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Chapter Text

What was the secret of the royal filolial?

There was a distinct difference, she knew it. Beautiful and strong as her Bill had been (rest in peace), Queen Fitoria had projected an aura and demonstrated feats no normal filolial, no matter how thoroughbred, no matter how well trained, no matter how cared for, could ever hope to approach.

"...so I ask you to initially join with the Shield, until..."

Wait... A Cardinal Weapon! It was so, so obvious!

Magnificent, powerful filolials were not common, but they often seem to rise in the accounts, records, and folktales (that she had so painstakingly collected herself) during or following the Waves of Calamity.

The leading theories were that they were evolved as leaders of larger flocks (Disproven, or insufficient. Choco and Bo from around 4 cycles prior were both noted to be from the same relatively small flock, and had been shown to be powerful long before joining it), coming from the waves themselves (Absurd! As if such a majestic being might be from a monstrous invasion of malformed creatures!) or were simply normal filolials with level gains boosted from wave combat (Impossible. She had met highly leveled filolials, but they didn't have the strength or aura.).

The weapons themselves, though. They were already known in Three Heroes records (and Four Heroes, for that matter) for their effects on the leveling rates of party members. It was suspected since the last war that there was an effect on the levelup stats of demihumans, as well.

The Cardinal Weapons were the obvious key.

"...you understand your part?"

"I've got it!" she cried. Most importantly, the very Wave cycle Fitoria had followed, the Spear Hero was always depicted as joining battle riding a filolial. The oldest accounts gave it a color matching Fitoria's herself, disregarding the embellished art the Three Heroes Church had of the man.

As her father, King Aultcray Melromarc turned and walked away with a satisfied look, she suddenly wondered what he had been talking to her about.

...Malty S. Melromarc decided it was probably not important. What was important was getting into a hero's party, as soon as Melromarc summoned theirs.

=====

Which turned out to be a lot sooner than she expected. Heroes were summoned at the castle itself. Apparently all of them. Weird; not sure what Mother had given the other nations at the conference to convince them to allow that.

But anyway, it was to her benefit. It would be much easier to find a hero she could party with to hatch and raise a filolial, taking up two party spaces.

As she joined in with the other prospective adventurers (her disheveled red hair and mismatched armor making her stand out from the other cleaned up adventurers as well as they made her stand out from her own royal family), she reviewed the various choices.

Spear was the seeming first choice, matching the origin of Fitoria, but the weapons' growth to allies weren't known to be that different any more than they differed by the heroes themselves. Besides that, whichever hero had more party space was best.

Five was the optimal limit, so any hero with 2 party members or fewer would be ideal. Counting herself, there weren't enough to fill out 4 parties here. There would be at least one sufficiently short party; probably the Shield in Melromarc.

Filing out with the rest, they confronted the heroes. Her father called for them to select the hero they would like to follow. She hung back a bit, watching it play out.

Sword had long, clean hair and a serious demeanor. He had a full party of generic, well-dressed adventurers.

Bow was younger, with short blond hair and an air of naivety. Again, full party of fancy-looking adventurers.

Spear was tall and handsome, with blond hair done in a ponytail aside from two bangs in front. His party filled out immediately with a gaggle of girls, no go there.

Shield, a lost looking man with short, dark hair and broad shoulders, was...

...standing completely alone.

Three royal filolials.

She ran to the lone hero and immediately joined his party, not noticing a slight glare from her father.

=====

Her father granted Shield an extra stipend, ostensibly due to their small party size, though she suspected favoritism toward herself.

Also, as her mother had drilled into her head (with mixed results) that it was generally considered more polite to learn names, rather than refer to people in the long term as Guard, Shadow, Maid, or Dead Fucker Who Murdered My Beautiful and Perfect Billhook (previously known as Lord Something... Rapier?), she had to introduce herself and hopefully learn the hero's name.

"Hi, I'm Malty! Nice to meet you!" Nailed it. Clearly, all relevant personal information was communicated.

"Hello, I am Naofumi Iwatani, and I am happy to work with you," he responded with a warm smile. Naofumi, Naofumi, Na-o-fu-mi. I-wa-something. Good enough. "So, I guess we need to get geared up. Any suggestions?" Not asking about her low level, either. So far, so good.

"Yes, but first, I know where we can get more party members!" she explained. That got some attention.

"Oh, like some kind adventuring guild?"

"Not exactly."

Seven Stars, no, not those bumbling buffoons that decided to change her adventurer alias from "Featherine" to "Birdbrain".

=====

She had brought a somewhat uncertain-looking Naofumi to a very specific place. Strictly speaking, there were plenty of places to get filolials and their eggs... but those were banned from doing business with Malty herself by royal decree since the incident.

Sure, she could've sent Naofumi to pick up eggs, but anyone but herself would've certainly gotten it wrong.

Instead, she was going to abuse a certain loophole she had been keeping to herself for an opportunity like this. Filolial sellers and breeders couldn't deal with her, but a certain monster lottery run out of a semi-permanent tent by a slave trader of questionable repute (Bel...something?) was left out of the decree, likely by accident, and thus open for her business.

And if she just so happened to pick out three strong, healthy filolial eggs from it, well, what could be blamed but chance?

And if she just so happened to have those eggs well hidden in packs within her prepared camping gear by the time she left, and the shadows had the impression that Naofumi had simply rejected purchase of more 'exotic' goods, who was she to correct them?

And if they happened to be full grown, fighting members of a Cardinal Hero's party by the time Mother could object, who was one bitter national leader to maliciously take away a hero's party members?

"Oh my!" the short man exclaimed seeing them enter the ill lit, but mostly clean tent. "Is that the famed Shield Hero come to grace my place of business?" Said hero was looking more and more leery of the squat, sharp-dressed businessman by the second. Then the man turned to look at her. "Oh, and the adventurer, Bir-"

"Don't call me that," she cut him off, Naofumi sending a questioning look she ignored.

"...Right, of course. So, you are here-"

"-for the monster lottery," she said, cutting him off.

"Of course, of course." His wicked grin suggested he had caught on to her game.

"Monster lottery?" questioned Naofumi.

Bel-something launched into his introduction, sales pitch and pricing info, then brought out a crate of eggs. Some ugly lizard critter eggs were in the mix, but she knew exactly how to pick. "Trust me with this one," she told Naofumi.

Naofumi himself was looking a bit skeptical. "I was thinking, uh... something more..." He paused, likely considering his word choice. "Sapient?" he finished.

No yelling, he's not from here, he doesn't know, and you still need him, she mentally told herself. More calmly, she began. "A filolial is more than a beast of burden. Raised right, they can think as well as any human" (From her experience.) "and fight as well or better." She considered a moment longer. "Besides, this won't take up too much of our funds, and you will still have me."

He seemed to consider his options, which were few with a party of two total thus far in an unfamiliar land, before relenting.

Looking over the eggs, she quickly eliminated various reptiles, a few undersized runt eggs, and some that looked to be from some lesser breeds, and carefully selected three. A high plains runner (speedy, brazen, sociable birds with a hefty appetite, tending toward light colors), a dark Melromarcian forester (smaller, but very clever birds, they could sing beautifully with proper training; usually black plumage), and a heavier filolial egg she wasn't familiar with, but that seemed perfectly healthy; a fun surprise for later.

"These are our party?" questioned Naofumi, adding three eggs to the party, but still showing a bit of an apprehensive, skeptical look.

She tried to be reassuring. "The best party! In a few levels, they'll hatch, then a few more for their growth spurt, and we'll have ourselves a loyal, well-trained, low-maintenance filolial battle party!" Probably. Definitely.

Belweather started again. "After they hatch, be sure to bring them back to..." he trailed off under Malty's glare. There would be no branding of her filolials. "...Nevermind. Pleasure doing business with you." He collected his fee for the three eggs, and she packed them carefully away in appropriate, low profile incubators.

Realizing one thing quick, she spoke to Naofumi before they left. "Uh, just so you know, it is kind of important that you don't let other people know we bought filolial eggs."

That brought the hero to a halt. "Did you just trick me into buying something illegal?"

"Of course not!" answered Beltower, with a look of insult. "My business and all that it provides is officially sanctioned by Melromarc. Your dear companion is just concerned because her mother has forbidden her, in particular, from keeping Filolials." He smirked. "She's caused some... mischief in the past."

Putting it lightly, but unfairly assigning blame, as far as Malty was concerned.

Naofumi considered a moment. "Isn't that still going to be a problem for you? If you get found out, will you get pulled from the party?"

"Once we have them fully grown as powerful members of the hero's party, she won't have anything to complain about."

Naofumi considered that a moment, before accepting it with a shrug.

They were then off to the blacksmith, whose name she didn't even slightly remember.

=====

So Naofumi's shield was a jerk about using weapons. Didn't mind armor, at least. She already had a decent weapon from her prior adventuring, so they banked their remaining funds for the moment, covering food and rooms later.

So, off to kill orange balloons, mature the filolial eggs, and get back the rest of her levels.

Oh, and power up Naofumi's shield. She assumed that was important to the process.

Was she forgetting something?

Yeah, probably, but likely nothing important.

The angry, bobbing, biting faces of balloons popped in a single stab even at her level, being vulnerable to sharp objects. At first, Naofumi was tasked with holding all the eggs and keeping them safe while she went stab happy.

But with a bit of thought, and a discovery that Naofumi, for all that he did essentially nothing to them with his own attacks, he, in turn, was immune to balloons, he was running around collecting hoards of them, while she kept the eggs, then picked off the biting mass of rubber like a practice dummy.

Also, they discovered he could get new shields by absorbing stuff. Balloon skins gave mostly irrelevant, minor effects, but a steady supply of odds and ends produced bonuses to cooking, crafting, and basic stats, besides attack.

There had to be something to promote filolial power. She took a feather she had from her pack and put it on the shield's gem herself.

"Filolial Feather Shield..." he reported. "...Filolial status growth rate increase, small."

Wait wait wait. "Status growth rate increase? More stat gain per level?"

"Let me check for sure..." he said, moving his fingers around a display she couldn't see. "Yes. Stats gained per level are increased."

She looked at the now level 4 eggs, and realized, "We need to stop gaining levels. Now."

"What?"

"'Small', you said. Meaning there's got to be a corresponding 'Large', per level. A level 40 that hits like level 60. A level 100 that hits like level 150."

A look of understanding appeared on his face. "So, do you have more things that might stack up the bonus?"

She emptied her pack of stuff. Bits and bobs and other trinkets related to or made of miscellaneous residue of filolials she had hidden away from Mother, yielding a few small direct status bonuses to filolials, but nothing else like the growth rate.

Okay, there was a bit of risk to her ruse in it, but...

"We should head back to Bel-whatever's tent and get another egg, a runt that wouldn't hatch."

"Beloukas."

She thought more. "And you can ask for filolial feathers or egg shells of varying kinds at a stable near the gate." And a little more. "And after that, back to the castle, where I've got..." And thought again about the last one, for a few reasons.

"...You have things stored in the castle?" Naofumi questioned as she was stalled.

Whoops, she had left something out when she introduced herself. "Right. My full name and title is First Princess Malty S. Melromarc."

Naofumi stumbled back. "The... the crown princess?"

"No, the First Princess," she clarified. "My little sister is the heir."

"Why would... nevermind, Your Majesty," Naofumi wisely dropped the topic.

"Just... keep calling me Malty. Feels more normal to me."

=====

A few more silver spent on another egg, this time a runt that had poor odds of hatching at all, yielded another minor stat bonus for Naofumi (and a cooking bonus; Malty and the Legendary Shield clearly had very different ideas on the purposes of eggs), and no further growth rate.

A bit of further scavenging from Naofumi's efforts had yielded some minimal gains further for flat bonuses to Naofumi himself (per filolial party member) and filolial party members. But, more significant progress was going to require more exotic materials.

It was starting to get late, though, and she wasn't quite ready to use some of the more precious material she had at the castle without sleeping on it first. They would stay at an inn for the night, and start planning where to find more materials tomorrow.

=====

The inn of choice turned out to be the choice of the other three heroes and their parties, too.

Spear checked in with herself and Naofumi to see how the latter (or former? Malty wasn't sure.) was doing. Naofumi had answered, while Malty listened.

Spear's questions seemed to revolve around her own well-being, but the tone changed when Naofumi revealed he was only level 4 so far.

Spear was seemingly concerned Naofumi was too weak to protect her. Silly. He was the one who couldn't burn and stab problems until they went away.

Spear seemed even more incensed after learning that she was doing all the killing, thinking Naofumi shouldn't be putting her in harm's way. Strictly speaking, though, harm's way was a far road from stabbing a bunch of distracted, immobile balloons.

But Spear really lost it when explaining more of why they were only level 4, with mention of the filolials and the shield bonus for them thankfully excluded.

"Did you work her so hard she had to quit early for the day due to exhaustion!?" Spear asked loudly. Okay, time to step in before he makes more of a scene.

"Okay, Spear, that is not what happened," she said. "We just found... new information that required a change in tactics."

"...If you ever feel unsafe, you're welcome to join my party." He turned to Naofumi. "I'm watching you."

With that, the night ended pretty uneventfully, aside from hearing other heroes discussing their levels from the day near over from their two adjacent rooms.

"I wonder if there is a way to get non-filolial stat growth per level gains," Naofumi said.

"Mm. Probably."

...

"Hey, Malty. Can you give me a bit of your hair?"

"Hmm? Oh, sure."

Pulling a small bit off, she walked to the next room and handed it over.

"I-I meant tomorrow," he muttered, cheeks slightly colored for some reason.

Nevertheless, it disappeared into the green gem of the shield.

Naofumi looked the air where some shield display must be for a moment, before grinning.

"Huh. 'Associate's Shield'. 'Party member status growth rate increase, very small.' It's something."

And it showed the filolial's 'small' increase wasn't the worst. "Not bad," Malty commented.

Naofumi took out some of his own hair and tried to add it. "'Self Shield'. No useful bonuses. Well, it was worth trying."

With that, Malty returned to her room and went to sleep, still deep in consideration.

=====

There was a pounding on Naofumi's door that woke them up.

"Shield! The king demands your presence immediately!" an angry voice on the other side commanded. Malty was suddenly wide awake. Had Mother come home and found out about the eggs?

Wait, the king?

"Wh... what? What's going on?" Naofumi asked, sitting up while Malty herself rose as well.

About then, she heard his door being kicked open, and the sound of armored guards marching in.

Father certainly wouldn't care about a few eggs enough to send a squad of armed guards, and Mother would've sent a shadow.

Then the guards at the back of the squad saw Malty coming out of the next room.

"What under the Seven Stars does Father want?"

The now much more polite, if confused, guard captain emerged from Naofumi's room and answered. "I am afraid we need you both to join us in the castle to clear up a misunderstanding, Your Majesty."

=====

"Naofumi, you fiend!" Spear shouted, charging at her party member as soon as he entered the court ahead of her. "How could you do that to her!?"

Naofumi raised his shield and asked, "Do what!? To who!?"

The room was filled with her father, the king, alongside the other 3 heroes, church representatives, and many nobles, all yelling nonsense Malty couldn't make out.

Naofumi tried to speak. "Look, if the filolial eggs are that big a problem, we can-"

"Silence!" her father commanded. "Shield Hero, you stand here accused of sexual assault of your party member, Malty!"

"...What!?" Naofumi asked.

In concert with Malty, who had just entered the room.

Which very much disrupted the proceedings.

Chapter Text

Her father, King Aultcray, continued, trying and failing to hide a wince. "...Malty, please describe what happened last night." He had an expectant, but apprehensive look.

Malty thought back, and carefully described their rental of rooms for the night, Spear ranting at Naofumi during dinner, giving him a lock of her hair to unlock a shield, and him unlocking another shield with his own hair, then returning to her room and going to sleep, and being woken up by guards knocking on his door and changing out of her nightclothes (oh, her nightclothes, that's what Naofumi was blushing about last night!) before heading to this very court, slightly behind the rest of the formation.

Her father's expression morphed into something that could be described as irritated shame as she continued. Malty thought it wasn't that bad. She had gotten them separate rooms.

He asked a few more direct questions. No, she didn't feel sick after eating. No, she didn't have gaps in her memory. No, she wasn't dressed any differently in the morning. Yes, she could disobey a direct order from Naofumi. ("I order you to destroy your filolial eggs." "Go fuck a cactus.")

As she finished, her father was quiet a long moment, before he spoke again. "...It seems we have been... misinformed... of certain events." Then, louder, with a look of chagrin and... disgust? "All charges against the Shield Hero are hereby dropped."

The Spear Hero had the decency to apologize for his accusations.

One woman in his party really gave Malty a sour look, though. Brunette with a single large braid. Her face was familiar; Malty was presumably supposed to be acquainted. Lisa? Lizzy? Lusty?

...Her parents had probably not named her Lusty.

Well, with that fiasco over with, they were back at the castle, and Malty had caught two important details from the proceedings.

1. Mother was not there, neither in person nor with shadow representative. Meaning she was still at the conference, at least a few days away.

2. Naofumi had let the bird out of the cage regarding the filolial eggs. While Father would let it slide, Mother would not, and any of her lurking shadows would certainly report it, even if they couldn't or wouldn’t stop her directly.

So, they now had a time limit to get the filolial eggs hatched into chicks and grown into valuable party members. Not precisely sure how long, but imminent.

And you know what? So be it. She had some more things in the castle, and she had plans.

=====

Old filolial bits of varying quality, feathers to beaks to bones to harnesses, had gotten them a medium growth rate increase, medium maturation increase, and a very small growth correction.

The last of those seemed to be a bonus on level up making up for missed bonuses from growth rate adjustments in prior levels, so they should be good to level for now without losing anything permanently.

And her... precious material. The opaque case, hiding something beautiful and painful. The remnant from that day. She wasn't ready yet, but... well, better to keep the option open, so she would bring it with.

All the better to buy a couple more days of shadows searching for them in the field rather than catching them at the castle.

Naofumi spoke up suddenly as she was thinking.

"Are we going to talk about what just happened?"

"Yeah, with the growth correction bonus, we should-"

"Not that," he said sharply. "I mean getting dragged into the castle and put on trial for false charges of sexual assault!"

"Oh, right." She hadn't put much thought into it since, but that was really weird. "Someone must've falsely accused you."

He looked exasperated. "Yeah, but who? Why?" After a moment, "And why of you? Who could absolutely crumple any case in an instant?"

Malty did take some time to think of it. "Who, I bet the church."

"Church?"

"The Church of the Three Heroes."

"Three Heroes?"

This would require a long, detailed explanation of political and socioeconomic details spanning at least decades, potentially centuries.

Malty wasn't up for that. "Essentials: local church likes the 3 not-Shield heroes because of longstanding rivalries and enmities and semi-recent wars and racism, and in turn dislikes the Shield Hero."

"I... feel like that is a very abridged version, but I suppose it explains at least one 'why'."

"Yeah, an excuse to lock you up, or discredit you if they can't get away with that." Though the discrediting might not have worked as well as the church and Pope Balmtree thought. Siltvelt may still welcome a convicted rapist Shield hero with open arms, and potentially legs. As she understood, they had some really messed up values and leadership due to their biological circumstances.

Whatever, not her problems, Church or Siltvelt or demihuman.

"And then, why you?"

She thought a bit longer, but was totally at a loss. "...I got nothing."

"Maybe they just thought you would go along with it as a member of the church?"

"I am not really a church-goer so much." Sure, Father had dragged her there from time to time, especially recently, but she had long since mastered the art of looking like she was paying attention when she absolutely wasn't.

"...Is your father?"

"More or less, yeah."

Naofumi's expression got much darker at that, but he didn't elaborate. "Well, at least you aren't; we need to avoid the church as much as we can while we prepare for the wave, regardless."

Something in that sentence raised a red flag in her mind. Wave.

Church.

Wave.


Church.





Hourglass.





"I don't like that expression, Malty."

=====

Everyone in the church was a passive-aggressive asshole to both of them when they visited, but they successfully got Naofumi's shield to the Dragon Hourglass inside to ensure he registered to fight against Melromarc's waves.

Y'know, so he could do his job.

"Anything else I need to know sooner rather than later?" Naofumi asked with the same unamused expression he had been wearing since she had explained why they had to go to the church that hates him (and apparently now her, too).

"Umm... Well, when the filolials get to level 40, we will have to bring them back here to get their class upgrades, or they'll stop leveling."

Naofumi sighed. "And ours, I suppose."

"Oh, no, heroes don't need to, and I have already done that," she explained.

"Oh, so we could upgrade their classes before 40?"

"No, a person needs to get to level 40 to-"

"Wait," Naofumi interrupted. "You're level 9, right?"

"Yes?"

"And you have a class upgrade?"

"...Yes?"

"...which requires level 40?"

Malty caught on. "...Oh, right. I was higher level, but my level was reset," she explained in brief.  "I was allowed to keep my class upgrade."

"...What? How? And why?"

This was going to be a long conversation. Malty wasn't up for this, either.

=====

After a... careful explanation of a series of events that was mostly kept secret and was at worst 30% her fault, and much assurance that she wouldn't be bringing Naofumi into mortal peril by joining him, they were off to kill more monsters.

Usapils this time. Time for more variety of bonuses than different colors of angry rubber provided, and better experience per kill.

Unfortunately, the long eared rodents were generally smarter than balloons. So Naofumi was back to keeping the eggs safe, and she was stabbing at the fluffy vermin. She swore this was so much easier the first time she was this level.

New usapil-themed shields, new bonuses, not filolial related, and so significantly less interesting to her. She saw that he was disassembling them into bits, and processing them separately. Presumably extra stats for each variant.

Hmm. That was how they got so many filolial bonuses; the shed and remaining parts were already quite disassembled. Potentially, there may be a shield for a whole filolial, but Malty wasn't going to suggest trying that unless they found a dead filolial for other reasons.

Also, he had gotten some shields themed off of whatever they found on the ground, including rocks, sticks, leaves, grass, rusted old gear (rust shield, not particularly useful), rope...

And a glowing green shield that floated in the air, when called by Naofumi. "Air Strike Shield" or something like that, apparently a hero skill.

As they leveled, they were expanding where they could safely journey. As they were now, many places filolials frequented were off limits to a group as small and low level as they were, so they had to find other things to focus on.

They traveled forth to a not-too-distant town... Lute? Riyute? Known for its light metal mine, and therefore a place to, if nothing else, find new shields to unlock for Naofumi as they leveled.

She expected more guards than she was seeing for an important mining town. Whatever, not her responsibility to schedule and command movements.

They got cheap food and a room for the night (note to self, purchase cookware). She didn't notice Naofumi blushing all night, but did notice him requesting they get two rooms again in the future, when possible.

So I'm thrifty. What of it?

After interacting with boring people a bit, they went to the ill-lit, cold mine, with some warning of a wave monster leftover.

One wave monster? Eh, no big deal. She was up a few levels, and so was Naofumi.

=====

Two-headed dog. Huh.

Ugly, red eyed, black furred, slobbering critter.

Naofumi was very leery about fighting it, but it must've smelled them, because it didn't leave them a choice.

A real fight, not some puny critter. Time to find out how much she has to relearn.

Naofumi was able to get its attention and keep it off her (their standard strategy once again; she was now carrying the three precious filolial eggs), but against its thick hide/high defense, her rapier just wasn't cutting it. Or piercing it.

She was getting some of its attention, though, as a head bit toward her, her jump back only narrowly saving her alongside Naofumi bashing its head sideways with his shield.

Combat is status, tactics, and physics. Her current tactics did no damage, and invited counter that would ruin her whole day. Now at a safe range, it was time to bring out something stronger.

She weaved magic and began chanting, aiming carefully at the monster and not Naofumi. "As source of thy power, I, the First Princess and Filolial Regent Malty Melromarc, order thee. Decipher the laws of nature and focus heat to incinerate my foe! Zweite Firebolt!"

A narrow, but concentrated stream of fire shot out, making the dark, cold cavern momentarily neither dark nor cold, before striking the dog off the side, which let out two dissonant yelps of pain.

Way out of practice on that. At least it didn't hit Naofumi.

Between its level and her slightly off aim, it didn't die, and now was trying with more enthusiasm than ever to get around Naofumi to her.

Chanting again, "As source of thy power...", it broke through Naofumi, knocking him over through physics and charging her with two sets of razor-sharp fangs on faint display in the torch light.

"...t-to incinerate my foe! Z-zweite FirebAAAAAH!"

She panicked, and the firebolt went wide, illuminating stalactites on the ceiling.  Dammit, Malty, you're a class-upped adventurer! Keep your head in the fight!

The monster now rushed her unhindered. "Erste Shield!" CLONK. Whimper. Whine.

Hindered.

Physics killed less often, but could still teach a painful lesson to the face.

Getting her nerves back, she began chanting again. It maneuvered around the shield, one head coming in for a bite as Naofumi ran to her.

Thinking quickly, she abandoned the chant, then stabbed into the open mouth, finally piercing the defense.

As its other head drew in, it was yanked back by a coil of rope, from Naofumi's rope shield as he got up behind it and held it back with his arms.

Drop efficiency and power, gain vital speed!

"Zweite Firebolt!"

Her quick-chanted spell struck dead center at close range, and the beast howled in pain as it burst into flame and flailed madly.

Naofumi held it back from one last bite, and she pulled her rapier out of one face and shoved it into the other mouth, and through its head.

It finally stopped moving and crumpled to the ground, the glow of its still burning remains supplementing the torch light.

"Seven Stars, I'm out of practice..."

As her heart rate slowly started falling, Naofumi let out a sigh of relief and turned to her.

"So," he began, "uh, what was that?"

"A two-head-"

"No, I mean the chanting and the fire."

"Listen, I was really young when I came up with that 'Filolial Regent' title, and now I need to keep using it to keep my spells strong," she admitted with a blush. "It adds at least 20% more power when included, so it stays in the magic chant, and together with my bracers-"

"Spells? Magic chant?"

Oooooooh. Another one of those things she was supposed to mention earlier.

=====

Naofumi was swiftly reaching his wits' end with Malty, and was now demanding some explanation.

He was summoned to this world against his will to fight deadly battles against monsters, and what was he granted?

A weapon that couldn't attack, a bewilderingly uninformative companion whose priorities were clearly not monster hunting and world saving (and whom he was convinced called him by his first name because she didn't remember his last), and a bunch of eggs.

And alongside the deadly invading monsters, he has since learned that three of the most significant political powers in the country would be working against part or all of his party in different ways for different reasons, to the point where he couldn't get other party members he would be able to trust anyway.

So, ride or die for the mighty filolial flock it was. Those eggs had better hatch soon; right now the only offensive attribute they had was cholesterol content.

Also, magic was part of this world. As in, besides the inherent magic of the legendary weapons, and status magic, and animate balloons, and two headed dogs, and...

In retrospect, magic spells cast by archaic chanting were not surprising.

The disheveled, rummage sale-armored redhead princess (and no one would ever guess that from looking at her) whom he traveled with being a capable sorceress, though, was a good kind of surprising, for once.

As part of the general interrogation on magic spellcasting, he got a promise of getting a magical affinity evaluation after the filolials were ready for the upcoming wave, and some help to start learning some spells himself, by book or by crystal ball as available. Maybe something damaging to supplement his defenses, or healing for his party.

But, racing against some deadline Malty seemed certain was impending, the two of them were still going to have to rush leveling themselves and the eggs to hatching.

Which, a couple days of Malty carefully watching the incubators between monster slaying sessions later, came to pass.

Chapter Text

It was going to happen any day now. The eggs were up to level 18, and would definitely be growing (and eating) rapidly once they hatched.

This had dictated that their monster slaying had to be focused more on edible meat, which Naofumi dutifully prepared and stored (they had picked up cookware in Lute after dealing with the dog monster, and learned Naofumi's shield could store and preserve some amount of food), alongside foraged fruit and seeds.

And one night, she heard a tapping sound. One egg was starting to hatch, and given their synchronized levels, the others would soon follow.

"It-it's time!" she got out to Naofumi.

It was an important moment. Filolials would quickly latch onto a name they were given.

She had three names of each gender. For girls: Ranseur, Lucerne, Brandistock. For boys: Halberd, Lochaber, Fauchard.

Naofumi arrived as she saw a crack starting to form in the plains runner egg.

Soon enough, a light pink filolial hatchling was showing its head. A baby girl, so Ranseur it would be.

"Piyah!" she cried, before jumping onto Malty's messy hair, warming it up and sending it further from any proper style.

Come to think of it, did Naofumi know how they latched onto names?

"So what's the name for this filo?" She lunged to put a hand over his mouth.

"Piya!" Filo. Her beautiful, pink baby girl filolial was named... "Filo". For "Filolial". She really had nobody but herself to blame.

"'Ranseur'," she insisted.

Her filolial did not respond.

"'Ranseur'!" she repeated.

No response.

"...'Ranseur-Filo?'" she tried.

"...Piyah." Well, as good as she would get, it seemed.

She got Ranseur-Filo (that name was now kind of long... maybe 'Ran-Fi'?) down from her perch, wiped off of egg bits, and offered some cooked usapil, which she happily gobbled up. She hadn't specifically realized when she had started, but she was now gently stroking the girl's head as she held it.

Naofumi was quietly collecting eggshell pieces when the next tapping began. The forester, this time, a black beak breaking through the shell, and eventually...

"Aeh! Aeeeh!" Black feathers top to bottom, and features that suggested a boy.

Naofumi seemed to have caught on about the naming, as he remained silent. "Halberd," she called the chick softly.

"Aeeh!" Halberd was happy his new name, then hopped onto Malty's arm by Ran-Fi next to the food, feather rubbing feather.

"Piya!" Ran-Fi noticed her new little brother by about a minute. Briefly. Then went back to eating the prepared meat and seeds as Malty held her.

It was a few hours of feeding, petting, and staring transfixed before the last egg began to crack apart.

And out emerged a grey, solid crest ("casque", she recalled the term) from atop a blue head with yellow eyes, and soon the dark grey feathered body. "Waha!" they trilled.

It took a moment to recognize the indicators on the unfamiliar breed, but she determined this to be another girl.

"Lucerne," Malty named her firmly.

"Wahahihihahaha!" the newly named Lucerne trilled back.

Lucerne quickly joined her older siblings in eating the seeds, fruits, and meats they had stocked.

As she fed them, and drew them into her arms, feeling their warm bodies breathing as they fell asleep, Malty began unconsciously pulling out something from her pack.

She looked at the case, and thought back to what it held.

What it meant.

=====

Billhook hadn't been a name she picked; instead, her hatchling had been named by a filolial breeder. But, she took it to be a gallant name, for a gallant bird.

She never forgot his loud "Wark!" when she first met the days-old golden hatchling that only got louder as he grew.

Mother had some concerns about how much time she was spending learning to care for her Bill, at the expense of learning the finer points of statecraft, but Father was content to indulge her with time allowances, grooming tools, and a wagon for Bill to pull.

She didn't know when, but the concern about how much of her attention was devoted to Bill expanded beyond just the queen.

She had to become a quick and diligent study to fit what she was supposed to be learning as well as she could between her time with her filolial. She had to learn to sneak, scheme, and plot to make that time as often as possible as nobles and courtiers and clergy tried to schedule and drag her away from her beloved Bill.

For awhile, the balance seemed to be going fine. She could write and orate eloquently enough if she put her mind to it, and learned how to negotiate and deal (particularly when she snuck in a name reference cheat sheet) while Bill waited and foraged outside in the courtyard.

She leveled up, she learned swordsmanship (this itself was a compromise; she wanted to use a lance, and she still snuck in some training here and there), and picked up fire magic (Firebolt, an unusually low-spread fire spell), while Bill pulled or carried her across the land and joined her in combat, or one time carried her on a very long trip home, making for the best times of her life, and helping her get through the worst times. She even got a class upgrade with him in mind (to Cavalier, there was no negotiation there), though Billhook himself did not.

But behind closed doors, someone must've been questioning her worthiness in line to the throne for the time she was spending on/with Bill.

One day, she had been sent to the Rapier (or something) Territory. She had a meeting with the local lord. She couldn't remember nowadays what it was supposed to be about.

She had left Bill at the stable, giving him one parting embrace as he gave the sad "Wark!" he always gave when she had to leave him for royal duties. Her retinue, including an older man named Werther, had followed her, trusting local guards to watch the stable.

The meeting with ever-smug-looking noble been a boring, drawn out affair, reaching the agreement that by the end she realized had been essentially agreed to before she even got there.

Looking back significantly later, Malty wasn't truly sure what the plan was supposed to be, whether to bring Malty herself to heel, to provoke her into doing something remove herself from succession, or to remove distractions so she might a better heir for some third party to influence.

But whatever the plan was, the planner, whether it was Rabioli himself or someone else, had badly misunderstood how it would go.

Back in the past, Malty was so glad to finally get out of that mind-numbing meeting and back to her beloved Bill at the stable.

But he wasn't there.

She called his name over and over.  "Bill! Billhook!"

She asked a stablehand, and he had no idea where he had gone.

“Billhook!” Each call getting more worried. More desperate.

It was several tense minutes before another stablehand mentioned seeing guards leading a yellow filolial out to another building.

Where she found her Bill had been...



Had been...







She doesn't know how long she had stared. Her retinue must've dragged her out, and she had seen the fat man she had been meeting earlier.


A Cardinals-damned smirk on his face.

"My deepest apologies," he began with no depth or apology.

He knew.

"An older bird had been scheduled for slaughter today, to be turned into feed."

He expected this. He planned it.

"My workers must've pulled out the wrong bird."

That was why he had wandered back out of his mansion to here after the deal was done.

"To settle the affair, I will provide to the crown, from my personal stable, a knight dr-"

Neither of them had planned her sword buried in his gut.


It. It just kind of happened.


Guards, hers and his, shouted in alarm, but her status as Crown Princess of the greater Kingdom of Melromarc meant that his guards' loyalty was at odds with itself, while hers had been on edge for her to go mad since they had learned of Bill's fate.

It had been a few more mortal slices into the thing before some armored and sufficiently leveled guards, she didn't know whose, had gotten ahold of her and restrained her as her quarry hobbled away.

She quick chanted, and managed to get an arm free for a second before it was wrenched behind her back. A firebolt went over a guard's shoulder and struck true. Even with healing magic or potions, he wouldn't be surviving the night now.

Her retinue was trying to pull her away, at this point, before Dead Fucker’s guards decided they liked their lord after all.

Unfortunately, Malty was obstinate. She wasn't letting them leave; not without Bill.

But before either she could collect his remains, or Werther, her current chief guard, could convince her to leave before the territory become very hostile, a horrible crashing and roaring sound erupted from behind the lord's mansion.

A gigantic, wingless lizard monster crashed through the manor in a blind rampage.

In retrospect, she still wasn't thinking clearly since Bill's death, or she would've left with the guards as quickly as possible.

But whatever ideas a normal brain would conceive of at this time, Malty's looked at the half-wrecked slaughterhouse where Bill's remains lay, saw the beast leaning down toward it, and shot a Cardinals-damned firebolt in its face.

It did indeed stop leaning over the wrecked building preparing to eat Bill.

But this plan, looking back it from all of 5 seconds later, really needed a few more steps in it.

It charged her, razor-toothed maw open and lower jaw dragging a trench into the ground. She showed self-preservation finally and jumped to the side.

It turned and looked at her again. "...laws of nature and focus heat to incinerate my foe! Faust Firebolt!" The second firebolt glanced off the beast's face as it reared to rush her again.

A spear flew through the air, one belonging to Werther, and drew its attention momentarily.

She had a brief opening. The eye. The weak spot among weak spots. It was lowering its head for all its attacks. She rushed the beast in an adrenaline-fueled burst of speed, sword out, and drove the sword at it's eye.

Her blade struck its target. And shattered. Leaving the eye undamaged.

She was briefly dumbfounded. Damned defense stat!

And then she was shoved as Werther tackled her out of the way of a massive bite, losing a leg in the process.

Seeing Werther bleeding out, and the lizard turning to look at her, she realized that she was going to die here.

...

That wasn't fair, was it?

It rushed her one more time, jaw open. She jumped to the side once more, but once too often.

She was barely even an adult yet.

As its gaping jaw passed her, its tail swung in her direction, catching her still off balance after her dodge.

There was too much she still wanted to do.

It struck her in the left side and agony shot through her arm and torso, and her world spun end over end, until she crashed painfully through the wall of a building.

She hadn't even gotten to bury Billhook.


She was having trouble keeping her eyes open, but flashes of vision showed a hole in the wall ahead of her, with the lizard beyond approaching.


She hadn't gotten to see a royal filolial.


She turned to crawl further into the building with her bad arm, seeking what shelter she could, as she tried to open her pack with her good arm, hoping to reach her emergency potion.


She hadn't seen Melty, her little sister, grow up.


The lizard crashed into the building, sending wood and stone raining down onto her back and striking her skull.



She hadn't...



It was heavy. Her head hurt. She couldn't move her arms.



Would they find Billhook?



It was dark.





Would they bury him with her?






It was cold.







Mother wouldn't want to.














Father wouldn't think to.















Melty would do it.















She was a good egg.































"Wark." Wake up.




She heard thumping. She felt rumbling, and something shifting, and suddenly there was light from above. How much time had passed?


"KWEH."


Her right arm could move. She reached to per pack, drew out the vial and downed it in a single gulp.

She immediately started feeling more awake.

With strength renewed, she dug herself further out.

And she saw, facing off with the lizard...

"KWEH."

...an angel?

She stood as tall as the lizard, covered in glistening feathers, staring it down through ruby red eyes.

Her talons sliced through the lizard's scales like the Sword.

Her beak pierced the lizard's hide like the Spear.

Her wings summoned magical winds to pierce through the lizard's limbs like the Bow.

Her feathers and magic shrugged off the lizard's fangs and fiery breath like the Shield.

"KWEH." Her voice, inescapably reveberating, but calm and disciplined, echoed like the command of a queen over her army.

A queen.

The Queen.

Fitoria.

=====

After the lizard's death and Queen Fitoria's departure, she had searched for hours through the wreckage, to no avail.

Mother's shadows, along with the miraculously surviving Werther and the rest of her guards, pulled her out and back home. Werther retired after that.

She wasn't sure what all had been done to do so, but her mother had silenced most or all details of what had gone on.

Between that, and the highly conflicting reports of the chaotic series of events from relatively few surviving witnesses, she was determined to be... not at fault, but not not at fault, to the few in the know.

Personally, she called the reasoning pretty much birdshit. Dead Fucker had earned his name and his fate, and the lizard monster was hardly something she had conjured up.

Her own level had been reset and her mother had made her edicts, on succession and filolial access, allegedly to prevent her from wandering into danger like that again, but Malty knew it was to keep her from acting so irrationally if her filolial was threatened in the future.

Now, years after the worst day of her life, holding three now sleeping newborn filolials...

Bill would never be replaced. Fitoria would forever be an incomparable wonder of the world. But there was room in her heart for others yet.
Because she had already realised.

For Ranseur-Filo. For Halberd. For Lucerne.

She would give anything.

She would kill.

She would die.

She would burn Melromarc to ashes.

And from the worst thing to happen to her and Bill would hatch the best thing to happen. The best thing to happen to her world.

She gave the opaque case to Naofumi, from which he withdrew the single feather from Queen Fitoria, the one thing she had been able to recover that day, and dutifully fed it to the shield.

She saw his eyes widen as he was taken aback, and waited for explanation.

"It unlocked everything at once. Every Filolial shield in the series," he explained. "Base status, high status per level, maturation adjustment, it's all here." And so the Shield was ready. Nothing left but to help the children sleeping in her arms grow into the Queens and King she and the world needed.

Something that had been missing was here again.

Mother's shadows would be due by now, but they had not come yet. At this point, she fucking dared them.

Chapter Text

She was told raising filolials was easier than raising human children, but Malty wondered if raising three at once tilted it the other way.

What started as three shin-high bundles of joy soon became three chest-high to more than head-high bundles of beak, talon, stomach, screech, and joy.

She loved them all the same, but Naofumi was definitely getting use out of his potion making materials and bonuses.

Ranseur-Filo, the pink-feathered plains runner and the eldest, was the easiest to manage. She seemed to hang on her and Naofumi's every word. Her juvenile "Piya" chirps had grown into a somewhat less juvenile "Guue", which she used to (try to) keep the others in line as their party quested, fought, harvested, ate, ate, and ate.

But even the dutiful daughter would still bear talons and beak if pushed too far when food was involved.

Malty's left bracer was still not quite functioning at full.

At least Ran-Fi seemed to recognize that Naofumi's shield needed to eat, too, and she would defend the party's kills so that Naofumi could collect new materials.

Halberd was a somewhat fussy eater, something of a slacker, and had mastered the most absurd vanishing act. His now distinct "Caw" could make even Naofumi jump a few feet in the air if it came from behind unexpectedly. She might've accused the hero of sneaking him a Hide Mirage crystal ball, but she knew the Shield Hero had no wherewithal to get such an item.

Hal was gone the moment you took eyes off him, and sometimes wasn't back for an hour. Well, maybe she should've known what she was getting into with a forester.

He was at an age and level that he could manage any monster attacks nearby, to be fair. She was worried he was missing meals, but Naofumi had pointed out traces of blood on his beak. He was finding his own food, it seemed.

She also noticed he was definitely not missing meals when Naofumi's usapil stew was on the fire. Indeed, Ran-Filo was always keeping an eye out to make sure he didn't take a bit more than his allotment.

(Naofumi had suggested they were going to need a bigger pot soon. Malty agreed.)

Lucerne, youngest and tallest, by a few feet, even without counting the casque on her blue head, adorned in almost fur-like dark grey plumage as she grew, was the one most likely to fight directly, and she fought well.

Lucy was a straightforward bird, learning hunting strategies like "kick the thing over and peck or stomp through the center of mass while it was lying down" and "kick down the tree the critter is hiding in".

She was also enamored with much smaller birds, though they hadn't yet figured out exactly why, trilling the same long, elaborate "Wahahihihahaha" since made since she hatched at them as they flew over.

Overall, she was the hardest for her and Naofumi to manage.

Once as she was charging away at far too many kobolds, trilling as she went, Naofumi had tried to lasso her with his rope shield. She had warned him not to choke her, as attack stat or no, Naofumi's strength was rather impressive at this point, on the physics side of combat.

However, this turned out to be not a problem for the unusually strong Lucy, and instead a problem for Naofumi. In their wagonless, chariotless, carriageless little family, Naofumi's rope shield had just volunteered him as an eminently pullable thing, and soon he, too, was moving towards far too many kobolds.

After the battle, the careful un-snaring and pit clearing from the traps, and scolding Lucy, Naofumi had learned that his Erste Shield and, at close range, a quick arm lock made a better choice for wrangling wayward filolials.

It also brought Malty to the realization they needed a genuine carriage soon, when this upcoming wave was over, for her filolials' development as well as for the sake of carrying more and more things.

Particularly, ingredients and cookware for larger and larger meals.

Still no shadows from Mother. Maybe she approved after all. Or maybe she was in some more significant quagmire Malty wasn't aware of.

=====

It was another evening of stew, squawks, and shenanigans as Naofumi was setting up their two (Yes, Malty, we need two of them!) tents as Ran-Fi was faithfully keeping the fire going, occasionally picking up a stick with a talon and dropping it in.

Because Malty had asked her to.

She was clearly no simple animal.

It had been... How long?

He recollected and recounted the days.

A week.

Ranseur-Filo had hatched out of an egg before his eyes no more than a week ago. She was now as tall as him, and carefully tending a fire without burning herself, on verbal instructions in plain "Medean", as Malty called the world's language.

The signs of an alien fantasy world weren't all swords and sorcery, dungeons and dragons. That was some outright fictional brain development.

...stomp, stomp, stomp, stomp.

Speaking of development, Lucerne was here, too.

Hal and Ran-Fi's height growth had begun to slow down, suggesting they were nearing their adult heights, according to Malty.

Lucy, on the other hand...

Naofumi looked up.

And up.

What the hell was the princess feeding that bird when he wasn't looking, filet of kaiju?

It had been a week since the three had hatched. Ran-Fi and Hal's growth was ridiculous enough.

But this ostrich-voiced cassowary was 10 feet tall!

"WaHIHIha!" With proportional volume to unleash on unsuspecting crows, Hal apparently included, as he saw the bird slip out of a tree and barely land on his feet following Lucy's trill.

So that's where our ninja crow got to. About time he got a taste of his own medicine.

He couldn't fly, but he still managed to get up into those things without anyone noticing.

Even presumably normal filolials were able to pull heavy carts, and these ones were definitely able to fight, sending their own leveling rate through the roof (relatively, given what Malty called the "20s slump"), with four strong attackers while he took the hits, and they were quickly catching up in level themselves. The "Filolial Regent" was onto something with this whole idea.

But even without their combat readiness and utility, the birds were growing on him almost as much as they were growing in general.

Sure, not to their self-professed mother's level, but he found them good company and a joy to watch.

Though Malty calling him their Father implied several relational ties that he wasn't up to claiming right now, and made him blush as much as when she decided to rent the two of them one room to save money.

But if... If he really was just, dreaming all this up after falling into a coma from a stroke while at the library or something like that, he really would miss the three polearm-named legally distinct chocobos.

And, he supposed, he would miss Princess Malty.

For now, dream or real, it was another night in fantasy land. Things were challenging, but fulfilling. And the Hero of the Shield would try to be content with that.

...

Well...

There was one thing missing.

Naotsugu. His little brother. His parents, eh, they gave up on him years ago, and he on them.

But Tsugu was a cool little brother, after Naofumi broke him out of that spiral Mom and Dad got him in, earning a bit of respect from those parents as well.

Would he...

God, he hoped he was still doing okay. This whole thing, really, it was too real to be just some figment, some dream. Was time passing back home while he was here? Was Tsugu staying above water without him?

If Dad and Mom started pushing him with their absurd expectations again, and sent him back to how he was, then by the time Naofumi got back, would he...

...

He felt something warm and fluffy around him. "Guuueh..." Ran-Fi's long call reverberated through him, and he felt a bit better.

=====

Ranseur-Filo was a proud bird, and she would do well by Ma- by Mother and Father. Hal and Lucy may goof off, but not her!

Hal came back from his wanderings with news for Ran-Fi. Specifically, he cawed about more tricky critters with sharp things, like Mother's, but smaller, trying to hide.

Okay, Hal wasn't goofing off this time. Bad creatures on the road, trying to ambush their group means Mother and Father needed to know.

And ever dutiful Ranseur-Filo would warn them. "Gue! Danger! Hidden!" Roughly. Words weren't actually said, precisely.

"What is it, Ran-Fi? Danger?" asked Mother, as if she had not just explained. Mother really needed to learn to understand chirps. Or maybe Ran-Fi needed to learn to pronounce people talk. They could convey so much more meaning so quickly.

"Caw. Show?" suggested Hal.

"Wahahi! Kick!" suggested Lucy, before running headfirst into one of Pa- Father's floating walls. It looked like it cracked that time. Father was going to need to come up with something stronger soon, or he would need Ran-Fi to help.

Ran-Fi pointed down the road with one foot, all but one talon curled in.

"Something ahead on the road?" Mother asked.

Ran-Fi nodded. "Guue! Yes, yes!"

Then she jumped to the side of the road, ducking and hiding behind a bush.

"What are-" Father started, before Ran-Fi jumped out with a loud "Guue" and pecked toward Mother and Father in the air.

"Something is going to surprise us?" Mother read.

"An ambush?" Father read more specifically.

"Yes, yes!"

"How many?" asked Father.

Ran-Fi looked at Hal.

With his talons, Hal made 6 scratches on the ground.

"Six?" repeated Mother.

"Yes, yes!"

"More kobolds, I bet," said Father. "Let's see if we can flip the script on them."

=====

Hal loved scouting!

He could wander freely, see things, hunt things, and not worry about Ran-Fi bugging him!

And sometimes he found tricky critters to trick.

Pops had sent him to sneak up around the tricky critters while the rest approached.

Sneaking was easy, just don't step on sticks. And make sure critters aren't looking at you. Really, way better than not sneaking, getting stabbed, and having to drink a potion. Ran-Fi made it clear what those tasted like.

Well, Pops had a plan, and Hal was happy to join in, carefully positioning himself behind the right hand group of fuzzy critters, just beyond another bush. Across the road, he saw the bushes near the base of the cliff where the other three critters hid, and... something else? Something unlike the critters in a nearby tree. Hadn't seen that earlier. Oh well. Pops would be fine.

Speaking of Pops, the man walked up the path, alone, seemingly unaware. One person versus 6 critters? Easy, they would go for it.

He heard them chitter quietly, then spring out, knives in hand, from both sides. Pops looked momentarily panicked, then called out, "Erste Shield!"

The glowing wall appeared in the air, partway up the cliff, momentarily distracting the critters, before they continued their charge. Now was Hal's turn! He jumped out and pecked down a critter in one swift motion, panicking the rest and drawing their attention back away from the cliff.

Meanwhile, he heard a clunk as Ran-Fi with Mom astride landing on the floating wall, and then, louder, Lucy landed as well, before they jumped the rest of the way down the cliff, on the opposite side of the critters.

Their pincer attack now pinced, the kobolds tried to run, but Ran-Fi, Mom, and Lucy each got one, while he took out another and Pops trapped the last in a ball of shields, as Ran-Fi got into position with Mom to end it.

Ooh, that ball trick might work on Lucy next time she runs off.

Hmm. Thinking of Lucy.

"Caw. Kill two. Ran-Fi kill two. Wimpy Lucy one." A bit of a fib assigning Mom's to Ran-Fi, but it got his giant little sister fuming.

The ball opened, and Ran-Fi efficiently took out the last one. So his fib was technically no longer a fib.

"Weak? Weak!? Wahahihah! Lucy no weak!" she said, stomping over.

"Caw. Weak weak weak! Mama stronger, Ran-Fi stronger, tree stronger! He pointed to a nearby tree, and Lucy was immediately staring it down.

Mom rode Ran-Fi since she was more cooperative, but Lucy was easy to steer if you knew how.

=====

Lucy looked at the tree in question. She could kick a tree like that down with one hit.

Well, Lucy would show that little birdy what she could do!

She didn't give a moment's notice, she immediately jump kicked into the offending tree!

Crack! "Aiyeeee!" The little tree snapped immediately in half around Lucy's claws, then fell, shrieking to the ground.

The crashing sound reverberated through the woods.

Wait. "Wahi, tree scream?"

Mama was immediately over at the fallen tree, dragging out a struggling human person in dark cloth like Hal's and Lucy's feathers.

"A shadow," Mama said, looking down at their stunned captive.

And pulling out her sharp shiny thing.

"Whose?" asked Papa.

"My apologies, Your Majesty," said the 'shadow', hands up as she sat upright. "I am here on orders of your mother, Queen Mirellia Q. Melromarc."

Lucy saw Mama's expression go white as a cloud, then tense.

"I don't care what she says, we are not giving them up," Malty began, holding the shiny thing out. "They are vital members of the part of the Shield Hero, Naofumi Iwa.... Naofumi."

Naofumi was Papa's name, Lucy knew. What the "Iwa" was, she did not.

The shadow, having waited patiently for them to finish. "Removing your filolials from you is not part of any of my orders, I daresay!"

Lucy leaned in to the conversation.

All the stress in Mama fell away in an instant, replaced by surprise. "Huh?"

"The Queen only wished me to check on you, I daresay," the shadow began again. "I only n-need to... I only need to tell you t-to st-" Lucy leaned in closer, trying to catch the shadow's stuttering speech.

Papa spoke up. "Lucy, you're scaring her, back up."

"WAHIHA!" Lucy cried, the shadow jumping back at the call. "Oops!"

The shadow continued. "S-stay with the Shield Hero. Do not leave his party."

...Mama could leave Papa?

That was a thing that could happen!?

Lucy began stomping around in a panic. "Wahahiha no, Papa, Mama, no leave! No leave!"

"Lucerne, please, calm down!" Mama was patting her. "What's wrong!?"

"Wahahahaaaaaa, Mama leave!"

"Caaaaww, what?"

"Guue, no, Ma-Mother no leave! Dark person say no leave!"

Lucy calmed down. "...Wihah." She just confused herself. She did that sometimes.

Seeing her commotion was bothering Mama and Papa as they tried to talk to the tree person, Lucy wandered a little ways away, as the humans spoke.

Walking up to a still standing tree, she looked up and saw

LITTLE BIRDS!

She stopped herself a moment. Careful.

"Wahiha," she began calmly.

"Cheeeep big land thing danger? Big land thing danger?" chirped various voices from the tree.

"No, no danger, no danger," she tried to explain. "Lucy want learn."

"Big land thing no danger? Cheep?"

They were staying put! Better than last time!

"How Lucy fly?"

The birds above all answered after a moment. "Flap find wind glide flap more tilt cheep!"

"Lucy try flap," she said, flapping her wings and creating a small gust.

"Flap harder flap harder cheep!" was their answer.

So Lucy flapped harder, and harder, and the wind began to make the tree bow. But Lucy remained grounded.

"CHEEP DANGER FLY AWAY DANGERFLYAWAY CHEEEEP!" The little birds flew away!

"Lucy, no, come back!" Papa yelled after her.

"WAAAAH NO, NO FLY AWAY, TELL LUCY!" she cried, stomping quickly after them. "LUCY WANT FLY!"

And then she ran into one of Papa's green walls.

=====

It was the last night before the Wave of Calamity.

Which was Malty's new concern since learning Mother's shadows weren't going to take her children away. To be certain, that old concern being resolved was indeed a major relief! Enough so to let her ignore some of the potential implications of the shadow’s message that she had pointedly not inquired about!

While Naofumi had been able to make decent potions due to practice and some bonuses from the Shield, they had not upgraded their armor since they set out.

And the best pick for that was in Castletown.

As they walked, she had looked up at her children, now fully adult height (and then some, in Lucy's case).
They grew up so fast. Where had the time gone?

It seemed like barely weeks ago, they were hatchlings, just responding to their names for the first time.

She stopped a second. That was literally just a couple weeks ago. Filolials grew fast with a Cardinal Hero in the party.

Were her children going to turn out like half-mad wartime demihumans?

She momentarily mourned Ran-Fi, Hal, and Lucy's robbed childhoods, before Naofumi stopped right behind her, expectantly waiting for her to proceed.

Right, armor for Naofumi and herself, a better or spare weapon for herself (a spear or lance would work well if she was mounted), some padded armor pieces from Whats-his-smith ("Erhard.") to put on to her children, and any other last minute preparation.

The three birds were strong for their levels. Mid twenties, and hitting like mid thirties.

But they weren't royal.

It was the last night before the Wave of Calamity. Their errands were done. Naofumi decked out in his scary looking new armor, herself with metal plates added to and around her leathers, and that amplifying bracer repaired finally.

She actually looked like she had a consistent set of armor finally, despite the foundation still being a bunch of unrelated best-of-breed leather parts from her past adventuring.

Naofumi then reminded her of her promise of getting magical affinities checked and basic magic figured out.

Uh.

Whoops.

Honestly, too late now to actually learn any magic properly. After the wave. Definitely. "And please, remind me!"

"Of course, Your Majesty." Breaking out the royal terms. He was definitely annoyed.

Ran-Fi and Hal were fully grown, one head taller and one head shorter respectively than Naofumi. Ran-Fi was equipped with some spare half-plate jousting armor (no custom order yet; Malty would amend that after the wave), but Hal was better kept light, just some leathers.

Lucy had steadied to about twelve-foot tall, and Cardinals knew how or why she was so big this fast. (Technically higher level or not, she couldn't blame Shadow-I-Daresay for being a bit jittery.) She had tower shields belted together as a stopgap measure. Malty would be commissioning another custom set later.

But they weren't royal.

It was the last night before the Wave of Calamity. Her children were ready.
They were smart. They were deadly. They would make it through, she was certain.

But they weren't royal.

They were...

But they weren't...

It was the last night before the Wave of Calamity.

And Malty's mind was stuck in an endless cycle, worrying about what could go wrong, and what they had done to prepare.

Dammit, I'm normally so good at ignoring my problems and dread for the future...

She looked out to the stables just outside her inn room, where her three children were asleep.

They would fight. They would win. They would make it through tomorrow.

Four Cardinals, Seven Stars, please.

Chapter Text

Today was the day.

They were as ready as they could be.

With a flash of light, they arrived at...

Riyute? Lute? Light metal mining town.

Spear, Sword, and Bow ran off up a hill towards the boss, after signaling for the knights to defend the town, and Malty was ready to join them.

But Naofumi guided them down toward the town.

"Wait, what?" Malty spoke up. "Why aren't we going to the boss?"

Naofumi responded. "Motoyasu, Ren, and Itsuki have the boss covered, but Riyute isn't going to be standing by the time whatever defenders get there!"

"Guue!" Ran-Fi agreed.

Malty felt she had missed something, but had to agree three heroes' presence should handle the boss just fine.

And besides, normal wave monsters were less deadly than the wave boss, so Malty wouldn't object.

Malty swiftly got astride Ran-Fi. "Forward! Let's clear out the town!" Time to put that Cavalier class to work.

Naofumi hopped on an Air Strike Shield and from there onto Lucy, careful not to fall off, not securely mounted as Malty was. Hal followed discreetly behind.

As they arrived, the town was swarming with swift-flying wasps from the wave, the first creatures to arrive. Panicked villagers were still trying to get indoors, or fend off the bugs with farming implements.

The bugs made for small, fast moving targets. Upon Ran-Fi, she was able to charge them down and strike them with her sword after a few tries (the lance couldn't swing the arcs she needed), and Hal looked to be piercing a few with well-placed pecks, but Lucy was hopeless at catching them.

"Wahahahah! WAHIHA!" she trilled in frustration, until one of Naofumi's shields cut off the escape for one, allowing her to squash it against the glowing barrier.

Not sustainable, as she understood the resource cost of making them compared to the length of the wave.

"Naofumi, save your stamina! There is a lot more wave coming! Sorry, Lucy!"

Furthermore, as they were trying to cover a whole town, they were going to need to split up; villagers were all over the town.

Malty and Ran-Fi were best suited to evacuating them, starting with picking up some of the stragglers here. Naofumi took Hal and Lucy to continue fighting.

The wasps were roughly under control, with Naofumi grabbing most of their attention, but more monsters were arriving. Shambling zombies; slow, but durable.

Ran-Fi was faster by a country mile, and could easily duck around as they looked for people.

They soon found a man in a bandana with a pitchfork, fighting off a zombie.

Malty's lance was at the ready. "Like we practiced, Ran-Fi."

"Guue!" Agreed.

Malty's feet held tight in the foot placements on Ran-Fi's jousting armor, and they charged.

Her Cavalier class ability activated, adding Ran-Fi's stats to her own. Mediocre for most, this ability scaled up very well if you had a strong mount, and Ran-Fi definitely counted.

The walking corpse never stood a chance, impaled, and then torn apart, re-slain in an instant, armor be damned.

"Get on, we're leaving!" she called to the man.

Rather than get on, as seemed obvious, he turned around and yelled, "Ann, Sybil! Come out and get on!"

A woman and a girl emerged from an adjacent house, both wearing panicked, but hopeful expressions as they saw her. Ran-Fi lowered and Malty pulled them up.

But jousting armor wasn't made for passengers; the woman and child took the last of the space.

"I'll be back!" Malty promised the man as Ran-Fi sped away.

While carrying passengers, they couldn't charge safely, but Ran-Fi was still agile enough to get through the shambling undead and insects.

She came back for the man, and back and forth through the hoards for many others. on the wave still drove, getting harsher and harsher. A zombie got through her guard and bit her arm before Ran-Fi could pry it off, and she was injured enough to drink a potion.

Even Naofumi's cooking talent couldn't make them taste anything but vile.

Worse, there were some even stronger monsters arriving. A few particular zombies were giant. After several lance charges and near miss dodges to take out one, they were both panting. "Maybe save the next one for Lucy."

"Guue," Ran-Fi agreed.

All well and good, until a few passes later, she heard screams coming from a building that another such giant was approaching, dragging along a club that looked to be part of another local house.

Malty looked around, trying to find Lucy's group, which shouldn't be that hard of a task, honestly, but the village, and wave, were expansive.

But recognizing the large hoard being pulled in one place, and the watchtower in the town center getting knocked over, she suspected Lucy, Hal, and Naofumi had their talons and hands full.

Frankly, she was now thankful to be getting relatively thin swarms where she was.

Honestly, Malty thought it was too big of a risk. She motioned for Ran-Fi to move on.

But Ran-Fi seemed to stop a moment.

"Gue?" She looked back in surprise.

"We could barely fight one before," she explained, "and we're getting more exhausted as we go."

Ran-Fi considered a moment.

They heard another voice scream from the house.

Ran-Fi stopped considering, and charged.

Malty barely had time to get ahold of her bird and her lance before they were upon the giant, striking deeply, but losing the lance in its chest.

Ran-Fi jumped back, and Malty prepared her Zweite Firebolt, hoping to take it out with less risk. "As source of thy power, I, the First Princess..."

A close swipe almost interrupted her, as the giant showed the surprising reach it got from the makeshift club, but she kept the chant going. Just as she was finishing, Ran-Fi got in a good peck, and she followed it up with her "...Zweite Firebolt!", sending the great zombie leaning back.

But still not down; this one was higher level than the last. It managed to use its momentum from being struck to start swinging around the club.

Ran-Fi didn't have the footing to spring out of the way yet. "Duck!" cried Malty.

Dutiful, obedient Ran-Fi disobeyed her for the second time in a minute.

She did not duck. She bucked.

Malty was launched out of her foothold and seat, just over the swinging club, but Ran-Fi was knocked away, breaking through a wall of the house.

"Ran-Fi!" Dammit, Naofumi, she's picking up your bad habits!

"Guue!" A... relatively healthy sound. Good, it had knocked her around, as even an armored filolial could be deceptively light, Lucy notwithstanding, but hadn't gotten much through her defense.

But that zombie had hit her daughter, and was going to fry.

Scrambling to her feet after her sudden landing on her seat, she began her chant again and directed her hands, more magic channeled and a more complete chant, strafing and keeping distance as she did so. "As source of thy power, I, the First Princess and Filolial Regent Malty Melromarc, Mother of Ranseur-Filo, Halberd, and Lucerne, command thee! Decipher the laws of nature and focus heat to incinerate my foe! Zweite Firebolt!"

The gigantic zombie was engulfed and finally reduced to dust, dropping Malty's scorched lance. She didn't have time to admire her handiwork or lament her weapon; more wave monsters were coming, and she needed to check on Ran-Fi.

Then, she heard a creaking sound. And a snapping sound. And the building began to collapse, the same racket she had heard years ago, now upon Ran-Fi.

"Gue-ee-uue." That sound, was not healthy. Why, why didn't she run to Ran-Fi when she was knocked away!?

She tried to pull up the rubble, but it was heavy. It budged, but not enough, and her baby complained loudly.

She looked around, she called out, "Naofumi, Lucy, Hal!"

But they weren't close enough to see or hear her over the rabble of monsters still present. Still closing on them. Why did they split up again!? Why were they at this house!?

Her sword at the ready, and sadly ignoring another whimpering "guue", she turned around and cut through a zombie, taking its head clean off.

But just beyond the edge of town, she saw soldiers. Melromarc's knights, finally here to defend the town!

"Help! We need help here!" she called out to them. One turned to them, having heard her, and shouted something she couldn't make out from here. They shuffled a bit and chanted something.

Wait, what were they- Multiple fireballs rose from the group, and began arcing down toward



herself



and Ran-Fi.




Naofumi wasn't near her.

Her shield wasn't there,
her Shield wasn't there,
and Ran-Fi and her were going to burn and Lucy and Hal and Naofumi would be alone and-



No.

Ran-Fi wouldn't burn.

"Stay down!" she called, and spread herself over where Ran-Fi was buried. Hoping that somehow, someway, she could block the fire from reaching Ran-Fi.

Fuck, I'm picking up his bad habits, too, aren't I?

She could feel the heat from the incoming spells now.

"I love you." ...Why didn't I say that before now?

Malty, you silly birdbrain.








"Mama!"

Ranseur-Filo screamed, metal shredded, and rubble went flying.

She was

fluffier?

than Malty remembered, and her armor strewn about in pieces.

She was immediately picked up and set on the bird's back, alongside two children she didn't recall seeing until just now, and they were off.

Looking back, she saw the fire rain down and incinerate the land they were on a moment ago.

Then, she heard Lucerne. Loudly. "WAHAHIHIHAHAHA!"

The blue and grey-black bird was further back, also near burning wreckage. She was now only describable as massive, stomping down presumably upon other wave monsters on a beeline toward a specific fiery area.

Was that where Naofumi was?

Finally, her mind started to catch up.

Her father's, mother's, country's soldiers had just tried to assassinate her and her party.

She and Ran-Fi had almost died.

Ran-Fi had just grown larger. And significantly stronger. As had Lucy. And she'd bet Father's Cane that Hal had as well, if less immediately obviously.

And she could feel an aura from Ran-Fi. The royal filolial's aura.

But, as she and Ran-Fi rode toward the evacuated villagers, one thing somehow outshone everything else in her mind.





Ran-Fi had called her "Mama".

=====

Naofumi Iwatani couldn't visualize what a "Wave of Calamity" really meant before today.

The blood red, boiling sky dropping an endless invasion deadly monsters made an unforgettable mental image.

But visuals aside, he, Lucy, and Hal had a job to do. Villagers with pitchforks tried to fend off insect and undead, but were being pushed back.

"I'll draw attention, you two clear them!" he instructed their birds, leaving himself to take the hits.

He found he really didn't like them taking hits he could've instead.

The mob of monsters was quickly on him as he barged his way through the crowd. Lucy kicked holes right through zombies, while Hal darted in and out to pick off any that slipped through.

Keeping an eye on Malty and Ran-Fi in the distance, they were doing fine.

But the wave kept coming, and soon he had no way to keep track of everything going on. It was just starting to finally clear up again when he heard Malty's firebolt going off, much louder than ever before.

And then the knights arrived.

And tried to set them on fire.

Not believing what was happening for a moment, he only a fraction of a second to decide his course of action.

"Erste Shield!" Lucy was shielded. "Hal, get back!" Hal was out of the way unlike he and Lucy who were deep in monsters, and he quickly, jumped further away.

He would have to tank it and hope for the best.

He tensed, raised his shield, and the fire was upon him. His world lit up in heat and


pain.


Keep it together! You're the shield! The tank! You can survive this!

"WAHAHIHIHAHAHA!" Lucy was out there screaming, but he couldn't see through the fire; did his Erste Shield hold?

He could feel his limbs shaking. He could see his HP dropping out of the corner of his eye.

But the barrage of flames ended, and Naofumi did not.

...In fact, most of his life remained. The big fireball barrage was... kind of weak, actually, for all that the nerves in his skin disliked it.

Finally getting his wits around him, Naofumi saw a giant blue filolial head right in front of his face.

Lucerne was unharmed.

Lucerne was even bigger.

"Papa, are you okay?" asked the filolial in a concerned voice.

"I'm alright, just a bit- wait what?"

"Pops!" called another concerned voice. Halberd was here, maybe slightly bigger than before, but... sleeker, was the term he could use.

And with some white feathers across his chest, vaguely looking like he was wearing a suit.

"I can... understand you now?" He looked down at the shield. Had it done something? Or was it the birds' evolution?

"You can!?" cried two filolials.

Naofumi slowly started to laugh. A few seconds ago, he was preparing to die. Now he had emerged from a firestorm hardly worse for the wear, and hearing birds talk to him. Maybe he really had fallen into a coma in that library; the world was certainly getting more dreamlike.

"Oh. Was someone down there?" mockingly asked a smug voice. Naofumi had almost forgotten the shitstains that had just caused this whole thing.

He looked up at a soldier in the same armor he had seen around the castle, more decorated than the others a bit behind and presumably under his command. Many of whom, incidentally, were looking very uneasy since finding out they had just been used to attack a Cardinal Hero. "We just saw a hoard of monsters and saw fit to destroy it." Like fuck he couldn't see Lucy!

So, he definitely deserved retribution, and potentially some subset of his soldiers and casters. But they weren't likely to remain an active threat without the plausible deniability of the wave swarm, and actually had turned out to be less significantly less dangerous than expected. Did the birds recognize that? He eyed Lucy.

"Lucy, hold," he commanded, then loudly enough for the soldiers, "This is Lucy; she is a filolial. And a member of my party."

"Ah, I thought we just hadn't been thorough enough with our mages' barrage," the man continued. Naofumi had had quite enough of this man before his first sentence, and each subsequent one was driving him further in the hole, but he had to maintain calm, for Lucy and Hal.

...Where was Hal, anyway?

He saw a shadow of movement in a tree near the fancy soldier.

"Hal, no! Erste Shield!" Hal's beak stopped short of striking the floating green shield.

"You saw it, the beast attacked me! Engage!" called the fancy soldier, and many, but not all, of the soldiers drew spears.

"No! Hal, get back here!"

"The Shield Devil's monster, is it!?" the fancy soldier continued. Oh, he might've actually showed off what he really was with that line. "Then kill him!"

Many, but not all, of the soldiers that drew their weapons pressed forward, though definitely with second thoughts.

"Hal, Lucy, back!" The birds had an air of anger and reluctance, but returned to his side, Hal leaping past guards starting to encircle. Naofumi ran in between the birds and soldiers; he had to get ahold of this situation, now. "One, they haven't touched you. Two, we are here defending the town from the wave. Three, we have so far succeeded in that, and are quite ready to fight more."

The fancy soldier and many, but not all, of the soldiers that were pressing forward a moment ago, stayed firm.

"Four, anyone who does not attack us further will not be harmed. Five, my party also includes First Princess Malty Melromarc." Many, but not all, of the soldiers that were firm a moment ago stood their ground despite the implied threats.

Lucy stomped once as a show of aggression, talons striking the ground with a loud THUMP, and creating a proportionate cloud of dust.

"Six," Naofumi labeled.

Many, but not all, of the soldiers standing their ground kept their nerves about them at the intimidation of the gigantic bird.

"What are you waiting for? Attack!" commanded the fancy soldier, making no move to do so himself.

Many, but not all, of the soldiers who had kept their nerves at Lucy's demonstration marched forward.

Which was just like four of them now. Naofumi and Lucy prepared for a fight, and the readying soldiers looked in fear at the feathered colossus and the legendary hero.

Hal had ducked out of sight again, though.

"Gack!" The fancy soldier slumped over. Alive or unconscious, not immediately obvious to Naofumi. Hopefully alive; this man may be proof for a wider conspiracy.

All of the soldiers stopped and stared. Hal had just pecked the back of their commanding officer's helmet in.

Finally, one soldier, one of the first to stop, came down to check. "Captain Bertolt's alive, but out cold," he reported. Then he looked around. "You all saw it, right? A monster got him from behind."

After a short time, there was a general murmuring of agreement.

Then another giant zombie showed up.

"Erste Shield!" Naofumi defended some of the soldiers who were about to be clobbered. "The wave isn't over, keep it together!"

The soldiers began fighting back, and reorganizing to defend the town and support the other parties at the boss.

Naofumi decided they had done a decent job teaching their flock restraint.

But for now, they, too, needed to get back to fighting the wave monsters, who had begun massing again after the fire.

Those poor zombies wouldn't know what hit them.

=====

Another group of soldiers was also meeting with the target of their fire spells.

"Who gave the order to fire on Ran-Fi and I?" Malty asked.

She looked back and forth across the squad of armored soldiers.

No obvious captain helmet or pauldrons. No clear leadership.

And they were apparently hard of hearing, not catching Malty's question, or Ran-Fi's un-birdly growling. Malty obligingly tried to accommodate them.

"WHO GAVE THE ORDER TO FIRE ON RAN-FI AND I!?"

She started a silent chant and her hand lit up, in case they were fully and not just partly deaf.

"C-c-c..." One of them, somewhere towards the back, was trying to give an answer.

Slowly.

"C-captain Bertolt, Your Majesty!"

"And where is this captain?" Should she try and remember the name for later?

Nah, she would just ensure she didn't need to know it. A new Dead Fucker to add.

A few hands pointed toward another group of guards, on a hill a bit above where Lucy, Hal, and Naofumi were.

"H-he ordered us to split and cast on the other concentration, Your Majesty," explained the stuttering one.

"...Did you not see or hear me, the obvious human, waving for you?" she addressed the mages of the formation.

"I was in back, Your Majesty!" called a voice from in back of the squad. "I only cast when others had started, trusting their target!"

Ran-Fi approached the mages at Malty's direction. "So, who spotted for targeting, and who started casting firsSHAH?"

Ran-Fi spun around suddenly, taking Malty's hanging interrogation along, and bit down, hard, on an arm that was extended toward them, from a now screaming mage near the front of the formation.

She spit back out a misshapen lower arm and a faintly tinted dagger.

Poison.

The armored soldiers, smart enough to at least not ignore the second assassination attempt on the kingdom's First Princess in five minutes to occur in front of them, quickly converged on the mage and held him down.

"Ran-Fi, spit! Spit everything out, NOW!" Malty, meanwhile, pulled a vial from her pack that Naofumi had prepared, while Ran-Fi spat and gagged.

Her daughter saw the vial and couldn't resist making a face. "I know, they taste terrible, but you need it to make sure that dagger's poison doesn't kill you."

Despite the faces, Ran-Fi quaffed the antidote.

In the meantime, the soldiers had bound (and tourniqueted) the still somewhat screaming Dead Fucker Who Tried to Murder Ran-Fi and Me. Look at that, they had brains and survival instincts after all. She turned to address the soldiers. "You're here now, so get into town and get clearing out the last monsters while I go talk to your captain." Potentially with the point of a lance.

"Yes, Your Majesty!"

Wait, no, her lance was a loss after that big zombie earlier. Point of a rapier, then.

=====

Malty found the captain to be not particularly talkative, unlike Hal and Lucy. The guards emphatically stated the captain was taken out by a monster.

With no further leads, Malty decided it was wisest to regroup with Lucy, Hal and Naofumi in case of further treachery, but ultimately, the rest of the wave defense continued smoothly, and now with accompanying, understandable chatter with her three royal filolial children.

Finally, the sky returned to normal, the other three heroes having defeated the wave boss.

Riyute or Lute was damaged, but the casualties were minimal thanks to their efforts; the worst damage was from the knights' fire magic.

As much as Malty wanted to just bask in the glory, wonder and joy of her birds, she needed desperately to contact her father or mother.

But.

One more thing she needed to do. Today. Now.

She gathered her three children, big and bigger.

"I love you!" she told them all.

Chapter Text

There was a celebratory feast scheduled at the castle for the completion of the wave, so they were headed back to Castletown regardless.

The morning after the wave, though, something else happened with the birds.

"Good morning, Mother."

Malty slowly opened her eyes at the sound of the familiar voice. "Good morning, Ran-FiiiEEEEEE!?"

Before her stood not a bird, but a young, human girl with long, blond hair, blue eyes, soft, fair features, a pair of pink-white wings coming from her back, and no clothes.

"Mother?" the girl asked with Ran-Fi's voice.

"...Is that you, Ran-Fi?"

The girl looked confused. "...Who else can I be?"

"When did you get like this?" How had her beautiful baby bird daughter turned into this winged person?

"While I slept?" Ran-Fi answered, face showing an expression of confused recollection.

Malty supposed she was still beautiful in her own way, but she still needed to ask. "Do you think you can change back?"

Ran-Fi's expression became one of concentration.

And then one of a filolial. "I did it!"

"Yes, you did!" Malty celebrated.

Then, from nearby, she heard familiar voices.

"Papa!"

"AIYEEEE!"

======

After some instruction to their flock on propriety, and letting Naofumi's face return from beet red to a normal color, they were on their way again, with a mixture of form choices in tow.

Ran-Fi was in bird form, carrying Malty, out of choice. She liked to carry her mother, and had stated as much.

Hal was in human form with a loose fitting cloak, carefully draped over his small body to not mess with his black wings. He was soft featured like Ran-Fi's human form, but with shorter, darker hair, that looked like Malty imagined Naofumi's would if he ever combed it straight. He was overjoyed to have a lighter, more compact body, and wanted to practice moving quietly and quickly in it.

Lucy was also in bird form, out of necessity. Her human form was another soft featured, immature one, with long, blue, messy hair and grey wings this time, but unlike the others, was 10 feet tall, nearly the size of her pre-advance bird self. They outright did not have cloth in their group to properly keep her covered.

So, she remained a 20 foot bird, with Naofumi carefully staying balanced on her back.

Whichever form they took, though, their travels now had three curious, talkative, and understandable new voices, and Malty and Naofumi were tasked with answering them all.

"Wahahiha! Why do people wear clothes?" asked Lucy, her bird call still coming through. Propriety, shame of nakedness, politeness, explained Malty.

"Why did that person try to hurt Mother?" asked Ran-Fi. Malty explained they didn't really know who sent the stray caster, but devoid of other clues, they suspected Church of the Three Heroes.

"Wahi. Can Lucy eat a church?" asked Lucy. Malty explained "no".

"Why did those people try to hurt Pops?" asked Hal. Naofumi explained they were biased against the Shield, and more or less why. Given the captain's remark about the "Shield Devil", this one sounded like the church again.

"Other birds fly. How can Lucy fly?" asked Lucy. Naofumi gave an explanation about aerodynamics and mass that Malty mostly followed.

"What's a 'square-cube law'?" asked the 20-foot tall bird again, looking for more clarity on the man's earlier explanation. Naofumi gave an explanation about math and biology that Malty mostly followed.

"Guue. Can we get something to pull?" asked Ran-Fi, her bird call also occasionally coming out.

"Something like that wagon back in Lute?" asked Hal. Malty declared they were planning to get a carriage.

"Or was it Riyute?" asked Ran-Fi. Naofumi clarified it was Riyute.

"Wahi? It wasn't Root?" asked Lucy. Ran-Fi clarified it was Riyute.

"Is that an usapil?" asked Hal. It was, and Hal quickly decloaked, went bird-form and killed it.

"May we stop for lunch?" asked Ran-Fi.

"Can Pops cook usapil stew for lunch?" asked Hal, producing the one from before, and several others Malty hadn't seen him hunt.

"Can Lucy eat a square cube?" asked Lucy.

"Birds, we are literally going to a party full of food right now," explained Naofumi. "Please wait a bit."

They picked up the pace a bit after that, something fairly easy to do for a party consisting mostly of filolials.

======

They did arrive in Castletown in time. Of course, to attend a party, Ran-Fi, Hal, and Lucy needed nice clothes. Or fitting clothes. Or modesty-covering clothes.

Without any custom orders.

Immediately.

While all three were impatiently waiting to eat.

The tailor they found was ecstatic to make garments for the shapeshifting filolials, but she of course didn't have the magic thread on hand, and Malty explained that they also didn't have time.

Ultimately, they got a small open back dress for Ran-Fi, a small modified-to-be-open back suit for Hal, and a very large full length and then some ball gown, also newly open back, newly sleeveless, which just barely fit Lucy as a relatively short skirt.

As long as they stayed in human form, this would do.

...I feel like that was foreshadowing.

The birds were plenty excited to see the castle.

And visibly much less excited to see the various guards and soldiers there.

"You realize, the most important, life-defining, traumatic moment in their lives is when Melromarc knights tried to burn them and their family to death during the wave," said Naofumi.

Malty began to think that this whole thing was maybe not as good of an idea as she previously thought it was.

Still, they enjoyed the food, if not the attention they all, and the giant Lucy in particular, received.

Things were going relatively well, but after dropping her children and Naofumi by the food, Malty still needed to get to her Father, disregarding the festivities, because even she recognized trying to walk into the church and burn it down personally on half-baked suspicion was not going to work.

It turned out, he was heading to her, for the same reasons, having gotten a report of some form as well.

Away from any obvious listeners, and she explained to him what had happened during the wave.

He looked pale for a bit, then lost in thought awhile, motioning her to return to the party for awhile, and following her as she did.

"Malty," he began as they walked, "Captain Bertolt and Johann, the two you identified," (That was Dead Fucker, apparently.) "were reported killed in the events of the wave."

...Shit. "What about their squads?"

"Otherwise alive and relatively unharmed, as I understand."

"Those two were alive, but unconscious."

Official reports stated their two adversaries had died of their injuries. Someone with pull had wanted them silent, and didn't mind their existence being revealed to do it, as long as their provable identity was secure.

The assassin or assassins (Bertold may have just been intentionally reckless and trying to manufacture an excuse, rather than having premeditated anything, unlike Dead Fucker) had failed their tasks, or severely overplayed, in attempting to kill a Cardinal Hero and a princess. If they were alive and subjected to a slave seal, they would give away info.

Without the proof, they couldn't go directly to the culprit and bring the crown down on them like a hammer, but with Malty surviving to report and the inconsistency, the king could start figuring out how to start rooting out the problem.

That said, Malty was now feeling paranoid about not being near her children.

Father was wise and... usually made good decisions about things like this that went way over Malty's head. He was definitely looking concerned about this, and accompanied her following the discussion.

She found Lucy and soon thereafter Ran-Fi, both having learned the about the wonderful abilities of arms, hands, and fingers for purposes of food holding, about to eat some kind of meat shank.

They saw her, and the king behind her.

"Mama, try it! Lucy likes it!" The taller bird person offered her one of the two shanks she was gnawing on.

"Lucy? Mama?" said the incredulous voice behind her. Hold on, did she leave something out of what she said to Father?

"Thank you Lucy, but I can get my own."

"I thought you had filolials, not... demihumans," her father hissed.

"Lucy is a fililolal!" Lucy declared

"Filolial," corrected Ran-Fi.

"Lucy is a filolial!" Lucy declared.

Her father looked incredulous, but seemed willing to accept it.

"Lucy will show you!"

"Wait, no, Lucy, your-!" She and Ran-Fi tried to stop her.

Riiiiiiip.

A 20-foot bird now occupied the space, the halves of a formerly nice-looking ball gown hanging off of her wings.

"Lucyyyyy, the dress!" Ran-Fi cried.

Lucy looked down at them, and then the half dress on her left side, and had the decency to look embarrassed. "Oh no, Lucy forgot! Will turn ba-"

"NONONONO NO do not! Stay a bird for the rest of the night, Lucy!" Malty hopefully managed to stop this from getting worse, as Lucy shook the scrap cloth from her wings.

She turned to her equally bewildered father. "They can, well, turn into a humanoid form, and back," she explained, perhaps unnecessarily.

"So I see," he said.

Ran-Fi looked at the king. "Pardon me, but who are you?"

Thank you for learning some proper Medean grammar and manners, Ran-Fi! They weren't perfect, but they were superior to anything Lucy or Hal had.

"I am King Aultcray Melromarc, regent of the nation, and Malty's father," he explained.

"Mama's Papa?" Lucy asked, neck lowered way down to participate in the conversation.

"Yes, Mama's Papa," Malty answered.

"Can you cook?" asked Lucy.

"I am not, incapable of cooking," he answered, a bit off balance by Lucy's non-sequitur, "but I rarely do so, given my position as king."

"...Is a king above a hero?" wondered Lucy.

...Where is she going with this? "It's... complicated? In some ways, a king is above a hero, in others, a hero is above a king, like comparing swords and spears," Malty explained as well as she could off the top of her head, before realizing Lucy didn't have a very instinctive understanding of the differences between swords and spears.

Lucy looked at Malty with a fearful expression. "Waaaah... ...Does Papa have to stop cooking for us?"

...Oh. "No, Naofumi is allowed to cook whenever you or he wants," Malty answered.

She heard a cough, and turned to see Father with an... intense expression, before he marched off with purpose she did not understand.

...Did she make some social misstep there?

It was a short time later that her father made a proclamation to the party.

"Due to the Shield's failure to intervene when his party member, my daughter, Malty S. Melromarc, was the target of an assassination, she will be removed from his party and remanded to protective custody by the Melromarc army."

What.

Father, what are you doing!? I need help against probably-church-based intervention, not to be grounded!

But she was too stunned to actually yell it.

"WHAT!?" "WAHI!?" Ran-Fi and Lucy had no such issue.

"Her filolials, Ranseur-Filo, Halberd, and Lucerne, will join her," he continued.

That was... slightly better, she admitted, but this still seemed like an extreme measure, and counterproductive to fighting the waves, and to her and her flock's safety concerns.

"You can't take Father away!" Ran-Fi yelled.

"Wahihaha! No, Papa isn't leaving!" Lucy said, stomping.

Also, that.

"Father, they need Naofumi!" she explained.

"Malty, I need you safe, and your birds can be safe with you," he tried to mollify her, but she was having none of it.

Naofumi, too, had his own objection, as he walked up to her father.

"Because I was unable to effectively stop an assassination attempt by infiltrators hiding amongst Melromarc soldiers against Malty, you are removing her from my party to be put in protective custody by... Melromarc soldiers?"

Father probably meant well, but when Naofumi put it that way, Malty had to agree, yes, Father was being an absolute dumbass with this declaration.

"I-I... You... Shield..." Father took a bit to figure out his plan.

Then someone else appeared next to her father. She recognized this one, the same Shadow-I-Daresay from before. She spoke to king a moment, before he turned a bit... pale.

Then someone else stepped up, from out of nowhere.

"Naofumi, you are too weak to protect Ranseur-Filo and Malty!" accused the Spear.

While that opened several arguments in Malty's brain, the first one was simply: What about Hal and Lucy?

Ran-Fi herself and Lucy began shouting down the other hero and defending Naofumi.

Father was quick to speak up. "The Spear Hero, Motoyasu shall duel the Shield Hero!" What again. "If Motoyasu wins, then Malty and her filolials will join his party."

All of her what. "No, this is stupid! Spear has a full party!" But he ignored her. He was on some other idea, Cardinals knew what, and was trying to push it through.

...That saying needs a rework, because Naofumi sure doesn't know.

She looked at the Spear (Moto... something), and saw a... disturbingly happy(?) expression.

Naofumi had a look of cold fury.

Ran-Fi looked... distressed? Revolted? Lucy looked confused and fearful.

Hal looked








She couldn't find Hal. Come to think of it, she hadn't seen him since she separated to talk to her father.




...Shit again.

Guards cleared the courtyard, and her objections to her surprise reassignment were put on hold.

Naofumi spoke to her two located children. She didn't catch exactly what, but they were calmed down.

She wasn't sure how Naofumi thought he would be able to win this, but she had to have faith. He was strong, damn strong, and a hero. But so was Moto... Moto... Spear.

Forget it; let Naofumi win his fight his way. She needed to find Hal. Malty would wear down her father eventually, if that was what she must do.

"Hal!" she called over the din. To no avail. She began pushing through the crowd.

"Did your world have the story about the ultimate spear and the unbreakable shield?" Spear began in a mocking tone.

Naofumi, deceptively fast from chasing filolials, moved past polearm range and into what Malty could best describe as kissing range, aside from Naofumi's expression.

"Is that the one where the shield got inside the spear's guard," Naofumi began in a serious, angry tone, stepping forward with every step back Motoyoto tried to take, "preventing it from having any leverage?"

"Get off me, damnit!" Motojojo scrambled back.

As the heroes waltzed around the courtyard, she kept searching.

The church wouldn't be so brazen as to attack in this crowd, right?

He was probably just performing that disappearing act again. Maybe, like usual, he was hunting an usapil, or climbing a tree...



Climbing.

She looked up.

Above, on a rafter at the open courtyard's edge.

Seven Stars, he's safe!

With the new face, it took her a moment to recognize his expression.

Then it hit her. It was his "I have a great idea" expression.

Standard Faubrey gold coin flip as to whether that idea was great, or terrible.

She gagged a moment, remembering that she very much disliked thinking about that place.

But regardless, Hal was preparing a drastic step.

Shit again again.

"Erste Shield!"

She looked back down and saw Motorola splayed right across a green wall.

"Second Shield!"

And then sandwiched between two green walls.

Motototo wiggled his limbs as much as he could, but that wasn't enough to make any kind of attack to break the shields. Naofumi calmly walked behind the spearman, and waited.

Well, one concern down. Now what's Hal about to do to put himself and others in immediate danger?

Hal was looking closely, very closely, but she didn't know at what exactly.

After a short time, Naofumi's first shield fell, and he immediately got his arms around his opponent's neck.

Spear tried to stab or slice with his polearm, but again had no leverage, and Naofumi was also deceptively strong, from wrangling filolials.

She saw movement below out of the corner of her eye, the kind she was taught from a young age to look for, to watch for.

Someone preparing a spell, to cast on Naofumi.

She called out. "Naofumi, behind-"

Hal jumped down, his suit tearing apart as he landed on the caster, in filolial form, and stopping the spell.

And drawing attention from nearby guards.

"GUUUEE!" Ran-Fi, too, was in filolial form, jumping down into the courtyard, and being struck by another wind spell, Malty gasping at the sight.

But still standing, and then jumping to retaliate against the caster, and sending the crowd away from the area.

And also drawing attention from guards.

"Don't touch them!" Malty commanded and/or screamed. "Naofumi, get Hal!" She herself ran to Ran-Fi, who was already hit once from the spell. Her sword not available, Malty was already starting to chant.

Weapons pointed at Ran-Fi by the Idiots On Thin Fucking Ice withdrew as Malty reached her, in deference to her authority.

Authority as a princess or as someone with a sizable fireball in hand, she did not care.

Naofumi, too, was out with Hal, his fight with Motomomo forgotten, and his dog-headed biting shield out, which had latched onto another Idiot, and drawn any spears away from Hal.

Lucy got up, whatever patience Naofumi had inspired in her gone as her siblings and parents got into a fight.

She leapt, a beautiful and, at her scale, terrifying acrobatic feat, landing in between their two groups, frantically cleared out of other guards or partygoers.

Some spears were out and pressing forward, some withdrawn and pulling back, and Lucy was starting to advance on both, her silly sounding trill now a vicious, booming roar.

Until.

"ORDER!" called out her father, with a voice of authority.

The chaos seemed to halt, at the one word.

His Seven Star Cane, up to now in storage, was in his hand, glowing brightly, for the first time in years.

It was a standoff for a moment. Malty looked around in a panic.

Her birds were looking around for any further threat, Hal and Ran-Fi still pounced on robed clergymen.

Lucy was eyeing the king, but had stopped her advance.

Spear was crouched over in the courtyard, trying to catch his breath.

Naofumi looked at her father with a hard look.

Father looked back with a near identical one.

After a long moment, the two seemed to come to a silent accord.

"The Shield Hero, Naofumi Iwatani, has won," Father declared. "Now, what just happened?"

Ran-Fi spoke up first. "Someone in a robe was casting a spell on Father, so I blocked it, then attacked him back."

The Dead Fucker she was standing on was still flailing, trying to get out, but not offering any voice of defense.

It wouldn't have saved him.

The Dipshit pinned by Hal, though, was not dead-to-rights like the former, and spoke up. "I was just watching the duel, your majesty, when this big filolial landed on me!"

Birdshit.

Hal spoke in response. "Caaw. Saw him pointing hands at Pops, like Mom does to make fire. Pounced him."

Lucy chimed in next. "King made Papa fight Stickman or he would be taken away. Papa told Lucy to trust Papa. Then church guy attacked Papa during the fight like Hal!"

Surprisingly, another less involved voice spoke up. "I did see the man the black bird landed on cast a spell, then try to cast another," the Bow hero said. "And the white bird-" Pink! It's subtle, but Ran-Fi is pink, not white! Look at the feather tips! "-pounced on someone who had definitely cast an impactful spell, which the bird blocked."

Disregarding his filolial identification skills, he had great eyesight and was observant. The Bow chose its champion well.

The king had a look of shame, and it wasn't for her this time. "Guards. Bring me these two priests," Father ordered. "Ranseur-Filo, Halberd, please release them."

The Idiots moved. The birds did not.

"Ran-Fi, Hal, let them go," Malty said.

Father would he handling the crest-enhanced interrogation personally of Dead Fucker and Dipshit, allowing for no chance for them to be disappeared like the attackers during the wave.

Malty sighed, her heartbeat returning to a relatively normal speed.

What a Cardinals-damned mess this turned out to be.

Chapter Text

After that whole farce, healing up Ran-Fi, and questioning some turbulent priests, the king distributed a reward for clearing the wave, including for defending Liyute.

Father, though, had gotten worried, and maybe paranoid, after the questioning.

The interrogation had unveiled... presumed orders from further up the church to separate Naofumi from his party.

For his part, Father apologized, profusely, for his part in unwittingly enabling the scheme, and generally being a dumbass. Somehow, he had been concerned about the Shield Hero getting into a relationship with her, and some unwise instincts had taken over from there.

Still stupid, though.

Her birds seemed somewhat mollified, but only with a limited trust of the man.

The priests were discounted by the church hierarchy as "too zealous in their beliefs", and "drastically misinterpreting orders". The Church of Three Heroes provided them a token additional monetary gift in apology, and for now, that was all Father could demand immediately, until further investigations could occur.

He went, himself, alongside them through the town, Seven Star Cane in hand. He kept an eye on them, rather than sending out more guards.

As he saw his daughter, and spoke with the party, his initially serious, almost angry expression seemed to fade.

Naofumi was wary of the man, but the ill will between the two was gone. Something about that duel, Naofumi's reaction to something Spear had said or done before it, and the standoff after had gotten through to both of them.

She'd need to ask about it later, if she remembered.

Father had to admit to her, after what he had seen and what Malty had reported, Pope Balmfrond, and his typically subservient priests, were getting out of control. Until he could wrangle the man and his church, there was a bit of danger in staying in one place for too long, even the castle.

Malty had felt an uncomfortably cold worry since the feast, since the wave, that only now she could identify with what he said. She was used to being out of it in the wilds, but she had always understood that, if everything went to the waves in her life, there was one place she could be safe.

And now there was no such place.

Father hugged her, and all the distance she had grown from him over the years seemed to collapse in an instant.

...Maybe there was a bit of a safe place, if it was narrower.

But Naofumi's party was, Father reluctantly agreed, probably about the actual safest place for her to be until the Three Heroes Church was brought to heel, moving unpredictably as adventurers do, and well-prepared for combat and impromptu ambushes.

So, they were going about their last business in town before heading out, before Father would go back to being King and helping rule this unruly nation.

They had a few key things to get.

First of all, a carriage. Covered, sturdy, with a decent weight to it, and adjustable pulling harness to accommodate all birds. Even Lucy. Oh, and reinforced to Q'Ten Lo and back. That was quickly purchased and would be ready for pickup near the gate.

New clothes that would survive shapeshifts. The seamstress had the skill to make them, but no magic thread. A sorceress in town could make some; put a pin in that. Besides the custom work, long cloaks that could be shrugged off, a functional, if informal, stopgap.

New armor for Ran-Fi. A custom order; they would have to pick it up later. Ran-Fi and Naofumi had worked out the basic design, pulling from some knowledge from the hero's home, and she had to admit, it all went over her head the first time. Guess we'll see what Erham comes up with when we get back. Until then, she did take a liking to a tower shield from Erhat's shop, so that was purchased, too, though it stayed here. This was going to be tied in with the transformation-ready clothes, Malty was told.

Oh, and Malty's lance was replaced.

Lucy had decided against wearing armor after Naofumi's physics lessons, and Hal was content with something to just hang the leathers on.

In the meantime, books. Books! Why?

One, to learn magic.

Her father began, "Malty, we did order crystal balls to-"

"We're doing this the right way, no shortcuts," she said, cutting him off. Learning a spell through a book meant being able to vary the chant.

A middle aged woman ran up to them to thank them for saving family in Rute, and offered to check their affinity.

Naofumi began, "Oh, thank you, I had forgotten to remind her." She heard a sigh from her father.

Malty knew her affinity already. Fire and wind. Perfect to specialize in collateral damage. There was a reason she had to find a grimoire in ancient script to pick up the precise Firebolt.

Ran-Fi, enhancement and wind. Hal, shadow and light. Lucy, earth and shadow, and she looked put out. Naofumi, healing and enhancement, also looking a little put out.

None of them up to learn her own Firebolt, she lamented, but she and Ran-Fi could learn wind together.

(Oh, and this woman was the sorceress who could make magic thread. Leave the pin in.)

Second relevance of the books, learning to read. A cornerstone for the first need.

A few simple books to help learn reading. Mother had hired tutors for her and Melty, but tutors were not known to galavant around on quests.

Third, and most importantly, diversity of life experiences.

Malty's plans for raising royal filolials had all made the seemingly reasonable assumption that, at the end of the day, however smart, powerful and beautiful they may be, they were still birds that did bird things and required only bird experiences.

So when three humans with wings were now reliant on her and looking for her guidance, she realized they were already far on a road she absolutely could not let her children reach the end of.

Filolials grew faster with experience, like demi-humans. Hence why her less-than-a-month-old children were walking, talking, asking questions, and making complex decisions, if not always good ones.

But, their whole short lives were on the road, hunting and foraging for food, killing monsters and the odd bandit or would-be assassin, and hardly interacting with any kind of organized society.

Her mind went back to past Siltvelt wars. Demi-humans grown just enough to carry a weapon would start fighting, starting with monsters like balloons, and ending with her countrymen, and proceeding to full adulthood in a couple years.

Full adulthood, full physical maturity, but, missing something.

Limbs can lengthen, muscles can grow, brains can expand, hormones can be produced, but leveling, despite being a process of gaining "experience", didn't generate any actual experiences.

War-grown demihumans didn't have a lifetime of learning how to live.

Didn't learn how to handle complex emotions, amplified by their new hormones.
Didn't learn how to resolve conflicts, risen from emotional responses.
Didn't learn how to live in a developed society of interpersonal conflict and cooperation.
Didn't know what there was in life and the world to be worth learning any of that.

Their entire formative years were spent learning to fight, being praised for becoming stronger and killing those weaker than them, and then arriving at adulthood, with nothing else.

Then, the war ends, as wars all eventually do, and all these maladapted, violent sociopaths return home and are lauded as war heroes, becoming the new leaders of their clans, cities, and nations.

Repeat every other generation for a century, and you get Siltvelt.

It was past time to enrich her children's lives. Arts, crafts, science, music, literature, social interaction, something, anything, besides wandering, eating, and killing.

Which, well, still needed to happen while the waves threatened them all, and while staying in one place was potentially dangerous.

So on the road, the first solution to come to mind? Books. Fiction, nonfiction, things to capture the imagination, spark interest, to show there is a world beyond their family, beyond the road, and monsters, and the few towns they stop at.

There is more to the world, to life. Most people didn't live to fight. If fight they must, then they fought to live. To meet people, see beautiful sights, eat delicious food, jump, dance, sing, create, find love, have children.

All sorts of things that Ranseur-Filo, Halberd, and Lucerne could well grow up not even knowing about if she wasn't careful.

So she would, at least for now, bring them stories of the world, the beautiful things it held, and hope she could show some of those things to them.

Explaining this to Father, he was quiet a long time, and then left them, saying he had something to do.

It wasn't until they arrived at their carriage later that she found out what he was doing.

Boxes she didn't pack, but did recognize. A box of toys, toys from when Malty herself was a child.

Simple musical instruments, including a flute Malty herself had played once upon a time.

A few blocks of wood and a whittling knive, one Malty had used once to make a crude carving of Billhook when she was younger. That, too, was present.

An expensive crystal ball with a recording of a theater play she saw when she was young, "I Want to be Your Canary". She was saying and singing (half-remembered) quotes and songs from it for weeks after.

Father was a wise general, and Father was a king, but Malty had to also remember.

Father was a father.

It helped make up for the one really bad mistake he made that one time that Malty spent a lot of her waking consciousness carefully ignoring.

With this last gift, they set out, off to adventure, to fight, to level up, but still to learn and find joys where they could.

And, to all three filolials excitement, particularly Ran-Fi who was pulling first, at great speed initially out the gate, making them harder to chase and track.

=====

Nominally (finally pulling out the pin from earlier), they were heading to find a rare kind of magic crystal, a kind used by the sorceress who told them their affinities, to make magic thread for the tailor, to make clothes for their flock.

As a default answer, Malty could just pull rank and say "I am the first princess; treasury, gimme the rock."

With King Aultcray just following them, that basically happened. Crystal requisitioned, fat pile of thread produced from each bird, and they were on their way.

But Father wasn't always one to indulge her indefinitely. The three outfits would all take considerable time, and the crystal in question, now attuned and shaped for magic thread rather than a more practical purpose, notably making battlestaves, would be missed.

The main known sources were dried up since the first wave.

So the deal was, their party would be returning with three more magic crystals themselves when picking up the completed clothing.

Malty figured Father just owed her the rock for that fiasco at the feast, but Naofumi had agreed faster than she could argue.

After some thought, it was a fortuitously roundabout quest with no clear destinations or deadlines, as heading directly toward anywhere too obvious would be more likely to get them ambushed.

Malty figured their party was quickly reaching "very hard to take out in an ambush" territory, but could agree to get across that vague line safely.

So essentially, meandering questing to Malty's eclectic choices of leveling locations it was, again. But now, accompanied by more things that make noise, and poking people everywhere they went to ask about magic crystals

Ran-Fi was still pulling the cart, dutifully, and now at a fairly normal speed, but clearly happily, Naofumi nominally directing. They had just dropped off some medicine in a small village for a random request. No word on crystals.

Malty, Hal, and with a bit of effort and flexibility, Lucy, were in the cart, all watching the crystal ball showing a recording of the theater play, "I Want to be Your Canary".

This version was from a different troupe than she remembered seeing before, probably specialized for crystal ball recordings.

Seeing it again, so much more of it made so much more sense than she remembered.

Poor vagabond Marcus's courting of Princess Cornelia really would seem like just an attempt to get rich quick to King Leo, who had only seen him sneaking into the castle; the scenes of the two of them building up a genuine love didn't happen where the king would see.

Prince Schneider really would seem well-meaning, and a necessary ally with the front of power and authority he put up. Others didn't know his land was poor for farming and that their silver mine had run dry.

Marcus and the knights of East Alexandria rode knight dragons, not filolials.

Cornelia didn't have a mount at all.

And Schneider didn't turn into a giant, purple octopus to fight Marcus.

...Some of this was a 12-year-old's overactive imagination, and probably not what was in the version she saw in her youth. Somewhere in her room, there was a "rewritten" version, "I Want to be Your Filolial", that Malty was going to need to burn next time she was there.



King Leo was trading his daughter's hand in marriage to Schneider to ensure his people's survival, securing an important alliance and immediate help at the cost of his daughter happiness some time in the future.


He was shown to be quietly agonizing over it, before finally making the decision, and seemed to be much softer on Cornelia ever since.





That










hit a little too close to home.



Fortunately, Malty was as practiced at ignoring her problems and worries as she was at looking like she was paying attention.

=====

They were along a cliffside road above a ravine.

The sky threatened rain, but as Hal, currently pulling, had proclaimed, "No cloud nor squall shall hinder us!"

Ran-Fi was inside, humanoid, whittling a block of wood, magic tomes set down for the moment. Hal pulled a surprisingly smooth carriage ride.

Lucy was outside, avian and sulking, as she followed along.

"Stupid elements... Lucy wants wind, or enhancement or... or something! Stupid rocks and shades are stupid..."

Malty and Naofumi had been trying to get her to practice reading, but the promise of magic that had worked for Ran-Fi and Hal fell flat for their big bird.

After a long time of silent consideration, Naofumi seemed to have an idea to get Lucy's attention.

He climbed aboard her via a floating green step and began to discuss.

"Earth is stone, sand, dirt. Shadow is absence of light," he began.

"Yes."

"Earth is the world you live on. Shadow is the sky above at night."

"Yes."

"Everything has a weight; everything is pulled down. If you pick up a stone, and let it go, it falls down to the ground." He hopped back down picked up a small rock and let it go. It clacked on the ground.

Lucy, swapping quick to human form and now draped in the loose cloak, used her hands to pick up a considerably larger rock. It landed with a crackling thump, breaking into pieces.

"Do you know what pulls it down?" asked Naofumi.

"Nothing?" Lucy responded. "Things just... fall? Otherwise, Lucy would fly!"

"But rocks don't move on their own otherwise," Naofumi continued. "What if I told you there was something that makes things fall?"

Malty's attention was being drawn from steering Hal, as was Ran-Fi's, half-carved tiny shield forgotten in her hands. This may some of that otherworldly knowledge.

Hal was still quietly singing Cornelia's soliloquy, and would get to hear it later if he asked.

"Lucy would kick it!" she responded to Naofumi's question angrily as she stomped once, a bit of dust rising around the human foot.

Naofumi got a devious smile. "You just did."

Lucy looked at him, head tilted in confusion.

"It's the ground. The earth itself. It pulls you down, along with everything else."

Lucy was suddenly full-size bird again, and began stomping frantically. "WahiHAHAHA! STUPID DIRT! Lucy hates you! Lucy wants another affinity!"

Hal stopped at "you're the starlight" to squawk in alarm. "CAAAAW STOP! Could fall over! Stomp less or big stupid bird breaks the cliff!"

Lucy restrained herself a bit Naofumi continued to explain. Everything had weight. Mass. Everything with a mass exerted a pull on everything else. The bigger the weight, the closer the thing, the bigger the pull.

The pull was called gravity. And on the earth, the earth's gravity was by far the strongest.

So within the concept of earth was, potentially, the very concept of weight, a key component of Lucy's earthbound circumstances.

It was... strange, and fascinating, honestly.

But Naofumi wasn't done.

"You know what else is pulled by gravity? Something you might not have even thought of as 'something'." He paused a time. "Light. Light can be pulled by gravity."

This was starting to go over her head, but she was listening transfixed. Hal knew where to go anyway, along with the lyrics. ...When did that dead usapil wind up in the seat next to her? Whatever, what was this about pulling light?

"And I don't mean like how a fireball falls, or the flame rises. Light isn't the light source."

His explanation of "photons" was way out there.

People could see because super tiny specks of something that's basically nothing but also a wave and is faster than anything, and is shot out by a light source, like the sun and a lantern, bounces off things, and hits people's eyes.

Stars were really big. The sun was a star. When stars were really, really, really big, and died, all the weight they had could eventually collapse in on itself.

And that smaller bit had all the same weight, now packed so tight and heavy, that its gravity pulled even the super fast, super tiny, basically nothing photons back in, and the former star then emitted no light.

A black hole. A shadow of apocalyptic power. The absolute rule of gravity.

And what was Lucy's other affinity? Shadow.

With the otherwordly, in every sense of the word, concepts put into words they could understand...

Lucy had two affinities that, classically, had no value to her dreams of flight.

Decipher the laws of nature and together they formed the very essence of gravity.

With this, Lucy's excitement to read and learn magic was renewed tenfold.

She would need the basics of her elements, first. And then, she needed to essentially create a new spell from ideas and physics.

Was Lucy gullible? Kind of. Was Lucy dumb? Maybe a little sometimes. But she was diligent, and would take up the task, and Seven Stars willing, see it through.

=====

It was Lucy's turn to move the carriage. She was providing a somewhat less... Smooth ride, so to speak, than Ran-Fi or Hal, and the reading lessons were not going nearly so well as they had been earlier.

Everyone seemed to be feeling at least a little off, and even the accessory merchant who had hired them for a ride seemed to be feeling some regret at his initially excited decision to ride with "the Shield Hero and the Three Legendary Fowl". (They must've made a bigger impression at the wave than she thought.)

Somehow, Naofumi alone was immune to the rocking carriage as they stomped along their way.

"Pll... Hpp..." Hal was trying to speak and not throw up at once as he looked out the cart, having long given up his attempts to whistle the swordfighting theme from the play. "Please, Lucy,
just pull normally?"

"Lucy wants to work on core strength!" came the voice from below. Naofumi had filled her head with more otherworldly ideas at some point, which Lucy was probably misapplying, but Naofumi was too busy studying written language to tell her.

"It's just-"

"Lucy's turn, Lucy pulls how Lucy wants!"

"Isn't pull--ulp."

The reason behind the rocking, seasickness-inducing ride was that Lucy, instead of pulling the carriage in her bird form with the provided harness, had elected to use her human form and carry it on her back.

"On the... Ugh... On the bright side," their merchant companion began, "people will think twice before attacking a carriage that looks like this."

As the accessory merchant said, they arrived at his destination unchallenged. Even the guards that would have asked for a toll (or the merchant's pass Naofumi showed her; when did he get that?) let them pass.

Malty, keeping in mind what they did have a long term goal, spoke up as they got their payment. "Hey, since we've gotten you to your destination, do you know where we could get a magic tuning crystal?" She gave out the specs they were given.

The merchant was deep in thought for a bit. "That type I don't have on hand, I'll admit." He grinned widely. "But I do have information on where you could get them."

Then the man named a ridiculous price. Technically affordable, but far more than three crystals' value.

"So? It's my information to price. If you want, maybe I can promise you to keep one of that type of crystal in stock when I get one in a few months."

"The main use we have is technically complete. We just need to fulfill a request at this point," Naofumi noted.

The merchant gave a little bit of a discount with that, but it was still pricey.

Not wanting Ran-Fi without her armor for the next wave, or her three children three liable to flash someone unwittingly when their loose robes fluttered in human form for 'a few months', times three, Malty decided to just pay their hard earned money.

And so they had a map, and an actual destination.

Chapter Text

Ran-Fi was pulling when they arrived at their presumed destination. A monster infested lair, formerly used by a mad alchemist in days long past.

Inside, if one was clever and brave, there was supposed to be a cavern that naturally, or unnaturally, grew magic crystals.

Just beware the alchemically-enhanced-and-maddened monsters. No big deal.

As they approached the carved or magically shaped entry, decorated with ominous stone statues, they spotted something outside. Camping gear, and a tied-up ugly lizard creature, that some referred to as a knight dragon.

Someone else was here. Someone with either money or pull, but also objectively bad taste, in Malty's objectively true opinion.

Well, this could get complicated.

Leaving their carriage further back in the brush, along with Malty's great-in-open-spaces lance, they went in, Ran-Fi and Hal in bird form, Lucy in humanoid form to fit properly.

As they delved the old lab, they found no monsters. Whoever else was here must've cleared them out.

Hopefully not the crystals, too.

In a large chamber, they found a closed chest. Ominous magical bindings surrounded it, reaching out in a chain of light into a side passage.

"That can't be where the crystal is, can it?" asked Naofumi. "It needs to be a growth of crystal."

"Yeah, so that's just a spooky box,” said Hal. He had wandered up to the chest, and his head was leaning in to peck at it.

Malty shouted, "Wait, Hal, don't-"

Half a foot away, his head suddenly jolted back with an "AAWWK", a look of surprise on his face.

"Hal, are you-"

"Oooow..." he answered. Malty ran to him.

"No loss of health," Naofumi confirmed from his status view.

Even so, that bird boy was going to get himself in an awful mess if he didn't learn to stop being so impulsive. "Hal, don't poke suspicious magic without thinking, especially not with your face!" Malty scolded, lightly swatting his head.

A shifty expression on Lucy's face suggested she had wanted to poke it, too. Malty stared her down a moment.

Ran-Fi spoke up. "Ge... Ge-fa-sch..." She was pronouncing out symbols while she looked at a stone pedestal next to the sealed chest.

Malty came up to her and looked alongside.

Ancient Medean script. Ugh... Ancient text was hard. She needed multiple references to get through the Firebolt tome. She brought one such reference book by accident, and Ran-Fi must've gotten into it.

"That one is 'hr', not 'sch', she pointed at the symbol in the word," she said, spotting the offending runes. "Ge-fa-hr."

Naofumi looked up.

"What's 'Ge-fa-hr'?" asked Lucy.

Malty didn't know.

"What do you mean, 'what's danger'?" asked Naofumi.

Who wore the Cardinal Shield which translated spoken words.

Wait.

Naofumi could just... instantly translate ancient Medean words as soon as they were sounded out!?

She had to try this out.

"Naofumi, we can't understand the words here easily. I will sound them out, please repeat whatever I say."

After a short round of that, and rereading a few words that weren't coming out correctly, they put the message somewhat together.

The chest contained a seed. The seed provided food. The box also contained danger. Piecemeal translation wasn't getting everything cleanly, but it gave a rough idea.

Suddenly, there was a magical crackling sound coming from down the hall from which the chain was.

And then distant footsteps, accompanied by shouting.

The chain of magical binding was crackling as it burst into motes of mana and light, quickly burning down toward the hitherto sealed chest.

As the end of the binding passed the hallway threshold, they heard shifting stone, and the hall entry began shifting down.

"Erste Shield!" A bright green shield stalled the stone's progress.

A few moments later, around the corner ran Spear. He stopped moment to see them, looking a bit, looking almost... scared?

Regaining his nerves after a moment, he propped his weapon between the floor and the previously collapsing stone. "Got it!" he yelled behind him.

He then turned to greet them. "H-hello, Your Majesty, N-N... Naofumi." He looked like he wanted to say more, glancing at the children, but did not.

Naofumi had a cold expression as he regarded his fellow hero. That duel, or something around it, made an impression on the two. Naofumi leaned over and quietly said, "Keep the birds away from Spear."

There was a reason, she was certain, and, seeing Ran-Fi's expression, she would accept Naofumi's judgement.

Naofumi's shield timed out, and the wall began lowering again, before running into Spear's... spear, and halting again.

Soon, the remainder of Spear's party of women caught up. The man withdrew his weapon, and the wall collapsed down, sealing the passage.

Looking around a moment, she saw several such walls, apparently blocking off paths.

"That's all eight binds broken," said L... Leshy? Leshy. Brunnette braid woman, sour face from after the trial, probably not named Lusty. "The seed is ours!"

She promptly walked to the now unsealed chest.

"Wait!" Ran-Fi spoke up. "There's danger!"

"What?" asked Spear.

"We were reading the pedestal on the side. There's danger in the box!"

"You can read that?" asked one woman in Spear's party.

"What kind of danger?" asked another.

Ran-Fi paused. "We don't know yet. We haven't managed to translate it all."

"Rino, check for traps. Maria, check for curses," Spear ordered, and the two addressed, presumably, began their work.

After a time, the two seemed satisfied nothing was wrong.

Malty and Ran-Fi, though, were still trying to read the archaic runes. Ran-Fi really had gone above and beyond in her reading practice to start in on those.

"Not a word... Not a word... Mutate... Not a word..." Naofumi was still helping.

With Malty and Naofumi carefully standing between the children and Spear at all times.

"Whatever danger it is, it had eight seals binding it, and dangerous traps protecting each," Malty reasoned.

"Maybe the danger was the seals and traps," asked the last woman from Spear's party who was not Leshy, Reno, or Mary.

Lucy spoke up. "Why seal and trap delicious food? Lucy always wants more food! Food isn't dangerous!"

"Yeah, and this was definitely carefully warded and warned of," Ran-Fi said, suspicious.

Spear thought a moment, but Lessa spoke up. "Whatever danger it is, we can handle it. The people of Lerno are starving!"

"We have spare food," offered Naofumi. "Lord knows we'd never keep these bird stomachs quiet if we didn't."

"Hey!" Lucy looked perturbed.

But overall, their flock was vocally against using the seed.

Except for Hal, who was strangely quiet.

"This is not just some one off meal," Spear said, holding up the seed. "It is a permanent solution to hunger, a symbol of hope and abundance for the people!"

Both parties looked up at the spiky seed.

Except for Lucy, and strangely Hal, who looked down at it, the latter clinging to the ceiling above Spear.

Malty saw that coin flip expression and felt a sudden sinking feeling.

The seed was snapped up out of Spear's hand.

"Gah?" Motoyusa made a nearly filolial sound himself, as Hal jumped down, seed in beak, and ran for the exit.

Lezzy was not amused. "You sneaky little thieving shitbird!" She ran toward the escapee.

"Erste Shield!" Hal was quickly blocked. Naofumi got to him first, shield in rope form and ready to wrangle.

He held out a hand. "Hal. Give it. You're a royal filolial, not a magpie. We discuss, like big boys and girls and birds. We do not steal."

But Hal's expression hadn't changed. Ran-Fi noticed, too, and began to yell, "Hal, don't-"

"Kwah!?" Naofumi's birdcall was next, as Hal took the seed and stuck it into the shield's gem, absorbing it, and effectively ending the discussion.

Lezzy, who had caught up, screamed in rage, put her hands around Malty's son's neck, and began throttling him, yelling various invectives, while the rest were stunned.

Despite Naofumi being next to them, Malty was the first to react.

"I apologize for Halberd's theft of your quest-critical item. We will discuss proper reparations," Malty began, keeping what she was certain was a calm and collected voice, "and once you remove your hands from my son's neck, I will remove my sword from yours."

"Ye. Y-ye-yes, Your Majesty." Leshy's hands let go. So did Malty's sword.

After Malty had thoroughly checked on him, Hal was on a leash, courtesy of Naofumi's rope shield.

"Can't you just, take it out?" asked Mototaro.

"No, it unlocked a shield; the seed was consumed," Naofumi answered apologetically.

"You can get a shield from a plant seed? What's that even do?"

"I mean, I have shields from dozens of plants, mostly getting medicine and herb gathering bonuses." His shield shifted again, now to a plant form with a conspicuously living and mobile eye attached.

"Uhh... What is that creepy shield?" asked Motospear.

"This is the bioplant seed shield, from that seed Hal stole and threw in," Naofumi explained. "Fun fact, absorbing a material requires intent, but not necessarily the wielder's. This shield includes a new skill, 'plant modification'."

"Wait, what? A skill? From a seed?" Moto asked.

"Yeah, like this rope effect from the rope shield. Each item has an associated shield, with equip bonus and sometimes a skill."

"Equip bonus?"

Malty found her mind drifting as the two discussed specifics of the Cardinal Weapons.

Listy dragged them back in the topic of reparations for the lost seed, and ultimately, it was decided:

1. The two parties would press forward together to collect the valuable crystals. Spear's party got several to sell. Malty's got enough to ensure their goal was fulfilled.

2. Their own party would provide food for the Learner(?) village, from their own supplies and traversal abilities and through the children's superior long-range hunting abilities.

3. Naofumi would help modify fruit-bearing plants into fast-growing variants as Spear's goals originally required.

4. Naofumi would help to grow Spear a sufficient bioplant seed to unlock the same ability.

5. The parties would split public credit for resolving the famine.

6. Hal got no usapil stew until the other conditions were resolved.

End result, they were going to be in that Lenno(?) town for a few days, at least. Spear would be around, too, though, so the church was unlikely to do anything.

In the meantime, though, they needed to actually get those crystals.

Naofumi sent the birds out, presumably away from Spear. Need to ask why when we're alone. Malty encouraged her children to pick on the lizard. Naofumi encouraged them to ignore their mother.

Hal looked back a moment as they disappeared into another passage.

Further in the passage, Naofumi's torch suddenly went out. In the dark passage, Malty began to hear things. Things that distressed her.

Naofumi's voice, filled with exasperation. "Why is she such an unfocused idiot? At this level, I could find real party members."

Naofumi wouldn't... He wouldn't just go.

Would he? He was still here, right?

This cave was so dark...

"...what is... ...why is..."

Ran-Fi's voice, filled with disgust. "She's not my mother, she's just a crazy lady. She doesn't even feed us herself."

No, Ran-Fi loved her, she wouldn't deny her like that. Would she?

She went out with Hal and Lucy, right? And would wait for her, right?

"...not... ...fake... ...anti..."

A quiet voice, a dependable agent of the queen. "Malty, you were told more than enough. You are too volatile and dangerous when you are with filolials. Your mother orders your return immediately. The birds will be sold off for reparations to the Rapier holding."

No, Mother's Shadows weren't here! And they said it was okay!

Didn't they?

"...gengars... ...studied... ...Faubrey..."

No, not that place, don't make me think of...

Hal's voice, surprisingly melodious, practiced, and alarmingly loud.

"I'm the darkness,
You're the starlight,
Shining brightly from afar!"

Hal would absolutely break into Cornelia's soliloquy randomly.

"Through hours of despair,
I offer this prayer,
To you, my evening star!"

The tunnel seemed slightly lighter. Around them, flying, furred creatures surrounded them, emitting screeches their minds turned into horrible torment.

Spear struck one, while one of the women lit another torch.

Hal was actually here, still singing loudly, the black-and-white bird having run up the passage, Ran-Fi and Lucy not far behind, joining in the song with varying skill level. All singing at the top of their lungs and drowning out the vile voices. The three finally finished the song with "O speak! Guide me anew!"

"Will someone stop those screaming birds!?" requested Lizzy, hands over her ears. Malty noted she hadn't covered them until Ran-Fi and Lucy had joined in.

The monsters, voice gengars she remembered from her past education, were swiftly dying.

"Why are you three here?" she asked, as she drew her own blade to take out the horrible creatures.

"Hal heard you say you were going to abandon us, Mama!" explained Ran-Fi in a horrified, accusatory voice.

Damn gengars, messing with my children! Out loud, she said, "Never! These monsters, they make you hear things, things that mess with your head!"

"Graaaaah!" Lucy, currently humanoid, managed to stomp one into the wall, thankfully giving nobody an eyeful in the process.

They were almost clear, when one more gave a screech.

A deep, desirous voice she last heard in Faubrey.

"I'll have you brought to my chambers soon enough, my pretty little niece, along with your childrennnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNN
CLANGCLANGCLANGCLANGCLANGCLANGCLANGCLANGCLANGCLANGCLANGCLANGCLANGCLANGCLANGCLANGCLANG CLANG CLANG CLANG CLANG CLANG CLANG CLANG CLANG CLANG CLANG CLANG CLANG CLANG CLANG CLANG.

CLANG.

CLANG.



Clang.






Clang.








Clink. Clatter.





Malty looked down at the floor of the tunnel, breathing heavily.



The bloody smear on the ground used to be a voice gengar.



The bent steel scrap in her hand used to be her durability-enchanted rapier. Half the blade was on the ground.



Oh.



She killed it.









She felt something warm around her.

She looked up. Ran-Fi's wings were wrapped around her, holding her tight to her eldest's feathery chest, her breath and heartbeat sounding through her own body. Ran-Fi, Hal, Lucy, Naofumi, and Spear's whole party were looking at her, reactions of shock, worry, and fear interspersed.

"Mama?" asked Ran-Fi. "Are you... Are you okay?"

No. "Yes."

"Malty," said Naofumi, "go wait outside with the birds. Motoyasu, his party, and I will finish up here. Can you do that?"

"...Yes."

The four went together, Malty atop and holding tight to Ran-Fi the whole way.

It... That wouldn't happen, couldn't happen, right?

Who was one bitter national leader to maliciously take away a hero's party members?

They were safe with Naofumi, weren't they?

Weren't they?

=====

Naofumi, Motoyama and company eventually emerged, hauling a bounty of magical crystals.

From there, they were headed to Lerno.

She did get an answer from Naofumi on why to keep Spear away from her children.

"I don't have anything concrete, or provable, but at the party, he said some things that made Ran-Fi, and myself, uncomfortable," he began.

Naofumi continued. After hearing the full explanation, Malty decided to agree. Fortunately, it sounded like Naofumi did put a fear of the Four Cardinal Weapons into the man during the duel.

...That saying, too, needs to be modified in this context.

Naofumi did put a fear of the Shield into the man during the duel.

And Malty was going to put a fear of fire magic into the man, Cardinal Hero or not, if she suspected anything... untoward.

...She wasn't sure how much of this was normal protective instincts, and how much of it was that...

-along with your-

She still shivered when she thought of that cave, and the kind of threat that Spear might be was just precisely the wrong kind for her to think about rationally right now.

Unfortunately, they were stuck together for the time being due to Hal's shenanigans.

No getting on Ran-Fi and disappearing into the night.

I'm here, Naofumi's here, nothing of the sort will happen.

As they traveled, a bit away from the rest, she quietly spoke with her children about Spear, to speak with her if anything happened.

And definitely to stay in full bird form.

They reached the town, and unpacked the carriage, and Naofumi's shield, for an initial meal for everyone.

The birds all ate a lot, but less than a village, so the Shield party spent a lot of time, effort, and money procuring food for the interim, from hunting to reaching other villages, sometimes in exchange for something like providing a lift to someone trying to carry medicine.

Naofumi was unavailable, off growing trees, so Malty was all but glued to her children during this.

-along with your-

Shut up.

Protecting, or seeking reassurance, she didn't know. If Ran-Fi was just as adhered to her, Malty had no complaint.

She distracted herself watching the birds play with village children when they were on a break.

The kids were happy to see some of the adventurers helping them eat, especially as giant birds. The birds were happy to play with kids their own apparent age, and Malty was happy they were getting to socialize.

Naofumi himself, with great effort to near exhaustion, was able to grow a tree from a fruit seed in a day, after modifying it to its limit. This provided some more food, but after just under a week growing new generations of such trees alongside modifying them, Naofumi succeeded at making a fruit tree that stared back at him.

This was, in Malty's opinion, a rather disturbing result, rather than something to celebrate, but the two heroes were content. Soon, Spear, too, was quick growing fruit-bearing trees, and finally, Leonardo had a new source of food in the form of unique megaflora with a rainbow of colorful fruit surrounding the town.

After Naofumi was finished with some final checks, ("You need to make sure the mutation rate is zero, or we're liable to find out why the damn seed was sealed!") the heroes departed the town.

Malty was happy for their party to depart from Spear's company, but she had to admit, he had been, as far as she could tell, a perfect gentleman since the duel, if a somewhat nervous one.

-along with your children.
I don't remember asking you a Cardinals-damned thing.

They had the crystals, and it was time to get some proper clothing for their flock.

And she would make sure they were so strong nobody could ever hope to take them.







Surely, they were, would be safe, right?

Chapter Text

There was something wrong with Mother.

Since they dealt with the creepy Spear guy, Motoyasu, again.

Since they left the town of Lerno and said goodbye to Micah, Rand and the other kids there.

Since the cave where she smashed her sword onto a small, flying monster.

Ranseur-Filo could tell. Hal and Lucy couldn't. It didn't seem Father could, either.

Small things. Her attention fading as she seemed to stare at nothing. Startling at nothing.

Changes in behavior. She stopped encouraging Ran-Fi to play the flute, but suggesting she try to work on muscles like Lucy.

Aaahhh, why is my little sister so big? She watched her, in human form, lifting a boulder over her head, over and over, using nothing but her wings. She was never going to have Lucy's strength.

Ran-Fi asked what was wrong, but Mother never answered, not completely. Only saying they needed to get stronger.

And after a short stop to grab their new clothes, that Ran-Fi, Lucy, Hal, and Mother had been looking so forward to, she hadn't stopped to tell them they were pretty.

And they were pretty!

Lucerne got the largest, but simplest outfit, from the vaguest, most contradictory description

"Lucy wants a nice, soft dress that's also tough and flowing and also easy to move in and also has legs and is still a dress and-"

With some discussion, the seamstress produced what looked at a glance a loose, flowing dress down to her ankles, with an elegant, but sturdy upper coat. Father called the "dress" a "horse-riding hakama". The former would be a very unfortunate horse to transport the giant Lucy, and the latter was a word from Father's home that just didn't translate.

Loosely, it was pants that looked like a dress. Lucy could stand and look pretty, or run, jump, kick, or lift rocks all she wanted.

She went with no further gear; Lucy didn't need metal armor. As much as she was looking forward to her own gear, Ran-Fi was also kind of jealous of that.

Halberd got suit, black coat and white undershirt, dark in color, with matching 3-section cape, hanging between and to either side of his wings. The seamstress had insisted on a hat to go with it. A tall, black top hat. It didn't transform, but would safely sit on top of Hal's bird head or human head all the same.

Father said he looked like a western stage magician, and Ran-Fi, having no reference image for that in her head, decided to agree. He also chuckled and said something about pulling usapils out of hats.

For defense, he had the hardened leather strapping from before still on, painted black and now in the shape of a vest. This vest stayed on in bird and humanoid forms, mostly concealed below the suit in the latter form.

He had found a place in the vest to put odds and ends, mostly little vials Father had made. Father insisted they were potions, but not the kind to drink.

Lastly, the most complex outfit went the eldest, Ran-Fi herself.

"I want a shield like Father!" she had requested, back when they were first discussing the plans.

She also wanted healing magic like Father, but that hadn't been as readily available.

"A-are you sure?" asked Mother back then, looking distressed. "No shield you can get will ever be as strong as the Cardinal Shield."

"I am sure, Mother!" she had said. And that had been that.

Making armor for her was complicated, Ran-Fi understood. Some old jousting armor was one thing. Specially fitted filolial armor was another. Specially fitted filolial armor that shapeshifted to a new humanoid form of a drastically different size was yet another.

But where there was a will, there was a way.

Magic thread could transform, and was relatively easy to acquire and make. Metal was harder. Legendary weapons and some lesser such tools Mother mentioned existing could transform, but was nigh impossible to create new.

They could scour the known world for lost knowledge and techniques and spend decades trying to recreate arcane crafts, but they would be in the next wave before then, so it was time to work out something more practical.

First, the obvious concern. Ran-Fi's human form was much smaller, as much as she stubbornly wanted to grow a couple feet to match her younger sister sometimes. Any armor that fit her filolial form would fall right off, and any armor that fit her human form would break apart when she transformed.

It was Father who had given her the idea for the missing piece. Mechanically transforming armor.

In bird form, she would be fully plated, conspicuously with a large, flat front plate, and a chainmail "dress" for leg coverage.

Changing to human form, the magic cloth would appear and pull on various points in the armor.

The front plate would break off to be her tower shield, and the armor on either side would close in. Furthermore, the cloth would pull up the chainmail dress beneath the closing platemail, simultaneously shortening it to humanoid Ran-Fi's reduced leg length, doubling armor layers on her upper body center of mass, and filling in the gap between her skin and the platemail.

The helmet would cover her human head and face, including a drop down visor, and the whole thing could rest on the top of her filolial head as a cap.

Then, inside the gauntlets of the armor, which normally just stuck to the sides while in filolial form, Erhard had included a lair of enchanted strength-boosting gloves. No attack bonus, hence why the man was willing to part with them, but enough strength, to make sure Ran-Fi could handily wield all the gear she could ever wear, and help her physics away annoyances like she was Lucy herself.

With a bit of time working out the kinks with the seamstress and the smith, Ran-Fi was shifting back and forth, from armored filolial to armored human with a greatshield and, after one more quick purchase, a winged spear, her own namesake, to stab with when she had hands.

There was one part she had to change, though. She loosened, then removed the armor on her upper back in human form, and back of her neck in filolial form.

She claimed it was for space for her wings in human form. But maybe it made space for Mother to hug her neck feathers when she rode.

And, of course, she had a very simple unarmored mode with the plating and chainmail removed.

But Mother hadn't stayed to see them put them on.

Instead, she ran around Castletown and came back with a load of weird things to stuff in Father's shield, and more books written in those weird letters.

Ran-Fi was starting to regret picking up that book full of them in the first place, whenever Mother shoved Father to her to go through another tome.

Though her mind changed a bit in favor of them when they found a recovery spell tied to Enhancement instead of Healing.

She could finally fix people like Father!

But for every Recuperation, there were 5 Anchor Poises or such.

Aaaargh, it's like anti-High Quick! I like moving fast, not slow!

Even after finding Recuperation, High Quick was by far her favorite spell.

Even with her new armor, even pulling the carriage, she moved fast like the wind!

Mother had been having her pull them super fast from place to place as they sought monsters and other things.

Strangely, they didn't seem to be hunting to level. Instead, she was getting rocks, ore, Father said, alongside bits of birds, griffons, and other flying or feathery creatures.

Mother would present something to Father, he would put it in the shield, and he would report what it did.

"Griffon Feather Shield. Equipment weight reduction," Father said. "No growth bonuses." After a moment, he added, "No refinement progress bonuses on the Filolial Queen Shield, either."

"Dammit!" Mother cried in frustration at the results of their latest kill, before taking out her heavily written-on map as Ran-Fi looked over her shoulder.

"Here, Ran-Fi," she pointed at a map. "Deep western forests. Jubjub; a scary, colorful bird, like a filolial gone really bad, but smaller. Theorized to be related, but way less friendly to people, and not even half as cute."

And so, with a full chant of High Quick, Ran-Fi had them on their way to a new destination, running over monsters, not running over people, and also not running over people with funny ears they sometimes saw on the road yelling "Lord Shield!" at them.

And besides the hunting, they frequently stopped for training.

Sparring in human form against Father or Mother with her new shield and (a wooden practice version of) her spear.

Doing exercises like Lucy does. Notably, without those strength gloves in her gauntlets.

Reading magic books, sometimes easy ones, sometimes those terrible ancient text ones.

Or, like now, casting spells over and over, alongside Hal and Lucy. With High Quick, casting and then running circles around the cart until it wore off.

Because Mother said so.

And Ran-Fi wanted her to get better.

Whatever was wrong with her, it wasn't the kind of thing that Father's magic, potions, or even cooking could fix.

But, she seemed a little better when they all trained, practiced, and improved.

Not to mention when Ran-Fi hugged her, which she did when she could.

"High Quick!" called Ran-Fi, before she ran circles around the campsite.

The speed and strength she got out of her enhancement spells, along with the exercise, was showing, even if it was leaving her tired and her legs throbbing after awhile.

Hal followed up. "Decipher the laws of nature and conceal in a haze! Faust Hide Mirage!"

Hal was nowhere to be seen. Ran-Fi couldn't he sure he actually cast anything, but Hal was nowhere to be seen. Lazy bird wasn't exercising like Ran-Fi was, but he convinced Mother he was practicing sneaking.

Lucy finished. "Decipher the laws of nature and strike with earthen might! Faust Stoning!" A solid rock dug from the earth and flew into the cliff face, shattering. She had been delivering a solid kick to the rocks to send them off faster earlier, but gave up when that mostly started making gravel splatters instead of strong impacts.

Now she was working on wing strength, swatting each stone instead.

They had been casting, and mostly exercising, for awhile now, as Mother kept urging them on.

"Faust Stoning!" Lucy summoned and swatted a stone.

"Hide Mirage!" Hal made not a sound besides the chant.

"High Quick!" Ran-Fi, despite the protests of her legs, began another sprinting cycle.

Mother needed her.

"High Quick!" Ran-Fi ran.

"Faust Stoning!" Lucy swatted.

"                  !" Hal ditched.

Ran-Fi stopped her magically enhanced sprinting a moment. "Hal is gone again!" Ran-Fi called out. Though she was, maybe, possibly, almost thankful for the chance to rest her legs.

Father looked around, but of course he wasn't going to see him.

Grrr, he's already so annoying to track down! Why did Father give him that book to make him invisible, too!?

Mother looked out the carriage, a tome of her own in hand. "Ran-Fi, could you go-"

"He can find his own way back," Father interrupted, rather unexpectedly.

"But he could be attacked!"

"By what?" Father responded. "The church that can't track us? The monsters that can't touch us?"

Mother tensed up again, but did not respond. Father seemed to take it as her not having an answer.

Ran-Fi put a wing around her, and she seemed to relax a little.

But what was Father doing, letting Hal goof off?

"Harumph!" It was a more human than bird sound Ran-Fi made, but it got her point across.

Mother wanted her to cast and train, so she would cast and train.

"High Quick!" She ran.

"Faust Stoning!" Lucy swatted.

"High Quick!" Her legs burned.

"Faust Stoning!" How did Lucy not look even slightly tired?

"High Quick!" It didn't matter.

"Faust Stoning!" Lucy didn't seem to care about anything but the rising stones, as if they held the secrets of the universe.

"High Quick!" With what Father said, Ran-Fi guessed they kinda did?

"Faust Stoning!" Was Ran-Fi's enhancement running out faster?

"High Quick!" Her feet burned. Her legs strained.

"Faust Stoning!"

"High Quick!" But she persisted.

"Faust Stoning!" Lucy's rock rose again.

While her spell was on, Ran-Fi took another running step and felt a little off balance. Something clicked wrong in her leg.

She had to get the leg to work again.

"As source of thy power, I order thee. Decipher the laws of nature and strengthen the constitution. Faust Recuperate!" She could feel the pain in her legs leaving.

But then she got very... tired.

A useless bird deserves no love.

But she needed Mama to need her. But Mama needed her.



She would push through.

=====

Naofumi was worried. He saw how Malty was working the birds harder than ever.

And maybe that would be okay, but...

Fumi...

...he knew where that could lead.

As they prepared to sleep after another day, he looked over the human-form birds, sized to fit into tents.

Well, one of them.

Lucy was still casting outside, and Hal had not returned yet.

Lucy seemingly lived for exercising and trying to learn the magic she believed would let her fly. She may keep going with or without Malty's encouragement, but he was sure it wasn't helping.

Hal was working around it, performing his vanishing act more than ever, now that he had that magician-looking top hat to go with it.

But even so, he worried when he didn't hear the quiet singing, or the choreographed swordfighting to music when he turned on that crystal ball at night when he thought nobody would notice.

And then Ran-Fi...

She was working as if tireless, but he saw how she was getting slower, just a bit, day by day.

She hung too much on Malty's word, and he was worried.

I keep trying but...

Malty wouldn't break them, would she?

But...

He thought back to one of the things she had picked up in Castletown.

It seemed to be just a glass jar of ink that she presented him with.

He had poured in the liquid, still looking uncertain where this was going.

He stared wide-eyed at the text that appeared a long time. Then at her, alarmed.

"...Slave User's Shield. Slave status growth rate increase, small."

She smiled at the confirmation, taking out other items. Chains. Shackles. What. The hell. "Okay, then let's see if we can raise it to-"

"Malty," he said calmly as he could, "what the fuck."

She stopped a moment. "Just, it might be..." She was introspective a time. "Look, we wouldn't have to use the seals, I'm certain, but if we can stack the status growth bonuses, and reset their levels just before the Cal Mi-"

"Seals?"

That was how Naofumi learned all about the torture seals that this world used to enforce slavery.

That Malty implied she may one day put on their flock.

He wasn't sure how to respond, other than...

"Why?"

"For the status bonuses per level. I'm telling you, they can get-"

"Why is it suddenly so much more important?"

She finally understood his questioning.

She looked like she... had an answer, but...

...she just, wouldn't, or couldn't, say it.

Fumi, I keep trying, but... it's never enough. Naotsugu's voice echoed in his mind. Damn bat.

Whatever was going on with Malty, he would try to keep the flock safe from it.

=====

Hal watched the camp in the early morning, two tents with Mom, Pops, and Ran-Fi. Lucy was sleeping outside as a big bird. She must've kept going until she fell asleep.

Hal was...

He was...

He was there, but...

But was he really there?

...Am not good at the philosophy questions...

Did it matter if he was there?

Would they notice if you left and never came back?

He couldn't place the voice that said it, back in the cave.

And he didn't like thinking about it, or other hard things.

But try as he might, he couldn't ignore it completely.

Ran-Fi didn't come for him. He had left again. He didn't want to keep casting; he was tired.

Mom was so demanding lately.

But Ran-Fi didn't come for him. Nor did Lucy. Nor did Pops. Nor did Mom.

He came back on his own.

Food was already packed up.

Did

Did they forget about him?

But got this shiny, fancy suit! Learned to sing like the people in the ball sing!

He maybe was finding he liked standing out more than sneaking, sometimes.

When did that happen?

Maybe when the kids in Lerno were listening to him sing?

Lucy was stirring.

And Pops came out of a tent, with a cooking pot. And he was looking around for...

...until he gave up, and pulled out some usapils Hal had brought in before, and began skinning them.

...Maybe don't want to worry about existential things.

Hal joined in to help cook.

And make sure it didn't light on fire like the curry the other day.

=====

Lucy hadn't gotten back to bed last night. She just passed out still casting.

Ground-bound. She would show that stupid flying cave thing.

Lucy simply started casting again, feeling how the magic flowed. A stone emerged from the ground as her magic pulled on it.

But however she the stone still didn't pull on anything itself.

She was sure it could. That gravity was in the rock.

But rock after rock, the only lift was the one she supplied. And it only applied to the rock.

She wanted to fly, not the stupid rock.

Rocks didn't want things.

She chanted again, keeping up with Hal at the cart. A rock lifted from the ground.

Mama had stopped trying to get her to read stories, or read more magic books. She did encourage her to do more of those exercises Papa knew.

It was a little weird?

But Lucy could focus on trying to find the secrets of flight.

She chanted again. She was tired already. It wasn't supposed to be this dark out, yet, was it?

A stone rose. She swatted it. It went out a little ways, and landed with a thunk.

Huh. Weaker. Why was it weaker? Weren't they flying across the valley and making landslides earlier?

Why was Lucy starting to feel weaker? Was she not trying hard enough?

She chanted again. Her breath hitched partway.

The stone rose. She could barely focus on it. She swung her wing at the stone.

She missed. The stone landed a short distance away with a quiet bump.


How did she miss?



She chanted again.




Did a stone raise at all?





She felt dizzy, like when she spun Rand around over and over again.




"Lucy?" Hal called to her.


Huh. When was she on the ground?

Ground-bound.


Was she getting weaker?


Why was Lucy getting weaker?

She was trying hard! Very hard!

"Lucy, get up? Pops is making stew for breakfast." Hal was poking her.

"Lucy, are you okay?" That was Papa.

"Why is Lu..." She had to catch her breath. "Why is Lucy... weaker?" It was hard to speak.

Papa looked at her. "Lucy, did you sleep outside?"

"Ye..."

His eyes narrowed. "Were you casting until you fell over?"

"...es."

"And you started again as soon as you woke up?"

"Ys."

"Lucy, no more casting. Go back to sleep."

"Buh... How wi.... Lucy get..."

"You overexerted yourself, and your... Mana, or whatever," Papa said. "You need to rest in between workout sessions, including magic."

Then how can Lucy get strong enough? she failed to say.

=====

"We're staying here another day," Father said.

Didn't ask, didn't suggest.

Said.

"Why?" Mother was incredulous.

"Have you seen Lucy?"

Lucy? With bottomless strength and endless resolve?

"Did she run-"

"She's resting, because she needs it."

...Then Ran-Fi had to help Mother.

They settled on sparring. Human form this time.

Ran-Fi had her armor and shield, and a wooden pole with a crossguard near the tip to stand in for her winged spear.

Mother stood across, another wooden stick in place of her newly replaced sword.

Father called, and they began.

Mother was fast, and had longer limbs, and she went way further with every step than it seemed like she should be able.

Ran-Fi had reach with her spear, and it almost didn't make up for it.

Worse, Mother had stolen Father's trick, and snuck inside her reach.

But unlike the creepy spear guy, Ran-Fi had a shield.

"Hah!" Wham!

"Oof!"

And strength gloves.

"Ran-Fi's point," Father called, as Mother rested against the tree she had knocked over, courtesy of Ran-Fi’s shield bash.

With that call, Ran-Fi approached Mother and helped her up.

She began, "Are you-"

"Reset for another round," Mother said tersely.

A little worried, Ran-Fi did so.

The next round, Mother changed tactics.

"Faust Fireball!"

"Malty, what-"

Ran-Fi brought up her shield, quickly.

The low level, unconcentrated, short-cast spell broke against it harmlessly.

But as Ran-Fi held the shield up, Mother was to her side in an instant, wooden blade out to Ran-Fi's exposed throat.

"Malty's point, but what the hell?" Father began. “A fireball!?"

"Faust Fireball, no chant, no bracers," Mother countered.

"I would've been fine!" Ran-Fi added herself. Still would've really, really hurt, but Ran-Fi could take it.

Father looked skeptical, but quieted.

Mother had more to say, though. "You could've avoided that at the end."

Ran-Fi did recognize it, and even had practiced how in previous spars.

"Why didn't you use High Quick there?"

Because it would hurt my legs! Ran-Fi had no answer. "I'm sorry, Mother."

"Don't be sorry; be better," Mother said.

Ran-Fi was off for the moment. Hal was pulled from his breakfast to spar with Mother next.

"Now, Hal doesn't have Ran-Fi's shield or armor, so no fireballs, even Faust," Father continued, explaining new rules. "That includes your exploding potions, Hal."

Her legs were sore already. She hadn't even cast that horrible spell.

"The curry?"

"Yes, the curry. You can both, throw a rock or something and pretend it exploded."

When did I start hating my favorite spell?

=====

Her children had reached an important milestone, with as many boosts as she could stick in Naofumi's shield as she could.

Level 40.

And now, it was time to get their class upgrades.

From somewhere besides the church that hates them, and unquestionably had control over the Melronarc hourglass.

So, calling forth her memory of geography...

Siltvelt. Bad idea all around; they would object strongly to Malty entering, and even moreso to Naofumi leaving.
Shildfrieden. Okay idea, but kind of far, and her status as princess may still be a problem.
Zeltoble. Bad idea; they would be charged two arms and a leg.
Boghadair. Defent idea; mercenary, but not as bad as Zeltoble; just a little ways north.

She ultimately picked Boghadair. They should have an hourglass, attendants, and generally capability to perform the ceremony at an affordable price.

Small country, small enough to lack the political pull to do anything as dumb as Siltvelt or potentially Schildfrieden even if they wanted to. Kind of high tax rates, not quite a vassal of Melromarc, not quite independent.

Generally a decent, secure place.

Is what Malty thought.

But, from news they got from the first small border town they reached, there had been some changes since she was last there.

The capital, with the hourglass, had been overrun with uncontrolled wave monsters, alongside the majority of their standing army.

...I have mayhaps neglected to pay all the attention I should've to world events.

Furthermore, rather than work with their remaining troops, or call help from Melromarc, the country was in the midst of a messy civil war.

Malty suspected neither side would be pleased to have the Shield Hero and Three Legendary Fowl show up to use the nigh unreachable hourglass, do nothing to show support for their obviously correct side of the war, and then leave.

She was liking the situation less and less the more they heard from the hungry people that had gathered as soon as the Three Legendary Fowl had shown up.

The party was planning to just turn around and start the long trek to Shildfrieden, when someone recognized her.

Or, honestly, recognized Lucy, and knew she was traveling alongside.

"First Princess Malty of Melromarc!" the woman spoke. "On behalf of the crown of Boghadair, I invoke the pact of alliance with Melromarc!"

Shit. Very formal, very official, and looking at the crowd that had gathered when Naofumi had quick grown some fruit trees, very witnessed.

She couldn't blow this off completely without annoying repercussions.

"I, Princess Malty S. Melromarc, hear you," she said, following the script her mother had drilled into her. "With whom do I treat?"

"Dame Kyla, envoy of King Saighdear, Your Majesty," the woman answered.

Malty wasn't quite sure if Dame was a name or a title, but pressed on.

"I will remind His Highness that the pact of alliance does stipulate that it does not extend to civil affairs," she said, hoping she got the hint to leave them alone.

All the while, Malty was thinking, Is it safe to blow this off?

"His Highness requests an audience for valid dealings, regarding mutual defense against outside invasion," (the?) Dame continued. "Specifically, with regards to cooperation with Melromarc's summoned Cardinal Hero, against monsters of wave origin.

Dead to fucking rights.

Not safe, to personal and national reputation, to blow off.

-along with your children.

Oh, fuck everything.

The children and Naofumi looked at her in bewilderment, but she was resigned to at least humoring the lesser king.

"Afraid we have to make a detour," she said, before adding more quietly, "but be ready to fight our way out."

Royal duty could make her stop and listen, but if they tried anything stupid, they would be met with fire and death.

Chapter Text

"I will remind His Highness that the pact of alliance does stipulate that it does not extend to civil affairs," she said again, this time directly to the man on his throne.

His significantly diminished throne, alongside his small court-in-exile and a few guards, in an aged, rundown manor, after passing through sparse, nervous, inexperienced lines of troops.

And all with a certain tension.

"Understood, Princess Melromarc," the lesser king began, addressing their presently humanoid party, keeping a smug, laid-back tone. "But the pact does specifically require provision of your Cardinal Hero on request for dealing with the Waves of Calamity." He grinned.

"And Melromarc's Shield Hero would be a fine addition to an expeditionary force to retake the capital, would he not?"

Yep, knew that was coming.

"What does that mean, Father?"

"It means we are going to be fighting more wave monsters," Naofumi explained.

"But Lucy thought the wave wasn't for awhile yet."

"Of course, we would hardly send you off alone," the king continued at a sedate pace. "We will send a contingent of soldiers, as support."

Malty stopped and looked around at the guards, and thought back to the soldiers. Low to moderate experience, and likely level. Few in number. The only person she had seen in here she would guess had a class up was the king himself.

But all were tense. Ready for a sudden call to action.

Her eyes narrowed.

"We would request an additional contingent of Melromarc soldiers," she stated plainly.

"Oh?" the lesser king questioned "And why would you need such?"

For lots of obvious reasons, you dolt! "I'm afraid that for official, royal business, Melromarc would need personally trusted soldiers." Which Father also needs to vet, honestly.

"And furthermore..." Malty continued before pausing. How to put diplomatically that your troops kind of suck and would die in a real wave monster fight? "I'm afraid the... soldiers I see may not be sufficient."

"Understandable, Princess Melromarc," he admitted easily. "We can send a messenger for your request."

And he did send for a messenger.

And a scribe, with ink and paper. As if they hadn't thought of this before.

As the king went in slowly dictating, in flowery language, the request for Melromarc support for their own princess, Malty was trying to figure out the angle.

It was wrong. It was too...

Not "rehearsed", not "practiced"; it looked very last minute. But it was certainly "artificial".

The soldiers, courtiers, really everyone but the king himself were on edge.

Maybe for good reason; Malty and her party were solidly strong, and armed.

But this bunch were pathetic. Not a plausible match for Malty's own even with the king, and they knew. They glanced at them warily, but not in fear, at least not of them.

Indeed, they looked with worry at anything but them.

Coming back to a point she had mentally glossed over, Malty and her party were armed. There had not been even an attempt to take weapons away, and no guards tried to stand between them and the king they ostensibly guarded.

And as the king drawled on, stalling for time, and Dame K-something looked at her with a bit of guilt before returning her serious gaze to jumping about at every window, wall, and door in the place, it dawned on Malty what was really going on.

Her earlier intuition was half-right. They were in a trap.

As teeth.

=====

Naofumi was waiting for an attack, but as the king droned on and on, and the guards continued to be anything but threatening to the party, his mind began to wander as he supposed Malty's tended to.

He had learned to read between the lines with regards to info he got from Malty. Not because she was being deceptive, but more because she seemed to skim the paragraphs of the information in her mind rather than explain anything fully and completely.

They needed a class up for the birds. They weren't getting it from the seat of power for the people that tried to have them assassinated.

They could get it from another country, such as this Boghadair place they were dragged to.

Boghadair needed help with wave monsters. It was not the site of the first wave from before their arrival, which was in Melromarc, as stated by the summoners on his arrival. Nor the second after that he had fought in himself.

They had a wave of their own, which he had never heard of.

She had also described what the class up was, a ceremony from which the adventurer selected one of several classes as the template for their further development.

Class up choices came from other worlds, like Heroes themselves.

Each quartet of heroes arrives with a notion of what a skilled adventurer could be. These feed back into the world, making these fantasies into reality.

Also tied to the heroes, and the invading, otherworldly monsters and waves, were the hourglasses.

The hourglasses, for there were more than one.

The ceremony was tied to using an hourglass, a common focal point of otherworldly connection. He didn't think she was aware she had not actually said that, but the logic pointed to it.

This small country had an hourglass, apparently neglected and overrun as it may be. They had no heroes of their own, but instead relied on support from Melromarc, with a treaty, for support against the waves from Melromarc's summoned hero.

Singular.

The Four Cardinal Heroes were not supposed to all be in one place.

And that was probably why Malty had them at this one, small, near-vassal country, rather than any other large nation on the map, which would likely try to keep him, imprison Malty, or both.

...Or he was assigning guile where simple practicality was due; this country was just plain closer.

He listened to the king continue on about logistics and writing messages. He was out of his depth here; this was more Malty's area.

He had been relying on her too much, especially seeing how the party was doing.

She knew how to raise a filolial into a giant battle bird. She knew the lay of the land, and where to find various levels of monsters. She knew politics, when she paid attention.

It was easy to fall into the role of the passive isekai protagonist, wandering lazily to wherever the did that cabinet just move?

The furniture broke open, alerting the entire room to the hitherto unknown secret passage. Rather than attacking them, the guards were readying against the sudden intrusion.

Multiple attackers armed with varying melee weapons were trying to get into the throne room as guards frantically tried to get into position.

But Naofumi was ready since Malty's earlier warning of a potential trap.

"Erste Shield!" He blocked off their entrypoint, eliciting shouts of alarm from the invaders.

In the mean time, winged children became giant battle birds, Malty mounted up on Ran-Fi, Hal vanished, and Lucy made her trill of "Wahahihihahaha!" sound menacing as she barely fit inside the building while ducking.

Then he heard a cracking sound.

Something powerful impacted on his shield. Again. And again.

"Second Shield!" Another stood in front of it just as the first broke.

But these attackers were determined and powerful.

He began casting. Defense Up, Speed Up, Attack Up, across the party, the guards, and the court.

The second shield broke as an arrow of light flew through, tearing through the front guards, defensive buffs or not.

More guards advanced, courtiers prepared spells and weapons of their own.

The assailants were few in number, but strong.

Also, stopping short when they got in and saw his own party turning into filolials.

"The Legendary Fowl!?"

"The Shield Hero is-"

"-not in the report!"

"Press on!" The last, surprisingly young voice, who he thought he recognized, came from someone in a form concealing cloak with some kind of magic bow, who was preparing a shot, vaguely aimed in an arc.

Large birds, Ran-Fi now mounted by Malty and advancing, tower shields, and clashing lines blocked the way and the view.

Even so, he heard the word "Meteor", and a glowing arrow flew up over the front line, with an uncanny guidance to some unknown target, and Naofumi only had an instant to guess.

"Shield Prison!" The king was surrounded by a ball of shields, and the projectile bounced off.

"They are here for the king!" he yelled.

More projectiles came from the mysterious archer, quickly. All striking the same point on the prison, and starting to crack it, too.

Front lines were clearing, though, particularly with surprise addition of a mounted knight and a giant, feathery berserker.

The assailants were backing toward the entry they took in, when an intense burst of flame suddenly rose from it.

Looked like one of Hal's potions, a conclusion reinforced by the dubious tactical use to prevent attackers from retreating, and the use inside of a flammable building.

Indeed, the structure began to catch fire quickly, adding further panic to the defenders and attackers both.

Their retreat cut off, the assailants, already on the back foot from the unexpected resistance, were starting to panic, some fighting no longer toward the king, but toward the nearest large window.

The archer screamed in frustration, called out something Naofumi didn't catch, and shot out the window instead, the entire thing shattering into a wide opening with a single, glowing shot.

The archer and accomplices jumped out, effectively ending the battle for them.

Good; they needed to get that fire extinguished, process what happened, and reassess their situation.

Then he saw the roof collapsing. "Erste Shield! Second Shield!" Parts of the roof were held up, but he saw other parts starting to fail. The poor abused building was in a sorry state before this mess went down, and was quickly losing any structural stability now.

"Out, out of the building, now!" The birds, the king, and the defenders didn't need to be told twice.

Just as the shields expired, the building was clear. A few moments later, the manor collapsed.

He looked around and saw Lucy, then surprisingly Hal next, looking guilty.

He didn't see Malty and Ran-Fi, though.

Shit shit oh shit-

He scrambled to get Lucy out of the building and himself onto her back.

"Hal, find Ran-Fi! Lucy, follow Hal!" he yelled. Hal wandered off and tracked them back down regularly; he would follow the trail, hopefully fast enough.

He knew how vindictive Malty got, and he knew how fast Ran-Fi moved.

They were chasing the assassins.

And if he had a proper read on it, either the princess was going to get herself and Ran-Fi killed, or she was going to kill the Bow Hero.

=====

Did these would-be assassins intend to put her family in danger?

No.

Could they have possibly have expected or planned around them being there when they began their surprise attack through a secret tunnel?

Certainly not.

Were King Lucky She Wants To Avoid An International Incident and Dame Might Not Have The Station For Equivalent Luck ultimately more at fault?

Sure.

Was Malty going to make roasted bitch-kebab out of them anyway?

Yes, she thought, gripping the Ran-Fi's spear, wishing for her lance from the carriage. It's the principle of the thing.

The Archer Due For A Spearing turned a moment, and blindly shot back toward them. The arrow flew, but Ran-Fi jumped to the side.

They were closing in fast; a running human was no match for the speed of a running filolial.

As she brought the spear forward, a man batted it aside with an axe.

"Firebolt!" He did not bat aside the fire bolt with an axe, inside taking it to the chest. It burned clear through his cloak, but did not pierce the armor hidden underneath, though it began to glow under the heat.

While she was busy with him, though, the archer had let loose another shot, with a call of "Meteor Shot!"

She and Ran-Fi were caught off guard, and it struck Ran-Fi in the center of mass, the tower shield she used as a chest protector.

Rather than bouncing off the shield, though, it practically halted their momentum.

Fortunately, Ran-Fi seemed unharmed aside from the sudden stop. She slowly got up as the assassins retreated.

Strangely slowly.

The chase was on again.

Over a ridge they followed.

To see a group of knight dragons, with the assassins getting astride, attended by another cloaked figure.

With their own mounts, they were far harder to catch.

But Malty and Ran-Fi had an answer to that.

"Ran-Fi, High Quick."

She made an unenthusiastic "Guuuee..." sound.

"Ran-Fi, High Quick!" Malty repeated.

"High Quick!"

In an instant, they were speeding across the land, and converging once more on the enemies.

One turned back, the one who had been with the lizards, seeing the rapidly approaching rider. "Fuueeeeeh!?" She made a very strange, but familiar sound of panic.

Her spear was at the ready, and at this speed, their charge would be deadly.

SNAP. "GUUUEEEEE!"

The world flipped over, and Malty was suddenly was tumbling along the ground.

Regaining her sense of up and down, she looked around to see her daughter, face first on the ground, and with
her
leg
bent
the
wrong
way.

"Ran-Fi!" she shrieked.

"Guueee... I..." she began. "I can... Guuueee..." Ran-Fi started to right herself.

"Hold still, your leg is-"

"I can fix it, Mama!" she said.

"What, you can't, it's-"

The bird began chanting. "As source of thy power, I order thee." But Malty knew she didn't know any spells that would properly set a broken leg; what was she-. "Decipher the laws of nature and strengthen the constitution." Wait, that would- "Faust Re-"

"STOP NO, no no no, NO!" Malty interrupted, shaking her until her spell fizzled and her helmet fell off.

"But... Mama, I need-"

"Ranseur-Filo," Malty interrupted, "how many times have you used Faust Recuperate on a broken leg? Without setting it first?"

"Guuuuueeee?" Ran-Fi questioned, then seemed to think about it. "Umm. I think... three times on the right leg, one or two on the left?"

She felt along Ran-Fi's legs, feeling her daughter wince as her hands ran along the knots of improperly healed bone.

She confirmed. Two knots each side, and one ugly new break on the right, from what would've been its third knot. It must've been painful to walk on, let alone sprint.

"Even when I set your current break, you can't walk on these."

Seven Stars, how did I miss this?

"No standing, no walking, you are sitting or laying down."

"But, how will I-"

"I don't care," Malty said. "Not on your legs."

She looked around. The would-be assassins were long gone at this point.

Ran-Fi began to cry, a gut-wrenching, broken sound.

A pleading cry of despair.

"Ran-Fi will get better, Mama," she choked out. "Don't throw me out, Ran-Fi will get better and be able to walk again Ran-Fi promises I'm not useless-"

Malty regarded the limb. Her leg was an ugly, broken mess. But it wasn't unfixable.

She sighed. "Ran-Fi, I'm going to set your broken leg," she explained. "It's... It's going to hurt." Both of us. "Hold still for Mommy. Can you do that?"

"Guuuee... Yes, Mama."

She bent, but halted as Ran-Fi sucked in a breath. She continued. "Gue!" She halted again.

Dammit, Malty, you're making it worse prolonging it like this.

She held back her own tears alongside her daughter, and set the leg in one swift motion.

"GUUuuueUuuEEE!" Ran-Fi cried.

"It's okay, it's okay," she comforted her. "Mama's done."

Ran-Fi adjusted and tried to move. "NONO sit down!"

Ran-Fi stopped. "But-"

"No walking."

"...Okay, Mama."

They would wait. Naofumi and the others surely wouldn't be far behind now.

Uh.

They knew where they went, right?

Malty was trying to figure out how to carry Ran-Fi and all her armor, when Hal came into view.

"What happened?" Speak of the Shield.

Malty looked over at him, then spoke up. "Ran-Fi's legs broke, and they healed improperly. She cannot walk on them."

Naofumi's expression rapidly went through several changes, but settled on what seemed like a seething anger.

"How?" he asked.

Ran-Fi answered. "We chased after the bad people, but they got on knight lizards and I couldn't catch up.

"I cast High Quick, and almost caught them, but then my leg bent wrong and really hurt and I dropped Mama.

"Mama bent it back in place, but wouldn't let me stand up after."

He looked at the two of them. "Are either of you hurt otherwise?"

"Not me; just a tumble from when Ran-Fi fell."

"Nope; my shield armor blocked their attacks."

He then asked a question Malty did not expect. "Did you kill any of them?"

Malty sighed. "No..."

"Good," Naofumi said.

"Wait, what?" Malty asked.

"That was probably Itsuki Kawasumi, the Bow Hero, alongside his party."

"Wha-what?"

"From the way those arrows broke through my Erste Shield. And I heard the archer call a skill name, 'Meteor' something. A skill type Motoyasu also had."

Why was the Bow Hero attacking the king of Boghadair?

This and other questions went through Malty's head.

And then back out.

Because she had much bigger concerns than attempted regicide perpetrated by a Cardinal Hero.

She had a daughter who was in pain and needed healing they didn't have the expertise to provide.

"You said 'legs'," Naofumi said suddenly. "Ran-Fi said 'leg'."

She felt shame at what she had not noticed before, and recounted what she identified.

How her daughter had broken her legs, both, over previous days.

How she healed them with magic.

How healing broken bones with magic stitched them together.

How healing unset or incorrectly set bones stitched them together wrong.

Finally, she concluded, "We need a healer. Not just potions or magic."

"Fortunately, we have a king that currently owes us. Big time," Naofumi said.

That was true.

"Also. Malty S. Melromarc." Her full name. "Once this is over, we are all going to have a long talk."

I'm not useless- Something ran through her mind a moment

"...Okay."

They began making their way back to the king's court.

Ran-Fi, in humanoid form (after much fussing and checking that she wouldn't aggravate her legs by shifting), was riding atop Hal.

On the way, a brunette figure in formal attire approached, on foot, completely out of breath.

It was Dame Deathwish, the one who dragged them into this mess in the first place.

How convenient.

To say Malty was angry at the technically-in-accordance-with-international-laws-and-treaties dragging of her family into harm's way was one way to put it.

"You," Malty began.

"Shield... Hero!" the Dame got out, huffing heavily between. "Princess Mel... Melromarc!"

She paused a bit, catching her breath.

"I beseech you, forgive me and my liege for the deception."

Much as her first instinct was to reach for her sword, Malty had other priorities. Tersely, she stated, "You. Owe. Us."

"I recognize this! And I wish to make amends!"

"We require a trained doctor. One who can right mishealed bones," she began. "Further recompense will be discussed afterwards."

"Yes, Your Majesty!" she said. "I presume you also wish to use the Hourglass of the Dragon's Era?"

...Malty didn't remember saying that, but it was not inaccurate.

"Yes," Naofumi said.

The Dame brightened at that. "I will make the preparations for the doctor immediately.

She started running back.

Slowly, still not having caught her breath.

Hal walked over, picked her up, eliciting a startled squawk, and set her on his back behind Ran-Fi, and they started making much better time.

=====

There was no manor to enter this time. But even if it wasn't burned down, they would have kept to their tent.

Dame Kallen did bring a doctor with her to look at Ran-Fi's legs, and they met inside their own tent, set up not too far.

It was bad, but not as bad as she feared.

"Five atrophied nonunions, two on the left leg, three on the right," the doctor stated. It was a painful process for them all, but Malty helped and they rebroke and set all of them; even the one Malty had set herself was not quite right.

Ran-Fi powered through all of them, and finally Naofumi was able to cast his own healing magic. Unlike the enhancement-based magic Ran-Fi had, Naofumi's didn't use the body's own vitality for the healing.

But even so, Ran-Fi was not to be on those feet for a week.

They settled in one tent, where Naofumi had gathered them, all humanoid form, and prepared to speak with a serious expression on his face.

"I beseech you, on behalf of Boghadair, hear my plea!"

Naofumi's voice had jumped an octave or so.

Or that was Dame K again, outside the tent.

Naofumi sighed, then responded, "Speak." Best to let him do this; Malty probably still wasn't at her most diplomatic right now with regards to the woman who sort of helped wreck Ran-Fi's leg.

"I apologize once more and ask of you assistance!"

"First," Naofumi began, "tell me. Why did you lure us under false pretenses?"

"I knew an attack was imminent, but not from where, and also that letting the king die, as ineffective as he is, would be worse than his own rule."

"Isn't he your boss?" Naofumi asked.

"I am a paladin of Boghadair," Dame K said in explanation.

Paladin. She remembered the term from past tutors.

Though it was perhaps the layperson's understanding, a paladin was not "a knight who uses magic".

A paladin was




A paladin was









Yeah, the rest of that teaching wasn't reaching the forefront of Malty's brain.

Fortunately, sensing either her or preferably Naofumi's confusion, she explained. "A paladin is someone who swears an oath, on a crest slaved to themself. As a paladin of Boghadair, I am compelled lifelong to do what I feel is best for my country and its people."

Right. That. Malty knew that.

"And your king is bad, but no king is worse?"

"Takeover by the rebel-aligned nobles is worse!" she explained. "With no proper line of succession, the good meaning ones who want change will be overtaken by the ones who just want to be on top."

"So it makes sense to make sure your king survives at the moment, pending finding someone with a proper claim and support?" Naofumi guessed

"Yes, precisely," she said.

"...Are you sure you should be saying all this to complete strangers?"

"To a holy hero whose help our nation needs? Absolutely!" she declared. "Saighdear can't object too hard to me; his support base is nil; half his court is only there because I still am, as the last of the paladins."

"Hold," Malty spoke up, suspicious. "How do we know we can trust you?"

She stopped a moment, looking like she wanted to say something, or didn't want to say something. She heard an electric sound, and the Dame twitched violently, then said: "I can slave the seal of my oath to a person of my choosing for 24 hours. You could use that to verify I am being completely forthwright."

Malty could see why she might want to keep that secret.

"Are you sure you want to do this?" Naofumi asked.

"I am not, but I know it is the best and most efficient way, and that if I cannot trust you, then we are facing our doom anyway, so I must insist."

Naofumi looked at Malty, but Malty just shrugged.

With a sigh, Naofumi agreed.

After a small ceremony and adding a drop of Naofumi's blood to a seal on her right shoulder, it was done.

He ordered, "Answer our questions truthfully and completely, without holding back information that may be damaging to your position."

It became a productive evening of questioning.

They learned that King Saighdear had mismanaged the budgets and levied excessive taxes for awhile now, and recent crop failures combined with the inopportune wave had almost toppled the nation already, but the man had genuinely been working to restore some semblance of strength and stability to the nation since.

They learned the makeup of the rebel forces was partially idealists looking to fix a broken nation, and partially corrupt nobles formerly in the king’s camp that saw a chance for greater power.

They learned how the excessive taxes in the past had been largely going to fortifying, then re-fortifying the capital city and surrounding countryside.

(Malty hoped Naofumi was remembering some of this in case it was important. She sure wasn't going to.)

They learned how the wave had spawned above the capital, past all the fortifications they had spent so much time and money on.

They learned how almost all the paladins and the bulk of the army had died breaking through their own walls and gates, into their own capital, just barely slaying the wave boss to stop the endless tide.

They learned of the treasury, the art, the most arable land, and the Hourglass of the Dragon's Era all now residing behind walls controlled and newly fortified by the wave monsters, while the remains of their countrymen languished.

They learned that the Dame had once had a crush on Sir Sigurd, and had wet herself the first time she sparred against her senior paladin.

"Stop answering Malty's questions, unless they are relevant," Naofumi ordered.

"What? Asking about her most embarrassing memory provides proof the crest was working." Honestly, Malty thought she was doing well not checking out of the conversation a dozen questions ago.

They learned of the forces they still had, too few and too low level. Malty was right about the king; he was class upgraded, and was the only one in the force who was. Some courtiers had decent levels, up to high 30s, but nothing to write home about.

Speaking of nothing to write home about...

"So, what's your level? What abilities do you have?" Malty asked.

Dame K looked at her seriously. "I am level 6. I am skilled with accounting, diplomacy, geneological tracking, and ceremonies of state."

That sure was a set of valuable talents for retaking a capital city overrun by Wave-spawned auditors, lawyers, and politicians.

Her skepticism must've shown through. "Look, when I took my oath we had a lot of paladins who were skilled at swordsmanship, healing magic, and the like," she began, "but we hardly had any who knew how to bookkeep, so my oath led me to a different path."

"I get it, I get it," Naofumi said. "It's just, not what we were hoping for."

After a moment thinking on her answer, though, Naofumi had another question. "Which families could theoretically still have a plausible claim to the throne of Boghadair?"

She rattled off a list of names, identifying their status. A lot of "dead", "presumed dead", or "would be worse than the current king" commentary included.

But one name stuck out for some reason. Ivyred, in the "presumed dead" category.

Why is that name so familiar? Why is that classification striking me as "wrong"?

And why am I putting the carriage before the filolial?

Malty had a much better question that Naofumi had not yet asked. "What's in it for us?"

The Dame answered immediately. "First of all, access to the Hourglass of the Dragon's Era, and a capable attendant to perform the Class Up ceremony."

That... wasn't much, for the effort seemingly involved. "We could go elsewhere; Shildfrieden would-"

"Could you?" the Dame asked.

"Why not?" asked Malty.

The Dame looked back and forth between them, bewildered. "You didn't tell- Wait, neither of you know?"

"I assume it is related to Melromarc snatching all four Cardinal Heroes," Naofumi said.

Wait, didn't Mother get the nations to agree on that?



Didn't she?



She



Father

"Father summoned all four Cardinal Heroes out from under all the other countries!?" Malty shrieked.

"Siltvelt and Shildfrieden in particular have been furious," the Dame confirmed, "especially with how King Aultcray sent his daughter to seduce their God away from his rightful nations, in the Siltvelt envoys' words."



She felt the world fall out from under her.

Siltvelt and Shildfrieden would demand.

Faubrey would offer.

Mother The Queen would



I'll have you brought to my chambers soon enough, my pretty little niece, along with your children.



"Mama!" "What's-"

The world spun around her, and she knew no more.

Chapter Text

Naofumi looked down at his passed out companion, confirmed just passed out by the same healer that attended Ran-Fi's legs. All the humanoid birds were sitting around her worrying.

The news they definitely had to go to this particular hourglass was not good, to be sure, but why on Earth or whatever this planet was called was she reacting so badly?

It was almost like the bat again, but without something convenient to hit.

Dammit, I need you to talk, not pass out!

Well, he had Kyla's time and attention for awhile yet.

He had info that she should know, for how it could affect them, and more questions to ask in turn. He finally had someone who was generally aware of the world and current events, and wouldn't get distracted or leave out important information by mistake.

=====

Malty felt warm and comfortable and didn't want to wake up, but mornings were one of the things even royalty had to deal with, however clingy her blankets were.

Her blankets weren't supposed to cling quite this forcefully, though.

She opened her eyes. This wasn't her bedroom.

It was one of their tents, her blankets were Ran-Fi and Hal, and her mattress was Lucy.

Across from them sat Naofumi, Dame K-something having left.

Her breathing got faster as she started remembering what she heard before.

Naofumi stared at her intently.

Then, sighed. "I'm no good at this."

He looked up. "I know you don't want to talk about some things," Naofumi began, "but it is past time to do so. It is hurting the whole party."

"About... what?" she asked.

"What the bat in the cave made you hear. And how you reacted to Kyla. And how you've been treating the birds."

The first two, she understood, but...

"I haven't treated Ran-Fi, Hal, and Lucy wrong!" she protested.

He said nothing, just stared at her.

She was suddenly unsure. She looked at them, around her. "...Have I?"

Ran-Fi didn't meet her eyes. Hal seemed indifferent. Looking behind and up, Lucy was clearly lost. "I don't know?" she answered.

Naofumi looked a bit surprised. "Looks like I have something to learn here, too. All the more reason."

He sighed once more. "I can go first." And he explained what he heard in the cave.

"Fumi, I keep trying, but... it's never enough. I feel like I am going to break before I succeed.

"And sometimes, I don't want to keep trying. I want to fall asleep and not wake up in the morning.

"I want to die."

"It was the voice of my younger brother, Naotsugu," he explained.

"He was always the responsible one. Mom and Dad picked up on that, and always were encouraging him. Pushing him. Judging him. Until he got bad, real bad.

"He worked himself until he all but fell apart, mentally. Couldn't focus. Didn't eat. Was constantly depressed.

"Mom and Dad backed off him, but his ways were already set. And I was scared I was going to lose him, when he said that.

"I broke him out, and showed him all about the fun things he could be doing instead, dragging him off his 'responsibilities'. Reading, shows, [video games]..."

One term didn't translate right. Malty left it alone for now.

"I'll explain later," he said, noticing her confusion anyway, before continuing. "But despite this, he did slide back slowly to his old, self-destructive ways occasionally. I have helped pull him out more than once."

He paused. "Then I was brought here."

He was silent for an uncomfortably long time.

"As far as Tsugu knows, I went to the library one day, and never came back." His voice was low, and tears were forming in his eyes. "And I'm scared, that when the waves are over, I'll come home, and find out I'm too late, and h-he's already gone."

He was quiet a time.

"I... I don't know how likely it really is," he admitted. "He got better over time, as did our parents. But..." He sighed. "There's a chance. A worry. And that bat thing in the cave has stuck it in my head."

Ran-Fi spoke up first. "...Is Papa going to leave to his old home?"

"...I don't know," he admitted.

Malty had never really thought too hard about it before, but Naofumi wasn't born the day he was summoned, some homunculus formed by the Cardinal Shield.

He was a person. Who had lived somewhere. Who had friends and family. All of which were out of reach.

"I've seen it happening here," he began again. "Or I thought I did. Not identical, but it rhymes."

He looked above Malty to the largest among them. "Lucy, a few days ago, you stayed up until you passed out. Then you woke up again, and cast until you passed out again."

Lucy made a slow, distressed sound.

Then he turned to Hal. "Hal, you've been ducking out. And, I respect that." She suddenly remembered a few days ago, when Hal disappeared during practice, and Naofumi had told Ran-Fi not to catch him.

But Hal looked uncomfortable.

He turned to Ran-Fi. "And we know what happened to you."

Ran-Fi's misbent leg appeared in her mind's eye. Wait. Was that my fault?

...Well, at least, I should've noticed her legs getting worse...

He turned to Malty last. "I am scared that you're working them too hard, and I don't even know why."

"...Can Lucy go next?" asked their largest. Naofumi nodded.

"Lucy isn't smart. Things go out of Lucy's head whenever she things go in. Lucy doesn't like it, but Lucy knows," she admitted. "But that flying cave thing said Lucy was ground bound. Over and over and over and over and over and it stuck in Lucy's head and it won't get out!"

Not nearly so dramatic as Naofumi's, but problems didn't need to be dramatic to be problems.

Naofumi was silent for a time.

"You need to rest, Lucy," he said finally.

"Wah?" Even in humanoid form, her birdcall sometimes came through just a bit, vibrating through the three on her lap.

"A body, even a big, strong filolial body, can only do so much at a time before it starts basically eating itself. If you push past that point over and over, you're not getting strong, you're getting brittle."

"So, then, how-"

"Resting is training, Lucy," he said. "The fastest way from where you are now, to where you want to be, includes stopping and healing."

Lucy looked at him a bit, not seemingly convinced all the way.

"Lucy," Naofumi said. "I will help you with the class up. We will find a class to help you fly. However long it takes. So in the mean time, relax. Maybe watch the play again? Maybe ask Hal what he does when he goes out."

"...Lucy will try."

Hal made a motion. "Will go next."

"Who cares about you? Would they notice if you left and never came back?"

"Didn't recognize the voice," Hal admitted. "Never quite really believed it, think, but couldn't ignore it.

"Hurt, though, when ran away, and Ran-Fi never came for me like always."

Naofumi looked surprised, then remorseful. "I really had no idea; I'm sorry, Hal. I stopped Ran-Fi myself, because I thought you needed a break from practice."

Hal nodded. "Always saw, you set out favorite stew, you set out a place and portion for me. Even if hadn't gotten back."

"I'm glad you came to a conclusion, and thank you for sharing it even so," Naofumi said.

Ran-Fi and Malty remained.

Her eldest daughter looked at her with a look of...

Despair.

"Ran-Fi, I can go next if-"

"A useless bird deserves no love."

"It was Mama's voice," Ran-Fi said.

Oh.

Oh Cardinals.

Malty felt sick. Her eldest daughter had had it stuck in her head that her own mother only loved her very conditionally.

It's not true, she tried to say, but no words came out.

Ran-Fi described how Malty had steered her away from the things she liked to do. How Ran-Fi ran and ran on High Quick until her legs broke, then tried to heal them, then ran some more, until she hated her favorite spell.

Those words Ran-Fi said, when she was crying on the ground with her leg bent wrong.

Don't throw me out-
I'm not useless-
Those cries may stay with Malty to her dying days.

Malty, what the fuck. Naofumi's exasperated disbelief.
After they hatch, be sure to bring them back to... ...Nevermind. Pleasure doing business with you. A slave trader's acknowledgement.

The feeling of her daughter's ruined legs, driven there by her own mother.



Four Cardinals and Seven Stars.

Who is this bitch, and what has she done with Malty S. Melromarc!?

"It's not true!" she shouted. "I love you, I love you and I will always love you for who you are, even if you never walk again, even if you can never fight again, I love you for you!"

Ran-Fi looked surprised a moment, until she finally dared speak. "R-really?"

"Yes." She held her Ran-Fi closer.

They had grown to be adult filolials, but like a power-leveled demi-human, they didn't have the lifetime of experience processing emotions like someone natural grown.

For all the good it did Malty herself.

All eyes looked at her. It was her turn.

"I need to explain a lot of background for this," she admitted.

=====

Faubrey was a nation founded by past Cardinal Heroes, and was strange by the rest of Medea's standards.

She was there to study, after her father's idea. Mother had disagreed, but Father had said she could take Bill with, and Mother was forced to allow it.

Some papers must've gotten mixed up. She was sent to the "inner" university rather than the "outer", the former more connected to the royal court of Faubrey.

Maybe Father would have told her about her uncle if he had known.

She met the man, in passing. He mentioned how cute she was.

She had the social grace not to mention how ugly he was.

She attended a class of her peers, nobles from all over the world, eager to learn the lessons left behind by heroes of old. Malty hoped she could also learn why and how they made all that smoke, so as to not repeat the mistake back home.

She remembered a few of her classmates.

Iffy on the names, but sort of remembered the people and faces.

Fuee (indeed not her name, but a nervous tick of a sound she was known to make) had green hair and came from a minor country they were allied with.

Leshy (close enough) was a lesser noble of Melromarc herself.

T (all she remembered) was another classmate, a noble from Faubrey itself. He was charming, when he wanted to be, as Malty understood. At least Leshy was taken with him.

The prelude to the incident was one of those times he hadn't wanted to be charming. He had been picking on Fuee about her country being just a province of another, bigger, real country.

Re-examining her memories now, she was probably from Boghadair.

He had turned to her after Fuee had run off crying. "Now, Your Highness, you are a proper royal."

She had looked at him and said nothing, awkward around people as she had been lifelong.

He apparently got bored waiting for her to respond in some way, and walked off.

It was later that he came back, wanting to show her something "interesting" in the school.

Bored out of her mind, and unable to go play with Billhook that night, she decided to go. She was partially sent off to become more sociable, after all.

T led her to somewhere in the castle-side of the building. "A-are we supposed to be here?"

"In fact, yes; this place is intentionally made available," he responded. They walked past some guards. She swore one had given her a sympathetic look.

They passed to a viewing window. Thick, probably enchanted glass, either for durability, or, she realized later, remote viewing.

It looked down, or seemed to look down, on...

...a bedroom?

They waited awhile. "This is boring," Malty said.

"The King will be here soon, just wait..." T said.

The King? What exactly are we here to see?

Indeed, her uncle did arrive, alongside a woman.

She had seen her earlier, introduced by her uncle as his newest wife.

She had been... quiet. Practically inanimate.

She was no longer; she looked outright panicked.

Then her uncle took her and










Malty saw things. She couldn't look away fast enough.

Malty heard things. She couldn't seal her ears thoroughly enough.




The woman was announced to have passed in the night.

And Malty came to know that she was just the latest of hundreds of women.

Sent to the King of Faubrey, to be his "wife".

Sent to his "bed chamber".

Then sent to a morgue.

A torturous capital punishment barely under a veil, to dispose of inconvenient, but politically connected women across the land.



And he had called her cute.




She didn't know why T had shown her. Was it a threat? She liked to think he was warning her of a danger she didn't seem to recognize.

But she knew one thing.

She couldn't stay there.

She ran out, not talking to anyone.

She found Billhook at the stable, brought him out, and they ran the road through the night.

To Melromarc. To home.

Still seeing the sights, hearing the sounds she heard that evening.

She arrived, disheveled and unexpected. But neither Mother nor Father ever asked why she returned, or even commented it; they just sent her back to learning under tutors at home.

=====

"I'll have you brought to my chambers soon enough, my pretty little niece, along-”

She couldn't say it without stopping.

"-along with your children."

"That's what I heard, in his voice."

She stopped a moment to calm herself down. "That's, I guess, how I became to fixated on making sure they are all as strong as possible.

"And why the Dame's words at the end are so horrible. Because the other nations, they are furious after Father's actions.

"They'll demand punishment for Melromarc, one way or another.

"But Faubrey will step in in Melromarc's defense, with an offer Mother, Queen Mirellia, can't refuse.

"And, I'm scared, that he'll..." She choked. "I..." She couldn't finish.

"Never." It was Naofumi. "If I have any of the authority, the pull I am told I have because of this shield, then he will never lay a hand on you, or the birds."

Even if Malty, maybe only intellectually, knew, it felt good to hear it out loud.

Three birds were around her, and hugging her tightly.

Naofumi spoke up after a moment. "I-I don't know how you feel about-"

"Get in here," she was a little surprised to hear her own voice. One of Lucy's wings, which had laid stretched out along the perimeter of the tent, flexed, and soon, Naofumi, too, was in their group hug.

She heard a coughing sound, and it wasn't one of them. They had a stray listener.

"Might as well come in," Naofumi said.

Dame K came in, looking very apologetic. "I heard something at the start, and walked away far off enough to not hear what else you said." Oh thank the Cardinals. "When you stopped, I came back. You... You mentioned a bat?" A very patient stray listener. Malty was almost impressed.

"Yeah," Hal said. "Small flying thing in a cave. Made hear things. Mom killed, hard."

"A voice gengar," Ran-Fi said.

"Did anyone cast 'Anti-Bind' afterwards?" she asked.

The party looked at each other, confused.

The Dame ran off. A few minutes later, she came back with another woman, one of the courtiers.

"Zweite Anti Bind!" she chanted.

A hitherto unnoticed veil of fog over Malty's mind seemed to lift. In fact, the entire family suddenly had brighter expressions.

"Huh?" Ran-Fi looked up and around, then at her. "Why did I ever think...?"

It dawned on her.

Those stupid gengars had just done something to their heads that stuck around long after they had died!?

That's why I was, we all were all in a funk!?

It was simultaneously relieving and infuriating.

Her own worries weren't unfounded, to be sure.

The king of Faubrey was still a terrible person to have such power, was still way more aware of Malty than she was comfortable with, the other nations were still going to be aiming for her, and the queen could still be put into a very tight spot.

But she and the filolials were quite entrenched in Naofumi's party, and the birds in particular could hardly be considered Melromarc agents to place blame on.

Not to mention, Naofumi himself would hardly take things lying down.

Best bet was still to get her children their upgraded classes, and this country was still, unfortunately, the safest way to do that.

But with a full class-upped party acting together, they would have a lot more political weight to block anything untoward.

Things felt more manageable, and this messy Terra they all lived on felt a bit brighter.

=====

Another listener had also waited outside, better hidden, interested in asking Naofumi why he, one so touched by injustice, had been on the side of the corrupt king. How he had thrown the quest scenario so far off.

And how he got such bullshit overpowered mounts and firebombs.

But instead, he had heard much he felt he was not supposed to.

Itsuki Kawasumi, the summoned Cardinal Hero of the Bow, decided to return in the morning.



And perhaps add another corrupt king to his mental list.

Chapter Text

It was still dark out, but technically morning, when they got another visitor.

"Naofumi, I need to talk to you," said the visitor quietly.

"Huh? Itsuki?" Naofumi recognized the voice as he woke up

"Who?" Malty didn't seem to recognize the voice or the name.

"May I come in?" he asked.

"No shooting anyone," said Naofumi. "And give us a bit to get dressed."

"...Understandable," the voice conceded. "I'm alone; I'm not here to fight."

The Shield party got dressed and assembled into one tent to meet their visitor.

"All of you, give him a chance. Do not attack," he said.

A hooded figure walked in. Malty twitched. He took off his hood.

"So it was you, Bow Hero," she began. "There a reason for the attempted murder earlier?"

"Yes," he said firmly. He explained a lot, some from "Emerald Online", some from personal experience.

The nobility of the country was corrupt. He had saved a girl, Rishia, who was all but kidnapped by them after various schemes to impoverish her family. It had technically been her childhood home that the king was using as a court. Itsuki was supporting a revolution to take them down.

Which lost all momentum when it ran into Naofumi's party.

"So why did you defend the king?" Itsuki asked.

Malty spoke up, hopefully better able to explain the context of why they were here, which Naofumi still only mostly grasped.

"Our party was called on in accordance with a pact of alliance and the laws of Melromarc, in order to speak with King Saighdear," she began. "I was explaining how we would not help in the civil war, but could help with the wave incursion." A little self-serving on who is implied to have brought up what, but roughly accurate, Naofumi decided.

"...Wave incursion?" asked Itsuki.

"Yes, wave incursion," Naofumi confirmed. "There was a wave here before we were summoned, besides the one in Melromarc. Itsuki, there's someone here you really need to talk to. Hal, can you go- Hal?"

Their ninja/magician had vanished. "I guess I'll go get her mys-"

"You requested me, Sir Naofumi?" said Dame Kyla, entering the tent with Hal, somewhat dishevelled, but ultimately presentable.

"...Almost? Let's go with 'yes'," responded Naofumi. He pointed to his fellow hero. "This is Itsuki Kawasumi, the-"

"The Bow Hero!?" she squeaked. "I'm not, he's here, but I, I should've-"

"Stop," he ordered. The Dame went stock still. "Now, Itsuki has some questions for you. Answer them as completely and accurately as you can."

"Yes, Sir Naofumi! Yes, Sir Itsuki!" She was a lot more enthusiastic about Itsuki than she had been about him.

"Okay, if Naofumi thinks this is important, so be it. Who are you?"

She went into her previous introduction, but more elaborately.

She went on to answer questions about her allegiance, and the state of the country.

Naofumi figured Itsuki would be satisfied with this. Instead, he turned to Naofumi. "How did you break the quest like this?"

What?

"It was supposed to be a simple chain, taking out corrupt nobles and helping the rebellion," he said.

Dame Kyla gasped. "You're with the rebellion!?" She processed it a moment, before releasing a breath. "No wonder King Saighdear was failing, if the Beloved Hero was against him..."

The rest of the tent looked at each other. "'Beloved Hero'?" asked Naofumi.

"Our country was founded long ago by a Bow Hero of old. In that hero's native language, 'Boghadair' meant 'archer'," Kyla explained. "Our nation traditionally trained our military and paladins to act as support for a summoned Bow Hero.

"But when the wave came, we lost almost everything, and then fractured and fought over the scraps that remained."

Out of the corner of his eye, Naofumi saw Malty losing her focus on what was going on, which was nothing new.

But suddenly, she seemed to regain focus, and something truly remarkable happened.

Malty remembered a name.

=====

With some of her memories brought back to the forefront, Malty recalled a short event that happened in Faubrey between T picking on Fuee and showing what her uncle was like.

She had wanted to ask the girl about something in class.

"Fuee, do you have the notes from-"

"My name," she said, turning and showing an uncharacteristic ferocity, "is Rishia Ivyred! Four Cardinals, do you think so much of yourself and so little of me that you don't even need to remember my name!?"

Malty had been in shock over the utterly unexpected outburst from the timid girl.

And the rapidly dawning horror on the girl's face, rapidfire apologies after, and culminating lightning-fast retreat had suggested that so, too, was-

=====

"Rishia Ivyred!" Malty exclaimed.

Dame K and Bow turned to her suddenly.

"What-"

"She's alive! She's in Bow's party!"

"Yes," Bow confirmed. "I found her imprisoned in one of the corrupt lords' houses."

"The Ivyred heir!? She's alive!? That... That changes everything!" She was suddenly on her knees. "Lord Itsuki Kawasumi, I beg you, please help us unite and restore our nation!"

She explained the succession, and the reasons against all other possible candidates from the revolution.

"I..." Izuki didn't seem to have an answer for her. "You keep distracting me," Bow accused, dodging out of the request, leaving K hanging. "I have other questions for you, Naofumi."

"Ask, then."

"How did you make your birds so powerful!? And how did you get exploding potions that do so much damage!?"

Oh, the weapon powerup methods.

Naofumi immediately went into the equip bonuses and their effects, including the filolial growth bonuses, and then into what he got from Motojojo's method.

"I... I don't see it," Bow said, apparently reviewing something with his weapon. "What are your stats with all this again?"

Naofumi rattled off an impressive string of numbers.

Bow rattled off an impressive string of expletives.

"And the firebombs! Firebombs are garbage. They don't scale worth a damn, and have no high rarity variants."

"Rarity?"

"Yes, rarity. It's the primary indicator of weapon quality," Bow continued. "With a common rarity like firebombs, you'll never kill anything above level 30."

"I mean, I have potionmaking skill bonuses, and they are really high. The exploding potions definitely work."

"Can I see one?"

Naofumi reached a hand out to Hal, who promptly gave him one. Naofumi gave it to Bow, who put it in the jewel of his bow.

"'Explosive Curry Bomb Potion,' Very Rare quality," he said, reading something. "Curry?"

"If a pepper in a fantasy world is referred to as 'fiery', double check if that means 'spicy' or 'highly flammable' before quick-growing a bunch and making a dish out of them," Naofumi said. Malty recalled that afternoon. The cooking pot had warped.

"You're double dipping bonuses! No, triple! Potionmaking, cooking, and foraging!" He took out the vial.

"Wait, it improved rarity because I cooked it as food? Would it be more damaging served with naan?"

Bow's face was suddenly angry. "It's cheating!"

Everyone in the tent looked at him.

"...What?" asked Naofumi.

"An exploit to get unintended powers!"

"Umm, Sir Itsuki," K spoke up, still kneeling from her previous heartfelt request that had been summarily ignored. "If you don't mind my asking, and with all due respect: so what?"

"It is against the spirit of the game!"

"The... game...?" K did not seem to understand, and frankly, neither did Malty.

But something in K cracked. "What game!? There is no game!" she suddenly shouted, on her feet with all previous trace of her earlier reverence gone. "Our people died when monsters came in and destroyed our homes!

"You want to see cheating? Look at them! They spawned their damnable wave on top of our homes, our families, using our own defenses to keep their protectors out, slaughtering man, woman, and child all the while!

"If we can do something, anything, to get a leg up on them, then Seven Stars, I'm a fucking cheater!"

Shocked and with no retort to that, Bow eventually just said, "Oh."

Much like she remembered Rishia Ivyred doing, Dame K realised who she was talking to and started apologizing rapidly and loudly.

"E-enough, I forgive you," Itsuki said.

He agreed to speak with the current king, then return to his party and the rebellion, reveal his status as a hero, and assemble the rebel forces to join in retaking the capital.

Dame K assured him that they would be receptive, but Itsago had some doubts.

Ultimately, they decided that Naofumi's recognizable and known-present party would go with, alongside the locally-known paladin, after they got agreement from loyalist forces.

Everything needed to be set up fairly quickly, before either group could fully reorganize after the sudden loss of momentum on the rebel side.

With that agreed, the discussion continued into specifics of what they needed to do to reclaim the capital, and a bit more Cardinal Weapon stat discussion.

=====

In the light of morning, they moved with purpose, to the new temporary court of King Saighdear.

It was just a random house this time. Malty wasn't sure if it was because he was out of manors to commandeer, or he was worried that this one would burn to the ground, too.

Malty had a plan in mind, to accept the king's request, with the reasonable caveat of receiving the support of the highest level fighter on his side.

That was to say, the king himself. She figured he caught the dragon by its wings and deserved to wrestle it.

But her planned revenge was kind of knocked off its mount when Izuku came in, his identity was confirmed by Naofumi and Dame Killjoy, and the king immediately acquiesced to the Bow Hero's demands, and volunteered to join his troops.

He was even accepting of the Ivyred scion who would be taking his throne after the expedition.

Too reasonable, too boring.

She supposed she had to give the man some respect. He seemed to, at least now, want what was best for his nation, and recognized when he was not it.

With agreement on this side, the heroes, the Dame, the princess, and the really big, incredibly recognizable and impossible to fake royal filolials headed out toward the rebel camp.

=====

Naofumi's party and alongside Itsuki and Dame Kyla were off to the meet with the rebel leadership.

It was a brisk journey, with Lucy pulling their party in a carriage, and Hal occasionally jumping out to kill a monster on the path.

Ran-Fi was still off her legs.

Given the temporary slave contract, Dame Kyla was technically in Naofumi's party, leeching part of the experience that was otherwise wasted on level-capped birds. So, Naofumi could tell that Dame Kyla had leveled up as Hal made a kill.

"Huh?" She reacted in surprise.

"Yeah, you're in my party, so when Hal-"

"I know that, I mean, I felt something different. Like leveling up was stronger than before."

Naofumi checked her stats. It was less than the birds typically gained on a level, but more than Malty.

Malty. Oh. The slave user's series!

"You get an on-level boost from the slave user's shield because you are my slave for another couple hours," Naofumi said.

"Slave user's...?" Itsuki began. "Naofumi, what did-"

"Nothing but what I explicitly asked for to get him on our side earlier, Sir Itsuki," Kyla interrupted. "...Sorry to interrupt," she added as an afterthought.

Some of the trip was then dedicated to Itsuki asking questions with his own wording to make sure it was all above board. It was, though he glared at Malty for a bit when he heard about some of her line of questioning.

"...May I please extend the contract until we have taken back the capital?" Kyla asked.

...Huh. "I guess so. Let it lapse, though, and make sure you keep the stats afterwards."

It did lapse later, but the stats did not, even when she left the party. That determined, she got the extension she wanted.

=====

The logistics of mustering different legions of soldiers under different leadership that had until recently been at war with each other was complex, intricate, and waaaaay outside what Malty had the patience to deal with.

The point is, it occurred, with help from the Dame, and the remaining legions of Boghadair were assembled.

Ichigo's party, including the nervous-looking Queen-to-be Rishia Ivyred, was present and ready, minus one. They all gave uncomfortable looks when Malty asked about the guy with an axe.

"Mald tried to murder Rishia," said Bow, after a tense silence. "So I slew him."

Oh. That, uh, was a very sudden and very extreme escalation of party tension.

And very unnerving for someone that looked as young as the Bow Hero to just state outright like that.

But the rest seemed on board with the decision.

Hopefully.

Itachi himself was stronger than he was last fight with some of the advice from Naofumi having gone through finally.

There were quarrels and squabbles, but between the Bow Hero, the paladin, and occasionally, the Queen-to-be (who did not look comfortable with public speaking yet), they were ultimately settled into a relatively cohesive army.

Frankly, Malty had seen individual territories muster larger, but between the last wave and the civil war, they had to take what they could get. Having two Cardinal Heroes would even the odds.

As they prepared to march, the Bow Hero came to the front.

"I am Itsuki Kawasumi, Cardinal Hero of the Bow!

"And I, am a Hero of Justice!

"The wave monsters have done something unacceptable.

"They cheated!"

The crowd was silent a time. In reverence, or confusion, Malty figured roughly equal measure.

"They opened their rift past your defenses. They skipped the whole line, and just dropped death and destruction on your innocent citizens and their homes directly!"

He went on to give what was an odd, but ultimately inspiring speech, from the reactions of the troops, and the combined army was on its way.

Soon enough, they saw the wall in the distance. Rough metal emplaced over the original stone, far too tall to climb over.

"Dammit, I forgot this part," Ikari said quietly.

"What?" asked Naofumi.

"In the game, the earlier quests involve preparing a ritual spell to break through the wall so the raid can be started. We didn't do that."

That was, indeed, a serious problem.

"It's metal, not static level geometry," Naofumi said. "Try just breaking it yourself."

They got close enough, and Bow used a powerful skill. It left a slight dent.

Hal threw an exploding potion. It burst into flame, but the wall remained.

Then Hal threw two at once, and the resulting inferno was enough to make the metal wall glow faintly.

"Black bird, uhh, Halberd, was it? What did you just do there?" asked Bow.

"Threw two curry instead of one," Hal explained.

"Two? You can throw two at once!? That was never possible in..." He trailed off.

"...What? Why couldn't you throw two at once?"

"Sir Itsuki?" Rishia spoke up. "Can you shoot two arrows at once?"

"The skill only generates one," he responded.

"Not the skill shots, actual arrows," she clarified. "I know you have perfect accuracy. Does it multiply?"

Izuchi considered and drew two normal arrows from the jewel. "They won't be a skill," he noted, but shot them both.

Two arrows at once impacted the metal wall at precisely the same time and place.

Malty stared a moment. Perfect accuracy indeed.

Rishia turned to Hal and Naofumi. "I need as many bottles of that fire bomb as you have." She turned to the army. "I need a full quiver of arrows for Sir Itsuki!"

Several sealed quivers were thrown in her direction; she caught two, and grabbed a third from the ground.

In a short order, she had tied an arrow to a firebomb. "Try this while I work on the next."

Itsuki shot the somewhat awkward projectile, and it flew true, and exploded on impact.

Glowing hot and heavily dented. Stronger than Hal's one potion or two potion hits.

Then, after a longer delay, Rishia handed over three entire quivers worth of arrows, strapped together.

Each with a potion strapped to it.

"That's all the curry we have," Naofumi said. Bless the heroic chef, he made everything in really big batches.

"Now, Sir Itsuki," Rishia said with a vicious grin. "Try this one."

"Everyone, stand back!" commanded Naofumi.

From maximum range, Itsuki shot the cluster, the now extremely awkward projectile flying just as fast and true as a finely-crafted arrow.

As soon as the shot went out, Naofumi put two floating shields between them and the impending impact.

The roaring explosion sure sounded like a ritual-cast spell landing.

When the fire and smoke finally cleared, there, straight up, was no wall.

Just molten, smoldering earth.

"...Does anyone here have water magic?" Naofumi said.