The air was filled with the sound of thousands of insect wings and the monstrous wasp-like bugs, each one the size of a large cat swarmed around their nest. According to the people in the nearby village, the nest was damaged during the Wave, and because if it the monsters had started to rampage.
The people were used to having to deal with two or three of the bugs venturing into their lands from time to time, but they were powerless against the hundreds that came and went day after day. This had to stop, and it had to stop now.
The creatures grew even more adjugated as they noticed Shirou's approach. They gathered together more densely as they prepared to attack the intruder.
Regardless their numbers, Shirou wasn't worried. "Alright let's try this again." Shirou said, lifting Jian up high and taking a deep breath. "I am the Bone of my Sword. Steel is my Body and Fire is my Blood." Shirou spoke out the opening lines of his mantra as he opened up his magic circuits, pouring out his Od and mixing it with his SP. "[One Hundred Swords]." With Shirou's words, a hundred swords, each identical to Jian's base form appeared in the air around him, each poised to attack.
While it was an impressive sight, there were only one hundred swords. Not nearly enough considering the number of targets. Shirou needed more.
"[One Thousand Swords]." The skill was advanced to the next level. The weapons glowed bright, before each spilt into ten copies. Increasing the fire power tenfold. Still, Shirou was not satisfied. Jian's base form was not strong enough to insure a kill. "[Sword Change]."
The summoned blades shimmered as the standard form of the Legendary Holy Sword was replaced with various other blades that Jian had copied. Increasing the power of each individual sword. The bug army had finished gathering and begun flying straight towards Shirou, prepared to defend their hive to the last man.
"Fire." Shirou said in an almost casual manner.
The thousand blades flew into the swarm of bugs, ripping through them by the dozens, causing bits and pieces to fly out in all directions. The wave of bugs was shredded in an instant, however, it wasn't over yet. The blades continued on into the monster nest, damaging it even further.
Out of the nest came a screech of rage, followed by a loud tearing sounds as something pushed itself out of the middle of the hive. The Queen Bee was roughly the size of a school bus. While it did have wings, its massive body made it impossible for the thing to actually fly. Instead it sort-of bounced along the ground as it tried to rush towards Shirou, perhaps in a mad attempt to avenge its fallen.
Shirou gathered still more of his Od and SP mixture and prepared another attack. "[Air Strike Slash]." The energy solidified into a sharpened blade of air which Shirou then used to slice the giant creature in two.
The battle, if one could call it that, was over in just thirty seconds.
Shirou breathed deeply as he glanced at his status page and saw that he had just depleted 90% of his SP. "Well, at least I am still capable of standing up." He said as he looked around at the mess he made. "I guess I should get to work on cleaning all this up. Leaving corpses lying around might just attract even more trouble."
"Gueee!" Firo chimed in as she started to eat the nearest bug.
"Hey! Stop that! Those might be poisonous! I'll give you cooked food if you need it!"Shirou shouted at Firo, pulling more meat out of Jian's subspace and giving it to the bird. "Honestly, how much are you planning on eating?"
"Gueee?" Firo only tilted her head at Shirou's question before grabbing the meat from him. She had already eaten all the seed paste he had bought for her and all the rations he had bought in town for himself within 2 hours of having hatched, and she was still constantly hungry. She was now working through a fair chunk of the food that Shirou made with Jian's autocook functions.
In her twelve hours of life, she had eaten nearly 1800 pounds of food and grown over six and a half feet. Her original red feathers had turned a mixture of soft pink and white, and her neck had stretched outwards like the older members of her breed. Shirou had heard that monsters grew as their level increased, but he wasn't prepared for just how fast Firo was growing, or how much food it would take to support such a rate of growth.
With that last fight, Firo was now a level 18. Just a few more and a little bit of time for her growth to catch up, and she would be fully matured… It hadn't even been a single day yet.
"That tastes better, now doesn't it?" Shirou said getting a nodded of agreement from the still young Filolial. "Well, if you help me gather the monster bodies together, I can turn them into more meat like that. So, what do you say, you want to help?"
"Guee!" Firo called out before rushing towards the bodies, quickly throwing them together into a pile. Smiling, Shirou got to work himself, absorbing everything he could into Jian's crystal, all the while admiring his work.
As he leveled up, his quantity of Od was steadily increasing. However, he had nothing he could actually use it on. He only was really good with three spells and none of them were of much use to him now.
There wasn't anything that he needed to use Structural Analysis on, because Jian would just tell him the name and properties of any object he looked at without him having to cast a spell himself. He couldn't reinforce a Divine Construct like Jian. The weaknesses in her forms weren't caused by any holes in their existence, but by the nature of the seals. Also, even as he grew levels, his physical body didn't seem to change. However the power of these stats worked, it didn't have any effect on Shirou's muscles at all, and as such it worked entirely separately from Shirou's reinforcements. This meant that the amount Shirou could increase his strength with reinforcement magecraft wasn't increasing as he grew more levels. Then there was Jian constantly shocking him into submission if he tried to make use of his traces.
He realized that while his total magical energy was increasing, he had nothing he could spend that power on. That was when he had the idea to try to use his increased Od to supplement the cost of his [skills].
The abilities offered by mastering Jian's various forms were useful and could take the place of even some of the skills that Shirou had lost because of their partnership, however they were costly. Using [One Hundred Swords] and [Sword Change] in conjunction already nearly cost more SP than Shirou had at the moment. But by mixing his Od in with the SP, he managed to make his limited supply go farther than before, though it was the case that his Od recharged at a much slower rate than his SP did.
What Shirou hadn't expected was that mixing in his Od seemed to have made some of the skills more powerful than before. He couldn't explain why, it just did. His Air Strike Slash became much larger and sharper than before. Where it hardly had any bite to it at all and could best be described as a stunning blow like skill before, after mixing in his Od, it could cut down most of the monsters he had seen with relative ease.
The [One Hundred Swords] series of attacks seemed to be earned by gaining a large number of forms for the Legendary Weapon to use. Unlocking [One Thousand Swords] was probably supposed to be something that took a considerable amount of time. However, Shirou had already copied 3217 different swords from his Unlimited Blade Works into Jian's own archive, and there was another 79 forms from just random junk he found with monsters or from plants or rocks on the side of the road.
It was an effective way to kill a large number of weak enemies in an instant, but it wasn't any use at all against stronger targets. Each blade produced by [One Hundred Swords] only had around a tenth of the power of the original, and just bounced harmlessly off of higher-level monsters. It also cost a high amount of SP, making it not viable for prolonged battles when Shirou might be required to use it more than once.
As Shirou continued to absorb his kills, he heard a large crash behind him and saw [+122 EXP] in the corner of his vision. He turned his head to see Firo effortlessly tossing the remains of one of those large black dog creatures that was as big as she was onto the growing mound of bodies waiting to be absorbed. The thing had basically been snapped in two and there was a large imprint of the Filolial's foot in the monster's side. It had been killed in a single blow.
Shirou could only chuckle nervously at the reminder of Firo's incredible physical strength. Without his reinforcements, she would easily over power him. All of her stats had passed him by, even if he was still 5 levels over her.
These black dog creatures were everywhere throughout area. Shirou had been told by one of the villagers that they came from the Wave. It took a long time for the knights to kill the 'Wave Boss' and apparently, until the Wave Boss is killed, the monsters just keep pouring out. Things probably wouldn't have been as bad as they were if it wasn't for racism causing people to make bad decisions.
You see, when the Wave happened, it opened up over land mainly occupied by Demihumans, and rather than rushing in and dealing with the problem as quickly as possible, the knights decided to sit back and watch for a bit as the Demihuman towns and villages were destroyed. By the time the army actually got involved, things had already grown completely out of hand, and this got worse once night fell. It took twenty whole hours to subjugate the Wave Boss. By that time, tens of thousands of these black dogs had escaped from the distortion and spread throughout the surrounding lands. The Adventurer's Guild was apparently expending all of its personal trying to keep up with the subjugation jobs for them all.
Saber would have been furious with these so-called Defenders of the Kingdom, not just for willing letting their own citizens die, but for actually waiting and letting the enemy get a foot hold before they engaged. One does not wait for the enemy in a war. To do so is the pinnacle of stupidity. Every last one of the knights would have been stripped of their rank and title, forced to help pay for the damages the kingdom sustained because of their foolishness, and publicly whipped, at the very least, if Saber had been in charge. But for some reason, no punishment was dealt out. The Kingdom failed its people, and Shirou's opinion of the country plummeted.
Shirou was glad that the Hourglass would be teleporting him to the danger zone during every Wave. It would mean he could handle things quickly and prevent a repeat of this from ever happening again.
"I've taken care of the monsters' hive and killed all the ones I found. You shouldn't be seeing them around anymore." Shirou reported to the village head when he returned from purging the monster nest.
"You actually managed to do it?" The man said in awe. "When you left… I mean… we had hoped but there were so many that… Thank you. Thank you." He was starting to break down from relief. He reached into his jacket and pulled out a sack of coins. "The other villages and I were trying to gather money in order to commission help from the Adventurers' Guild. Please, take it."
He pushed the noticeably light leather bag into Shirou's hand before he could say anything. Jian informed him that the bag contained exactly 13 silver and 20 copper coins. About the cost of a week's stay at an inn in the capital for a single person. They were planning to commission a group of adventurers with this? "Is this all the money your village could manage to pull together?" Shirou asked the man.
The village head shifted around a bit nervously. "If it is for you, I'm sure I could manage to find something more…"
"That isn't what I meant." Shirou shook his head and held the bag out for the man to take. "Your homes and crops have all been damaged, so you are heading into rough times. You all need this money more than I do. In times like these, a mercenary can find work just about anywhere. I won't starve after doing just one free job."
The village head just dumbly stared at Shirou as the 'mercenary' turned down their money. Shirou ended up having to push the bag back into the man's hands rather forcefully. "You've given us food, medicine, and warm skins, and you risked your life to save us from the monsters. Do you truly want nothing in return?"
"If you want to repay me, do it by helping to get these people get back onto their feet. Maybe I'll comeback a few years down the line after you have had a chance to recover and then you can thank me." Shirou said with a kind smile. He was likely never to return to this village.
"…Thank you, Shirou-sama. You truly are a Saint." The man said, bowing his head to Shirou. Shirou smiled, but he also felt guilty. The materials and help that the man was thanking him for had cost him nothing at all, and he had the resources to do much more for them. The problem was that with the amount he had done, there would already almost certainly be rumors about what he had done. They were already surprised by just how much stuff Shirou had managed to pull out of his backpack. If he did anymore, he would break the suspension of disbelief for them. He had already come back to the village with a full pack after emptying it once, claiming he had filled it with thing he had gathered from the monsters. Perhaps he could just leave some money with them as he left. There was no way they would accept it, but they couldn't return it if he was already gone. "Are you sure there is nothing that we can give you?"
"I suppose a roof for the night would be appreciated. Roads been dangerous at night recently." Shirou said.
"Ah… a room. With the refugees who lost their homes during the Wave, we are rather packed. Most of the beds are taken by the recovering sick and injured, and those that aren't are four or five to a bed, but I am sure we can find someone who would give their room for you." The man said awkwardly. The difficulties of kind men in bad times. They want to help everyone and spread themselves too thin until they had nothing left to give. He didn't openly say so, but Shirou guessed that he had already given up his room to those who needed it more.
"That's not necessary. Just a spot in the barn will do." Shirou assured the man.
"Are… are you sure?" The village head asked him.
"Yes, I'm sure." Shirou said as he reached up and patted Firo on her long neck. Firo cooed affectionately at the attention. That very sketchy man from the capital had been right about Filolial's becoming attached to whoever hatched them. "My friend here had been going through a bit of a growth spurt and needs to eat at all kinds of strange hours. I'll need to be close to her tonight to make sure she doesn't get into trouble during midnight hunts."
"Is that so? I'll admit, she does look a lot bigger than she did when you first came in this morning." The village head said, looking Firo up and down. "You are free to use the barn if that is what you really want, but is there really nothing else you need?"
"Well… can I borrow your kitchen?"
"So Delicious!" The group of twelve individuals who had been squeezed around the village head's dining room table.
Five of these individuals consisted of the village head himself, his wife, and three kids, the rest appeared to be orphans from the neighing villages who had lost their homes due to the Wave. Of these there were three human children, two boys and a girl, as well as four Demihuman children. A boy who had wings instead of arms and the legs of a bird, and three girls, one with cat ears and a tail, one with gorilla like features, and the last having the ears and tail of a fox. Of these children, the fox girl appeared to be the oldest, at around fifteen. Though Shirou had no way of knowing if this was from natural aging or leveling.
It seems that the villages in the area had all had an agreement before the Wave even happened that if something happened to one of the villages, the others would take in any of the survivors. It was only meant for things like bandit raids or small monster attacks. Things that would only take out one or two villages, afterwards the population of that one village would be absorbed by the other fifteen that were part of the agreement. However, rather than just one or two villages being destroyed, eight of them were, and one backed out of helping its neighbors out of fear of being too overburdened to survive. As a result, the number of refugees in the village was nearly half the size of the village's original population. They couldn't support this many people for long, but they didn't have the heart to turn anyone away. Not yet anyways.
Once starvation comes, the good will might dry up. Shirou could only hope it wouldn't turn to violence and that the governing body of the area will have found a way for the survivors to rebuild.
All twelve of the villagers were digging into the food that Shirou had prepared, quite literally, as there hadn't been enough kitchen wear to go around. Not that the Demihumans seemed to mind doing things a little primal. According to them it was a cultural thing. Since some of the Demihuman subraces lacked dexterous fingers or any fingers at all, there wasn't a negative stigma surrounding eating by shoving their faces in it inside of their own communities.
"This is the best thing I've ever tasted in my whole life!" The cat girl said, her tail wagging happily as her eyes seemed to water with tears of joy.
"You're overreacting. It's just grilled meat with a few wild herbs. Nothing special."Shirou chuckled as he cut a piece of his own portion to eat, hoping no one would notice the jewel in the knife he had to use. Perhaps he should have just used his bare hands like this Demihuman children had.
As he brought the food towards his mouth, he saw a small window open up.
[Grilled Monster Meat with Herbs – Quality: Extraordinarily High Quality]
Shirou only rolled his eyes in response. Honestly, it wasn't that good. Not compared to some of the things he, Sakura and Rin had made back in his home world.
Memories of the three of them playfully fighting over the kitchen came to Shirou along with a sense of longing. The mechanical actions of eating slowed down to a halt, as a deep sense of loneliness pressed down on him. It was going to be months, if not years before he saw them again, the people who meant more to him than the world. He was in a room so full of people that it was cramped, yet he felt so completely isolated.
"Shirou-sama, is something the matter? You aren't eating." The fox girl asked Shirou.
"It's nothing. I used to cook like this all the time. Guess it made me feel a little homesick." Shirou said. He lacked the energy to even attempt to fake a smile. He had lost his appetite and just stared blankly down at the food. It all seemed so pointless.
He was just play acting the part of the hero. He hadn't saved these people. The moment he step out of their lives the troubles with food and monsters would return. Sooner or later, food would become scarce, and they villagers and refugees would turn on one and other. He had accomplished nothing.
"Home…" One of the orphan children said sadly, the cheerful expression they had while eating dissolving away in an instant. Hearing it, the other orphans also shifted uncomfortably.
Shirou winced, realizing his mistake. "Sorry. That was insensitive of me. I shouldn't have said anything." Shirou said, the feeling of loneliness being replaced by a feeling of shame, not only about what he had said, but why he had said it.
He had let his guard down and the Sword of Sloth took the opportunity to dig into him. He couldn't allow himself to fall to despair. The only way for him to get home was to keep moving.
The fox girl shook her head. "It's alright. You didn't mean to." She said, trying to force a smile. "If you don't mind me asking, where is Shirou-sama from?"
"I'm from Q'ten Lo in the far East." Shirou lied easily. It had been the story he had decided on. "I grew up in a rice farming village with my father. The man was a retired mercenary, and after he died, I picked up the lifestyle. I'm sure he would be rolling over in his grave if he knew."
"Why's that?" The child asked him confused.
"…Take my advice. No matter what you think of me, never try to become a mercenary. It isn't a good life. My father died with a lot of regrets. And now, I can only hope that I don't end up the same way." Shirou said, glancing around the table. "As a kid, I thought my father was a hero. I only found out later in life just how wrong I was."Shirou got up from the table, though his food was still not yet finished. "I'm going to go and try to get some rest. I need to regain my strength from today's fighting. Please, excuse me."
He took what was left of his meal and left, heading towards barn where Firo was already starting to cry for attention. The bird was more than happy to gulp down all of Shirou's left overs, and cried actual tears of joy while doing so. "I hope you don't expect to eat like this all the time. With the amount you eat I wouldn't have time to be constantly cooking for you." Shirou teased as he lay down in the straw. Firo whined a little, but quickly laid down next to Shirou, pushing herself up against him. He felt like he was being backed in her body heat. "Well, guess I won't be needing any blankets." Shirou said as he pat the Filolial's neck.
He was just about to fall asleep when an increasingly familiar message popped up.
Weapon Copy
The Legendary Weapons can copy weapons of the same category for the hero's use, so long as they meet level requirements.
"Great, I'm living with two bottomless pits."
Guee… Guee…" Firo whined, pushing herself into the sleeping form of Shirou.
"So hot…" Shirou groaned, trying to push her away with one hand, but Firo persisted in pushing up against him until she finally got him up. "What do you want now?"
Shirou pushed himself up out of the hay and turned to face the young Filolial. It took a few moments for Shirou's eyesight to become accustomed to the pale moon light that snuck through the cracks in the woodwork of the barn, but when he did his eyes widened and his eyebrows shot up.
Filo's growth had continued while Shirou had been sleeping and had taken a strange direction. Where before she had been seeming to tend towards the same appearance as all the other Filolials with a long and slender neck and being around six and a half feet tall, now she looked as though she might have been of an entirely different species.
Her appearance was closer to the one she had as a newborn baby chick, looking nearly as wide as tall, only scaled up to being over eight feet tall and six feet wide. She looked as if she weighed around two tons. Her feather had faded to a glossy white, save for a small plum of pink in the center of her chest as well as small specks on her wings. Two extra long feathers extended from over her eyes, like eyebrows, framing her head quite well and making her look adorable… or as adorable as a bird big enough to swallow someone whole could look.
"Firo, what happened to you?" Shirou asked as he pet the bird's now almost invisible neck. Firo only tilted her head and looked at him with a confused expression… Kawaii. In response to Shirou's question, two windows opened up in Shirou's vision; entries from the Monster Book, complete with pictures. One was on Filolials and had a description of their eating and territorial habits, as well as their love of carriages and their rivalries with lesser dragons and griffons. The second was of something that made Shirou nearly choke.
[Filolial Queens/Kings]
There on the top of the page was a picture of another bird that looked almost exactly the same as how Filolial looked now. Shirou skimmed over the page for information. They were the elites of their race, with inherent knowledge of many things, including magic. A full grown Filolial Queen can bend space around them, creating a mist which can neither be entered nor escaped from, simply by flexing their power. This was thought of as their means of marking their territory. There were also a few paragraphs mentioning how the original Filolial Queen had defeated both the Dragon Emperor and the Griffon King, the most powerful members of their respective species, races that are considered to be among the most powerful of Phantasmal Beasts in Shirou's world.
Apparently, Shirou had hit the jackpot. But as Shirou knew all to will, with great power come great hunger. Firo's belly rumbled and the now giant bird started to whine for food and continue to nudge him.
"Alright, I get it, I get it." Shirou said as he pulled out a large quality of the baked strips of meat that he had been using Jian to create on mass. He continued to feed her until she seemed to be satisfied. That single meal had been roughly 200 pounds of meat, enough to feed 50 men for a full day.
He glanced at his stock to see how he was doing for food, but even with the amount Firo ate, his surplus just kept going up. Each of the monster dogs were the size of a horse, if a little on the leaner side of things, and as such had about 500 pounds of useable meat on them, a lot of it being of lower quality, which Shirou fed into Jian's cooking function, as regardless of the quality of meat that went in, the output was always the same.
This meant that as long as Shirou continued to hunt larger monsters, or smaller monsters in large enough numbers, feeding Firo wouldn't be too hard. It wouldn't be like Saber, where he had to actually buy the food. Life would have been easier back then if they could have just gone out into the forest every day and hunted a bear for her to eat.
"Well, since we are already up, how about we hunt a little more." Shirou said as he got up. His menu told him that it was around 6am. "If we work hard, we can pull in enough food for the people in this village to eat for a while." Without preservatives the meat wouldn't last long, no matter how much Shirou got them, but it would at least give them a week where they could focus on rebuilding instead of having to worry about getting more food. The village had inflated due to refugees, so they had 150 mouths to feed. 150 mouths, 4 pounds of food a day per person, for about 7 days, means 4200 pounds of food. So 9 of those monster dogs, or something of similar size, would do be more than enough. And if Shirou brought the bodies back whole, he wouldn't have to answer uncomfortable questions about how he managed to carry so much in his backpack.
As he was getting ready to go, another textbox from Jian popped up.
[Warning: Basic Monster Slave Seal is insufficient in controlling a Filolial Queen]
"Is that so? Well, I hadn't been using the thing anyways." Shirou said, though he did feeling a little bit uncomfortable with the idea of not have a fallback when dealing with something that could take down a dragon. Still, what the Monster Dealer had said about animal imprinting and loyalty seemed to check out. Shirou would just have to keep an eye on her to make sure she didn't do anything bad. She was a big eater, which meant he could probably control her with food in he needed to, like training a dog using treats.
[Some items can help unlock new forms for the Legendary Weapons. Try to give your weapon a sample of everything.]
"Great, you are demanding to be fed too, huh?" Shirou said as he looked down on the ground. He picked up one of the pink and white feathers that Firo had shed in the night and fed it to the sword.
Requirements met: [Beastmaster's Sword III (0/40) Unlocked – Base Power: 8 – Equip Bonus: Monster Growth Up (medium) (unmastered) – Proficiency: (0%)]
Another form to increase the rate of Firo's stat growth, and her stats were already getting rather scary. How long would it be before she reached Servant levels of strength? In the back of his mind he couldn't help but to imagine Illya riding proudly on Firo's back, commanding her in the same manner she used to command Berserker.
Maybe this wasn't such a good idea.
"Guee?" Firo tilted her head, having noticed Shirou's worried expression. Cute, large, and powerful. Oh yes, Illya was going to love Firo.
"It's nothing. Let's go."
It took three trips, since they couldn't carry more than three of those larger monsters at a time, do more to their awkward size and shape rather than their weight. Each time they came back they just left the bodies next to the storage room at the back of the village before going out again to get more.
The hunting was rather hectic though when compared to before. Firo would run in before Shirou even had time to get prepared and would trample the monsters to death before they even had time to fight back. Firo also kept running in front of Shirou and squatting down on the ground in front of him, trying to get him to climb on her back. At first, he did so, but after being thrown off while trying to ride her without any sort of saddle or reigns as she ran at speeds that approached Servant levels, Shirou decided to stop and just try to endure her puppy dog eyes… he only gave in twice more.
How in the world does a bird manage to have a quavering lower lip?
Still, if he could actually find a saddle for her, he might yet finally gain his Rider qualifications.
"That should do it." Shirou said, tossing the massive corpse he had been hauling down onto the ground next to the others. "Now to say our goodbyes and hit the road."
"Gueee…" Shirou glanced over at Firo, who was looking down at the corpses and licking her beak.
"Don't tell me you are hungry again." Shirou said, glancing at his clock to confirm that it was only 8:30. She had just eaten two and a half hours ago, and she was already hungry? Still, Firo nodded her affirmative. "Alright, alright, I'll give you some more food."
This was getting ridiculous. Shirou vaguely wondered if he was over feeding her. He didn't know what the nutritional demands of a Filolial were. Did Filolial Queens even eat the same amount as normal Filolial?
After feeding Firo once again, Shirou started to head into the village, planning on just telling them where he left the monster bodies, give them some instructions on how best to prepare the meat, and getting out before they found the sack of coins that he left with them. But as he got closer he started to hear people shouting.
"You bastard! You absolute bastard! How could you possibly do this!? We promised those children's parents that if anything happened that we would look after them! Do you think Martha would have done this to your little Abby if it had been us dead instead of them!?" A stern looking woman with a stout face was screaming at one of the ranchers at the top of her lungs. It looked as if the entire village had gathered together because of whatever had happened. The adults all had looks of disgust or hatred in their eyes, while the children clung to whoever would have them and were trembling.
"The village is going to be having trouble keeping up with the number of mouths as it is. Those kids will have a better chance with…" The man tried to offer a defense, but the woman wouldn't have it.
"Better chance? Better chance!? Do you actually believe that hogwash!? You sold them out! You bastard!" She shouted and bent down to pick up a rock to throw at the man.
Shirou grabbed the woman's wrist before she could send the rock flying. One rock often turned to many, and he would rather not watch a man get stoned. The woman was so surprised when she saw Shirou there that she dropped the rock she was about to throw. Or maybe she was looking at Firo who was standing right behind Shirou. "Can someone explain to me what is going on?" Shirou asked in an attempt to break the flow of what was about to happen.
"Shirou-sama, I thought… thought you had already left the town." The village head said in surprise, also looking at the very different bird from the one he had saw the night before.
"No, Firo and I were just doing some hunting. Thought I would leave a little extra food here so that you wouldn't have to worry about it while you rebuilt." Shirou replied before asking again for an explanation of what was going on.
"Well… you see." The village head started nervously rubbing his knuckles, glancing from Shirou, to the woman, to the rancher, and then at the crowd around them. He was a good man, but he was far too jumpy. Shirou wished he would just spit it out already. "They… they took the demihuman children. Slave hunters that is."
"Slave hunters?" Shirou repeated in surprise. Since Jian had a Slaver's Sword, Shirou guessed that slavery was a thing in this world, but he hadn't come across it yet. But even if slavery existed, most societies had strict rules about how one became a slave. "Forgive my ignorance, by I thought that slavery was a fate for debtors and criminals, not orphan children."
Slavery usually started out as a means for people who lived with inescapable debt or petty crimes to escape from an endless cycle of poverty and prison and manage to survive and benefit society. And in this state, slavery wasn't even such a bad thing. Slave practices were usually well managed so that no one was abused and slaves could eventually earn their freedom. It was only when some individuals in society become 'undesirables' that things can turn dark, and fast.
"Strictly speaking… yes. Those are the only two ways of becoming a slave, as set by a wise ruler in the past… however…" The man licked his lips as he searched for the words. "Slave labor… tends to be in rather high demand. Higher than the supply. Especially certain more… unique slaves."
"Unique slaves?" Shirou said, dreading the answer.
"Sex slaves." The woman spat. "Kitsunes are considered extremely valuable, especially… the young virgin girls…" Her anger slowly turned to trembling sobs. "How could you? How could you sell those poor children out? How…?"
Shirou's heart sank. His thoughts went back to the young fox girl who had been at dinner the night before. She had been a pretty young thing with golden blond hair, silver eyes, and a gentle face. The memories of Sakura, and what Shinji did to her came to the front of Shirou's mind.
The ranch's shoulders sank even further than before, and he looked at the ground in shame. "They were the new Marque's men, and high levels. They would have burned the village to the ground if they found out we were hiding the children from them… and… the village needed the money… to help with all the extra mouths we have to feed…"
"So the Marque of these lands is supporting black market slavery?" Shirou asked, looking to the village head for confirmation.
"Nearly all the lords in the whole country do, so long as they are demihumans. Our pervious lord… The Duke was an honorable man and would have never took part in such a thing, but he died during the Wave." The village head admitted with shame.
"I see." Shirou said with a nod. "One last question. Which way did they go?"
"Excuse me?" The village head asked in surprise.
"You've all done your duty as citizens in helping the Marque's men, but there are a lot of bandits on the roads these days. It would be a shame if something happened." Shirou said with a sideways smile. "I think I will go and see if they don't need help in delivering their cargo. After all, I am a mercenary. And please don't lynch this poor man. Living with what he did should be punishment enough."
Without the dense trees and uneven ground, riding Firo bareback became a lot more doable, even if Shirou still had to hold on for dear life. In a straight forward run on the dirt road, Firo was reaching speeds of around 70 mph, comparable to the max speeds of a cheetah, only the bird was able to keep that speed up for mile after mile. So while the Slavers had a two-hour head start, Firo caught up to them in just a few minutes.
There were seven slavers, sitting in an open wagon pulled by a sort of dinosaur like creature that could have been one of those lesser species of dragons. The demihuman children were tied up behind the wagon, their hands bound by chains that pulled them along, forcing them to run in order to try to keep up, least they fall and start to be dragged behind the wagon. There were sixteen children in all, ranging from the ages of ten to fifteen, with three smaller kids who were too weak to keep up tied up in the back of the wagon.
The disgusting thing was, the wagon was large enough to hold everyone if they squeezed together. The men were making the children run for kicks. Laughing if any of them stumbled.
They stopped laughing when Firo arrived. Caught up to the procession before the men knew what was happening and jumped over all of the children and the wagon before delivering a devastating kick to the dino's neck, killing it in an instant and sending it down to the ground with a very satisfying crunching sound.
"What the hell!" One of the slavers shouted. The sentiment was echoed by several of the others.
With Firo no longer moving, Shirou was able to sit up tall on her back and look down at the shocked men in the wagon. "Sorry about that, but you know how much Filolial's hate lizards." Shirou said with a bit of a smirk. As he said this, Firo bent her head down and actually started to tear into the reptile's neck and was beginning to eat it. "You just ate fifteen minutes ago." Shirou said with a sigh before turning back to the slavers, gathering a murderous aura around himself. "Now then… if you release those children into my custody, I will let you walk out of here with your lives. So, what will it be?"
"You… you think you can just barge in here, kill our dragon horse and then threaten us!? Do you know who we are!?" One of the slavers shouted, the largest of them, and the one that had scars running down her face. Probably their leader.
"No, and I honestly don't care." Shirou said, dismounting from Firo's back and skillfully drew his swords. "Release the children, now."
"L… Let's get him boys!" The slaver shouted, drawing his own sword.
The seven slavers were more coordinated than the adventurers had been, and seemed to be a bit stronger and more skilled as well. Not that it made a difference. They would need a hundred years of combat experience before they were ready to fight someone like Shirou.
The slavers surrounded him and tried to force him into turning his back to one of the others. It was a sound plan, but Shirou wouldn't have it. Offense is the best defense. He broke through the formation with ease, breaking the fingers of one of the men with a pummel strike on his hand when he went for a swing and knocking a second down with a hit from the flat of the blade to his face.
They tried to chase after him, but that was a mistake, as they were now coming at him from a single direction and in single file, leaving Shirou to take them down one after another without any trouble at all. Shirou disarmed six of the seven slavers in twenty seconds, leaving them injured, but still very much alive. The last one was unfortunate enough to have walked right behind Firo, who kicked him hard enough to send in flying fifteen feet back into a tree.
"Just make it easier on yourselves and give up." Shirou told them as he stepped on one of the dropped swords, reinforcing his strength until he had enough power to snap the blade underneath his heel.
"You… You demihuman loving bastard. You're a traitor, that's what you are! A traitor to all humans!" The slaver leader shouted at Shirou as he cradled a broken nose. "Well, if you love demihumans so much, then you are really going to love this! Hey kids!" Shirou's heart sank at the look on the man's face. "I order you all to die!"
"No!" Shirou shouted in panic. The children screamed and began to spasm as electricity danced across their bodies, the slave seals starting to 'punish' them until their bodies would collapse. His mind started to try to run through options of what to do. There wasn't enough time to remove the slave seals, not from so many of them.
There was only one option.
As the slaver laughed at the look of horror on Shirou's face, that look disappeared to be replaced with one of resolve. The man didn't even have time to register this face though. Within the span of a single breath, Shirou had crossed the distance between the two of them… and cut off the man's head.
The screams from the children slowed to a stop to be replaced by weak sobs. They were still in horrible pain from the after effects of the magic seals, but they were all still breathing.
"You killed him." A second slaver said in shock. "You… you won't get away with this! You and that village will all pay for what you've done!"
The fool didn't even realize that what he just said had sealed his fate. Shirou took a long, deep breath. "You know, I was going to have let you all live." He said as he started to walk towards the other slavers. "People like you make it so damn hard to be a proper hero."