by Aneko Yusagi
“Hya!”
There was a sharp, piercing sound as she pushed her sword through a monster’s eye. The blade came out the back and stuck through the monster’s shell.
To put it in gamer terms, she’d scored a critical hit.
I was impressed. She was doing pretty well.
“Whew.”
“Did we get them all?”
“I think so.”
I quickly looked around the village.
There didn’t seem to have been any damage to the buildings. It was like the monsters had only been interested in targeting the people.
I guess that meant that there was someone out there intentionally targeting the villagers. During the waves the monsters would normally destroy buildings and structures too. So these were behaving differently.
I walked off in the direction that the monsters had seemed to come from.
“?”
Just a little ways down the road, I found the corpse of a monster that normally lived in the area.
“Hey, these monsters seem to be attacking things besides humans.”
That made me think that maybe this was territorial behavior.
“Well, they weren’t all that powerful on their own. Everyone but Keel, go take a look around and see what you can find. If you see anything strange let me know. Villagers, take care of the wounded.”
“Yes!”
“Roger!”
And that was the end of our first battle with the mystery monsters.
Raphtalia and the others were investigating as best they could, but I didn’t think we were going to find whoever was controlling the monsters.
Our best chance was Filo and her sense of smell, but she hadn’t found anything.
The sun fell low in the sky and the village began to get dark.
The villagers hadn’t been able to sleep through the night for the last few days.
“Is there anything else you can tell me about what those things might be?”
“Unfortunately not.”
“We’ve kept a lookout and gone searching for them before, but we’ve never found anything of interest.”
So the villagers weren’t going to be much help.
I considered going back to the castle with the information we had. But I didn’t think it was safe to leave the villagers alone without protection.
It was possible to defend against the monsters, but how were we supposed to attack them? We were missing something.
“Except...”
“What? Do you know something?”
“The monsters always fly in from the east.”
The east...
The mysterious woman that I saw before we left the castle had said something about coming from the east, too. Could they have been related?
“I’m going to the castle to share the information we’ve gathered. Raphtalia, you and the others stay behind to protect the village.”
“Understood.”
“Okaaay! Hey, master?”
“What?”
“Those monsters have killed a bunch of other monsters!”
That’s right. Filo had mentioned it on the way into the village. We hadn’t run into any wild monsters on the road.
She was right. There were way less monsters around than I would have expected.
Raphtalia reported that they had found a lot of monster corpses while they were investigating the area.
“Right, got it. Okay, I’ll be back.”
I had to go share what we’d learned with the other heroes. After watching the sun go down, I opened a portal and teleported back to the castle.
Chapter Twelve: Getting Ahead of the Enemy
“So those are the monsters we found.”
When I got back to the castle, the queen called for all the heroes to come together.
Just as I expected, the other heroes had also come across monsters with strange shells on their backs.
“How could they be appearing over such a wide area?” the queen asked, after hearing all of our explanations.
The queen knit her eyebrows and fell to thinking.
After a minute, she spoke again.
“If the same thing is happening in so many different places at once, it must be safe to assume that something unprecedented and strange is afoot.”
“Like the waves?”
“Perhaps. And yet...”
The monsters were not behaving the way that the monsters did during the waves. And besides, we still had another six days until the wave came.
Sure, the waves were strange. But even at that, these monsters really took the cake.
“Have you three figured anything out?”
I asked the other heroes.
They all looked as though they had been thinking about something.
But...
“Nope.”
“Nothing.”
“That’s right. I haven’t figured anything out.”
They answered calmly and carefree. It was like our earlier argument had never happened.
Something was up.
“I couldn’t figure out what kind of master the familiars serve. Know anything from your games?”
The other heroes based everything they knew about the world from the games they had played.
“No idea.”
“I can’t think of anything.”
“Sadly, no.”
They all answered lightly, as though they weren’t concerned. Come to think of it, they answered very quickly, too, even though they’d been stressed and ready to snap the last time we’d been together.
They nodded to each other. What was going on?
“You . . . Are you sure you really don’t know anything?”
My intuition was telling me that something was up. They were hiding something.
“I said we don’t know anything!”
Ren had been so cool and collected just a second before, but he leaned forward and yelled at me before turning his back.
What was that about? He’d just made himself look even more suspicious.
“Naofumi, what makes you think you’re the leader of the heroes? Back off already—we said we don’t know anything.”
“Maybe you should learn to trust people.”
Each of them spouted an obnoxious phrase and turned their backs to me.
Did they think I was trying to act like their leader? Ha!
I just wanted to know why they were acting so weird! I should have expected as much from them.
They were still pissed from before, so they were basically refusing to talk to me.
“Anyway, we need to protect the areas we’ve been assigned. So if the report is finished, I’ll be on my way!”
Ren shouted. Motoyasu and Itsuki agreed. Then they all left the room.
Through a window, I saw them open portals and teleport away.
Well, that was weird. Something was going on, I could tell.
“Queen.”
“I understand. I will send shadows after them to see if we can learn anything else.”
If she overdid it, we might end up in deep trouble.
I didn’t know if we could still depend on the other heroes, but all we could do for the time being was to try and figure out the reason for their strange behavior.
“A familiar...”
“Similar reports are coming in from our neighboring countries.”
The queen opened a map and indicated all the places that the monsters had been spotted.
The range was larger than the entire country of Melromarc.
It looked like they were all over the known world.
And then...
“They’re moving from east to west?”
“It appears so.”
The sightings were organized by date, and it seemed like the monsters were moving.
Which reminded me...
“Before we left for the village, a strange woman approached me.”
“Really?”
I told the queen about the woman that
had asked for me to defeat her.
She had mentioned the east. Then she had vanished. I’d thought that maybe it had been a hallucination, but it was starting to seem like something else.
“It sounds like there might be a connection. But what was this talk of holy weapons? Was she referring to the four holy heroes?”
“That was my guess. Maybe it’s an older mode of address?”
“But why would she ask you to destroy her? Regardless, I will look into it.”
“Thanks.”
My report was finished, so I teleported back to the village where Raphtalia and the others were waiting.
“I’m back.”
“Oh, Mr. Naofumi!”
The second Raphtalia caught sight of me she ran at me full speed. She seemed very anxious.
“What’s wrong?”
“It’s Keel!”
“What?!
Raphtalia took me by the hand and led me to the village clinic.
Keel lay on a bed, writhing in pain as a nurse applied a salve to a huge burn on his back.
“Oh . . . Mr. Shield.”
“Are you okay?!”
“Y . . . Yeah. It really hurts, but I’m not going to die or anything.”
I helped the nurse cast healing magic on his back. Then she went on to apply more ointments.
“What happened?!”
“I saw one of the monsters flying by. I thought that if there was only one, maybe I could handle it...”
“That was foolish! What if you had been killed?!”
Raphtalia’s eyes were brimming with tears.
Eclair and the old lady, overcome with concern, were also angry with him.
“I know, I know! I won’t do it again!”
The wound was deeper than I would have thought. What was wrong?
What now? It looked like there was something buried under his skin.
Symptoms like that meant...
“Keel, did the monster do anything to you?”
“Huh? It shot me with its heat beam. Then I fell over and the monster came and landed on my back. Raphtalia and the others showed up and saved me right after that.”
Damn! This wasn’t good!
That explained why there were so many monsters. The mystery was unraveling before my eyes.
“This might hurt, but you have to bear with me!”
“What are you going to do!?”
I took some medicine out of my pocket, popped the lid off, and dumped it over his wounds.
“Kyaaaaaaaaa!”
Keel screamed in pain.
But that wasn’t the problem! If we didn’t do something, his life was in danger.
There was a cracking sound, and something like a tortoise shell began to rise to the surface from under his skin.
“Huff . . . Huff...”
“Mr. Naofumi? What’s going on?”
“This is what has been causing all the trouble in the village.”
The minute I said it, Raphtalia understood what I meant.
The southwestern village was taken over by the crazed bioplant. Then the bioplant planted its seeds into some nearby humans and grew to the point where it was able to control them.
That’s right. The mystery monsters had just planted its eggs into Keel’s back.
“Ugh.”
“He was taking so long to heal that I figured something else was going on.”
But this had all happened so quickly. We were dealing with something very dangerous.
“Master!”
Filo suddenly screamed. She’d been on lookout outside.
“What?!”
“I just saw one of those monsters come out of a different monster’s body! I saw it!”
What?! So the monster’s numbers kept growing because they were reproducing in the bodies of the monsters and people they killed.
“Hurry! Get all of the dead monsters together in one place! We need to burn them!”
There was no guarantee that it was going to work. But if we didn’t get all those bodies burned, we were going to be in real trouble—that much was certain.
“Keel, are you okay?”
“Of course I am! But I...”
Keel tried to climb out of bed, but he collapsed again immediately.
“I can’t...”
“Just focus on getting better for now. You’re not going to be able to help us in that state anyway.”
“But I want to fight with everyone!”
“You’re not in any condition for battle. Just make sure you are rested up and ready to help us when the wave comes!”
“Ugh.”
Frustrated at his inability to help, Keel buried his face in his pillow and whined.
Raphtalia stroked his healing back.
“Master!”
“What now!?”
“It’s a different monster! Not like the other ones!”
“Dammit! They don’t let up!”
I ran outside to see what Filo was talking about.
Raphtalia and Eclair and the old lady came with me.
“Fehhh...”
Rishia had been on watch with Filo, and she was tottering there, terrified, before the monster as it emerged from the dark of night.
I followed her gaze.
It was about two and a half meters tall—about as tall as Filo in her filolial queen form. It looked like a yeti, and its entire body was covered in fur. Its back was covered with a tortoise-like shell.
——’s familiar (yeti form)
Damn! I still couldn’t see the name!
The yeti with the shell on its back raised a heavy fist into the air and came running for us.
It was clearly trying to attack the weak villagers.
“Everyone run!”
“Okay!”
Everyone nodded their agreement and started running.
I stopped the massive fist when the beast swung at us. When I stopped it in its tracks, the others rushed in and killed it.
It wasn’t a tough fight at all, but the experience we got from it was on par with what we got in Cal Mira during the activation event.
“Eclair, old lady, what level do you think a normal adventurer would need to be at to fight and defeat a monster like this?”
“Um . . . I would guess around level 45.”
“Even if they were a talented fighter, they would probably need to be around that.”
Level 45. And that was assuming they were particularly skilled.
So to be safe, a normal person would need to be at level 55.
That meant that anyone that hadn’t been approved to go through the class up ceremony wouldn’t survive an encounter with a monster like this.
Sure, it’s not like these monsters were all over the place. The villagers hadn’t seen them before.
But they existed.
“Fehhh...”
Rishia, quaking with fear, examined the dead monster. What was she looking for?
“Um...”
She appeared to want to tell me something.
If I looked worried as I listened, it would only scare her.
So I made a face like nothing was wrong.
“What is it, Rishia?”
“This monster. I think I’ve seen it before. I think I saw a picture of it in a book I once read.”
“What?!”
“Ahhhh!”
I’d tried not to scare her, but she was who she was.
I had to calm her down—she was still easier to deal with than the other heroes.
“Sorry. So? What kind of book?”
“Fehhh... I’m . . . sorry. I can’t remember!”
I was a little annoyed with her whimpering, but at least she was sharing information with us.
If she could help us solve the mystery, then she was proving how useful she could be.
She was bookish as hell, but still hadn’t been much use in battle.
“Well, what kind of book was it? I’m sure you can remember if you think about it. When you remember,
come tell me. That will be our ticket to beating this thing.”
“Okay!”
It was best if we took turns keeping watch over the village through the night.
The real problem was that the monsters were all over the country. So even if we protected this village. . . But no—there was no point in thinking that way. It was better to protect them than to leave them.
I’d go report to the queen first thing in the morning. There was the matter of the other heroes to attend to as well.
But the heroes never returned to the castle to give their reports.
Chapter Thirteen: Game Knowledge Bares its Fangs
“Those idiots!”
It was our third night in the village.
The other heroes had come on the second night to deliver their report.
The report from the shadows that had been trailing them came on noon of the third day. The shadow reported that the heroes had left the lands they had been sent to secure.
I had been out investigating during the day, so I didn’t hear the report until I got back in the evening.
Keel had been moved to the castle clinic and was recovering quickly.
Rishia thought that she was going to figure out what book she had seen the monsters in and was studying in the castle library.
The mystery monsters were growing rapidly in number, moving to the west, and attacking everything in sight.
The bat-like monsters weren’t so powerful on their own, so the country was doing its best to manage them. As for the yeti-like monsters, there weren’t as many of them, but they were too powerful for normal humans to handle.
We used the adventurer guilds to recruit adventurers that could help us fight them off.
Anyway, about the other heroes, I’d thought they were hiding something, and I’d been right.
They had attacked the Melromarc border and broken through.
“We have reports of what they said as they stormed the border, which went as follows: ‘we have to get through to stop the monsters! Why are you in our way?!’”
I turned that over in my head for a minute and then I realized what it meant. They really had known something about the mystery monsters.
The report said that they had also said things like, “We aren’t breaking our promise to the queen,” and, “This is necessary to carry out the job we’ve been tasked with.”
