“I’m not sure,” Ren said, unconvinced.
“When you consider the production process, it might seem like a joke, but the finished product looks fine. It doesn’t matter how embarrassing something looks—if it works, no one’s going to complain,” I assured him.
“Still not sure,” Ren said, sticking to his guns.
“Okay. How about the weapons old guy? That gruff muscle-head made a costume for Filo to wear,” I told him. There was indeed a costume for Filo that the weapons old guy had made. That was his own dark history. I had often wondered what he felt about making it, but I’d never worked up the guts to ask him.
“Huh? I caught a glimpse of that once. He made that?” Ren asked.
“More accurately, he created it through repeated modifications,” I replied. “Would you like to know more?” After additional work, Melty was now using it as sleepwear.
“No, I’m fine,” Ren said, backing down.
“You get my point,” I said.
“It feels like you really brought that one home,” Raphtalia commented from the sidelines, as sharp as ever. I was currently in the process of negotiating with S’yne—without Raphtalia’s knowledge—for the creation of my own Raph-chan sleepwear. She was busy with her own training, of course, so I had no idea when it would finally be made.
“Hey, Naofumi. What about Mamoru’s special shields? Can you use those?” Filolia asked.
“Special shields?” I asked with some trepidation. Hopefully she was just talking about that shield that looked suspiciously like it came from a certain legendary kingdom.
“Filolia, you’re not talking about the shields I think you are . . . are you?” Mamoru asked. They sounded like something Filolia had been involved with and that Mamoru didn’t want to see the light of day. Mamoru had his fingers cocked like he was shooting a gun—at least one of these shields was clearly so bizarre that just a hand signal was enough to identify it.
“That’s right. A bit of this, a bit of that,” Filolia said, raising both her arms and then swinging them down in a chopping motion. I was getting even more concerned that something I wouldn’t be able to scrub from my memory was about to appear. Sensing danger, I moved to depart, but Raphtalia—and then Ren too—both grabbed onto me.
“What betrayal is this?!” I seethed dramatically.
“There’s no escape for you. You treat us like your playthings all the time,” Ren said.
“That’s right. Now it’s your turn to take one for the team and give us all a laugh. It will only make you stronger!” Raphtalia added. I grunted. I’d only been offering Ren some friendly advice on his forging! As for Raphtalia, I had no regrets there. The filolials should be replaced by the Raph species. We didn’t need that high-strung flock of greedy feather faces for anything.
“Even if Naofumi can copy them, I bet he won’t be able to use them,” Ren said tauntingly. “But I guess more shields are better than nothing.”
“Could you bring them out for us to take a look at?” Raphtalia asked sweetly. Ren and Raphtalia both had their best salesman smiles on, their faces practically sparkling.
“Yeah, okay. R’yne, if you’re hearing all this, can you bring them over?” Mamoru said, addressing thin air, assuming that R’yne was listening. A few moments later, R’yne and S’yne popped in.
“Hey, everyone! I’ve got what you asked for right here!” R’yne said brightly.
“You dare show your face, harlot who spreads filth on the ears of anyone who’ll listen!” Filolia cried out, her adolescent angst at her sister exploding immediately. “Once you’ve delivered what you came for, be gone, sexy strumpet! Go back to the castle and study your magic!”
“Being called ‘strumpet’ almost makes me want to stick around,” R’yne joked.
“Me too,” S’yne said with a nod, but she was probably only agreeing with the part about sticking around.
“Hey, R’yne. Do you think you could take this one off our hands?” Ren asked, indicating Filolia.
“What?! Brave Sword has already fallen under the control of my sex-craving sister? Do I smell a payoff?” Filolia exclaimed as Ren tried to palm her off onto R’yne. Ren clearly wanted as little to do with her as possible.
“Nothing like that! I don’t do that kind of thing . . . anymore,” Ren said defensively.
“Oh really? You’ve taken a step back from that life. Is that what you’re trying to say?” Filolia said with a chuckle. “I see the thoughts in your heart and how they differ from your words! Join me on the side of right and put this sex-starved nympho into the ground!” Filolia wasn’t giving up either. Maybe because she’d found someone like herself. We didn’t need the filolials getting infected with this madness. We would have to be careful.
“Someone, please stop her,” Ren pleaded. He was having a tough time, but mainly due to our own deeds.
“No need to get too riled up,” Mamoru cut in. “R’yne and S’yne have their own accessory-testing planned for later, so if you could just wait until then . . .” he asked, throwing a lifeline to Ren and Filolia.
“You want to swap them out with Filolia?” I confirmed with him.
“Sounds about right. You invited us to do this, after all,” Mamoru replied. There was a lot going on among his allies. Keeping Filolia and R’yne in check looked like a nightmare. The nightmare that we had to deal with—Motoyasu—was still in the future. I was glad that Filo wasn’t a hero. If she had been, we might have needed to swap them around like this as well.
“We can watch though, can’t we? I’m going to casually chat with S’yne and watch you go at it. L’yne—I mean, Filolia—don’t cause too much trouble,” R’yne said.
“You don’t need to tell me that! I’m only trying to awaken the power hidden inside the Brave Sword!” Filolia protested.
“Please, enough,” Ren begged. I personally couldn’t pick which of these sisters was more annoying, the sex-obsessed older one or the angsty and dark younger one. Not a choice I would relish being faced with. I had a lot of sympathy for Mamoru.