The Rising of the Shield Hero Volume 01 (19 page)

They all split and made room for me to pass.

Then I walked to the edge of the cliff and saw what had become of my parents. I started shaking and sobbing.

“NOOOOOOOOOO!”

How much time had passed?

By the time I knew what I was doing, I had already made graves for my parents.

“Don’t forget to smile. Be nice to the others.”

“She’s right. When you smile, everyone smiles.”

“Right…”

They had given their lives to save the other villagers, and they had entrusted the survivors to me.

I’d show them… I’d be good to everyone! I wouldn’t let their deaths be in vain…

If I just stayed there crying, my parents would be upset.

“I won’t cry any more. I’m going now…”

I started walking back to the village.

“Uhuuuuhh….”

“Daddy… Mommy…”

The villagers that had run for the ocean had formed a crowd. There were many more children than adults.

“Is that Raphtalia?!”

“Yes.”

“Did your parents make it?”

An old man who had been our neighbor asked me. He looked concerned.

I tried as hard as I could not to cry. I shook my head.

“Oh… That’s…”

He was unable to find any words. He must have known that anything he said would make me cry.

“It’s okay. My parents told me to cheer everyone up. “

“Did they? You’re such a strong girl.”

“Hee, hee.”

Was I laughing?

It’s fine. If I cried, my parents would be upset.

“Everyone!”

I shouted to get everyone’s attention, and all the eyes of the crying children were on me.

“I know that you are all sad. I am too. But would our parents and brothers and friends want us to stay here and cry?”

Everyone seemed troubled by my words. They were twisting their faces up.

I put my hand on my heart and stepped forward.

“To all of you that think our loved ones haven’t died, I ask you how would they feel if they came back to our village and found it like this?”

Right. This was everyone’s village. We couldn’t just leave it how it was.

My dad, and the lord, had always said that the village was a family that we all made together.

“I know how sad you are. Believe me, I know. But that is all the more reason to rebuild. I mean, we’re a family!”

Yes, father had always said so. He said to treat the rest of the village as if they were part of our family.

So I would do it. I would take care of them all, just like father had said.

“Right? Please?”

I did all I could to summon a smile.

“Raphtalia…”

“Raphtalia, aren’t you sad?”

“Why are you smiling? Your father died!”

My smile weakened at their exclamation.

I wouldn’t cry… If I started crying, I’d never be able to stop…

“Right… I’m… not… sad.”

I can’t cry. If I started to cry, no one would be able to comfort me.

“Oh…”

“Look at how hard this girl is trying! Come on everyone. If she can do it, we can do it!”

“Yeah!”

“Okay!”

“You’re right, Raphtalia! I’ll do my best too!”

Keel had been crying, but he turned to me, invigorated.

“Yes!”

The lord had given our village a flag. It had been a present, and a symbol of the town. Just then it fluttered down from above and fell before me. It was like it was agreeing with me.

That was it. It was a sign, a sign that my parents were watching over us.

I picked up the flag, and the other villagers brought over a large pole for it. We attached the flag to the pole.

“It’s a sign from heaven! Let’s work to rebuild our village!”

“Yeah!”

And so everyone decided to try and rebuild.

“NOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!”

I was instantly awake. I was inside of the tent we had set up.

My house had burned to the ground—most of ours had. So we were all sleeping together in a large tent

I think I might have been dreaming.

“Hey, did you hear that voice?”

An older man was rushing over in my direction.

“Raphtalia, you were screaming.”

“Was I?”

I needed to smile. If I didn’t, it would worry the rest of them.

“I’m fine! It was just a bad dream.”

“Okay… well… don’t overdo it.”

“I’m fine! Thank you though.”

Father. Mother.

I’m doing my best, I promise…

The next morning we decided to leave the completely destroyed houses the way they were for now and focus on repairing houses that we could live in sooner.

We also put some people in charge of making graves for the bodies that had washed up on shore.

The adults were all focused on rebuilding the town, and all the children were doing what they could to help.

But we were getting worried about the food supplies. They might not hold out.

We had discussed sending fishing boats out to get more food, but the sea was very rough, and we decided it best to save that for later.

“What now…”

We all counted the survivors.

There was only one quarter of the village left alive.

Even still, one of the older men said that we had made out as well as he could have hoped for.

“It’s just like Raphtalia said. We are all still alive.”

“Yeah!”

What I hadn’t known then was that all our efforts were going to be tossed aside mercilessly.

“Hey! What are you doing?!”

There were some scummy-looking men wandering through the village, and they were pointing their swords at a group of adults.

“Hey!”

“Who are you guys?!”

“Ahahah! I’d heard that there were still some demi-humans alive here. Guess it was true!”

“Yeah, and this area isn’t protected. We could probably make some good money!”

“Yeah! Argh!”

One of the older men stepped forward and yelled at the attackers.

“The lord of these lands will never forgive you for this behavior! There are castle knights still in the area too!”

The nasty-looking men all smiled at once.

“What do we care if your dead lord gets mad? And besides…”

Swipe! It happened quicker than I could see. It happened before I could understand what was going on.

The old man’s stomach was split open. One of the bad men had cut him with his sword.

“What the…”

“Ahaha!”

“Can’t you tell? We are the castle knights!”

“They haven’t figured it out yet, have they, Boss?”

“Nope!”

“AHAHAHAHAHA!”

The old man fell over in a pool of blood. He didn’t even twitch.

The pool of blood was spreading. Soon it was at my toes.

“Ah! AHHHHHHHHH!”

Suddenly everyone was panicking. I didn’t know what to do, so I ran.

“Don’t let them escape! Kill the old ones! We can sell the women and children, so don’t run them down!”

I can’t really remember what happened next.

“Noooooo!”

“Calm down! Take that!”

“Ugh….”

Someone had a hold on my hair. I felt like someone had hit me, and then nothing.

A week passed. I continued having dreams of my parents’ deaths.

They caught me, and sold me into slavery.

The first owner seemed nice. He just wanted me to act as a servant, but then he sold me, and I still don’t know why.

The next one…

“Take that!”

“Ugh…”

Why? Why did they treat me this way?

He was a fat man and looked like a bad man. He kept me in the basement of a large house, in a town I’d never heard of. There were animals there. They were just like me… Ugh… Apparently this man had bought Rifana before he’d bought me.

Every day, whenever he felt like it, he would hang me from the ceiling in chains and beat me with a whip. He hit me until I was bloody. Then he would keep hitting me.

Whenever I tried to stop him, or tried to protest, the slave curse on my chest would burn me. The pain from the whip was driving me crazy.

But I wasn’t going to give up.

I’d bare it, for my parents, and for everyone in the village that hadn’t made it.

So I wouldn’t give up.

“Raphtalia…” Cough.

“It’s okay... It’s okay. We’ll make it back to the village.”

When I reunited with Rifana, she was already sick. Even still, the man never stopped hitting her.

“Yes… We… We’ll… make it…”

What did this man want from us? Did he just think it was fun to beat us with a whip?

“Ha! Why are you still having dreams of a better life?”

Slap! He hit me again, and I felt blood trickle down my back.

I felt tears well up at the pain.

“Yes! Scream from the pain!”

“Ahhh!”

After that point, things got worse. He started to torture me.

I was finally free, and ragged, but I crawled over the muddy floor to go take care of Rifana.

He brought us an awful stinking bowl of soup. It tasted like mud. It was our only food for the day.

“Huff… Huff…”

I slowly fed it to Rifana. That was one more day of life for her.

It would be okay. We had to make it back to the village. Everyone was waiting for us.

“Hold on… I swear I’ll help you.”

There were latticed iron bars that ran almost to the floor. I realized that if I took a rock from the wall and used it to dig out the foundation under the bars, then we’d be able to wriggle under them and escape! It just had to work.

“Thank you.”

“Yes! We’ll meet everyone again!”

My mother and father had told me to take care of everyone.

The other villagers were sure to save us.

Sadeena would definitely rally the others to come save us. All we needed to do was survive long enough.

“You… remember that…day? Raph…ta…lia…”

Rifana was shivering. She was stretching out her hand to the ceiling.

“You remember… that… lord’s… flag?”

“Yes… yes!”

I grabbed her hand and squeezed it hard.

I remembered. That flag had given us hope.

I missed those quiet days… those days when nothing was wrong.

But those days were gone.

So I had to bring them back. It was up to me.

Cough! Cough!

Three days passed.

I could hear his footsteps coming close.

“Raphtalia…” Cough!

The horrible time was starting again. I’d caught Rifana’s cold. But I was going to be fine.

I slid a pile of wet straw over the hole I was chipping away under the bars.

“…”

Rifana wasn’t answering me.

“Rifana?”

The man opened the door to the stable where she was and touched her.

“Guess she’s dead. Ugh, what a pain.”

He lifted her body roughly by the shoulder and muttered to himself.

Rifana hung there, her eyes empty and cold.

“Damn, and it was almost time to return her too. This is a breach of contract!”

Then he kicked her body, like she was just a toy.

I didn’t know it at the time, but I found out later. Apparently there was a class of people that entertained themselves by buying demi-humans as slaves and then torturing them.

That’s what we were, just slaves sold to satisfy that man’s personal whims.

“Heee?!”

What? What? Rifana?

No… It couldn’t be.

I reached out a shaky hand to touch her.

She was so cold, so cold! I couldn’t believe it.

No… Rifana!

I was sad, angry, terrified… hopeless.

I had so many different emotions stirring inside of me.

Why? Rifana hadn’t done anything wrong!

“It’s because you won’t stop crying at night! She couldn’t get any sleep! This is YOUR fault!”

“No… Ugh…” Sniff… “Rifana…”

The man strung me up and started to whip me. He hit me even longer than usual that day.

But I kept my eyes locked on Rifana the whole time, and I couldn’t even feel the pain.

“Oh hey, you’re always muttering about some village, aren’t you?”

“…”

I didn’t have to answer him. Everyone was waiting for me.

“Apparently that village was destroyed a while ago. Here’s proof.”

He held out a crystal ball.

A beam of light came out of the crystal ball and projected an image of the village on the wall.

It was worse than the village I knew. It was destroyed, and there wasn’t anyone there.

The flag was tattered and burnt, and the ground was littered with bones.

“Oh yeah, I heard you saying that you were the person who supported everyone in that village. Apparently everyone left it to rot and ran away.”

“Ah…”

The man flashed a smile. He had never seen me cry, never seen me blink. He was enjoying this.

“Ug…. Ugh… Wahhhh!”

Something inside me snapped.

I couldn’t do it anymore.

My mother and father had entrusted the village to me, but there was no one left.

Then what should I do?

There was nothing left for me.

“Cry! Cry harder!”

The pain was so intense I thought I would go crazy.

The dreams I had every night were starting to rot my brain.

They were of the last time I saw my parents. It got even worse.

I was a bad kid because I hadn’t saved the village. They hoped I never smiled again. I didn’t have the right to live.

They kept whispering: Die… Die…

They were… right. I would never smile again.

I didn’t want to.

Because I… Because I broke my promise…

The man finally sold me.

Either that or the time had run out on his torture game.

“This is horrible. This is way under what she’s worth. Damn.”

“C’mon, she’s on the verge of death. I can’t use her in this condition, so I’m going to have to subtract lost time from the price.”

“I understand. Yes.”

A fat man dressed in a nice suit bought me. He was different from the last slave trader to manage me.

What would my next owner be like?

“I’m sure she could have been treated a little better…”

The new owner gave me medicine and food.

Cough! Cough!

“I don’t think she will last very long.”

The owner said as he put me in a cage.

So… I finally wasn’t worth anything to anyone.