Chapter One: The Progenitor
It was the day after working with Ren and Imiya at the forge. We put the testing of the rest of the accessories on hold and headed to the castle in Siltran for a meeting. The situation was changing again, and we needed to discuss how we were going to handle it all.
Having overcome the recent battle, Siltran really seemed to be coming back to life. I’d been making those accessories with Imiya in order to sell the ones we didn’t need to Siltran’s rich folks to make us a bit more money to help with recovery.
“How are things looking?” I asked Melty. She was the queen of Melromarc and had also been unlucky enough to get caught up in the village being transported into the past.
“We’ve received emissaries from the other nations, each trying to gauge our circumstances for themselves,” she replied.
“That’s not the issue though,” Mamoru took over, muttering to himself, head in his hands. Mamoru Shirono was apparently my predecessor as Shield Hero. He was also the one leading the nation of Siltran, which would eventually become Siltvelt. After we had been shot back here into the past, Mamoru—the Shield Hero from this time—had been the first person we met. Through that piece of good fortune, we had obtained the cooperation of the country he was leading—Siltran, which in our time would become the demi-human therianthrope nation of Siltvelt. Even here in the past there were ambitious enemies who had to be thwarted, like the massive nation of Piensa, who was leading others in the world to try and occupy Siltran. We had worked with Siltran to stop one such attempted Piensa invasion, but it had turned out that Mamoru had some secrets he couldn’t share with other people.
One of these secrets was that the four ruling races of Siltvelt in the future, which seemed to be based on the four divine beasts, had been created by Mamoru here in the past by modifying orphans under his care.
But there was more. Here in the past they had also fought the guardian beasts, just like we had in the future—beasts that sought to protect the world by creating a barrier fueled by human souls. During one of those battles, Mamoru’s girlfriend had been killed by Suzaku, a guardian beast, and her soul was partly absorbed. But he was now trying to bring her back to life.
Only some of those who had come to the past with me knew these facts. I was going to have to fill everyone in soon. Mamoru was still clutching his head, but he didn’t look worried about his secrets getting out. His issue was more likely something else.
“They’re trying to work out what we’re planning, right?” I said.
“That’s right,” Mamoru replied.
“I’ve seen that look before on the generals when I was in Q’ten Lo,” Ruft commented. He had been the Heavenly Emperor of Q’ten Lo, so I wasn’t surprised he had experience in such matters. I’d received my own reports of more outsiders visiting the village recently. Some were trying to bring us into the fold, others trying to hold us back, while they were all conducting their own surveys to see how best to act next. Luckily, we had plenty of high-level individuals in the village, and the Raph species could spot anyone trying to come in and poke around while concealed. We also had the filolials and monsters on watch, making it pretty hard to sneak around us. That was probably why they were approaching Mamoru, trying to forge some kind of connection and see what was going on inside our nation.
They also probably wanted to know where we had even come from.
These were common tactics even in the history of the Earth I came from. A missionary would visit to spread their religion but really investigate the military strength of a nation and then report back to their homeland. If a decision was made the nation could be defeated, the invasion would follow quickly. Even if our visitors didn’t have such aggressive plans, they were likely checking to make sure we weren’t a threat to their own nation. Wanting to find out the truth behind warriors capable of defeating one of those who assume the name of god or making sure their own nation wasn’t at risk . . . there were multiple reasons. It wasn’t difficult to give them the boot, after all. But either way, I wanted to avoid a situation with emissaries coming to the village at every hour of the day or night.
Another issue was that our village had arrived close to Siltran’s border. It wasn’t exactly the best location. Defeating the ones behind the waves was important, but getting back to our own time was important too. However, if we could defeat all of the ones who assume the name of god in this time period, maybe it would bring peace to the future. We could hope. There were also S’yne’s sworn enemies, the force that Bitch had aligned herself with and that had been pulling the strings of the chaos in Kizuna’s world. They seemed to be an extension of the forces of the ones who assume the name of god, and so changing history might wipe them out completely—not that I was counting on such a simple solution to our problems.
In any case, we needed to find a way back home. That was something we weren’t having much luck with, and under those circumstances, it was foolish to worry too much about keeping nosy visitors happy when we had no real idea what they wanted.
“Queen Melty is a political animal,” I said. “We should probably leave this kind of stuff to her.” Melty had spent most of her life observing the complicated political dealings of a massive nation back in our own time period, so she should be able to bring those skills to bear here. It was a stroke of luck that we had the perfect person for the job here with us.
“You know how to put me to work, Naofumi,” Melty moaned.
“We can handle any fighting that breaks out, but when it comes to political stuff, that’s your arena,” I responded.
“I guess you’re right. I don’t think we have to worry about them now, anyway. Just let them do their thing. In fact, we should probably be putting on a show of force for them—even more than we have already,” Melty suggested.
“Should we avoid revealing too much about the ongoing recovery, then?” I asked. The nation was still in tatters after the war and the Suzaku attack. The lumo we had in the village were all good with their hands, and we had them helping out with the repairs. Things were proceeding well, but the cracks still showed, if you looked hard enough.
“No need to hide that stuff. They know the extent of that already. The bigger threat at the moment are those of us from the future, Naofumi,” Melty said with a serious expression on her face. “We’re going to start facing all sorts of plans and attacks to try and steal us away. We need not only the trading parties but everyone in the village to be strong enough to defend themselves from whatever might come.”
“Sounds like some more level grinding ahead,” I said. It wasn’t a bad idea to enhance our forces. In this world, killing monsters allowed for experience points to be gained, represented as a numerical value. Once a certain amount of them were accrued, you could level up and become stronger. I recalled the battle with S’yne’s sister. Based on our struggles in that conflict, it was clear that even we heroes needed more levels.
Each of the weapons a hero held had a power-up method inside, and from among these methods there was one that allowed the basic quality—the foundation abilities that would become future strength—to be enhanced via the consumption of levels. We were making use of it ourselves. But based on what we had seen in battle with S’yne’s sister—who also possessed a hero weapon herself, as did others in the force she belonged to—she was clearly enhancing herself in the same kind of way. That meant there was a gap in our abilities that was difficult to pinpoint based purely on level number. Even if on the surface we appeared to be the same—say level 80—if the accumulated enhancement actually created a 100-level gap, then in reality we wouldn’t stand a chance.