Crossover Fan Fiction ❯ Ranting of a Shield Hero(ine) ❯ Ranting: Chapter 6 ( Chapter 6 )

The noble jerk who tried to take credit for saving Lute the first time demanded I appear before the king. This is quite amazing because I am pretty sure a big ogre flattened him into paste. And I made sure to burn the corpse.

“Filo. Kick him the nuts.” She did. “Good girl!” He rolled around screaming about his royal prerogative.

“Trash stache. If you come near me ever again I will have my friends take your head off, cut off your wedding tackle, and sew it inside your mouth. I’ll pickle it in a jar so I can make you the butt of all my jokes. You understand me you undead freak?” I gave him a good kick in the fork too. He howled some more. I am so done with this country.

If I’d been a stupid teenager I would have gone to visit the corrupt king, dared him to kill my friends, and then gotten all mad when he actually tried. Instead I packed up the wagon and we headed for Shieldlandia, or whatever it was called. Far away. I feel like maybe I dodged a huge bullet and being blamed for a murder attempt/assassination on the stupid Melty princess. She’s a kid. Kids are stupid, but she’s more stupid than most. I really don’t care if I never see her again. She was trouble. We went through the wall with our wagon and merchant pass, exiting this moronic kingdom and headed for somewhere hopefully a bit smarter. The locals insisted the queen was the one who was in charge, but I never saw her, never met with her, never had any evidence to support the claims she was the one in charge. Either she was incompetent or this was all her fault. Either way, gomi. Trash.

Once again I felt like we were being followed by ninjas. I hate this world so much. And my womb was still rebelling. This meant that the terrible power of the shield was very close. I urged Filo onwards. Let the ninjas keep up, if they could. I don’t dare stop where they can catch us. Evil or incompetent. Those are the choices.

We went all night, and part of the next day until Filo was too tired to continue. Then I pulled on the magic gloves and started pulling the wagon myself. I wasn’t half as fast as Filo, but we stay moving and were well away from the border wall and its badlands.

There was a fire back there. Not sure why. Probably arsonists from the evil murder-princess. I can’t be surprised if that freak went and killed her little sister, meanwhile the spy ninjas were following me instead of protecting the crown princess from the assassins all around her. So it was incompetent then. Do I care? Do I really care? I’ll miss my blacksmith, but he’s got a brain in his head. He might be smart enough to flee the festering hill. The people of Lute had their village half burned and then goons from the capitol tried to tax it to death, to make sure nobody would stay behind and it would become just another monster infested ruin. This entire setting was stupid. All the decisions made by those in charge, and their minions… they were all morons.

I passed by some kind of mansion and walled town. It was some local noble, no doubt, and I don’t even care if he’s friendly or just gullible. There are too many afraid to stand against the maniacs of Melromarc. Melmac. Don’t put it in the microwave because it will melt. I miss microwaves. I miss my life in Sapporo. I miss my stupid waitressing job and my dumb web page updates, and not getting tipped enough by dumb college kids. Okay, I didn’t miss that part, but I miss Japan, okay?

The next place after that one was even worse. Raphtalia said the guy running this place was a raping pedophile who got off on torturing kids, and the king here looked the other way. They were aligned with Melromarc, of course. As you’d expect. This sleaze, Idol Rapier, was the one who killed her family and enslaved her after letting her catch the local version of Tuberculosis, which I’d cured her of shortly after we became friends. It was full of bad memories.

I considered my shield and its functions, then considered Raphtalia and her short bow with the poisoned arrows. That was the superior options. We snuck in at night. She spotted the guy, drew and fired. He died screaming and frothing at the mouth from the poison. She shot two more of his men who looked to be giving orders, and the rest ran around shouting in the darkness. We entered the lower floors of the manor and discovered several wounded kids who’d been raped or beaten with open wounds. I healed them using spells and potions. They wouldn’t heal the minds destroyed by evil, but it was what I could do.

One of the victims, just a skeleton now, was the best friend of Raphtalia. They’d left her skeleton there. Just left it.

“Raphtalia. You have my permission. Take no prisoners,” I blessed her with healing that would renew every few minutes, and she screamed like a berserker and started killing everyone, floor by floor. I lead the children outside the mansion. There were many screams. It went on for far too long and then the mansion was burning and the flames rose. Raphtalia emerged from the smoke, still furious. I cast healing and cleansing spells on her.

If someone weaker than me were holding this shield, they would have let this monster live, said a bunch of garbage about not sinking to his level, about his chance for redemption. I hate stories like that. Never leave an enemy at your back, and never forgive someone who hurts kids. The mansion burned to the ground. There were no survivors. If another weaker shield hero had been in my position he would have then had to fight some kind of evil summoned monster because the guy they didn’t execute when they had the chance would conveniently have a summoning circle for demons within easy crawling distance, almost like the writer was totally lazy.

We left the area slowly, Filo still exhausted. The ninjas caught up, tried to talk. I slapped the first one across the face.

“Where is your princess?” I yelled at her.

“Our queen commands you return,” said the ninja woman.

“I am convinced your queen is incompetent.”

“You dare?” yelled the second ninja.

“It was that or Evil. Evil is more consistent. That’s your King. And the redhead traitor. So you serve an incompetent. Is your crown princess still alive? Why aren’t you guarding her, you idiots?”

“Our queen commands…” she started to say again. I slapped her a second time.

“Your crown princess is probably already dead because you obeyed an incompetent queen. If I see the redhaired one again, I will kill her. That should end your kingdom rather neatly. Do you understand me?”

“Why are you so angry?” asked the ninja.

“Why are you so dumb?” I slapped her a third time and left her there stunned. We moved on. The ninjas left us alone after that.

This entire place is stupid.

It was nearly a month more travelling before I could reach the Dragon Hourglass and get Filo and Raphtalia skill upgraded. They were much stronger afterwards, with Filo gaining greater speed, and Raphtalia getting more effective ninja-assassin powers and very good stealth. She could strike and move and kill with each shot. A very useful skillset. For my part I increased my shield strength and gained a teleport return skill so I wouldn’t be stuck walking out of Melromarc again if we were summoned there to fight a wave when the Hero Morons went and believed the redhead again. Life will get a lot simpler if I kill that bitch. And that spear hero. Does he really need to live? Really? If he died would someone else pick it up and just become the Spear hero? That would be really convenient since he was a total garbage brain. Even dumber than the locals.

I am really sick of this place, but I have a terrible sense I need to put up with it for several more months, or about 12 episodes.