The Rising of the Shield Hero Volume 05 (23 page)

All he did was pour some soul-healing water on her—why was she suddenly so powerful?

Glass could not have been human. She had to be something else. The Soul Eater Shield’s counter attack had been really effective against her too.

That would mean that she became more powerful when her SP was increased or something like that.

“Mr. Naofumi!”

“Master?!”

Thinking that Glass had nearly broken through my defenses, Raphtalia and Filo rushed foreword.

“Wait! Stay back! Don’t expose yourselves to attack!”

Glass was extraordinarily powerful. I’d blocked her attack with my best shield, and she’d nearly broken it. If she scored a direct hit against Raphtalia or Filo, they would probably die. I don’t think they were fast enough to avoid Glass’s attacks either.

But Filo didn’t listen. She was already past me, using her fastest attack.

“Haikuikku!”

Filo rushed at Glass, and her claws flashed time and time again.

“Ugh . . . .”

Glass tried to brush off Filo’s attacks, but Filo had grown too powerful. Unable to ignore them, Glass was forced to jump back.

“Circle dance, tortoise shell break!”

Glass’s fan began to glow. She aimed a defense ignoring attack at my shoulder.

“Argh!”

Pain shot through my shoulder. I held it to try and regain my composure.

“I’m coming, Naofumi! This is it!”

L’Arc swung his scythe. It was a defense rating attack.

“Shooting Star Shield!”

The force field appeared just in time to stop his scythe.

And then the field broke—but his attack didn’t make it through.

“Damn. You just won’t give up, will you? I already used my trump card, and you’re still standing!”

“We haven’t lost yet!”

But we were running out of options.

“L’Arc, stand down. I’ll finish this by using all my power.”

“Right!”

L’Arc and Therese got as far from Glass as they could. What was she planning?!

“Circle dance of nothingness.”

Her fan grew very large, and then another fan materialized next to it.

She snapped the fan shut, and they released blades of energy as she did.

Then she held the closed fans over her head.

The circle path they formed as they rose remained in the air, glowing like the moon.

It was so beautiful, but I couldn’t afford to be distracted. I readied my shield and braced myself.

She brought the fans back down with force.

“Moon break!”

“Ah!”

I quickly switched to the Wrath Shield and held it over my head.

There was plenty of distance between Glass and I, but innumerable blades of energy rained down on me from above.

I couldn’t dodge them. They were too fast!

I did all I could to block them with the shield, but I couldn't keep it up much longer. Raphtalia and Filo were in danger!

“Raphtalia! Filo! Get out of here!”

“Y . . . yes!”

“Okay!”

They escaped to the left and right, away from me.

The shield was taking a serious beating from the energy blades. It felt like it might break at any moment.

“Ugggghhhh . . . .”

The attack ceased. The shield had survived it.

But I soon realized my shoulder had been cut anyway.

Even though the shield had survived the attack.

The attack was over. The blades stopped falling.

I turned to survey the damage. The ocean itself was split in two.

Just how powerful was she? I was surprised I had even survived.

Huff . . . huff . . . .

Huff . . . huff . . . .

Glass and I were both exhausted.

The Wrath Shield started to glow.

“It’s my turn now!”

Damn. It hurt. It hurt so bad!

Dark curse burning activated, burning everything.

Dark flames shot up from the ground and swirled around me.

“L’Arc! Therese! Stay back!”

“Right!”

I couldn’t let them get away! I immediately expanded the flames, burning the whole area.

Glass slapped open her fan to defend herself.

“Arrrghhh!”

The flames finally died down, but Glass was still standing there, exhausted from the effort.

My attack had been extremely powerful. How had she survived it?!

Did I need to use iron maiden?

The problem was whether I could use change shield (attack) without it breaking.

Actually, she might break the actual iron maiden. Glass’s attack had been powerful enough to nearly break the Wrath Shield. I couldn’t be sure that she wouldn’t destroy the iron maiden.

Glass began to use her powerful ocean-splitting attack again.

“Glass! It’s too dangerous! Stop it!”

“If we don’t defeat him now, he will only grow more powerful! Even if I don’t survive, we have to defeat him. If we don’t . . . do you understand what I’m saying?”

“I feel the same way.”

I held my hand out and prepared to use shield prison.

“Mr. Naofumi!”

“Master!”

“Stay BACK!”

If they were swept up in this, they would die for sure. Glass was just too powerful.

After this attack exchange, which of us would be left standing?

“My queen . . . fueeee . . . .”

“What?!”

Suddenly, I don’t know how, but suddenly the queen was standing behind Glass. Had she used the confusion of the self-curse burning to sneak over? Another person in a squirrel kigurumi was clinging to a barrel, floating on the sea.

The queen’s hand shot out, and she used magic to send the barrel flying at me.

“Mr. Iwatani! Take it!”

A barrel? Why? The barrel came flying and landed between Glass and I.

For a second I thought she was just trying to make a distraction. But then I recognized the barrel.

“That’s . . . Shooting star shield!”

“What’s that?!”

The force field appeared, and I jumped back to where Raphtalia and Filo were standing.

Glass was still preparing for her attack when the explosive rucolu barrel exploded forcefully.

We’d been fighting on top of the inter-dimensional whale, and that’s where the barrel exploded.

The whole area was immediately filled with the smell of rucolu and a thick red mist.

“This . . . this is . . . .”

Glass couldn’t see in the thick red fog. She held her face in her hands and stumbled left and right.

“What is that? Could it be? The barrels they used to turn the sea red?”

The mist didn’t make it through the shooting star shield force field.

“Raphtalia, Filo, you understand?”

“Yes!”

It would be dangerous, but it was our only chance.

“This . . . .”

“Hya!”

“Yah!”

We all moved through the mist and maneuvered behind Glass. Raphtalia and Filo went right up to the force field boundary and attacked her from behind.

“Argh!”

After each attack, we moved back to hide in the mist.

Whenever Filo stuck her face out of the force field, she sniffed the air and made a disturbed face.

“It stinks! If they’re stuck out there, they’re not gonna like it!”

“Damn . . . .”

“Ugh . . . . You guys don’t stop!”

I could hear L’Arc shouting. They weren’t able to attack because they couldn’t find us in the mist.

There was a splash. L’Arc and the others had dove into the water. They swam. Then they climbed up on the hull of the sinking ship. If they used more soul-healing water on Glass to heal and power up, the fight would not turn in our favor again.

“Didn’t expect an attack like that. This isn’t looking good.”

“L’Arc! We’re finishing this now!”

I still had iron maiden.

And I still had blood sacrifice, but I couldn’t use that here. If I hit L’Arc with iron maiden, I thought that would end the battle.

“It’s not over yet.”

Therese stood next to L’Arc.

Maybe I could use iron maiden on both of them at the same time . . . ?

“Not yet!”

A tornado appeared and the mist vanished. Glass was standing there, breathing heavily. She was holding her head in her hands and stumbling left and right.

Damn these people were tough! Come on. What was it going to take to end this?

We’d tried strategy after strategy, and nothing was enough to finish them.

I had no other choice. I had to use my last trick.

“Glass, I’m sure you understand. I have to finish this!”

I thought about whether to use it on L’Arc or on Glass. They were both very powerful. But L’Arc’s attacks were trickier, so I decided to focus on him first.

“Shield prison!”

“Oh!”

L’Arc was caught in the shield prison.

“Stop!”

Glass immediately started pummeling the prison with long range attacks while L’Arc rocked it from the inside.

It wasn’t strong enough to survive both attacks, and it broke.

Damn. It took too long to set up the iron maiden attack.

First I had to trap them in the shield prison, use change shield (attack), and then I was free to use iron maiden. But if it took so long that they could break out of the shield prison first, I couldn’t do it.

“That was close!”

I had no other choice. I’d have to keep using self-curse burning. But to use that I’d have to survive one of their attacks. In the very worst case, I would have to use blood sacrifice and kill them both at the same time.

Suddenly I heard a beep.

00:59

The numbers appeared in my field of view.

I remembered something like this happening the last time we fought Glass. She had retreated immediately after the counter appeared.

Would she escape again? I couldn’t let her.

We were about to win. It was time to put an end to all this!

“It seems there really is no other choice, is there L’Arc?”

In a flash, Glass was right before me.

“No . . . Ms. Glass!”

She opened her fan.

When Therese saw her, she covered her mouth with both hands. She looked terrified.

What was happening? After all those attacks, did this mean that they still had a trump card?

“Glass!”

L’Arc was furious. He ran behind her and hooked his arms around her torso, restraining her.

“What are you doing? Let me go!”

“You can’t do it. You haven’t thought about what will happen!”

“Think L’Arc. Think of how powerful he is. We must be prepared to give our all if we are to defeat him.”

“But Glass . . . .”

L’Arc leaned over and whispered in Glass’s ear. She suddenly looked very surprised.

L’Arc and Therese both nodded.

“Very well. Then we must retreat today.”

She nodded slowly. What could he have said?

I didn’t care what their strategy was. I couldn’t let them escape this time.

“You think I’m letting you go?”

“Try to stop us. Naofumi, next time we will emerge victorious.”

Glass immediately used a ranged attack, filling the area with gale-force winds.

What? The soldiers in the boats were all being sucked up with the wind!

“Looks like you guys won this one. Naofumi. I don’t like that name. Is kiddo all right with you?”

“Why?!”

L’Arc didn’t seem worried at all. He waved to us as they jumped into a rift.

“I bid you farewell. Goodbye.”

Therese cast a spell, saving the soldiers from the winds. Then she threw a gemstone down and it exploded, making room for her escape.

“Wait!”

We chased after them, but they were too fast. We couldn't reach them before they were already in the rift.

I hesitated for a split-second. I wondered if we should follow them. But it was too late. The rift closed.

“Dammit! We were so close!”

They’d escaped.

We’d grown so powerful that I really thought we were going to defeat Glass this time. But we were never able to land a winning blow.

The next time we met, we’d be starting all over.

With their defense ignoring and defense rating attacks, they had too many tricks up their sleeves.

I was breathing hard—exhausted. All I could do was survey the destruction the wave had left in its wake.

Epilogue: The Problem We Face

“So, it looks like the other heroes proved themselves useless in yet another battle.”

After the wave, we all went back to Cal Mira.

The other heroes regained consciousness right around the time we arrived at the island, and they were taken to a hospital to recuperate.

Honestly, how could they be so weak that L’Arc and Glass hadn’t even worried about bothering with them?

What a bunch of useless jerks they were proving to be!

Did they think the whole game was just a series of events the player was forced to lose?

“To think there is such power in the world. We must find a way to defeat them.”

The queen was thinking over the day’s events and muttering to herself.

“Thank you for your help there at the end. If you hadn’t stepped in, who knows what might have happened.”

“Naturally. Though I was wondering something, Mr. Iwatani. After Raphtalia and Filo were out of range from the rucolu mist, why didn’t you breathe some in?”

“Huh?”

“I have heard that you do not get drunk from the rucolu.”

“That’s true.”

“Well the fruits and the alcohol which they produce has another short term effect beyond drunkenness. It increases the user’s magic power and concentration. It may have helped you.”

“What?”

Did that mean that if I was fighting in rucolu mist, I could continuously replenish my magic and SP?

Glass had been able to break the shield prison, but if I had unlimited SP, I could have used iron maiden time after time?

Damn! If I’d known that, we might have won!

“You could have told me that earlier.”

“Unfortunately I only just thought of it now.”

In her defense, it had been a pretty tense situation back there.

And my only way of attacking took too long, anyway. They were able to break the shield prison before I got a chance to use it.

My only real remaining option was to try and keep using counter attacks to slowly wear them down.

Glass had been so powerful after the soul-healing water that neither Raphtalia nor Filo had been able to get a decisive blow in. It’s not that they were weak or anything like that. They’d both been fighting really well before Glass had been powered up.

What did we have to do to beat them?

And what did they want? I gathered from their conversation that their goal was to kill the heroes. But L’Arc had gone to lengths to avoid any unnecessary casualties. He’d only been concerned with me at the time.

Were they really bad guys?

They were definitely my enemy—but why did they want to kill the heroes?

But who were we fighting, anyway?

Sure, we were fighting the waves. It was supposed to be simple.

The waves would produce monsters. We had to protect the civilians and defeat the monsters. I knew that much.

But then a person—Glass—appeared.

At first I thought that it was another monster, a smarter, more terrifying one. But that theory didn’t make sense anymore.

And her allies, L’Arc and Therese, had been around since long before the waves had come.

They must have come from the other side.

I hadn’t even thought about it until now, but just what was on the other side of the rifts?

What were the waves of destruction, really?

In this world, they were only spoken of as legendary waves of destruction.

But what about Glass and L’Arc? There must have been real people on the other side.

I had plenty of theories, but no way to figure out what was true.

Theory #1

Glass and the others were trying to invade this world. The monsters were their solders. But there was a problem with that idea. Glass and L’Arc had fought and defeated some of those monsters. And it didn’t explain why they wanted to kill the heroes.

Theory #2

Glass and the others stood to benefit from killing the heroes. But how? And why? And what was on the other side of the rifts?

Theory #3

Fitoria had said that if the heroes died the world would have no way to stand against the waves. Is that what they wanted? What would happen if the waves overran the world? We wouldn’t know unless we lost. If the world was destroyed then there was no point to any of this. There was no way to tell.

I couldn’t figure out what they were after.

“It seems that Cal Mira is still in the midst of the activation event. What would you like to do?”

The queen asked.

There was some sort of level cap around level 80, and I’d felt the leveling efficiency drop off substantially when we crossed level 70. That meant there was no reason to stay on the islands much longer. The only real thing left to do was to fight the boss characters on the island interiors for their drop items.

Raphtalia and Filo had gotten some good weapons. All that was left to do was gather up more rare materials and see what the weapon shop owner could do with them.

“I think we’ll head back to Melromarc pretty soon.”

“Very well. I will prepare a ship for your return. But the ocean is very rough now due to the wave, so it will take a little time.”

“That’s fine.”

“I cannot praise you and your achievements highly enough, Mr. Iwatani. We will do all that we can to assist you. Let us move forward against the waves, against whatever difficulties we encounter.”

That was nice, but her cooperation wasn’t really the issue. I was the only hero that was pulling his share of the load here.

“The problem is the other heroes.”

“Yes.”

They hadn’t helped at all. Actually they hadn’t helped during the last wave either.

They would probably say that they hadn’t leveled enough or make some other excuse. But we were past the time for excuses.

They were too weak.

I didn’t say that to try and feel better about myself, either.

Maybe the problem was they hadn’t put all of their respective power up systems into use.

“I think we’re going to need to have another meeting about them.”

“I agree. And it had better be soon.”

The queen seemed to understand the situation.

Honestly, the other heroes weren’t truly much stronger than a typical adventurer.

Sure, they had access to special skills, so they had power for short term immediate attacks.

But that wasn’t the same as having real power.

If the other heroes could become as powerful as I truly am, would we have such a hard time fighting Glass?

The queen had said that the high priest’s replica weapon was not even a quarter as powerful as a real hero’s legendary weapon.

After all we’d been through on the islands, I felt I was finally strong enough to withstand how powerful the high priest’s attacks had been.

That meant that the heroes were capable of being at least as strong as I was now.

If the heroes with strong attacks matched my current power level, then could we have realistically lost to Glass?

“Yeah.”

That sense of crisis I had when the waves came hadn’t left me yet.

No matter how powerful I became, all I could really do was protect others. That was a limitation I was going to have to face.

If you can only protect, then there was no way to win.

If we didn’t find some way around that problem, then we were not going to survive the next encounter.

I felt like I finally understood why Fitoria had wanted us to cooperate and grow more powerful.

Not to mention that if we lost a hero, the waves would get that much more difficult to deal with.

Those three were obnoxious and didn’t know how to shut up and listen, but we needed them to be stronger as a whole. I was a little worried about what they would do when they got stronger. But whatever happened, it was better than dying.

“I’m a little tired right now. Let me get some rest, then we’ll meet with the other heroes tomorrow.”

“As you wish, Mr. Iwatani.”

The queen bowed deeply and walked back to the soldiers.

I stepped back and turned—Raphtalia and Filo were right there waiting for me.

“We survived another one, didn’t we, Mr. Naofumi?”

“Yeah.”

“I don’t feel like I was very useful.”

“That’s not true.”

Both Raphtalia and Filo had fought well. So had L’Arc and Therese.

Honestly, until L’Arc used that soul-healing water, we were about to win.

Judging from that, Raphtalia and Filo must have been far more powerful than the other heroes.

It must have been due to my maturation adjustments skills and the effects of the class up ceremony.

“That fan lady was really strong!”

“Yeah.”

“I wanna get stronger, so I can help you more, master!”

“I’d like that too.”

I didn’t know what the leveling or power cap would be on them after the class up ceremony, but they had gotten really powerful already. If the other heroes weren’t able to step up to the task, I’d have to depend on these two to take up the slack.

They were my only party members.

“We might need to have more power on our side.”

“Yes, we may not be able to go much further without more help.”

Raphtalia immediately understood what I had meant.

She didn’t ask any unnecessary follow-up questions like “aren’t we enough?”

The country’s soldiers could help us in a pinch, but we weren’t going to be able to depend on them for a decisive victory.

We needed . . . we needed more help, someone that could help us defeat Glass and L’Arc even if the other heroes were not around.

We needed another party member.

But I had my personal traumas to deal with too.

If we increased the size of the party, then I opened myself up to the possibility of further betrayal.

I found out Melty wouldn’t betray us, so I could trust her.

But could I say the same thing about our next party member?

I needed to find someone else I could trust.

That was why I wanted to invite L’Arc and Therese to join, but they turned out to be the enemy.

I’d trusted them too quickly. I must have been looking for someone to trust. L’Arc and Therese had been friendly enough that I had just fallen into it.

They’d gotten worried about us and come looking for us in the middle of the night. I’d really wanted to trust them.

It’s hard. Things just don’t go the way you want them to.

We still needed to fight against the waves and against Glass.

“What’s wrong, master?”

“Huh? It’s nothing. I was thinking we should get some rest.”

“Good idea. I’m very tired.”

“Master! Let’s go to the baths!”

“Oh okay. We need to rest up tonight. We’ll be busy again when morning comes.”

“Yes!”

“Yay!”

So we went back to our room and rested, preparing for the next day.

The next fight, and the next wave, would be upon us soon.

Before then, we had to find some way to overcome the problems we faced.

We all had to be stronger than we were.