Chapter Twenty: The Sword

00:17

The wave of destruction would be here in seventeen minutes. Everyone in town must have already known. The knights and adventurers were prepared for battle, and the citizens were locked up in their houses.

Apparently when the clock ran out the heroes, of which I was one, would be instantly transported to the site of the wave. The same magic would affect our party members as well, so Raphtalia would be transported with me.

I chose to use the Light Metal Shield, as it had the highest defense rating so far.

“The wave will be here soon, Raphtalia.”

“Yes!”

She seemed on edge, electrified. She nodded.

At least she was serious about it.

“Mr. Naofumi, do you mind if we talk for a minute?”

“Sure, whatever. What’s up?

“It’s just that.. thinking of the wave and all that, it makes me feel emotional.”

What was she getting at? Is she afraid of death or something? Of course I’d be in trouble if she died, so I needed to protect her, but.. Geez, maybe I’d read too much manga.

This place wasn’t a game, and it wasn’t a book. It was real.

More than anything else, the other heroes had such good equipment. I didn’t even know if I’d be able to stand up to the destruction with the equipment I had.

I might end up hurt.

If I got out of it with just injuries, I suppose that was something to be grateful for. But I might end up dead.

If I did, the people of this world would, no doubt, look at my body and think:

“He got what he deserved.”

I needed to stop thinking about it. I wasn’t fighting for anyone but myself. I was fighting to stay alive for another month.

“We talked about it before, remember? What happened to me before you bought me?”

It was awful. To sum it up in a word: hell.

Everyday, someone would be bought, and then returned. It happened to Raphtalia, too.

In the beginning, they’d probably planned to make her a servant. She’d been picked up by a wealthy family. They were probably planning on teaching her all kinds of things.

Then she would cry in the night, cry out at her nightmares. And she’d get returned, just like that.

Her next owner was the same. He started to teach her all these different jobs, but when she started to cry he’d sold her off.

The last owner, the one before me, was the worst.

He bought her, beat her to pieces with a rod, and then sold her off.

Then she started to cough, and prepared herself for death, thinking it wasn’t far off.

I wasn’t at all surprised to hear that there were so many abusive creeps in this world.

She said that just as she was sinking into sickness, just as her nightmares had torn her heart to shreds, just as she had no idea how many more times she’d be bought, that’s when I showed up.

“I’m.. I feel really lucky to have met you, Mr. Naofumi.”

“.. Okay.”

“Because you taught me how to live.”

“.. Okay.”

I was tolerating her speech, thinking of it, halfway at least, as a job.

Because I didn’t care.

All I cared about was staying alive.

“And you gave me a chance, a chance to face the wave.”

“.. Okay.”

“So I’ll do all I can, for you. I am your sword, and I will stay by your side.”

“Okay.. Do your best.”

Afterwards, I realized how rude I’d been. But, at the moment, it was all I was capable of.

00:01

There was only one minute left.

I braced myself, and prepared to be transported.

00:00

BOOM!

An enormous sound echoed through the world.

In an instant, the scenery around me changed. I guess we’d been transported.

“The sky..”

The sky was filled with crevices, like a turtle shell, and was stained a terrible, deep red.

“This is..”

I looked around to try and get a sense of my surroundings when I suddenly saw three shadows. And they were followed by twelve people.

It was those damn heroes.

They had been transported, just like me, so I shouldn’t be surprised. But where were they going?

I looked in the direction they were running and also saw huge crowds of monsters surging from the cracks in the sky.

“We are near Riyute!”

Raphtalia had figured out where we were.

“This is a farming town. There are a lot of people here!”

“But the evacuations should..”

Suddenly I returned to myself.

They didn’t know where the waves were going to be, so how could they evacuate?

“Wait a second, you guys!”

They ignored me, and kept running toward the source of the wave.

I saw large clouds of monsters spilling out from the cracks, like baby spiders, and they were all crawling toward the town.

Just then, I saw the other heroes shoot some kind of shining ball up into the sky, though I didn’t know what it was.

Maybe it was so the knights could find us.

“Damn! All right, Raphtalia, go to the town!”

The people of Riyute had been good to us.

If they all died in the wave, I’d lose sleep over it.

“Okay!”

We ran, but in a different direction than the other heroes.