by Aneko Yusagi
“Pii!” she chirped from the space between my plates of armor. She didn’t seem very worried.
“I was hoping we could use Filo to pull a carriage for us. How are we supposed to get around now?” If we had Filo in her filolial form to help, we could have covered a lot of distance very quickly. I’d been counting on it, but it’s not what we got. Instead she was stuck as some other monster, something from this world.
“We could call for a human-powered rickshaw. We have enough money for it. What do you think?”
“... Who’s going to pull it?”
“Considering what we’ve got to work with, probably you, Naofumi. You probably have some skill that would make it easier, don’t you?”
“Ha! Don’t make me laugh!”
How awful would that be? Rishia, Kizuna, and Filo all lounging inside while I tugged at a rickshaw? But as for Filo, I could just have her pull it in her human form. We could go on a journey, pulled along by a little girl.
It sounded crazy, but Filo actually had pulled a carriage while she was in human form before. It wouldn’t look good, though—it wouldn’t look good at all. Plus, we’d really stand out in a crowd.
“Filo, do you want to pull a carriage?”
“Pii!” she shook her head no.
I had no idea what sort of creature a humming fairy was, but it seems they didn’t like to pull carriages.
For the moment, we needed to focus on keeping up our momentum. We didn’t need anything in the town, so we just walked right through it and kept on going. Once we were out of town, I took Filo out of my pocket.
She quickly turned into her human form and jumped in front of me.
“Whew!”
“We better not let anyone see you in human form, at least until we make it out of this country.”
“It was so scary!”
“I bet it was. You sounded really scared.”
“Thank you, master!” Her stomach grumbled loudly. “Master, I’m hungry!”
“Yeah, I bet you are,” I said, handing her some dried fruit we’d bought at the market.
She greedily stuffed them into her cheeks.
“I want...”
“Don’t talk with your mouth full.”
“I want more!”
Her stomach was actually rumbling as she ate. It was a pretty impressive feat. I wondered if it had something to do with the fact that her monster form was still a chick. Maybe she was still growing.
When she was in human form, she used magic to form her shape. But maybe when she crossed over to this world, her monster form was returned to a baby. I would have to find an authority on the subject to ask them about it.
“Kizuna and I won’t get experience from it, but we should probably take a road that will lead us to lots of monsters.”
“We could go fishing, too!” Kizuna said, grabbing her fishing rod and flashing a smile.
What was the deal with her? Did she really like fishing that much?
“Fishing huh... If you can get food for Filo we could do some—as long as it doesn’t take very long.”
“I can catch more fish here than I can in Japan, but it can take longer to get a bite.”
“No fishing then. Either that or break the rules and catch them with your hands or something.”
“I would never! There is a code of honor among us fishermen! I cannot break it!”
Kizuna was even more into fishing than I thought. But there must have been “illegal” ways to catch fish in a world like this. Maybe she could use thunder magic to hit a river with a lightning bolt, and then all the fish would just float to the surface. Seemed like a good idea to me.
Why did she have to be so particular about it? Is that what qualified her to be a hero?
. . . Yeah right.
“Well, hunting is easy enough, so I could always do that. You’ve got some more friends on your side, too. Just don’t forget what we came here for.”
“How could I? I’m here to find Raphtalia,” I said, touching Raph-chan’s ofuda. I seriously could not relax without Raphtalia nearby. I was almost thankful to Raph-chan for being there, because she was the closest I could get to Raphtalia for the moment.
Having her there made me feel a little better.
“Hey, master?”
“What?”
“Who is this lady?”
Filo certainly waited long enough to ask about Kizuna... They’d already spent the whole night together.
“I’m Kizuna Kazayama. Naofumi and I have been traveling together. I’m one of the four holy heroes from this world.”
“Oh wow! Nice to meet you, fishing lady!”
Filo had a tendency to refer to people by whatever they happened to be holding.
“Sorry, Filo, but Kizuna’s weapon isn’t actually that fishing rod.”
“That’s right,” Kizuna said, changing her weapon into all sorts of different things before Filo’s sparkling eyes.
“What? What? What? Wow!” Filo shouted while she followed the rapidly changing weapon with her eyes.
“So, Filo, what do you think I am?”
“Um...” For possibly the first time ever, Filo didn’t seem to know what to say.
Kizuna looked like she was really enjoying herself.
“Though I have to say, I don’t mind being called ‘fishing lady.’ I kind of think of myself that way.”
“Then stop playing with Filo.”
“I was just having a good time.”
“Okay, I’ll call you... Kizuna ne-chan.”
What? Filo actually learned her name?
But “ne-chan”? That felt kind of weird, considering how much Kizuna looked like a barely legal loli-girl.
“Naofumi, you look like you’re thinking about something nasty.”
She noticed! I looked away.
“Why are you looking away?”
“Do you care?”
“Maybe a little.”
“I just thought it was funny that she called you ne-chan, even though you look like an underage loli-girl.”
“Hey now!” Kizuna snapped.
Filo ignored our conversation and interjected, “I shouldn’t call you Kizuna ne-chan?”
“No, that’s just fine. Nice to meet you, Filo-chan.”
“Yay!”
“Shouldn’t you be Kizuna-chan?”
“Naofumi.”
I looked away again.
Kizuna and Filo shook hands, and then Kizuna changed the subject. “Okay, so how about we look for Glass while doing some monster hunting to help Filo-chan level up?”
“Good idea. I’m worried about her levels, but we can focus on them once we get somewhere safe.”
We had to focus on finding Raphtalia for now.
I activated the slave magic again to see if it worked. Just like last time, it didn’t.
We were going to have to depend on Raph-chan to find her.
What if she had been captured and abused like Filo had been? I don’t even know what I would do if that were the case.
If Filo was Kaguya-Hime, then Raphtalia... Raph-chan... was Bunbuku Chagama.
I just hoped it wasn’t Kachi-Kachi Yama.
“We’re going to stop in the towns we pass through, right?”
“Do we need to? We’ve got the shikigami to lead us.”
I guess that was true. But we should still try to gather whatever information we could. Who knew when we might need it?
“The demi-humans in this world are mostly elves and dwarves, right? People with beast ears and tails are sort of rare, right?”
“Yeah, I don’t see them very often.”
That didn’t bode well for Raphtalia. Someone might have tried to capture her.
I hoped she was alright, but I was starting to worry that she’d been captured just like Filo had. Hopefully, she was still with Glass and the others. Glass could probably protect her—she was strong enough to defeat the other three heroes without breaking a sweat.
We kept pressing onwards
, helping Rishia and Filo gain some levels along the way.
Chapter Thirteen: The Hunting Hero’s Skills
“Ah—It’s so gooooood!”
That night, I cut up some monsters we killed and grilled them over a fire for Filo.
Raph-chan was eating a lot, too—and smiling the whole time.
The sun had gone down, and we were camping out for the night.
“Do you like that, Filo-chan?”
“Yeah!”
“Naofumi sure is a good cook.”
“I hate waiting for the blood to drain out, though.”
Monsters were full of blood when you killed them, which didn’t taste very good. They were very gamey meats, which I tried to hide with spices. It worked a little, but the meat still struck me as pretty stinky.
“Can’t you use some skills to get around it? I have some skills that help with breaking down monster corpses.”
“I guess...”
It was true. She had better skills when it came to butchering monsters. When she did it, we ended up with higher-quality meat.
. . . But it still tasted gamey.
I guess it didn’t matter, as long as Filo and Rishia didn’t mind—and they didn’t seem to.
Filo was definitely in the middle of a growth spurt, because her stomach was constantly rumbling. It reminded me a lot of when I’d first started to raise her back in Melromarc. She was a real pig back then.
However, she was gaining levels unexpectedly fast. She had already reached level 30.
That must be how the opening game functioned in this world.
As if to keep up with her rising levels and food intake, Filo’s monster form was changing, too.
I thought that her monster form might mature into something like a filolial, but instead she had grown into a falcon-like monster.
“What sort of monster is a humming fairy?”
“Oh, they’re birds that really like music. They turn into all sorts of different forms as they grow up.”
“That’s right! Master, lookie!” Filo said, tottering away from us.
Then she started to flap her wings.
Filolials can’t fly, though they can jump pretty well.
So even though Filo had wings on her back when in human form, they were basically just decorations. They didn’t move very much. She could use them in battle or open them up and catch the wind, though. That way she could dodge attacks quickly. So they weren’t useless, but she certainly couldn’t use them to fly.
But...
Filo lifted off of the ground.
What? But filolials can’t fly! But then again... I guess Filo was a humming fairy now, so maybe that meant that she could fly.
“What do you think? I can fly!”
“Wow, that’s amazing.”
Filo’s monster half changed somehow when we crossed between worlds.
“That might let you use a whole new fighting style when you’re in your human form.”
“Yeah! Flying is fun!”
Well, there was nothing wrong with that. If Filo could fly now, that sounded like good news to me.
“What forms of attack do humming fairies generally use?”
“Well, they are birds, so they normally attack like other birds—with their claws. They are also great singers and can manipulate sounds”
“Filo, can you use any of your skills from when you were a filolial?”
“Um... I’m not strong enough to use them now, but I think I might be able to when I get stronger!”
She could probably still use Haikuikku and Spiral Strike.
With a puff of smoke, she transformed back into a bird and perched on my shoulder. She had the same coloring as she did when she was in her filolial queen form, but she was now a sleek falcon-like monster—nothing like the plump penguin-owl hybrid shape of the filolial queen.
She was actually pretty cool and just large enough to fit on my shoulder. She was kind of cute, too.
“Is she fully matured now?”
“No.”
“I’m not?”
“She’s at the middle stage of growth, called a humming falcon. She still has a few more stages to go through as she matures.”
“Sounds pretty complicated. No more specifics?”
“I wouldn’t call myself an expert, but I think the forms change as her levels go up. I also once heard a story about a legendary humming fairy...”
I didn’t like the sound of that. It made me wonder if I’d run into another version of Fitoria or something.
“Master!”
“Hey, she can talk in her monster form?”
“She must have learned? I hear they can learn to talk, the same way that parrots can.”
Ah, like Polly-want-a-cracker kind of stuff?
Everyone knows that birds can be pretty smelly. She was no exception.
“Rafu?”
Raph-chan, on the other hand, smelled great. She always kept herself clean, so she smelled way better than Filo.
“From what I’ve heard, they can mature into different forms depending on the circumstances. I wonder what Filo-chan will end up as?”
“I can turn small, too!” Filo chirped. With a flash of light, she turned back into a little chick.
That reminded me—when Filo was in her filolial form, she could still change back and forth between her filolial queen form and her normal filolial form. She might not be able to hold each form for a long time, but it would be convenient if she had a lot of different forms available. Filo could be a real handful.
“If she can fly with us on her back, it might be a good way to get around.”
“Back in the world I came from, there are flying dragons that get used that way. Do you have them here?”
“Yeah. Humming fairies can do that.”
That would be great! She had always been a bird that was basically a replacement for horses. If she could fly, that would be even better.
“Here we have European dragons and Asian dragons. If she can turn into different types of humming fairies, then she must be really talented!”
“Tee-hee!”
“Yeah, yeah. Whatever. You’re amazing.”
We went back and forth like that for a little while, and then Rishia joined the conversation. “Filo, would you mind speaking with me for a little while? I’d like to learn as much about this world’s language as possible.”
Rishia waved Filo over and they started looking at some written letters closely. Had she really already figured out how to read the language? I was reliant on my shield to translate for me, so I hadn’t learned anything that would be of help to her.
“Okay! I... um... I guess I’ve picked up a little bit while I’ve been here!” Filo hopped over to Rishia and started explaining things. “Okay, so ‘hello’ is, um... ‘hello’! And ‘food’ is...”
The only problem was that Filo was terrible at explaining things. Rishia scowled in confusion and looked like she was trying really hard to listen.
With any luck they might figure it out. Who knows?
I looked up at the night sky and worried about Raphtalia.
I wasn’t very worried about Glass and her friends. They could take care of themselves. But Raphtalia...
I’d managed to meet up with all of my companions since we were split up crossing between worlds... everyone but her. I hoped she was alright. I hoped she wasn’t sitting somewhere alone, crying.
I pictured her that way, and then she grew angry in my imagination, indignantly shouting, “I’m not a child anymore!”
Filo turned into a little chick when we crossed over. What if Raphtalia was a child again? That would make the coming battles difficult.
Even worse—what if she had been transformed into a different kind of demi-human? She’d lose her characteristic tanuki ears and tail. That would make her face look different, too. What if I didn’t recognize her? Maybe the slave spell would still work...
We continued our journey.
Then, a little whil
e later...
“Thank you very much!”
Rishia had used a little of our money to go to a shop that looked like a bookstore. She bought a book and came back to meet us, carrying it under her arm.
That was all that had happened, but it made me notice something.
“Rishia, you...”
“Hm? What? Is something wrong?”
“You understand the language here?”
“Oh, yes! I studied very hard, and then Filo helped me perfect my pronunciation!” Rishia proclaimed, looking very boastful.
She had learned a whole new language just by reading over some books for a few days? What was with this girl? Her stats were just as bad as they’d ever been, but I couldn’t deny that there was a genius sleeping inside her.
Back in the last world, she’d known other languages besides what they spoke in Melromarc. She could read other alphabets, too.
But she figured out how to read and speak this world’s language in only a week?
Rishia... you’ve got to get out more. She was obviously better suited to studying than to wielding a sword.
“It took me forever to learn the language here,” Kizuna said, wiping cold sweat from her forehead.
“Is it so difficult? Sure, there are some differences, but...” she looked puzzled by our confusion. Was she so smart that she couldn’t even understand why we would have trouble?
But wait... Her stats were so much lower than other people’s. That had to be a hint to the mystery. There must have been invisible stats, like intuition and intelligence, that all of her points had been allocated, to.
“You... You’re really wasting all your talent on something you’re not suited for.”
The poor thing. I kind of pitied her.
It wasn’t that she couldn’t be useful in battle, but she was definitely better suited to a back-line support position, somewhere that a hero could protect her while she contributed to the fight.
God, Itsuki was so stupid! She should have sat him down and taught him a foreign language. That would have shown him. Then he wouldn’t have been so rude to her—and to me.
Not that you could teach him or anything. He wouldn’t listen.
“Feh... Why are you looking at me like that? You look like you pity me...”
“Hm?”