nice enough to stand aside while someone insults me to my face.”
Ren spat back, and I saw his hand move to the hilt of his sword.
“Fueeee!”
“Please stop that! Ren!”
Itsuki inserted himself between flashy armor and Ren.
“Itsuki, it looks like you still have some explaining to do.”
“ . . . .”
Ren spat angrily at Itsuki.
“Regardless, Ren and Naofumi are heroes just like I am, so please show them the respect they’re due.”
“Understood!”
Flashy armor shouted and bowed deeply to us. I wondered what he was really thinking.
“Alright, I’ll introduce my people next.”
Ren clipped and stalked off without another word.
A feeling of malcontent remained in the air, but Itsuki and I followed Ren across the room.
“Welcome! Welcome! It’s good to meet you both, Shield Hero, Bow Hero.”
“Oh, um . . . .”
Ren’s party members were still eating, but when we approached they stopped and snapped at attention, treating us respectfully but looking nervous as they did.
After dealing with Itsuki’s crew, I wasn’t really sure what to make of it.
Anyway, there were four of them.
“I’m the Shield Hero, Naofumi Iwatani.”
“I am the Bow Hero, Itsuki Kawasaki. I believe we’ve met a few times before.”
I think I’d seen three of them before, on our first day after we were all summoned here. It looked like he’d acquired one more party member somewhere along the way.
“Pleased to meet you again, Shield Hero, Bow Hero.”
“Sure.”
The whole group was very polite and proper.
But I couldn’t help remember the way they’d avoided me on the first day here, the way they’d all run to hide behind Ren.
I couldn’t forget it.
I better stay on my toes—there’s no telling what they really thought.
“I apologize for my previous actions.”
“Huh?”
One of the men stepped forward, representing the group. He appeared to be a solider of some kind. He bowed to me.
“I’m sorry, under the previous king I, we . . . I didn’t know what would have happened to me had I aligned myself with the Shield Hero.”
The rest of them all followed suit, lowering their heads to me.
“I realize this is too little too late, but please accept our apology.”
“Uh . . . okay.”
They were all so . . . modest, I wasn’t expecting that and was thrown of balance.
Based on the way I’d been treated for the last few months, I couldn’t help but suspect ulterior motives.
“Mr. Ren, to what do we owe the pleasure?”
“They say they want us heroes to cooperate from now on, so we’re going around introducing our parties.”
“Is that so? Very well! However, I did want to confirm our plans for the coming days. What type of monsters should we focus our attention on?”
“What?”
Itsuki and I both exclaimed our suspicions at the same time.
“Apparently we are heading for the Cal Mira islands. We’ll do our leveling there. See to it that you are all prepared.”
Ren barked out the order as if it were the most obvious thing in the world—but that’s not what had surprised us.
“Wait a second—what are you talking about? I want to hear from you all, not from Ren.”
“Oh, well . . . um . . . We were thinking that we could split up and work on our leveling separately from Mr. Ren.”
Well that should be simple enough, except that I had no idea what they meant.
I got the gist of it, but . . . what did it mean? Was it just another method?
It looked like Itsuki was just as confused by this all as I was, but he chose not to say anything about it because of the incident we’d just been through with his party members.
“What?”
“Um . . . .”
I guess if Ren was okay with it, there wasn’t a problem?
“Do you typically operate separately from Ren?”
Itsuki’s curiosity got the better of him. In response, the whole party nodded.
They went on to explain themselves.
Ren’s plan was to introduce his party members to areas of the map where the monsters were in the ideal power range for effective leveling.
They were to battle monsters and raise their levels, collecting materials, ores, and tools along the way.
Sometimes they would come across monsters that were particularly strong, at which point they would team up with Ren to defeat them.
“Mr. Ren was also quite clear that we were to avoid taking any damage in our fights with monsters.”
I had a fare amount of experience with online RPGs, so I’d seen this kind of thing before. Stronger players in charge of guilds or other organizations would often recruit weaker players like this and let them in on secret leveling spots and rare item drops.
That seemed to be what was going on here.
“You don’t say? So that means that Ren is fighting on his own?”
Itsuki was glaring at Ren, his irritation evident. Ren didn’t seem to notice.
Ren’s party members were clearly interpreting his actions positively, but still—I could sense a lot of distance between them.
It was simple, I guessed. Ren didn’t think it was cool to be tied to a party. He wanted to be on his own.
He might have a lot of experience with online games, but could he have always been a solo player?
It was a play style I’d seen before. People that liked to do what they could on their own—only teaming up with others to take on large-scale events or to battle powerful boss characters.
Or it could be that he was the type that was part of a ve
ry small guild and would only recruit people that already knew of it, watching over their growth and managing them as a new style of play. I could understand playing with the system on a game, but would he really do that here in a completely new world?
I’d seen this online before, I knew the type.
Well Itsuki was no different, traveling to appease his own sense of moral superiority. What a bunch of heroes these two were.
“It’s Naofumi’s turn.”
“Sure.”
I could only imagine how they’d react when I introduced Raphtalia and Filo.
I’d thought that Ren and Itsuki would understand, but after meeting their parties I wasn’t so sure anymore.
“Alright, this way.”
I led the two of them over to where Raphtalia was resting.
“Welcome back, Mr. Naofumi. What happened?”
“The queen wants the heroes to cooperate, so we’re introducing our party members.”
“I see, then allow me to introduce myself. My name is Raphtalia.”
“My name is Ren Amaki. I am the Sword Hero.”
“I’m Itsuki Kawasaki, the Bow Hero. I have a feeling we’ll be seeing a lot more of each other. I look forward to it.”
“If you don’t hold us back, we might come to depend on you.”
Raphtalia’s mouth hung open in stupefied shock at Ren’s comment.
The way he said it made his position clear: he obviously assumed that she would only hold him back.
“I don’t think I’ve ever been a burden in a battle.”
“Ren didn’t mean to insult or disparage you. We’ve seen your true power in battle before.”
Itsuki jumped in to cover for Ren. He was only making it more confusing.
“He’s right. You’re stronger than I’d thought.”
“Very much so . . . though that reminds me. Where is the young girl with the small wings on her back? I think she was able to turn into a monster of some kind?”
“You mean Filo? She’s probably over there.”
Filo was . . . I think she was over at the buffet counter stuffing her face.
I picked her out of the crowd and called out to her.
“Filo!”
“Hm?”
Hearing me call, she finally abandoned her plate of food and came running over.
“What do you want, master?”
“Yeah well . . . I think you already know these two faces, but I’ve got to formally introduce you.”
“Why?”
Filo looked troubled and took a step back.
“Are they like the spear guy?”
“No, no. Compared to him, these two are upstanding guys.”
“Yes, I feel the same way.”
“Oh? They kind of look like they’d get along.”
We all seemed to be in agreement on that. No one was as crazy over women as he was.
“So go on and introduce yourself.”
“Okay! Filo’s name . . . MY name is Filo!”
She sounded so stupid . . . . Why slip into the third person to introduce yourself?
“My job’s to pull master’s carriage!”
She was very proud of herself for her work. What would a normal person think, hearing a small girl brag about dragging carriages down the street?
Both Ren and Itsuki winced awkwardly as they looked at me.
“My name is Itsuki Kawasaki. Pleased to meet you.”
“I’m Ren Amaki. Try not to hold us back . . . though I can see you won’t.”
“Yeah! Nice to meet you! Bow! Sword!”
After giving their full names, only to be called by their respective weapons, Ren and Itsuki shot me the same awkward wince.
With the introductions finished, the three of us fell to silence.
They might have thought it strange that I treated Raphtalia and Filo as other humans, instead of just treating them like subordinates.
“Raphtalia, weren’t you once a slave?”
“Yes.”
Itsuki’s mouth hung open. What was he implying?
“Is this a master-slave relationship? How do you think of Naofumi?”
“Now that you mention it, I suppose it was that sort of relationship. I never really think about it.”
Hearing Raphtalia’s response, Itsuki continued to look confused.
“Anyway, Mr. Naofumi has never given me any strange or uncomfortable orders. I know that he depends on me, and so I want to do what I can for him.”
“Have you ever thought that you hate fighting? Or that you’d like to be free?”
“I haven’t. If I were free, there’s nowhere for me to go. My old village is gone. All I want is to keep fighting with Mr. Naofumi.”
“Is that so?”
“Why do you only ask questions to get a complaint out of her?”
It’s like they’d taken this introduction as an opportunity to root out my weak points.
“I guess you already had made up your mind about this before Motoyasu challenged Naofumi?”
“Yes, I had . . . . I’m sorry about that.”
He seemed to mostly just let it all go, but something about Itsuki’s face betrayed his true feelings. He looked over at me.
What did he want from me? Raphtalia had been a slave, but now she was a trusted friend.
Was I imagining it? No . . . I could trust what she said.
“Let’s introduce our friends to each other and then go back to speak with the queen.”
“Good idea. Raphtalia, go introduce yourself to Ren and Itsuki’s teammates. We’re going to have to cooperate from now on. I know that it will make you a little uncomfortable, but do your best to avoid a fight.”
“Understood.”
Chapter Two: Meeting of the Heroes
After Ren and Itsuki explained the situation to their parties, we went to visit with the queen.
When we met up with her, she led us all out of the hall and into another room. We went down a hall and then climbed a spiral staircase.
Finally we reached the room, which must have been at the top of a tower, judging by the number of stairs we’d climbed.
It was a simple room, furnished with a large, round table in the center.
It reminded me of the round table. There were chairs already set around it for us, and we all took our seats.
“Soon, Mr. Kitamura, the Spear Hero, will join us. Please wait just a moment for his arrival.”
Ren and Itsuki, apparently troubled by all the free time, stared off into the distance—they must have been looking at their gaming menus.
It was a good idea, I opened my own status tree.
I’d sort of neglected it recently, having been too busy. This was a good opportunity to get back up to speed.
Five minutes or so went by.
A disgruntled looking Motoyasu stumbled into the room and made no effort to hide the hatred in his gaze when he glared at us.
“Mr. Kitamura, I trust you’ve gone to see my daughter? This is her punishment for attempting to poison Mr. Iwatani.”
“That’s right, you’d mentioned that.”
Ren’s cool gaze fell on Motoyasu and the queen.
“Fearing that Mr. Motoyasu might be angry with the circumstances, I ordered a subordinate of mine to extract a confession directly from my daughter, Bitch.”
Bitch was currently under the slave-sealing spell and was only able to speak the truth.
She was especially unable to lie to either the queen or Motoyasu.
He’d probably gone to see her in the hospital,and heard her confession for himself. Did he believe it? Apparently not.
“Bitch isn’t in the wrong! This is all Naofumi’s fault!”
“I believe my daughter has confessed. And I believe you have been included in the slave-sealing ceremony as a master, so she certainly is unable to lie to you. Were you able to understand the gist of her story?”
“ . . . .”
“Regardless, please understand that this is no longer the
time to get into petty arguments over my daughter. If you value her life, you will help us protect this world. Its safety is also her own.”
Motoyasu’s irritation was evident, but he swallowed his protest and took a seat at the table. It was time to get down to business.
With us all seated around the table, the room had taken on a real Arthurian atmosphere.
With both Motoyasu and myself seated there, which of us played the part of the betraying knight?
“Now then, let us begin to share information between the four holy heroes. I, Queen Milleria Q. Melromarc, will moderate the discussion. Let us begin.”
“Sure.”
“Gladly.”
“So we should share information . . . .”
“What is there to talk about?”
The queen was supposed to moderate the conversation, but Motoyasu’s displeasure was clear, and he spat his question with obnoxious spite.
He could have learned to keep his emotions to himself a little more. It was clear that he was upset, but HIS woman was the one at fault here.
“I will be moderating this discussion, so I might as well begin it. I’d like to start by telling you about the opinions of our neighboring nations, as well as our own country’s subjects.”
So the queen had something she wanted to say right from the get-go.
“I will be frank. I have received communications from other diplomats expressing concern regarding the heroes’ ability to survive the coming waves—all the heroes aside from Mr. Iwatani, that is.”
“WHAT?!”
The other three heroes shouted in disbelief.
“What is that supposed to mean?!”
Itsuki was the one who shouted the question, but Motoyasu and Ren nodded along.
“It almost sounds like you’re implying that Iwatani is the strongest one here!”
“Then let me ask you something. Who among you landed the most effective attacks against the high priest of the Church of the Three Heroes? I’ve actually heard that the rest of you were effectively defeated before Mr. Iwatani was able to defeat the high priest himself.”
“Um . . . .”
I liked the way this conversation was going.
The other guys had all played games similar to this world back in their own worlds, so they seemed to assume that they knew what they needed to do to power up—and yet, they honestly didn’t seem to really be all that strong.
