by Aneko Yusagi
“Yeah, yeah.”
I could picture it easily enough. What monster wouldn’t be drawn to that pathetic “fehhhh” of hers?”
“Rafu!”
“Feh ?! ”
The little creature sitting on Rishia’s shoulder was Raph-chan. Raph-chan was my shikigami; we made her out of Raphtalia’s hair. She was cute, a small little creature that looked something like a mix between a tanuki and a raccoon.
She looked like Raphtalia—if Raphtalia were turned into an animal.
She was a happy, energetic little creature. For some reason, she was currently riding on Rishia’s back.
“Did you protect Rishia?”
“Rafu!” she barked and nodded.
Raph-chan was able to use the same illusion magic as Raphtalia.
When Raph-chan cast illusion magic on monsters, they weren’t able to land any attacks on Rishia.
“Good work, Raph-chan.”
“Rafu!”
“Pen!” chirped Chris. Chris was a penguin, and was Kizuna and Glass’s shikigami. It really looked exactly like a penguin. Chris has been around for longer than Raph-chan.
“You too, Chris. Thanks for protecting Rishia,” said Kizuna.
“You did an excellent job,” added Glass.
Raph-chan was the one who had really helped though—I made a point of rubbing her head in a way that everyone could see.
“Mr. Naofumi, what are you acting so competitive for? We have more important things to discuss,” Raphtalia said, grabbing my shoulder. Raphtalia didn’t seem to be very fond of Raph-chan.
“Kizuna, were you able to fight most of those monsters?”
“Most of them. I was a little concerned about the ones named after gods, but as it turns out, they were all just normal monsters.”
Ganesha, ifrits, the snake-like nagas, the half-snake-half-human nagarajas . . . there were plenty of different monsters.
“What was the boss monster like?”
“It was an inter-dimensional girimekhala, but there was a mode-change halfway through and it became an airavata.”
The boss was an elephant? How boring! I only knew what it was because I was such an otaku.
“Let’s absorb as many materials as we can, then head back to the castle.”
Kizuna called to Ethnobalt, who was waiting in the sky above us. He was from Kizuna’s world, and used the ship of the vassal weapons. When he came to battle, he usually hung back and offered support from a distance.
Apparently he didn’t like fighting.
He was a young boy that dressed like a wizard . . . or at least that’s how he appeared at first glance. His true form was a monster, like Filo. I knew that he was some kind of rabbit, but I didn’t know any more than that.
He was a skilled fortune teller , and he was the one that created Raph-chan for me. Judging from how useful Raph-chan had proven in the hunt for Raphtalia, Ethnobalt’s abilities were the real deal.
“But seriously—Why do I have to come all the way to this world and fight in your waves?”
“You’re asking that now?”
“Hey, I didn’t come here because I wanted to fight in more waves. I’m just helping out on the side, while I’ve got the time.”
“Yeah I know. And thank you for fighting on behalf of our world.”
“Yeah, yeah . . . Let’s head back and get ready for the next step. “
What did people in this world think the waves were? They happened all over the world, so it was hard to come up with one explanation that fit everything. Waves . . .
Back in the last world, the one that summoned me, I’d thought of them as a natural disaster. Now I knew that wasn’t quite right. I’d finally learned what they really were, and I’d never have known if I hadn’t crossed over to Kizuna’s world.
The waves were, supposedly, a phenomenon that happened when worlds fused together . I say “supposedly” because this was all just something I’d heard. I didn’t have proof one way or the other. In Kizuna’s world there were records of fusions that had happened in the distant past.
If the worlds fused any more than they already had, they would be destroyed . . . or so they said. According to the legend, the way to save your world from destruction was to cross over to another world during a wave event and kill the four holy heroes (the people who hold the holy weapons) of the other world. If you did that, then their world would be destroyed and the life of your own world would be extended.
That was why Glass had crossed over into our world and tried to kill me . . . or so she said.
When Kizuna learned what had happen she was livid. She resolved to find another way to save her world.
Furthermore, back in the other world there was a monster called the Spirit Tortoise, and it sacrificed people and used their souls to produce a magic barrier that would prevent waves from happening.
As you might have guessed, there were monsters in Kizuna’s world that could do the same thing.
Some of them had already been dealt with, like the White Tiger, but there were four holy beasts here. I’d also heard them called the Four Symbols.
There was a so-called genius scientist here, who I liked to call Trash #2, and he had found a way to make replicas of the defeated White Tiger, turning those copies into weapons of war.
“We can’t spend all our time thinking about the waves. There’s a limit to how much time we can stay here.”
“I know that! I’m doing all I can to help you,” Kizuna said.
We had our own mission to accomplish. We had to punish Kyo for what he’d done to our world, for what he’d done to Ost. We had to bring the Spirit Tortoise’s energy back to our world.
There was no time to waste.
Chapter One: Otherworldly Techniques
“Alright then . . .”
I went back to what I had been doing before the wave came.
L’Arc was a king . . . or boy, and had a castle. I worked in a small workshop in the surrounding town for a few days. The culture there was interesting, a kind of a reflection of L’Arc himself. It was a near perfect mix of east and west.
People wore Japanese-style kimonos, but with Western sets of armor over them. No one thought it was strange. The neighboring countries were very Japan-like, and I’d heard that the eastern influence came in over the borders.
I was borrowing Romina the blacksmith’s workshop to craft some accessories. Romina had made everyone’s equipment.
It was a good place to work. I could quickly respond to questions or requests that Romina had, and I could get to the castle easily if anything important came up. Going to Kizuna’s house every night was a little annoying because of the trek to the next town, so I was pretty content to borrow the workshop for a few days.
Raphtalia, Rishia, and Filo were all at the castle, training with L’Arc.
Raph-chan and Therese were both fascinated by my accessory crafting, so they stayed behind to watch me work. They were always interrupting me with stupid questions, so I did all that I could to ignore them. I couldn’t help but feel like we were getting a bit too comfortable, but it was all we could do at the moment ..
“So let’s make a plan . . . ” Kizuna said, walking in with Glass. She leaned on the counter and showed Romina the materials she’d gotten from the wave monsters, then asked for new equipment to be made.
They looked like they wanted to talk to me about strategy when they finished placing their equipment orders.
“Hey, there’s something I wanted to ask you about.”
“What?”
“If the waves occur so frequently, how do you deal with them all?”
“You should ask Glass about that.”
“Indeed, we are very careful about such things.”
“So? What do you do?”
“Romina, do you have one of those things here?”
“Yes. I get a lot of orders for them,” Romina said, producing a necklace from behind the counter. There was a large gemstone hanging from it.
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There were a number of different designs from what I could tell, but they all incorporated a large gemstone.
Was it a crystal? The stone shone with a faint light.
“This is a special tool that instantly transports its user to the site of a wave occurrence.”
“Hey, that’s pretty impressive.”
The people in Kizuna’s world had apparently done quite a bit of research into the different functions of the heroes’ weapons. They invented ways to mimic the drop item functionality of them, which was impossible in the world that I came from. It required a special machine and the use of the dragon hourglass, but the technology was still very impressive.
“Yeah. The Jewels were the first people to make them.”
“Hm . . . And?”
“So our friends all have these, and they are posted around the world to battle the waves whenever and wherever they occur.”
“You certainly seem to know a lot of good people.”
Kizuna had been summoned to this world before the waves started coming, and after going on a number of adventures, she ended up being thrown into an inescapable labyrinth. Before that she had met quite a lot of people.
“The ones I know of are on sale in the marketplace. They sell them to normal adventurers who want to battle in the waves.”
“Just for the good of the world? There are so many noble people around here!”
Too bad there wasn’t anyone like that in the world that I’d come from. Some adventurers had actually volunteered to help during the wave on the Cal Mira islands, but we never would have won that battle had it not been for the heroes.
“A lot of people show up to battle in the waves. Turns out they are mostly after the rare materials they can get from the monsters.”
“Ah . . . Yeah, I guess that makes sense.”
If they had the opportunity to get their hands on rare items and technologies, then a lot of people would probably show up—even if they had to put themselves at considerable risk. That must have been why some of the adventurers I’d met seemed to be used to handling themselves on the battlefield.
“I’m kind of jealous.”
Deep knowledge of the waves was very uncommon in the world that had summoned me, and perhaps because of that, it was very rare to get any help from anyone when the waves came. Granted, a few adventurers here and there would get caught up in a wave if it happened to occur where they were, but they didn’t help out very much when it came time to battle.
There were times when the waves would end even if the heroes didn’t come to battle, but now I wondered if that was because someone in the other world was closing the dimensional rifts from their side.
Theoretically, there was a way to confirm my suspicion, but I couldn’t think of a way to talk to whoever was on the other side of the rifts. There was also no way to know what sort of person we’d end up running into. What if they just attacked us? It was probably better to just leave them alone.
Back to the topic at hand—if there was an item that would automatically allow its user to participate in a wave battle, I wanted to get my hands on it. I figured it would prove useful once we finished up in this world and went back to the one that had summoned me.
Not only would it make my job as a hero easier, but I could probably make money if I found a way to mass produce it.
“I’d really like one of those.”
Kizuna and Romina nodded as if they understood exactly what I was thinking.
“Naofumi, you love that kind of thing, don’t you?”
“Alto makes that same face.”
They had figured that I wanted to sell the necklaces back in the previous world. I must have really gotten a reputation as a penny-pincher.
“I’m just not sure that anyone back in my world is serious about fighting the waves. Not even the seven star heroes or the four holy heroes.”
The other heroes, aside from myself, showed up in that world already knowing how things worked there. They used it to get ahead—but then they accused me of cheating when they realized my leveling and strength had outpaced them. They acted like everything was a game, even the waves. They weren’t serious about anything at all.
Besides, when the second wave came, they were barely able to survive the fight with the boss. Any wave that came now would be much more powerful than that, so I wasn’t sure how much I could count on them. A lot of the waves were left to Fitoria, the legendary filolial, to deal with. She was apparently very busy running around the world taking care of waves wherever they popped up.
I wonder how they were holding up without me.
I’d heard there were other heroes called the seven star heroes, but I’d never even met them. I didn’t know who they were, but it was best to prepare for the worst. If these necklaces would help me do that, then I wanted them.
“Oh, I almost forgot! I figured something out after speaking with Glass.”
“What?”
“She says that since I participated in the wave battle this time, the next wave will take longer to come to this area.”
“Oh yeah?”
Kizuna mentioned something about that before—she’d said that there was a reason the four holy heroes needed to battle against the waves.
There was a legend in her world that said the lifespan of the world itself could be extended if the four holy heroes of another world were killed. But even though Kizuna was a holy hero, she wasn’t able to do any damage to human opponents, which meant that she had practically nothing to gain from participating in the wave battles.
She could either change the way she was registered in the party, or . . . at the very worst, she could avoid the waves by making sure she was in an inescapable labyrinth when they came. At least one of these inconsistencies was cleared up now. If the four holy heroes helped battle the waves, it would increase the time until the next wave came . . . at least according to Glass.
That was certainly a good hypothesis. We’d just have to try it a few more times to confirm that it was true.
“If there are a lot of adventurers helping battle the waves when they come, are they pretty easy to deal with in this world?”
Just then a person ducked into the workshop and blurted out, “Not exactly.”
I turned to see who it was, and found myself looking at a person with blond hair, a man I think. His hair was pulled into a ponytail that hung over one of his shoulders. He reminded me a bit of Motoyasu Kitamura, only he didn’t look Japanese and seemed a lot more relaxed, nicer.
Maybe he was some kind of new and improved spear hero of this world?
Motoyasu only thought of women. They were all he talked about. This guy didn’t seem to have that obnoxious tendency. Was he an acquaintance of Kizuna? Kizuna was pretty attractive herself, but apparently so were all of her friends.
Judging from the way he dressed, I guessed he might be a merchant of some kind. His clothes were plain, but high quality.
“Alto!” Kizuna said, rushing over to hug the man.
So his name was “Alto.” I wasn’t sure if that was his real name or if it was a nickname.
“I heard from the guild that you were back. I walked away from a negotiation to come see you!”
“It’s been so long! How have you been?”
“There’s no point in asking that of a merchant.”
He was vague. That was how merchants were. They never let on to how much they were making, I guess. If they did, it was like a get-rich scheme or something. But, I always held that if you were doing well, just show people, and that’s how you attract more customers.
“Well, well. I heard a rumor that a holy hero from another world was here and also a savvy businessman. Guess it was true after all!”
He looked over at me and I met his gaze. Sparks were flying!
I suddenly realized that I could trust him as a businessman, but I probably couldn’t trust him as a person. He looked like the kind of person that would betray you when the timing suited him. But
wherever profit was involved, he could be trusted to act in its best interest.
I suddenly realized that I’d heard his name before.
“His name is Altorese. We call him Alto for short. He’s a friend of mine. We used to run a shop together.”
“I deal in anything there’s a market for. Lately information has been fetching the highest price.”
I’d been worried that he was going to be like the slave trader back in Melromarc, but he seemed like the sort of guy I could at least see eye to eye with. That is, if he was the sort of person that he seemed to be.
“This is a holy hero of another world, the Shield Hero. His name is Naofumi Iwatani.”
He seemed a little soft-spoken, actually. That kind of reminded me of Itsuki. I wondered what he was really like—on the inside. If he was the merchant that everyone made him out to be, he probably wouldn’t have an obsession with championing justice everywhere he went.
If he understood money, then at least we’d have that much in common.
“Why do you look so relieved?”
“You’re the first person to ever look relieved at meeting Alto.”
Glass and Kizuna were apparently perplexed by my reaction, they cocked their heads in confusion. What was so strange?
“He seems like an alright guy. He doesn’t seem like some of the nasty merchants back where I come from.”
“You really think so? Alto can be pretty ruthless when it comes to business.”
“It we aren’t judging from appearances, then maybe I’m wrong. But, let me show you how merchants look where I’m from.”
I narrowed my eyes and glared at him, challenging him. Depending on the person, some people probably even saw light flashing in my eyes when I did that.
Alto looked almost worried! He immediately turned away.
He was good, sure—but it didn’t look like he’d learned how to put on an act so that other people wouldn’t be able to figure out how you really felt. And yet, if his timidity was actually an act, he’d really be impressive.
“So what was this? I thought waves would be easier with adventurers helping out, but you didn’t seem to agree.”