by Aneko Yusagi
“You realize the fight is over, right? Now it’s time to make you talk!”
“Ha! We won’t tell you anything!”
As soon as he finished speaking, light began to leak out of his body and the bodies of all of the other surrounding enemies.
“ Daughter of the one who abandoned his inheritance of the seat of the Heavenly Emperor! We have noted your declaration of war. Messengers have already been sent to inform our people. Our assassins will never stop coming for you. Your days of peace and quiet are over! Hahahaha!”
“Little Naofumi!”
“Everyone, get back!”
“Glory to the Heavenly Emperor!”
I gave the order and we all moved away from the fallen enemies. As we did, the enemies’ bodies exploded and went flying into the air.
“They blow themselves up as soon as they lose? What the hell?”
And talk about grotesque. There were corpses all over the place and it reeked of blood. It smelled like blasting powder too. Who the hell was going to clean this up?! Damn it! And to top it all off, now some of our buildings were on fire.
“Anyway, hurry up and put out those fires! Do what you can to minimize the damage!”
The battle was over. We went about putting out the fires and then regrouped later.
Fortunately, we’d managed to put out all of the fires quickly. After all, the camping plant was a plant, and it didn’t burn very well. Even if the camping plant buildings were destroyed, replacing them would be simple. I was thinking about how great the plants were when . . .
“This . . . This weapon is . . .”
The old guy from the weapon shop was at a loss for words. He was looking at one of the weapons that the enemies had been using. It had been broken by the suicide-bomb blast.
“What is it?”
“Umm, never mind. It’s nothing.”
“You sure?”
He was acting strange. But he wasn’t going to talk, so I didn’t push the issue.
“Sorry you got caught up in a mess like this on the night you finally came to see the village.”
The old guy had put up a good fight of his own a short distance from where we had been. But he deserved an apology more than my gratitude.
“No worries. By the way, kid, you mind if I hold on to this weapon and do some poking around?”
“Huh? Oh, sure. Those weapons had some strange abilities, so it’d be great if you could find anything out.”
They had been uncannily effective against us heroes. It’d be great if the old guy could study the weapon and figure out why. I couldn’t help but get my hopes up.
“Okay, Sadeena. Will you explain now?”
“I guess I should. We got interrupted when I tried to explain earlier. It doesn’t look like I’m going to be able to keep it a secret anymore either.”
Sadeena was back in her demi-human form now. She shrugged with resignation and began to explain.
“I was keeping this secret until now, little Raphtalia. But in a certain country, you are the equivalent of what would be royal family in Melromarc.”
“Huh?!”
Raphtalia pointed at herself with a look of surprise on her face.
“Is that right? And she’s one of Naofumi’s party members,” Ren mumbled.
“What a surprise. It’s a surprise, right? Rishia?” Itsuki asked.
“Yes, it is, Mr. Itsuki.”
Everyone around us started whispering among themselves.
“It’s nothing to be surprised about,” Atla said.
What did she mean? Had she sensed some kind of hint of nobility in Raphtalia or something?
“Raphtalia is an obstacle keeping me from having Mr. Naofumi all to myself. Nothing about that has changed.”
Several people shook their heads in disbelief. I did the same.
“You’re unshakeable,” I said.
Now that I thought about it, Fohl and Atla were related to Trash, and they had blood ties to the former leader of Siltvelt. They were basically royalty too.
“Back to what we were talking about. So what does a miko outfit have to do with any of that?” I asked.
Sadeena had a troubled look on her face. She was staring at Raphtalia, who was still wearing the miko outfit. After several moments, she ran her fingers through her hair and looked over at me.
“Well, those people we just fought mentioned the Heavenly Emperor, right? Think of him as the king.”
“Okay, got it.”
“Those clothes that you call a miko outfit, in the country Raphtalia’s parents were from—Q’ten Lo—that’s an outfit that only the Heavenly Empress is allowed to wear.”
Oh, so that was it. Ren, Itsuki, Rishia, Atla, Fohl, and pretty much everyone else there all seemed to finally start to understand.
“In other words, even from a lineage perspective, it’s only natural that the miko outfit would look so ridiculously good on her. And wearing it would signify that she’s the country’s ruler,” I said.
“That’s right.”
“And Raphtalia’s father didn’t want to become king, so he abandoned his royal status, eloped, and came to Melromarc,” I continued.
Sadeena kept nodding.
“So the way they see it, Raphtalia is a subordinate of the Shield Hero, also known as the god of the demi-humans and she’s off in some remote region wearing their royal garb. Clearly she intends to take the throne. That’s a declaration of war. She must be killed. Does that pretty much sum it up?”
“Little Naofumi, you sure are sharp. I’m impressed!”
“It’s blatantly obvious! And once the message gets back to the country, they’re going to just keep sending assassins after Raphtalia!” I barked.
Come on! Why did I always have to be inundated with such annoying problems?! Just when I’d finally managed to get Ren, Itsuki, and Motoyasu to implement the power-up methods! Well, Motoyasu was missing, but still . . . I wanted to hurry up and take care of the heroes’ curse effects and meet up with the seven star heroes, but then this happens! Give me a break already!
“I figured it wouldn’t be a problem as long as we didn’t provoke them. I never imagined you would have Raphtalia dress up in that outfit.”
Ugh . . . Why did things have to turn out like this? I’d just wanted to enjoy the sight of my cute little daughter dressed up all nice! Damn it!
“Sadeena, I noticed you staring at empty spots around the village every now and then before. That was because you could sense them hiding there, wasn’t it?”
“Yeah, it was. They use their own unique concealment techniques that are difficult to detect, even for me.”
“How long had they been keeping watch?”
There was a slightly grim look in her eyes when she answered.
“Ever since little Raphtalia’s parents left the country.”
“Oh, really?”
In other words, that meant that the enemies we’d just fought had watched the village come under attack during the wave. They watched it get destroyed, and they watched Raphtalia’s parents die. The stood by and watched as Raphtalia almost died, and they watched her suffer as a slave. All that time, they stood by watching, silently, and never even tried to help.
Basically, they had absolutely no interest in anything other than their royal family issues. They didn’t care if Raphtalia was distressed over the loss of her parents. They didn’t care if she ended up a slave and got whipped. And they didn’t care about any of the countless hardships she’d been through thanks to me.
To hell with the Heavenly Emperor! They sure had a lot of nerve going on about their emperor when they were happy to just completely ignore his blood relatives. The fact that they had been keeping an eye on us this whole time just made me feel sick!
“Muhaha . . . muuuuhahahaha!”
I’d been pushed over the line.
“Mr. . . . Naofumi? Umm . . .”
“They have a lot of nerve. If they want to come invade my place and try to kill Raphtal
ia, then I’ll just have to make them pay. Sadeena, you told me I would need to be prepared to crush a country, right? Well, why not? I’ll do just that. I’m going to go to that country and I’m going to crush it with my own two hands!”
“Oh my!”
Why the hell was she looking at me like she was spellbound or something?
“You’re really going to?” asked Ren.
I nodded emphatically.
“I am. I absolutely hate trash like that. You understand that, right?”
“Yeah. I guess. If they’re going to fire at us, then we’ll fire right back. I can’t imagine anything good coming from ignoring the issue.”
“The only reason any of this happened is because you had Raphtalia wear that miko—hmrgm!”
I glared over at Itsuki and Raphtalia quickly covered his mouth with her hand. Hmph. I had a clear target for my anger for the time being, so I’d let that slide. In return, I expected him to get stronger so that he could help me make those bastards pay.
I looked over at Raphtalia. She was slouching and looked disappointed.
“You against this?” I asked her.
“No. I don’t think we have a choice if they’re just going to keep coming. It’s just . . . I’m sorry.”
“Don’t be. If this is the obstacle standing in the way of me being able to dress you in that miko outfit, then overcoming it is the only choice. If we can’t go around the obstacle, then we’ll just smash right through it at full speed!”
That’s right. If those bastards were going to attack the village I’d built, then fighting back was my only choice. This was a battle that couldn’t be avoided. I wasn’t going to sit around, scared, waiting for the enemy to come to us. I’d take the fight to them! No, fight wouldn’t do it justice. This was going to be all-out nuclear warfare!
“Now that that’s decided, let’s get straight to work. Sadeena, tell us the enemy’s location.”
“Sure thing!”
And so I made up my mind to invade Q’ten Lo, the isolationist country with ties to Raphtalia’s birth.
The Rising of the Shield Hero Vol. 11
(c) Aneko Yusagi 2015
First published by KADOKAWA in 2015 in Japan.
English translation rights arranged by One Peace Books
under the license from KADOKAWA CORPORATION, Japan
No part of this may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by storage and retrieval system without the written permission of the publisher. For information contact One Peace Books. Every effort has been made to accurately present the work presented herein. The publisher and authors regret unintentional inaccuracies or omissions, and do not assume responsibility for the accuracy of the translation in this book. Neither the publishers nor the artists and authors of the information presented in herein shall be liable for any loss of profit or any other commercial damages, including but not limited to special, incidental, consequential or other damages.
Written by Aneko Yusagi
Translated by Nathan Takase
Character Design Seira Minami
English Edition Published by One Peace Books 2018
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Table of Contents
Prologue: The Shield Hero’s Morning
Chapter One: Instant Awakening
Chapter Two: The Alchemist
Chapter Three: Filolials and Dragons
Four: Stardust Blade
Chapter Five: Knock and Run
Chapter Six: Level Drain
Chapter Seven: Plagued Earth
Chapter Eight: Demon Dragon
Chapter Nine: Forced Power-Up
Chapter Ten: Purification
Chapter Eleven: Perfect Hidden Justice
Chapter Twelve: Justice vs. Justice
Chapter Thirteen: Atonement
Chapter Fourteen: Secret Base
Chapter Fifteen: Form is Emptiness
Colophon