bookworm

Chapter Ten: Traveling Merchant

The next morning we went to the tailor, and that Otaku girl was waiting for us at the door, a wide smile on her face.
“It took me all night, but I finished! I think you’re going to like it.”
She’d stayed up all night, but she was still chipper—practically bouncing off the walls. She ran back behind the counter and returned with Filo’s new clothes in hand.
It was basically a white one-piece dress, but there was a large blue ribbon in the center. It was fringed here and there with blue ribbon for contrast. You could tell with one glance that it was well-made, and made full advantage of the materials.
It had a “simple is best” esthetic, the sort of clothing that chooses its wearer.
“Master! Am I supposed to wear this?”
“Yeah.”
“Yay!”
She threw off the cape and stood there completely naked.
“Stop that.”
“But…”
Raphtalia stopped her, and led her into the back of the shop.
“Okay, so try transforming into your monster form.”
I could hear the tailor’s voice echoing in the back room.
“Why?”
“If you don’t the ribbon will dig into you.”
“Oh no!”That was an odd threat to make.
“Okay!”
I heard a loud thump as she transformed, and then…
“Yup… I knew it would look good.”
She sounded rather self-satisfied.
“Okay, let’s get going!”
“Yay!”
All the girls came out from the back room together, and I got my first look at Filo.
She was already a cute girl, so with the clothes she really did look like an angel.
She was in a white one-piece dress, with her white wings, and a large blue ribbon on her chest as an accent.
She was like a little 2D child angel heroine!
“Master!”
“Huh?”
“How do I look?”
“It suits you well.”
This Otaku girl really knew what she was doing. Who else could have come up with a design that worked so well with Filo’s appearance and specs.“Ehehe.”
Filo looked a little embarrassed, but she played with the fringe on the skirt and spun in a little circle.
We left the tailor shop, and decided to head back to Riyute. To do so, we had to get Filo to pull our carriage. When Filo transformed into a Filolial, the clothes would disappear, but the ribbon would remain as a collar around her neck.
The clothes were expensive, but there had clearly been a lot of thought put into them.
“Oh, Shield Hero!”
We were leaving Castle Town when we happened to come across the witch from the magic shop.
“Are you on your way to Riyute?”
“Yeah.”
“I’m on my way there also. Could I trouble you for a ride?”
She was smiling.
We were going there anyway, and she had gone out of her way to help us, so it didn’t seem right to turn her down.
“I can’t guarantee a smooth ride, but you’re welcome to come with us.”
“I did ride in it two days ago.”
“Oh yeah, that’s right.”
Raphtalia had learned to fight her motion sickness by watching the horizon.
“Thank you, Hero.”
The witch climbed up into the carriage.
“All right, Filo! Let’s go, but take it slow.”
“Okay!”
All the pedestrians stopped to stare at Filo as we passed. They probably weren’t used to seeing talking monsters. We proceeded down the street slowly, to the tapping of Filo’s feet.
It felt like the last few days had been so busy. I mean, it always felt like the days were busy, but these last days had felt even more so. And to think, it was all Filo’s fault.
As for the witch… Well, I wanted to learn magic, but if I had asked right then, I couldn’t be sure how she would respond.
And I felt guilty for not studying as much as I should have.
The witch had given us those books, so I wanted to repay her kindness by studying from them. Yes, I’d have to devote more time to it.
I didn’t know all the ins and outs of this world like the other heroes did. So I had to be learning new things all the time. Even still, I needed to give special priority to learning the writing system, and to understanding the recipes I’d gotten. If I didn’t, it would be a waste.
“Huh… it’s so light.”
Filo was yawning as she walked, and now she started to mutter to herself.
There were three people in the carriage, and she was complaining that it was too light?
This was good. I already had an idea what I wanted to try… and I’d need Filo to do it.
When we arrived at Riyute, the witch gave me 25 pieces of silver.
“What’s this for?”
“For the ride.”
“Oh… Thanks.”
Maybe we could make money off this too?
Riyute was still invested in rebuilding. I checked in at the inn, and the innkeeper gave us a friendly greeting.
“Okay, let’s get started on Raphtalia’s motion sickness training. Also known as: lumber transport duty.”
We’d agreed to help carry lumber in exchange for meat.
“Huh?!”
Raphtalia looked upset. Then again, she was going to have to fight motion sickness all day.
“We’re going to be carried around by Filo from now on, so you better get used to it.”
“Pfft. Fine.”
“Okay!”
“Filo, you’re going to do the pulling.”
“Okay!”
Apparently Filolials really did enjoy pulling carriages. Her eyes were shining she was so excited.
“Um… did you have some kind of plan?”
“Yes, I was thinking of becoming a traveling merchant. The local governor suggested it to me.”
“A traveling merchant?”
“Yeah. We don’t have all that many products, but I would focus on medicine and transport. We could cover a good range.”
“Hm…”
Raphtalia didn’t seem very interested. To be fair, it wasn’t like I had confidence that we would succeed. But we were about to start traveling anyway, so it seemed like a natural idea.
“Which means, if we started transporting things, that Filo will need to run at pretty much full speed. I can’t have you getting sick on me all the time.”
“I understand that, but…”
“Oh c’mon. I know a good, smooth place that should be pretty easy to start with. You can get used to it there.”
“You know a place like that?”
“Sure.”
And so, at the start of the day’s work, I put Raphtalia somewhere she wouldn’t get sick… on Filo’s back.
“Master, you can ride there anytime you want… but why do I have to give her a ride?”
Filo grumbled to herself as Raphtalia climbed up on her back.
“I feel the same way. This is so embarrassing.”
When Filo was in her Filolial Queen form, she was like a giant owl, which made sitting on her back look a little ridiculous.
“You comfy?”
“Yup, feels good!”
Maybe because this was her “real form,” Filo seemed perfectly content.
“Okay then, let’s go!”
“Yay! I’ll help you so much! I’ll be just as useful as Raphtalia!”
“It’s not a competition!”
“But I won’t lose!”
Filo, with Raphtalia on her back, started to pull the carriage.
With the weight of the carriage and us passengers, it must have been pretty heavy, but not heavy enough for Filo, apparently. What did they have to fight about? I spent the time on the road with my book open, studying the writing system and trying to translate the intermediate recipe book.
…Tap, tap.
……Tap, tap.
The rhythmic sound of Filo’s footsteps was excellent music for absorbing myself in the erudite and obtuse world of foreign character sets and language. But then I heard them…
“Why? Why in that form?”
“Huh? Because I want my master to be pleased!”
………Tap, tap.
“He’ll just be mad. You better stop.”
“But Master… Master likes people like you, doesn’t he?”
Huh? I looked up to see Filo transformed back in to a human, with Raphtalia still on her back. Raphtalia looked very uncomfortable, and she was talking to Filo, trying to get her to change back.
Some adventurers passed us on the street, and they pointed in our direction and started whispering among themselves.
“Stop acting like that! People are going to start gossiping!”
I could hear the rumors now. I bought a slave and put her on the back of another little girl, and forced them to pull my luggage carriage down the street. That wouldn’t reflect well on me at all.
“Really? What’s wrong?”
“Don’t pull the carriage as a human.”
“Fiiine.”
She gave a disappointed nod and turned back into a monster. It must have been boring for her or something.
Raphtalia wasn’t sick yet, so that was good. It was time to pick up the pace a little.
“Okay, Filo! Let’s speed up.”
“Yay!”
Raphtalia let out a yelp then hunkered down and grabbed tight to Raphtalia’s feathers.
That should get us where we were going faster.
We spent the next few hours working on Raphtalia’s motion sickness prevention practice.
Chapter Eleven: Travel by Carriage

A few days passed, and the local governor gave us a new carriage as a present. The whole village gathered to be there when we received it, and there was a party at which everyone cheered for us.
If you wanted to move a Filolial, you needed a carriage… or something like that.
“Thank you.”
“You’ve done so much to help us. We’re just sorry that we can’t do more for you.”
The villagers were all smiling as they helped me load up the carriage.
I couldn’t let them spoil me, even if they wanted to. Still, I needed to honestly express my gratitude.
“Thank you for saying that.”
“You’ll be trying your hand at being a traveling merchant?”
“Yeah.”
I didn’t know whether or not I would be successful with it or not. But I was lucky enough to have Filo with us, so it seemed stupid not to put her to work.
“Huh? A carriage!”
Filo had been running around and playing as a human and was surprised to see the new carriage.
“Am I going to pull this?”
Her eyes were flashing with joy.
“That’s right. You’re going to pull this thing, and we’re going to travel all over the country.
“Really?!”
She squealed in excitement.
Didn’t she realize she’d have to lug a heavy carriage around? I don’t see what was so exciting about that…
“So we are really going to do it?”
Raphtalia muttered, sounding depressed at the prospect.
She hadn’t quite gotten control over her queasy stomach, so the idea of traveling by carriage was not terribly appealing.
“It might be tough at first, but you’ll get used to it.”
“Okay.”
I looked over at Filo and looked her over carefully.
“Filo, what’s your job?”
“Let’s see… I’m supposed to pull the carriage and go where you tell me to go, Master.”
“Right”
“And if we meet that Spear guy, I’m supposed to kick him.”
“Exactly.”
“That last part’s not true!”
Raphtalia had her arms crossed, like she was going to right all the wrongs in the world.
“What? Why are you looking at me like I’m weird?”
If we see Motoyasu, Filo would kick him. What was weird about that?
Oh well, I couldn’t entertain every one of her complaints.
“All right! This is the official start of our traveling merchant life. I’ll hide in the carriage. Raphtalia, when we get to a new town, you start selling our wares from the front.”
“Oh, all right…”
My poor reputation was still alive and well out in the world beyond Riyute. If I were in charge of the sales, we’d never sell anything—who would want to negotiate with a criminal? It only made sense to put Raphtalia in charge.
Raphtalia was pretty, and she had the personality for it. She wouldn’t be shy.
“Shall we be on our way?”
“Oh, Hero.”
“Huh? What is it?”
“Please, take this…”
The governor handed me a piece of parchment.
“What’s this?”
“The commercial bill of passage that we discussed earlier.”
“Oh yeah…”
With the bill of passage in hand, I’d be able to sell my things in different towns without having to pay the local governors any tariffs. It would make my life much easier. Now, whether or not these local governors should really be charging the heroes to pass through their towns… that’s another story altogether.
I mean, Motoyasu clearly thought that way.
“Travel safely.”
“Thanks. We’ll be on our way now.”
“I hope we can help you out more in the future. You’ve done so much for us.”
“Just don’t push yourselves too hard.”
“Okay!”
And so we left Riyute behind and started our new lives as traveling merchants.
The first thing we tried was selling various medicines.
We didn’t have a huge selection prepared, so we set our prices lower than the typical market price.
We started with healing medicine and nutritional drinks. They were both better than just your average medicines and drinks, and so I set the price a little higher than our other products.
Then we would stock up on herbs and supplies and leave for the next village—I’d use our time on the road to compound new medicines.
Filo was really fast, so we almost made it to the next town in a single the day, though there were times that we had to stay camped in the wilderness. On nights like that we would stop the carriage, build a fire, and have dinner under the stars.
“Master! There’s room next to me! Come sleep with me!”
We’d finished eating, and Filo transformed back into her monster form and was tapping the spot on the ground next to her.
“It’s too hot sleeping next to you…”
Filo still wanted to sleep with me every night. I’d ordered her not to turn into a monster when we were at an inn, so she took the opportunity whenever we camped out.
Granted, we were alone out there, so there was no one she could inconvenience…
“Filo, you sure do like Mr. Naofumi, don’t you?”
“Yeah! I like him even more than you do, Big-Sister!”
“Don’t call me that!
Her problem was with big-sister?
“Then what should I call you?”
“Hm… how about Mommy? I was there when you hatched from your egg, and I’ve known you the whole time! Seems fitting, doesn’t it?”
“I dunno… Big-Sister!”
They kept fighting amongst themselves, like they couldn’t decide whether they were friends or enemies.
Filo was just like a little kid, so she couldn’t help but get too serious about things.
Actually, I guess she really was a little kid. And she acted like one.
“Okay, okay, both of you should get to bed. When my shift is up, I’m going to wake you!”
“Stop treating me like a little kid!”
“Yes! Mr. Naofumi, you treat me like a child!”
“Oh, whoops! I keep forgetting how grown up the both of you are!”
“You don’t mean it!”
“Yeah, Master! You liar!”
But they really were like children. And I’d decided to be a parent to them both.
“I want to help you keep watch, Master!”
Filo picked up some rocks and started rubbing them together over random grasses in a loose approximation of my mortar and pestle.
“Ew! It smells funny!”
“Yeah, it does.”
If you could make medicine from random grasses, it wouldn’t be so hard, would it?
“Why isn’t it working?”
“You can learn some things just by watching, but others take a little more practice.”
“Is that why you can’t pull a carriage?”
“Why do I have to pull a carriage?”
“Why are you and I different?”
“What’s wrong with being different?”
Just like a kid… she’d attack anything she could think of.
If we just kept going back and forth with questions, then eventually she’d get confused and have to give up.
“Argh… Master is so… so stupid!”
“Who are you calling stupid!”
We kept at it for a while, and I was able to get some work done too.
Chapter Twelve: Rumors of the Heroes

“Huh?”
We were on our way to the next village and had been traveling for about an hour, which I’d spent working in the back, when I noticed a strange sound.
Coming from the other side of the carriage wall came the sound of a man desperately out of breath. I poked my head out to see a flustered man running beside us, a bag in his outstretched hand.
“What are you in such a rush for?”
I figured that showing curiosity in times like this could easily lead to a sale.
We slowed the carriage down so that I could hear what the man had to say.
“I have to get to the village across the mountains…”
“You’re running to the village over the mountains?”
Apparently his parents were sick and he was running to get medicine for them. Filo had just overtaken him on the road.
“Yes, and without a minute to spare!”
“Filo, if you ran as fast as you could, how long would it take to get there?”
“Lemme think… Well, I could go faster if I didn’t have to pull the carriage…”
“Fine.”
I looked over to Raphtalia, and she nodded immediately, already understanding what I meant to say.
“We’ll take you there for a silver piece.”
“What?”
The man was shocked.
“But I was just going to buy medicine… See, I don’t have enough money…”
“You can just give us something worth a silver piece. Or just bring us medicinal herbs the next time you see us. Of course, if you don’t keep your promise…”
“Oh, well, if that’s okay then…”
“Great! That settles it! Filo?”
“Okay!”
I moved over onto Filo’s back, and pulled the man up to sit with me.
“Woah!”
The man was surprised, but Filo covered him with her wings and took off at full speed.
Raphtalia was waving to us from the carriage.
“Here we go!”
“Oh!”
Filo might have been shaped like an owl now, but it had done nothing to slow her speed.
Before we knew it, we had already arrived at the man’s house.
“That was so fast!”
“You better hurry up and get them their medicine. Careful now!”
“Okay!”
The man went into the house, and I followed him inside. We hadn’t finished discussing my payment.
It was an average farmer’s house. I could hear violent coughing coming from somewhere inside.
“Ma… It’s medicine, you gotta drink it.”
I followed the sound of the voices, and came across the young man giving medicine to two older people, both with pale faces.
I didn’t know what kind of medicine it was, but it seemed to be more effective than the medicines I was accustomed to.
“Hey. I’ll take care of administering the medicine. Why don’t you go boil some water and make them something good?”
“Are you sure?”
“Yeah, I’m just waiting to see what happens.”
I took the medicine from the man, and, supporting the weight of the old woman, gently gave her some medicine.
I hoped that the medicine efficacy skill booster I’d learned before would work.
Cough… Cough…
The old woman took the medicine and managed to swallow some of it.
The woman was suddenly enveloped in a shower of glowing light. Apparently that signified that the medicine had been effective. She even looked healthier. Some color had returned to her pale face, and she seemed to be coughing less than she had been.
“Just try and relax. Your family will be back with food soon.”
She managed a weak smile and then lay back down.
“Now then…”
I left the room and went into the kitchen.
“Did they take the medicine?”
“Yes, and it seems to have worked.”
He sighed deeply, as though a great weight had been removed from his shoulders.
“I’ll be back later, so make sure you have my money.”
“Okay.”
I left the house, found Filo, and quickly road back to where we had left the carriage.
When we arrived back at the village the man was there waiting for us, looking tense.
“Um…”
“What is it?”
We talked as we unloaded the luggage from the carriage.
“My mother seems to be doing much better…but just who are you?”
“You don’t need to know.”
If he knew my name, he’d instantly associate me with the bad rumors that have been going around. And he would start to doubt me.
“Please just tell me your name.”
“I’m not obligated to. The medicine worked, right? So bring me a piece of silver, or something worth that much.”
“All right!”
He ran back to the house, flipped through some materials, and then came back out with some food.
“So that’s it, huh? Fine, well, keep an eye out for us, okay?”
“Yes! Thank you very much!”
The man looked very happy.
I suppose it’s a bit of a digression, but some time later on we actually did come back to this village. The old lady was very energetic, almost too much so.
I went back to my studies in the back of the carriage. I was trying to read the intermediate medicine recipe book. The recipe book seemed easier to understand than the magic book, so I was starting with that one. But after I dedicated a bunch of time to translating a recipe, I found out that it was a medicine I already knew… I was disappointed.
Come to think of it, I had been pretty neglectful of my studies up until now. I’d been so busy for the last month that I hadn’t had time to think about it, but if I ever made it out of here alive, I’d have to say something to my brother, who had worn himself out studying too hard.
“Mr. Naofumi, I think we are pretty much done here for today.”
We’d arrived just past noon, and now evening was approaching.
“Are there any parcels or letters that we could take to the next village?”
“I’ve already collected them.”
I climbed out of the carriage and helped load up the luggage.
Granted, there were only certain kinds of people that would give their luggage to a traveling merchant they’d never met. It was mostly cheap things that people wouldn’t be too upset to lose. Even still, we were able to make some good change.
We travelled this way for a while, moving from village to village and town to town.
Whenever someone wanted restorative medicine, I would give it to them myself, and that way they could take advantage of my medicine efficacy skill.
After we’d been at it for two weeks or so, we began to get a bit of a reputation as the merchants with the weird bird that sold everything.
When we had made a good name for ourselves, people became much more trusting, and more and more pedestrians came to ask us for rides. So before long our profits started to rise.
There were some really good things about the traveling merchant’s lifestyle.
The first was that I could sell the medicine that I made while we were on the road. The second was that I was able to absorb any monsters that we came across on our travels. Of course, all I really ever got out of it was typical status boosts.
One other thing I learned after we started traveling was that monsters were very different depending on the locale. Considering that I could grow stronger by absorbing a variety of different monsters, starting this traveling gig was turning out to be a really good arrangement.
The other good thing was that I was now in a position to hear all sorts of gossip.
I’d had no idea for the longest time, but now I was able to make a good guess where the other heroes, Motoyasu, Ren, and Itsuki, had based themselves.
Motoyasu seemed to be out to the southwest of the castle, where he had apparently saved a starving village by breaking the seal on some kind of legendary crop. He must have known to go there since he knew everything about the place already. It actually reminded me a lot of the place we’d been to, where we fought the Nue.
Ren had gone to the southeast of the castle, but apparently he would go anywhere that was inhabited by tough monsters. I’d heard various tales of his exploits—like that he’d defeated a violent dragon somewhere out to the East.
As for Itsuki… I wasn’t sure what he wanted to do, but he had gone with some adventurers that had visited the kingdom seeking help. He went with them to a country in the North, where the government was corrupt. He fought with the resistance to overthrow an evil lord.
Having said that, Itsuki’s story was missing the most details, so I couldn’t really be sure of anything. I’d only heard vague references to him as “that adventurer with the strong bow” and so on.
All of this sounded a lot like something I’d read before coming to this world, something I’d read in the The Records of the Four Holy Weapons.
Anyway, so that’s what our travels were like.
At the end of the two weeks, our stats were looking like this:

Naofumi: LV 34
Raphtalia: LV 37
Filo: LV 32

I guess it was because she was a monster, but Filo was certainly leveling up quickly.
Filo was now much stronger, physically, than she had been. While she used to use both hands (wings?) to pull the carriage, she now only used one, and yawned the whole time.
Naturally, I tried to get her to try harder, but she only protested.
“But it’s so light that I lose my motivation!”
Whatever.
Afterwards, all the shields that I got while traveling only unlocked status boosters.
If there were any interesting shields… well, there was this one:
Crystal Ore Shield: ability unlocked:
equip bonus: fine crafting 1

We’d come into a booming mining town, and there was a poor-quality crystal lying there. I let the shield absorb it, and that was what I got.
It seemed like a skill that could lead to some serious money making possibilities, but I didn’t have enough information to go trying it out just yet.
I tried polishing the crystal ore, but it just broke and crumbled, so it must need to be combined with something else in a recipe. Either that, or I was just doing it wrong.
Regardless, I still needed to translate that book the apothecary had given me.
Sure, if I’d spent two weeks on it, it should have been simple enough to read. And I’d had the thing for close to three weeks now, so I should have been able to glean some information from it.

Antidote, weed killer, healing salve, restorative medicine (I’d already made that), nutritional drink (I’d made that too), gunpowder, acidic water, magical water, soul healing medicine, insecticide, were the recipes I’d been able to figure out, and after I went through them all, the book was over. Apparently you could alter the effectiveness of these basic intermediate medicines by mixing them with different additives. It was all rather vague, so I wouldn’t say that I really had a handle on it. Even still—I was starting to realize that the recipes the apothecary had given me were pretty average for intermediate level.
Well, I’d been able to figure out the book, so I didn’t think I’d need it anymore. I let the shield absorb it. This was the shield I unlocked:

Book Shield: ability unlocked:
equip bonus: magic power up (small)

I thought for sure the shield would unlock some intermediate medicine recipes, but I was wrong.
And on top of that, the shield’s defense rating was really low!
It happened the day after I finished translating the recipe book.
We came upon a monster called Torrent, defeated it, and I absorbed it into my shield.

Torrent Shield: conditions met
Blue Torrent Shield: conditions met
Black Torrent Shield: conditions met

Torrent Shield: ability locked:
equip bonus: plant classification 2

Blue Torrent Shield: ability locked:
equip bonus: intermediate compounding recipe 2

Black Torrent Shield: ability locked:
equip bonus: rookie compounding

Intermediate recipes? Was this some kind of joke? I just finished translating that book!
Well, at least I’d only done up until the healing salve. The last time a shield unlocked recipes it was from a Mush, so I guess plant-based monsters would yield recipes. Even still, after I’d put all that work into it all—here they were: unlocked just like that.
The antidote, weed killer, and healing salve could be made from grasses, but I didn’t even know where to get the materials to make anything like gunpowder.
The apothecary’s notes made it seem like you could make substitutions in the case of gunpowder. There was something called Snappy Grass that could substitute, so I did that and tried to make some gunpowder.
It was like a crumbly powder, something like ash that could burn. I gathered it into a bag and made a makeshift bomb.
I set flame to it and planned to throw it at an enemy. It started crackling, but then I dropped it at my feet!
I was scared, but fortunately it didn’t produce anything you could really call an “explosion.”
The acidic water needed to be stored in a glass bottle. It was a liquid that, apparently, was only slightly less acidic than sulfuric acid. It wasn’t made from grasses but was made by taking different natural ores and adding them to water… or something like that. I hadn’t made it yet, so I can’t say for sure… but what kind of person would want such a thing, and what would they want it for? Anyway, I could make some just to absorb into the shield.
The Magic Power Water would restore your consumed magic points when you drank it. But the materials necessary to make it were pretty hard to get your hands on.
If you made it with commercially available grasses, it would cost a small fortune. If we were going to go through the effort of making it, it would be better to sell it than to use it. Just like the Magic Power Water, the Soul Healing Medicine would also replenish the user’s SP. But Raphtalia and Filo didn’t seem to understand what SP was, and they said it just tasted delicious, but like normal water.
The insecticide was easy. You just mixed various herbs that insects hated and either clumped them into a solid or dissolved them in water for a liquid.
So out of my new recipes, the ones that would be good for production and sales were the antidote, the healing salve, and the insecticide.
And the weed killer would be good too. You could make so much of it from so little material that all I’d need to do was give some thought as to where to sell it. I could let the shield absorb the leftovers.

Anti-Poison Shield: conditions met
Gurihosato Shield: conditions met
Medicine Shield: conditions met
Plant Fire Shield: conditions met
Killer Insect Shield Alpha: conditions met

Anti-Poison Shield: ability locked:
equip bonus: defense power 5

Gurihosato Shield: ability locked:
equip bonus: attack from plant enemies reduced by 5%

Medicine Shield: ability locked:
equip bonus: medicine effective range expansion (small)

Plant Fire Shield: ability locked:
equip bonus: fire resistance (small)

Killer Insect Shield Alpha: ability locked:
equip bonus: attack from insect enemies reduced by 3%

I bet the original ability for the Anti-Poison Shield was Poison Resistance (medium). But I’d already learned that skill from the Chimera Viper Shield, so it must have changed to accommodate that.
The Medicine Shield would increase some kind of range, though I wasn’t sure exactly what it meant.
It could have meant that the range for any particular medicine would be increased, but it could also mean the number of people it could work on, would increase.
What was Gurihosato? It seemed like the name of some kind of weed killer product. As for Killer Insect Shield Alpha, I imagined that you could produce a beta version or something by changing up the kinds of grasses that you used in the concoction.
The effect of cutting 3% from the damage of certain kinds of enemies seemed pretty useful to me.
The real problem was trying to read the magic book. It was very difficult.
Lately it seemed that Raphtalia was starting to get the hang of it. She’d produced certain effects that looked like they were on the right path. She’d been able to produce an orb of light that would float before her for a few seconds. Considering I was the Shield Hero, I didn’t look so great in comparison.
Filo could use her transformation magic too, so I asked Filo about it after Raphtalia had gone to bed.
It was kind of hard to think of what she did as magic, per se, but I thought it would be good to hear what she thought anyway.
“Yeah, so I, um… I just think about my power, like way down inside, right? And I just like, think about what I want to be and, uh… then I be it!”
Right. Whatever. At least I figured out that she wasn’t doing it as the result of some reasoned process.
But what if I could read the book but still found myself unable to practice the magic? I’d heard that magic can be funny like that.
And I came from a world that didn’t have any magic at all, so if it turned out that I wasn’t able to use it that would be… upsetting. I had to learn it. I just had to.
Not to please the witch from the magic shop… but to stay alive.
When the waves came, there wasn’t much need for me to participate in the fighting. Besides, who knew how I would be treated after the enemy had been vanquished? The best job for me would be to protect the nearby villages and towns. And when I was doing that, being able to use magic or not—that might decide whether or not I made it through the day alive.
I could have bought a crystal ball… but if I could learn magic from this book for free, then that seemed like a better way to go. So lately, when we were on the road, I had the magic book in one hand, and I tried to read it.
I asked Raphtalia how she did it, and she said that she synchronized her magic power with the words on the page, and her soul reacted… Just like Filo’s had been, her explanation was impossible to follow.
Granted, I could follow it better than Filo’s… but what was “magic power” anyway? Did it mean they could feel it, like a sixth sense?
My head was filled with questions like that, and it was driving me crazy.
Well anyway, that’s how we spent those last two weeks.