Moving On

As the trial comes to an end, Naofumi is thrown out of the castle and left to fend for himself.

Storming down the streets of the castle town in a rage, he passes by many citizens giving him looks of disgust and fear, as well as many of them making snide comments as he walks by.

"Looks like the demon showed his true colors today."

"I won't even be surprised if he stole that egg from someone else."

Naofumi would hear all of these insults and continue to walk past, gaining more hate for the people of Melromarc, soon starting to question if he should even fight the waves for them and let them handle it since they didn't need the shield.

He continued to go on a rant about how stupid the people of this world are until he bumps into something. 
Naofumi being knocked off balance ends up dropping the egg out of the incubator, he goes to catch it but it's caught by someone, Naofumi gets on guard ready to fight the person that grabbed his egg, only to feel relieved when a familiar face invites him inside.

/~/

"So I guess you don't fall for the royals bullshit?" Naofumi asked, still annoyed and angry.

"I may have known you for about a day, but your eyes have shown a different story. One of anger and betrayal taking form. I can also see your protective nature with… that woman, and now this egg. So yeah, I had a hard time seeing that you'll even try to do something like that."

"Well thank you for believing in me and all but I have to go now." Naofumi gets out his chair and heads to the door.

"Where too exactly?"

"Who knows. The faster I get more coins, the faster I can ditch this town."

"And how do you plan on doing that?"

"I don't know. I'll figure it out along the way."

"And what about your unhatched pet?"

"I SAID I'll FIGURE IT OUT!!!" Naofumi yelled back.

He stares at Erhard for a while before calming down, lowering the tension in the room.

"Need me to take care of it then?"

"That depends, are you planning on hard boiling it for lunch?"

"No. I just feel like it'll be safer with me, as opposed to being carried around with you trying to fight monsters all day?"

"You…, you have a point, but this egg is the only thing I have left and truly my only chance at survival once it hatches. I can't just give it to a random, weak shop clerk!" Naofumi was insulted.

Erhard swiftly pulled out a hammer and swung it at a mannequin holding some cheap clothing, severing off its head in a second.

"Kid, I'm over level 40 and classed up a long time ago. "Weak"isn't something you should use to describe me."

Naofumi couldn't speak a word, astonished by the quick performance from Erhard.

"Look kid, it's just a suggestion, but you should at least take these clothes so you aren't running around in nightclothes." Erhard tosses a pair of shorts and a cloak at Naofumi

"But."

"I found it in the clearance bin so it should only cost about 5 copper. You can pay me back later if you want, I don't really care for that set."

"Umm, thanks," Naofumi replied. He places his egg on the table and quickly changes into his new clothes before heading to the door.

"Hey, kid!" Erhard called before he left the door, prompting Naofumi to turn around.

"Be safe out there."

Naofumi nods his head before leaving the store.

"Wait."

"No, I'm not joining you."

"Alright, fine." Naofumi leaves the shop once more after entering a second time.

/~/

Naofumi catches a balloon out of the air and pins it to the ground with his foot. Due to his low attack power, it took him around 15 minutes of constant attacks to pop it.

Several other balloons would attach themselves and bite down on him in an attempt to deal damage, but all of them are unable to hurt him due to his large defense stat negating all the bite. This in turn made a very slow cycle of Naofumi ripping a balloon off his torso to kill before grabbing the next one.

Level Up: You have reached level 2.

"15 minutes for a single level. And excluding yesterday's experience and the time it took to kill that balloon, I'll be too under leveled by the time wave hits. Hell, I'll be lucky if I don't die before I even get to the wave." Naofumi says as he absorbs the skins of the balloon he just killed, unlocking the Orange Shield and Yellow Shield.

"I still have no idea how it works though, does it just spawn randomly and I have to find it. Do I even have to level for any of this? Damn, I was so caught up in the hype that I just realized they didn't tell me jack shit." Calling it quits for today, Naofumi gathers all the materials from his kills, and heads back to town.

Entering through the gate, two guards give him a stink eye as he passes by, and several other civilians run away at the sight of him. Naofumi of course didn't care about these people, and just ignored them as he walked into an alleyway. There, he climbed over a wall leading into the city stables, and fell asleep on the hay inside.

/~/

This was Naofumi's routine for the next few days. Wake up, grind till the evening, and sleep. It may have been a repetitive cycle, but it was his only effective one at the time.

Today, Naofumi woke up and went to grind once more. This session was cut short though, as Naofumi was unable to ignore his hunger. He had a way to get water from the stream located in the safer area of the forest, but food was his main issue. Since he couldn't kill any monsters that had meat, he had to rely on non-poisonous mushrooms and other edibles he could find in the wild, but that resource has slowly started to dwindle.

"I don't want to go to other areas for food this time, but I'm getting really annoyed that I can't find shit here. I swear I need better levels so I can kill this rabbit thing, and maybe then I can get a proper meal." Naofumi complained as he checked his status.

Naofumi was able to get to level 3 by killing the balloons for a few days, but the exp gain was too low. What also caught his attention was that it took much more exp for him to level up, slowly making his level up plan more and more irrelevant as time flies.

While walking back from the forest he came across some leaves which he ended inspecting to see if they were edible, but his shield started to react when he brought it close to the gem so that it could be absorbed.

Leaf Shield Unlocked, Equipment bonus: Harvest Skill 1.

"And what might we have here?" With his new shield, the herbs Naofumi picked up ended up becoming better in quality than it originally was. He quickly tried to find a way to exploit this, but put his question on hold when his stomach growled once more.

Back in the castle town.

Naofumi heads over to a stand he has been watching other adventures selling too for a few days. Having accumulated over 4 days worth of balloon skin himself, he heads over to sell all of them.

The booth owner was just finishing up a sale with another adventure before Naofumi showed up with his goods dropping what looks to be 28 balloon skins.

"Hmm, all of these together, I can offer you, 3 copper, for the entire batch."

Seeing through his lie immediately, Naofumi slowly reaches under his cloak.
"You offered the last person 1 copper for every 2 balloon skins, so that's at least 14 copper coins going by your logic, and a basic understanding of math."

"I don't recall doing that, but you must know I have a business to run so I-."

He said before being grabbed by Naofumi.

"Well If you insist, maybe I can offer a second batch. These ones are still fresh so maybe they'll go for more."

Naofumi says, opening his cloak to reveal several orange balloons biting down on him.

/~/

After his little "bartering session" with the owner, Naofumi was successfully able to away with his copper pieces. He also "persuades" the man to tell the other shopkeepers on the treatment they'll receive, if they ever try to dupe him as well.

Finding this to be a job well done, Naofumi starts to head towards the stables. But along the path, he ends up passing by Elharts shop, and he quickly stops.

Looking through the window, he sees that Erhart wasn't at the counter. Looking around even more, he is surprised to see that his egg was still on the counter where he left it, giving him a slightly better reason to trust his blacksmith friend.

Heading inside, He drops 5 copper on the counter as payment for the clothes, and then he drops some extra as thanks for eggsitting, leaving the store afterwards.

With one last stop, Naofumi heads into the apothecary and drops his bag on the counter.

As the shop owner looks inside, he inspects several of the herbs Naofumi brought him and drops 2 silver and 30 copper on the table. A little skeptical about the payment, Naofumi asked a few questions while visibly reaching into his cloak to intimidate the shopkeeper.

"Is this truly all I can get from this batch?" Naofumi asked

"I gotta say, these are some of the best herbs I've seen, but this is the best I can offer you. You'll be better off making medicine with these than whatever hussle you're planning."

"How much can I get with medicine as opposed to just the herbs?"

"Sure, medicine may take longer to make than just gathering the herbs, but with the waves making the price of potions skyrocket. So the short answer is much more than this entire batch here."

"I didn't think I'll make more from the herbs, I just wanted the answer from you."

"Kid, I'm not afraid of balloons. If you're here to do proper business then I don't really care about your issues or whatever."

"I'll keep that in mind then."

/~/

Taking his coins, Naofumi heads out of the store and into the street. He was going to break into the usual stable but was hesitant since sleeping outside could risk his egg getting stolen.

He thinks of sleeping in the forest, but that would be even riskier due to the monsters that could destroy it and possibly him in his sleep. so the inn would have to do it for now.

Heading inside, he paid for a room and took several precautions before he even sat on the bed so he could feel safe. Naofumi moved the drawer in front of the door to prevent anyone from getting inside. He also made sure the window was locked so it would be impossible to get in without alerting him. He would not make the same mistake as last time.

"Oh shut up my stomach. I'll satisfy you tomorrow." Naofumi replied as his stomach growled once more.

After thief-proofing his room, Naofumi finally settled down on the bed ready to sleep. He moved the desk near the bed so he can place his egg close enough to keep it safe in the event of a break-in, and then hid his coins inside his shield like before so it isn't stolen. With every defense he could possibly think of finally getting into play, Naofumi soon fell asleep after being succumbed by the exhaustion of the past few days.

A few hours after falling asleep, Naofumi is woken up to the sound of a crack. As he looks around the room for the source of the noise, he finds nothing wrong. The doors and windows don't seem damaged at all which is very weird to him because he could have swore he heard a crack. Questioning his sanity, he takes a closer look at the windows until he hears another crack.

Quickly looking towards the source, he sees the egg cracking constantly. Naofumi panics for a moment thinking he damaged the egg somehow during his sleep, but all his fears are thrown aways as a tiny bird with pink feathers and blue eyes hatches from it. Naofumi looks in awe as the bird jumps on his head.

Breathing a sigh of relief, Naofumi picked up the bird perching on his head.

"So, this is what a baby filolial looks like. They look so adorable." Naofumi commented. Looking at the bird once more, her feathers reminded Naofumi of a tree back from his world, soon coming to a decision.

"Alright then, I'll call you Sakura."

"Pio Pio" the chick chirped happily at its new name.

"Alright, when morning comes, we're going straight in. I should probably absorb this egg first to see what I get."

Monster User Shield: Conditions met

Monster Egg Shield: Conditions met

"I'll read the stats later. As of now, it's time to rest for tomorrow."

/~/

Thanks for reading

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