Rising of the Shield Demon…

By

Dark Dragen

Summary: How would the story turn out if instead of becoming the hero that we know, Naofumi became the demon that they said he was. One that would want to take over the land instead of helping it. Read as a hero become a demon thanks to one kingdoms hatred of the Shield Hero, where its actions created the demon they feared instead of a hero they needed.

Warnings: Naofumi and Raphtalia will be darker, slightly stronger in attack power and will know some magic, and whilst he wasn't strong in it, he had magical power so going to give him some. Hoping to make him into a badass Demon Shield… there'll be slavery, sex, gender swap and so on. If you read my other works, you should know what to expect. I'm also overhauling the system and a few other things, so expect a few changes to fit my needs and a few races and monsters added from other games.

Disclaimer: I do not in any shape or form own Rising of the Shield Hero, it belonged to Aneko Yusagi, its writer. The only things I own is the new systems that I add and any shields, powers and slaves that I create. If I use any shields/characters from another story, I'll let you know.

Prologue.

Dark Beginnings!

Raphtalia, Azeroth 20, Year 740, Rurorona Village

Our story begins in a world known as Azeroth, where humans, demons, demi-human, monsters and such exist, not only that but there are many islands that float in the sky, where the only way up there is by flying boats. Now, in some parts of the world, they either live peacefully together or they have countries of their own where no other race could live in that country.

Now our story begins in a small village called Rurorona Village, in the kingdom of Melromarc. This village was the only place that demi-humans could live peacefully in Melromarc, as the kingdom was a human superiority kingdom. It was thanks to Queen Mirellia Q Melromarc, that they had this village, it was a way to fix the bad blood between humans and demi-human. It was worse here Melromarc, as they hated Siltvelt and the demi-humans from there. People from Melromarc believed that they were better than the demi-humans.

But with the Queen trying to make things better, at least they now had a village with Melromarc to call their own. And to protect them from the rest of the country, the Queen had her most trusted and loyal ally, Lord Eric Seaetto, protecting them from those in Melromarc who meant them harm.

Now the village was small and had two main farmlands to grow food and animals, this was so that they didn't have to deal with those outside of the village. If there was anything they needed outside of the village, they would have bodyguards protecting them so that Slave Hunters didn't capture them and enslave them, or they would ask Lord Seaetto to bring what they needed into the village.

In this village, there was a young female raccoon-like demi-human, known as Tanuki, who was about to leave him to play with her friends. As she was leaving, she called out to her mother who was cleaning their home up, "I'm going out, mum!"

"Make sure you are back for lunch Raphtalia!" her mother called out to her.

"Okay, mum!" called out Raphtalia, "Well dad be back from seeing Lord Seaetto?"

"He should be dear," her mother told her, "it's just the basic meeting to see if this village needs anything and report what is going on with the rest of the land." You see, Raphtalia's father, apart from being the village's chief, was a kind of ambassador for the demi-human village, giving their Lord reports when needed and reporting anything that they needed, in return, the lord of the land would give them news about what was going on in Melromarc.

"See you later mum!"

As Raphtalia left her home, she smiled seeing how the weather was so amazing that day. The sun was out and there were no clouds at all. There were no signs that anything was wrong, that Raphtalia's life along with the rest of the villagers would be turned upside down.

Either way, once Raphtalia said bye to her mother, she headed for the town square, where Keel and the others were waiting for her.

"Hey, you really came!" Keel told her happily, he was a Wanui, a dog-like demi-human.

"Sure I did." Raphtalia told her friend.

Keel wiggled his little dog-like ears while he waited for her.

The other kids were already there.

"They said we can't go to the ocean today because Sadeena isn't here. I said it would be fine, but still…" Keel began to explain what he wanted to do that day.

"But Keel, you almost drowned last time." Raphtalia reminded her friend, worried what might happen if they go without Sadeena.

"Oh shut up!" Keel snapped, not liking being reminded about it, "Anyway, let's play in the fields today."

"Okay!" Raphtalia agreed, with everyone nodding in agreement.

"All right, let's go! You'd better stick with me so you don't get lost!" Keel told them.

"Who do you think you're talking to? I'm a fast runner!" Raphtalia reminded her friend.

The friends all raced each other out to the fields.

But really, Raphtalia was a fast runner. She was probably just as fast as Keel, and everyone said that he was the fastest.

Once Raphtalia started running, everyone fell into line behind her.

"You really are fast!" one of her friends told her.

"If you throw your arms out ahead of you and think about running faster, you'll really increase your speed." Raphtalia tried to tell one of the slower kids how to run fast, as they were talking about it as they arrived at the field.

Raphtalia's parents had said that they needed to be careful around here, as there are meant to be monsters around. But whenever they came here before, they never run into any real danger, just like that day.

"What do you want to do today?" Raphtalia asked her friends and Keel as he arrived.

"Ah shoot! I lost. I swear that I'll beat you next time!" Keel shot his friend a nasty look, unhappy about losing to her.

'Heh, heh. This is going to be a good day.' Raphtalia thought with a smile.

"How about we play tag?" asked Raphtalia, seeing how none of them.

"Sounds good!"

"Yeah!"

Everyone agreed with her plan.

"I'll be it! I'm going to catch you!" this came from Keel.

"You won't catch me!"

Keel really hated to lose, but that was one of the best things about him.

"Ahahaha!"

"Shoot! Wait up!"

Keel seemed like he was actually upset. He only chased after Raphtalia.

Eventually, they all tired out and they all decided to take a break.

"What should we do next?"

"Everyone can still play, right?"

"I don't have to help out at home, so I can still play."

For whatever reason, there were times when everyone had stuff they had to do at home. Raphtalia sometimes helped her mum with cooking.

"Let's play tag again!"

"But I'm so tired. Let me catch my breath."

Keel had way too much energy. Raphtalia guessed boys were like that.

"Whatever. Then the rest of us will play without you."

"Yeah!"

All the boys got up and went to play tag.

"They sure are energetic."

"I know!"

The girl next to Raphtalia, Rifana - a weasel demi-human, agreed with me. They both sat and watched the boys play.

"Hey, who do you like?" asked Rifana.

"Hmmm…" hummed Raphtalia thoughtfully, she never really thought about it before.

They were all close to the age where they started to care about love and relationships.

Over the last few months, they started talking about who was dating who and who they thought would get married. Before long we were both talking excitedly.

"Maybe someone like my dad!" Raphtalia told her friend.

"That's cheating! He needs to be the same age as you!" Rifana informed her.

"Hmm…" hummed Raphtalia thoughtfully, as she turned to watch the boys playing. She had to admit that

Keel was probably the coolest boy among them. He had a good face. But, and she knew that she shouldn't think about things like this, but she never liked the look of her own face in the mirror.

If they went to the nearby town, there were a lot of cute girls around and the older they got the more obvious their beauty became.

The thing was, her race wasn't highly regarded for their beauty…

But her dad was cool and he was handsome. She wanted to be like her dad.

Everyone said that her mum was cute. She was really nice too, and she knew how to cook…

Raphtalia had to wonder… would she be pretty when she grows up? She had asked her mum that question before.

But she just smiled and nodded.

So Raphtalia was pretty sure that she would be pretty once she grew up.

Another time, Raphtalia asked her what it was like to fall in love with a man. Is it different from loving your family?

Her mother looked confused.

Raphtalia guessed she loved men differently from the way she loved her.

"I think there are different ways to like people." Raphtalia told her friend, "My mum once said that she liked people differently from the way she liked me."

"Yeah! I get that." Rifana admitted, "But I want to marry someone like… someone like the Legendary Shield Hero!"

Rifana was Raphtalia's best friend from the village. But she was more girly than the raccoon girl was, she liked to talk about love and boys. She especially liked to talk about the records of the four Holy Heroes, because it said that the Shield Hero was nice to demi-humans.

"Well, I…"

But just then…

Up until that point, Raphtalia had never thought that her life would consist of anything other than a succession of peaceful days. She had really believed it.

Ping!

A loud sound echoed over the fields

Just as Raphtalia started to wonder what it could be, the air started shaking, and a sudden and powerful wind blew.

"Ah!"

"Kyaaah!"

"What the?"

The children all fell to the ground and waited for the wind to die down.

A moment later the wind faded. Everything was quiet.

"What was that?!"

"Hey, look at that." Keel called out as he pointed to the sky.

Raphtalia looked to where he was pointing and was stunned to silence.

The sky looked like it had been ripped open with a knife. It was covered in a deep red crack, like a tortoiseshell. It was eerie. It worried Raphtalia.

"What should we do?"

"My parents said to come back to the village if anything happened." Raphtalia told them, worried this could be dangerous.

"If we don't check it out now, we might not ever have a chance again." Keel told them, as he wanted to see what this could be.

"No! Keel!" Raphtalia told her friend, "All we know this could be some sort of warning to some sort of danger. I don't want to head out, only to be attacked by some monsters or demons."

The other kids and Raphtalia all held Keel back, as they went back to the village together.

o0OoO0o

"Raphtalia!" a male voice called out to her, the voice sounded worried and frightened.

"Daddy!" Raphtalia called out when she saw her father, who returned from seeing the lord of this lands. She rushed over to him.

"Are you okay? I was so worried!" asked her father.

"I'm okay." Raphtalia reinsured her father, "You said to come back if anything happened, so I rushed back here."

"Good girl." Her father told her as he rubbed her head.

Raphtalia watched as her dad started talking to all the other adults.

"Everyone listen up." Raphtalia's father called out to gather everyone there to him, "I've just come from seeing the lord of these lands. He says that those cracks in the sky were some sort of portals and that huge crowds of monsters are swarming out of them."

"Does that mean that we have to fight them?" asked one of the villagers.

"I think it does." Raphtalia's father informed the village.

There was a terrifying howl coming from the cracks in the sky.

Raphtalia's tail started swishing aggressively at the sound of the howl. It was so scary.

"Will we be okay?" asked another villager.

"Hm…." Raphtalia's father had to think about this, he wanted to say yes they would be okay, give them some hope, but he knew it would be a lie.

But before he could decide what to say, there was a scream and someone called out, "H… Hey! We're in trouble! The monsters have already flooded the town! It's like hell out there!"

An old man from the village ran in and announced the news. His face was pale.

"But… How? How could they have gotten here so fast?!"

"The Lord has commanded us to evacuate as quickly as possible!" Raphtalia's father told them all, "He has already called for support from the castle!"

"What had happened to the lord?"

"I don't know, but he has left instructions for everyone to evacuate as soon as possible!" said Raphtalia's father.

"Ugh…"

The adults looked very upset as they talked.

"And Sadeena is away, and all the hunters are out fishing…"

"There's a big storm out at sea too. Who knows if they will be able to return safely?"

The sky was looking worse and worse.

Just then there was a large, strange sound. Everyone turned to see what it was.

"What… is that?!"

There was something there, like… like a person made of bones. It was stumbling and dragging its feet as it walked in their direction.

It was carrying something like a weapon in its bony hands, and it was shining with a dull light.

Raphtalia felt scared. She was scared down to her bones.

It was a monster.

That was the only word that fits, and it described it perfectly.

"Uh… aaaaaahhhhhh!"

The adults all screamed and started to run away.

The rest of the villagers all started to scream too.

Raphtalia's father jumped in front of the monster to head them off.

"I command the very root of power. Light! Slay the beast before me!" began Raphtalia's father, "First Holy!"

A ball of magical, sparkling light flew from Raphtalia's father's outstretched hands, and the bone monster collapsed.

"Everyone please calm down and listen to me." the village leader called out, "We need to evacuate here as soon as possible. While our tribe commands great power, we have no hope of standing up to such numbers."

"You're right."

Raphtalia's mother threw a hatchet at a skeleton as she agreed with her father.

But there were still large numbers of skeletons heading for the village.

"We will stay here and buy time. The rest of you…" Raphtalia's father told them.

"Uh… okay."

"Y…Yes."

"All right. If you are sure…"

Everyone caught their breath for a moment before beginning the evacuation.

They decided to head for a town on the harbour. Even in a storm, they still might be able to escape on boats, out into the sea.

o0OoO0o

"AAAHHHHHH!"

But things didn't go as planned, as there were too many monsters in the way, forcing them to hide or run away.

"Damn these monsters!" one of the villagers said darkly.

Before long a large beast with three heads was running into the village.

Raphtalia's parents were fighting it with all their might, but it wasn't enough. The beast was too fast; it kept dodging Raphtalia's father's magic and her mother's hatchet.

"Gaahhhh!"

The beast violently swung its clawed paw and Raphtalia's father and another villager went flying through the air. They both fell to the ground, their joints twisted.

'Huh? What?' Raphtalia thought in fear, she couldn't believe what she was seeing. Her father was the best Magic User she knew, she couldn't believe that this monster defeated him so easily.

"Wh… WHAAAAAAAAA!"

"AAAAAHHH!"

The villagers started panicking and running as fast as they could.

They ignored Raphtalia's father's shouts for order and ran for the ocean.

The panicking villagers pushed by Raphtalia and she fell to the ground.

"Everyone, wait for just a second!" Raphtalia called out.

"Are you okay?" It was her mother, who helped her up and hugged her.

But her face was pale.

A three-headed dog was chasing down the villagers, attacking them with its fangs and claws.

"I'm… scared…" Raphtalia told her mother, frightened at what might happen to them.

Her mother ran her fingers through her daughter's hair, and said softly to comfort her, "It's okay. We'll be just fine, don't you worry."

"Um…Um…"

If her mother said they would be okay… they would be… right?

"We're going." Her father said

Raphtalia's father started running off with a limp after the other fleeing villagers. Raphtalia's mother and she followed close behind.

The villagers arrived at a cliff by the sea and started jumping into the ocean.

The dog was chasing after them. And then, Raphtalia couldn't believe it! The dog jumped into the ocean after them and started eating the swimming villagers.

The ocean turned red.

"Wahhhhhhh!"

"Dammit, we were too late!"

Raphtalia's father was screaming. He and her mother ran off to attack the dog and defend the remaining villagers. Raphtalia hid behind them. Frightened and scared at what she saw and what was happening to her village, so many people dead, she couldn't believe that she was seeing.

"Aaaaah!"

The huge, three-headed dog leapt out of the ocean and turned to face us. It howled. It cornered them against the cliff so that they had nowhere to run.

"Grrr…"

The three-headed dog leapt at them, its claws out.

Her father was able to bat away the monster's claws with his magic, but then a shower of blood sprayed from his shoulder.

"Dear, are you all right?" her mother asked her.

"I'm fine… but…" Raphtalia tried to talk but she couldn't. They were up against the cliff. The other villagers were all already in the ocean, but more than half of them had been… had been…

"Ahhh…"

Raphtalia was so scared. She held onto my mother's back.

Everyone below was swimming to save their own lives, but the current was strong, and they kept getting pulled further out to sea. They were going to drown.

"If we don't take care of this thing, he'll follow the villagers into the sea and kill them all." Raphtalia's father told his wife.

"I know…" admitted Raphtalia's mother with a deep sigh.

"I'm sorry, honey…" Raphtalia's father told his wife.

"I was prepared." his wife told him with a said smile, ready for what they had to do next. They didn't want to do this, but to save their daughter's life, they had to do this.

They finished talking and both turned to Raphtalia.

"Raphtalia." Raphtalia's mother whispered in her daughter's ear softly, getting ready to do the hardest thing she ever has done in her life. But with how things were going right now, she had no option but to do this.

"Wh…What?"

She was rubbing her daughter's back, trying to calm Raphtalia down.

"Don't forget to smile. Be nice to the others." her mother told her with a sad smile, as a tear went down her cheek.

"She's right. When you smile, everyone smiles." her father told her, giving his own sad smile, as he rubbed his daughter's head.

"Raphtalia… things are going to be hard for you for a while. If you aren't careful, you might even die." her mother told Raphtalia.

"But still… even still, Raphtalia, we want you to live. So please, forgive us for our selfishness." her father told her with a deep sigh, getting ready to do what must be done to save their daughter's life.

Raphtalia's heart started pounding… the way they were talking, it was like… it was like she wasn't ever going to see them again.

"Nooo! mummy! Daddy!" Raphtalia began to cry, realizing what they were going to do, "Please don't leave me, please!"

Raphtalia didn't want to leave them.

Her mother pushed her, hard, and Raphtalia flew from the cliff, through the air, and fell into the ocean.

All Raphtalia could see were bubbles popping violently here and there. She hurried to get her head above water.

And then… Raphtalia saw it. She saw the exact second that the three-headed dog leapt at my parents.

"NOOOOOOOOOOO!"

The current took Raphtalia, but she kicked the whole way. Trying to get back to her parents, hoping above hope that somehow, someway, they survived somehow and that they were being treated for their injuries and that they would be fine. Hurt, but fine.

o0OoO0o

It wasn't until the sky was dark, that young Raphtalia found herself on the shore.

Catching her breath from making her way back to the shore, she saw that there were other survivors from the village there too. But some of the dead villagers had washed up as well.

Whilst it was night now, Raphtalia saw that sky had already returned to its normal colour.

Raphtalia had no idea what had happened, nor where these monsters came from.

All the young raccoon girl wanted, was to see her parents again, more than anything. So she hurried back to the cliff where she had left them. As she made her way to the cliff, she found loads of bones lying all around. It looked like reinforcements had arrived from the castle to drive the monsters off.

When Raphtalia arrived to where she last saw her parents, she found strips of flesh and the skeleton of the three-headed dog. Knights and adventurers were carrying it off.

Raphtalia was able to piece together what had happened.

"Well, good thing it had already taken a beating…" said one knight.

"Yeah, otherwise we probably couldn't have beaten it." said an adventurer.

The adventurers and knight were bantering when they noticed the young raccoon girl there.

"What's with the brat? Should we grab her?"

"Wait. We are in the demi-human territory."

"What are you talking about? The area lord is dead, didn't you hear?"

"Oh yeah?"

"Anyway, leave her alone. You know what would happen."

They all split and made room for her to pass.

As she walked to the edge of the cliff, Raphtalia saw what had become of Raphtalia parents. started shaking and sobbing.

"NOOOOOOOOOO!"

Raphtalia saw her father's body with his arms and one of his legs torn from his body, whilst her mother was laying there with her clothes ripped up and a huge gush across her chest, along with a cut on her head. Thankfully though, there was an adventurer trying to heal her.

o0OoO0o

'How much time had passed?' Raphtalia thought to herself, it was morning and she had already made a grave for her father. Her mother was in a medical tent that was set up, unconscious. Whilst the adventurer was able to heal her, the adventurer informed Raphtalia that it could take days, weeks even months before she would awake, if ever. As whilst the adventurer was able to heal the body, he wasn't able to do anything about the mind. That was one magic he didn't have, the ability to heal the mind, so it was a matter of the mind healing itself and that would take time if they were lucky. As it could be possible that the mind would never be able to heal itself.

"Don't forget to smile. Be nice to the others."

"She's right. When you smile, everyone smiles."

Those were the words that she remembered that her parents telling often. They had given their lives to save the other villagers and they had entrusted the survivors to their daughter.

Raphtalia would show them… she would be good to everyone! Raphtalia wouldn't let her father's death to be in vain… that she would prove that until her mother awakes, she was just as good as a leader as her father was.

'If I just stayed there crying, my parents would be upset.' Raphtalia thought to herself

"I won't cry anymore. I'm going now…" Raphtalia said aloud as she started walking back to the village.

"Uhuuuuhh…."

"Daddy… mummy …"

The villagers that had run for the ocean had formed a crowd. There were many more children than adults.

"Is that Raphtalia?!"

"Yes."

"Did your parents make it?"

An old man who had been our neighbour asked Raphtalia. He looked concerned.

The young girl tried as hard as she could not to cry. "M, mum, is alive b, but unconscious, b, but…" Raphtalia tried to tell them that her father, but she couldn't. She knew if she did, she might cry, and that's one thing she was trying not to.

"Oh… That's…"

He was unable to find any words. He must have known that anything he said would make the young girl cry.

"It's okay. My parents told me to cheer everyone up. "

"Did they? You're such a strong girl."

"Hee, hee."

'Am I laughing?' Raphtalia asked in shock, unable to believe that she was laughing, but then she realized she was fine with that. If she cried, her parents would be upset.

"Everyone!" Raphtalia shouted to get everyone's attention, and all the eyes of the crying children were on her. "I know that you are all sad. I am too. But would our parents and brothers and friends want us to stay here and cry?"

Everyone seemed troubled by her words. They were twisting their faces up.

Raphtalia put her hand on her heart and stepped forward. "To all of you that think our loved ones haven't died, I ask you, how would they feel if they came back to our village and found it like this?"

Right. This was everyone's village. They couldn't just leave it how it was.

Her dad and the lord had always said that the village was a family that they all made it together.

"I know how sad you are. Believe me, I know." Raphtalia told them all, "But that is all the more reason to rebuild. I mean, we're a family!"

'Yes, father had always said so.' Raphtalia thought to herself, 'He said to treat the rest of the village as if they were part of our family. So I would do it. I would take care of them all, just like father had said.'

"Right? Please?" Raphtalia as she said this, she did all she could to summon a smile.

"Raphtalia…"

"Raphtalia, aren't you sad?"

"Why are you smiling? Your father died!"

Raphtalia's smile weakened at their exclamation.

She wouldn't cry… if she started crying, Raphtalia knew that she would never be able to stop… "Right… I'm… not… sad."

'I can't cry. If I started to cry, no one would be able to comfort me.' Raphtalia thought to herself, within a few moments she heard the villagers start saying things like this:

"Oh…"

"Look at how hard this girl is trying! Come on everyone. If she can do it, we can do it!"

"Yeah!"

"Okay!"

"You're right, Raphtalia! I'll do my best too!"

Keel had been crying, but he turned to her, invigorated.

"Yes!"

The lord of the land had given their village a flag. It had been a present and a symbol of the town.

Just then it fluttered down from above and fell before Raphtalia. It was like it was agreeing with her.

That was it. It was a sign, a sign that Raphtalia's father was watching over them.

Raphtalia picked up the flag and the other villagers brought over a large pole for it. They attached the flag to the pole.

"It's a sign from heaven! Let's work to rebuild our village!"

"Yeah!"

And so everyone decided to try and rebuild.

For the rest of the day, the villagers began to clear up all the rubble from the destroyed buildings and set tents for those whose homes were destroyed. Raphtalia and her mother's home had been burned to the ground - most homes had. So they set up a few tents for people to sleep in.

At night, whilst there were a few people keeping watch to make sure that no monsters were around, the others were sleeping. During the night though, there was a loud scream from Raphtalia.

"NOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!"

Raphtalia was instantly awake. She was inside one of the tents that they had set up.

"Hey, did you hear that voice?"

An older man was rushing over in Raphtalia direction, as he asked in concern, "Raphtalia, you were screaming."

"Was I?" asked Raphtalia, not realizing that she did so. She remembered that she had a nightmare about what happened the day before, maybe that was why she screamed. But she knew she couldn't let the people see her sad, she needed to smile. If she didn't, it would worry the rest of them, something she couldn't let happen.

"I'm fine! It was just a bad dream." Raphtalia told the old man.

"Okay… well… don't overdo it." the old man informed her, but he didn't believe that the young girl was telling her everything. But he knew that she wouldn't tell him otherwise unless she was ready, pushing her might make things worse. So he added, "If you need to talk to anyone, please find me, I'm willing to listen to you."

"I'm fine! Thank you though." Raphtalia thanked the man.

'Father.' Raphtalia thought sadly, 'I'm doing my best, I promise…'

o0OoO0o

The next morning the villagers decided to leave the completely destroyed houses the way they were for now and focus on repairing houses that they could live in sooner. They thought they would be safer if they had walls and a door to protect them instead of a tent.

They also put some people in charge of making graves for the bodies that had washed up on the shore. To give them a proper.

The adults were all focused on rebuilding the town and all the children, lead by Keel, were doing what they could to help.

But they were getting worried about the food supplies. They might not hold out for too long. Whilst we had fishermen to go out to see to catch more, it was normally Raphtalia's father who dealt with getting more food into the village. This lead to two problems, the first was sending the fishermen out to gain more food. The seas were very rough and the villagers were worried that the fishermen would lose their lives, something no one wanted, so they decided it best to save that for later.

This meant that they had to find Raphtalia had to find her father's paperwork, this lead to the second problem. They had to look through Raphtalia's old house, which was burnt to the ground. They could only hope that they were able to find something. Raphtalia knew that because she couldn't read that well right now, she needed the help of someone older to help her. This would mean showing that she couldn't handle things, something she didn't want, but for the village though, she knew she had to ask for help. So she had to find someone she could trust who could help her.

For now, they had to forest what they could and save what food they can from the farms, other than that, they would have to send some hunters out to gather meat of the animals out of the village. Sure it was unsafe, but it was better than going hungry, they could do more to stay safe on land than out in the sea.

After the dead were buried, the counted the surviving survivors, to see how many of them were left. After the count, they learned that there was only one-quarter of the village left alive. Even still, one of the older men said that they had made out better than they could have hoped for.

"It's just like Raphtalia said. We are all still alive."

"Yeah!"

They all had hope now, that over time the village would go back to the way it used to be. But that wasn't on the cards for these people, as scummy-looking human men began to wander through the village as the villagers were fixing up the village, they were pointing their swords at a group of adults.

"Hey! What are you doing?!" asked a male villager.

"Who are you guys?!" asked another. They were frightened, but they had to stand up to protect what was reminded of the village.

"Ahahah! I'd heard that there were still some demi-humans alive here. Guess it was true!" said a male human.

"Yeah, and this area isn't protected. We could probably make some good money!" said another scumbag.

"Yeah! Argh!" said another

One of the older village men stepped forward and yelled at the attackers. "The lord of these lands will never forgive you for this behaviour! There are castle knights still in the area too!"

The nasty-looking men all smiled at once.

"What do we care if your dead lord gets mad? And besides…" began one of the scumbags.

Swipe! It happened quicker than Raphtalia could see. It happened before she could understand what was going on.

The old man's stomach was split open. One of the bad men had cut him with his sword.

"What the…" asked Raphtalia in shock, seeing another of her people dead in so many days.

"Ahaha!" laughed one of the bad men, "Can't you tell? We are the castle knights!"

"They haven't figured it out yet, have they, Boss?" said one of the men.

"Nope!" admitted the boss of this gang.

"AHAHAHAHAHA!" the group of humans laughed as one here, as the old man fell over in a pool of blood. He didn't even twitch.

The pool of blood was spreading. Soon it was at Raphtalia's toes.

"Ah! AHHHHHHHHH!"

Suddenly everyone was panicking. Raphtalia didn't know what to do, so she did the only thing she could, she ran.

"Don't let them escape!" the boss told his men, "Kill the old ones! We can sell the women and children, so don't run them down!"

What happened next that day went so fast that Raphtalia couldn't really remember what happened. All she remembered was running to get her mother to keep her safe. But before she could get far, someone had a hold on her hair and someone hitting her on the back of the head, before she blacked out.

o0OoO0o

A week passed. Raphtalia continued having dreams of her father's death and nightmares about that day and now, she was having nightmares as to what might have happened to her mother. She was worried that they have killed her. Now the people that caught her, sold the young raccoon girl into slavery.

For the last week, she lived in a cage, where an ugly fat man would come every day to bring her food and water to her and the other slaves that he had. After the first week though, she gained her first owner. He seemed to be a nice enough of a person, all he wanted from her was for Raphtalia to act like a servant. But it didn't last for long though, as after a few days with him, he sold her back to the Slave Trader for some reason, a reason that she never knew why.

She gained a new owner a day after she was sold back to the Slave Trader, but he wasn't as a nice of a person, as he had a thing about having sex with demi-humans. That's what Raphtalia thought, seeing he was having sex with demi-humans who were so young. So he brought Raphtalia as a new sex toy, as her new owner loved young demi-humans every now and then. Right now, he was looking for a new young girl seeing how one his old girls got ill and dead, nothing he did helped her or that was what he told the Slave Trader anyway.

Raphtalia was shocked when she got to her new masters home, as she found that her mother was a slave to this man - she was alive and conscious. From what Raphtalia's mother told her daughter, two days after the knights attacking their village and killing the adult men and the elderly and selling the rest into slavery, she awoke and was sold to this master. Here she was made into a sex toy where the master would fuck her. From everything that the mother learned, as long as you treat the master with respect and do what you were told, you would be treated fairly. In fact, the slave that Raphtalia replaced, she really did die from an unknown illness and that she was brought to replace her, nothing sinister happened to the old slave.

For the next few days, her mother taught her everything that she had to know about being a sex toy for their master. How to suck a cock, how to handle a cock in her holes both front and back ones. Their master taught her mother and now Raphtalia, that to make their masters happy, to serve them, the slaves would have to do whatever it took to make their masters happy. Their master told them that the best way to do that was to allow the master to do whatever they wanted to their bodies, not only that, but slaves should take care of their sexual and more needs.

Seeing how her mother told her this was right, the young raccoon girl took everything that her mother taught her to heart. She would do whatever their master wanted and show him how grateful she was for having her and saving her mother. In fact, she was surprised that she took it so well, that she enjoyed what her mother was teaching and couldn't wait to have her master's cock in her.

But before this could happen though, her master sold her to another Slave Trader for reasons she didn't know about. She began to wonder what was she doing wrong, every time she got close to a new master, they sold her back to a Slave Trader for reasons beyond her.

Her next and last owner brought her two days later, was the worst of them all.

"Take that!"

"Ugh…"

'Why? Why did he treat me this way?' Raphtalia thought to herself, as her new owner beat her up.

Her new owner was a fat man, worse than the other two that she had, the first was someone who only wanted her as a servant. Her second owner wanted her as some kind of sex toy, a person who made her mother as one. Sure she was unsure about her former master, but her mother and his other slaves seemed to like him and the little she saw of him changed her mind, he didn't seem to be as bad as she first thought.

But her new owner was the worse, he kept her in a basement of a large house that she believed he owned, in a town she never heard of. She wasn't alone in the basement, there were other demi-humans there, all chained in cells. Apparently, this man had bought Keel before he'd bought her.

Raphtalia lost track of time, but she knew that every day, whenever he felt like it, he would hang one of the demi-humans from the ceiling in chains and beat them with a whip. He hit them until they were bloody. Because she was new, it would seem that he wanted to break his new slave in, so spent most of his time whipping her.

Whenever Raphtalia tried to stop him, or tried to protest, or tried to say that she would allow him to fuck her if he stopped hitting her, the slave curse on her chest would burn her. In fact, the first few times when she suggested that she would allow him to fuck her, he would whip her even harder. He was disgusted at the idea and he showed it by whipping her harder. The pain from the whip was driving her crazy.

But Raphtalia wasn't about to give up.

She would bear with it, for her father and for everyone in the village that hadn't made it, not only that, but she couldn't let her mother down. Her mother told her that now that she was a slave, she had to do whatever she could to make whoever her master was happy. And she should get a bad master, she should bear with it and do what she had to stay alive.

So she wouldn't give up. But at the same time, she wasn't about to allow herself to show her emotions, nor scream out. She promised herself before now that she wouldn't allow herself to do so and she wasn't going to break that promise.

"Raphtalia…" this came from Keel who coughed a bit.

"It's okay… It's okay. We'll make it back to the village one day." Raphtalia lied to her friend. She knew that wouldn't be possible, but at the same time, she knew she had to lie to make Keel feel better. As when she reunited with him, he was already sick but had gotten worse over time. Even their owner knew he was ill, the man never stopped hitting Keel. So she knew if he was to make it, she had to give him hope and so told him that they would make it back to their village one day.

"Yes… We… We'll… make it…" Keel agreed with his friend, finding it hard to breathe.

Raphtalia had to wonder though, what did this man want from them? Why did he buy them in the first place? Was it so that he could only beat them with a whip for some reason? He wasn't got to use them as servants or some sex toys like her other masters were going to.

"Ha! Why are you still having dreams of a better life?" her owner asked more than once, "You belong to me now. Until I had enough of you or you die, this is going to be your life now."

Slap! He hit her again, and Raphtalia felt blood trickle down her back.

Raphtalia felt tears well up at the pain.

"Yes! Scream from the pain!"

"Ahhh!"

After that point, things got worse. He started to torture her more and more seeing how he wasn't getting what he wanted with her, so he was trying to break her will.

When Raphtalia was finally free, and ragged, but she crawled over the muddy floor to go take care of Keel.

Every day, he brought them an awful stinking bowl of soup. It tasted like mud. But it was the only food that he would give them, that and dried bread.

"Huff… Huff…"

Raphtalia slowly fed it to Keel. That was one more day of life for her.

As Keel got worse, young Raphtalia knew she had to do something, they had to somehow get back to their village if Keel was ever to get better. She knew she promised her mother that she would be a good slave, but this man was a bad master and Keel was getting worse every second and needed help that their owner wouldn't give. So she had to break this promise to keep another promise that she made long ago to her friend that she would keep him and her other friends safe. So she had to do something to keep that promise, even if it meant to break the promise to her mum.

"Hold on… I swear I'll help you." Raphtalia told her friend.

There were latticed iron bars that ran almost to the floor. Raphtalia realized that if she took a rock from the wall and used it to dig out the foundation under the bars, then they would be able to wriggle under them and escape! It just had to work.

"Thank you." Keel thanked his friend.

"Yes! We'll meet everyone again! And you'll get better." Raphtalia informed her friend.

Raphtalia's mother and father had told her to take care of everyone. Whilst some things changed in her life, the one thing she knew was that if she could, she would make that happen.

Raphtalia believed that the other villagers would save them if they knew what was happening to her and Keel.

Sadeena would definitely rally the others to come and save them if she knew where they were. All they needed to do was survive long enough and escape, once they did, send a message to Sadeena let her know what was happening so she could save them.

"You… remember that…day? Raph…ta…lia…" Keel was shivering. He was stretching out his hand to the ceiling. "You remember… that… lord's… flag?"

"Yes… yes!" Raphtalia grabbed his hand and squeezed it hard.

Of course, she remembered it. How could she not The flag had given many of the demi-human much hope at the village. She knew that whilst Keel might not have talked much about it, the raccoon girl knew that it gave him hope too. Something it seemed he needed now.

Raphtalia missed those quiet days… those days when nothing was wrong. But those days were gone. She knew that they might never return, but for the sake of Keel, she would try and return them, if it meant it would help him get better.

Cough! Cough!

Time passed and once again Raphtalia could hear her owner's footsteps coming closer.

"Raphtalia…" Cough!

The horrible time was starting again. Raphtalia had caught Keel's cold. But Raphtalia knew she was going to be fine.

She slid a pile of wet straw over the hole, she was slowly chipping away under the bars.

"…"

Keel wasn't answering her.

"Keel?"

The man opened the door to the cell where he was and touched the dog-boy.

"Guess he's dead. Ugh, what a pain." the bad master said with a disappointed sigh.

He lifted his body roughly by the shoulder and muttered to himself.

Keel hung there, his eyes empty and cold.

"Damn, and it was almost time to return him too." he muttered to himself, it seemed that he only brought them for a short time, or that was what Raphtalia believed from the way he was talking, "This is a breach of contract!"

Then he kicked Keel's body like he was just a toy, well they were like toys to their owner.

Raphtalia didn't know it at the time, but she found out later. But apparently, there was a class of people that entertained themselves by buying demi-humans slaves for a short while and then torturing them. And once they had their fun, they would return them to a Slave Trader.

That's what they were, just slaves sold to satisfy that man's personal whims.

"Heee?!"

What? What? Keel?

No… It couldn't be.

Raphtalia reached out a shaky hand to touch him.

He was so cold, so cold!

Raphtalia couldn't believe it.

No… Keel!

Raphtalia was sad, angry, terrified… hopeless. She had so many different emotions stirring inside of her.

Why? Keel hadn't done anything wrong!

"It's because you won't stop crying at night! He couldn't get any sleep! This is YOUR fault!" Her master blamed her for Keel's death.

"No… Ugh…" Sniff… "Keel…"

The man strung Raphtalia up and started to whip her. He hit her even longer than usual that day. Taking his anger of the loss of Keel out on her.

But Raphtalia kept her eyes locked on Keel the whole time, she couldn't even feel the pain.

"Oh hey, you're always muttering about some village, aren't you?" her master asked her suddenly.

"…"

Raphtalia didn't have to answer him. Everyone was waiting for her. She would escape this awful man's place and return to her village. She knew she was breaking her promise to her mother, but this man wasn't a good master and she had no problem breaking it. She knew that if she didn't, she would be dead too.

"Apparently, that village was destroyed a while ago. Here's proof." her owner told her with a smirk as he held out a crystal ball.

A beam of light came out of the crystal ball and projected an image of the village on the wall. The village was completely destroyed. At first, she wasn't sure which village it was, that was until she saw the flag on the ground, tattered and burnt, and the ground was littered with bones. It was her village's flag. Raphtalia couldn't believe what happened to her home village, the place she was born and raised in.

"Oh yeah, I heard you saying that you were the person who supported everyone in that village." the fat ugly man informed her, "Apparently, everyone left it to rot and ran away."

"Ah…"

The man flashed a smile. He had never seen Raphtalia cry, never seen her blink. As she would always give a brave face, never allowing her master what she truly felt. As she wasn't willing to give him the satisfaction of seeing her broken. So seeing this side of her, he was enjoying this.

"Ug…. Ugh… Wahhhh!"

Something inside Raphtalia snapped.

Raphtalia couldn't do it anymore. Her father had entrusted the village to her, but now there was no one left. The village was destroyed, Raphtalia failed her father somehow.

She had to wonder what she should do now.

There was nothing left for her. She failed everybody.

"Cry! Cry harder!"

The pain was so intense that Raphtalia thought she would go crazy.

The dreams that she had every night were starting to rot her brain.

They were of the last time she saw her father. It got even worse.

Raphtalia thought she was a bad child all because she hadn't saved the village. In her dreams, her father and those who died that day hoped she would never smile again. That she didn't have the right to live, seeing how she failed to protect the village.

They kept whispering: Die… Die…

Raphtalia believed that they were right, she shouldn't ever smile again. She was a bad girl, she couldn't protect her village, nor her friend who died in front of her. She believed that she should never be happy again, nor allowed to smile. Because she broke her promise…

Before she knew it, the man finally sold her.

Either that or the time had run out on his torture game.

At this point she learnt that she was with him for just over a week, it was a lot less longer than she thought she was with him. Raphtalia thought she was with her bad master for a month or longer, not just over a week.

o0OoO0o

"This is horrible. This is way under what she's worth. Damn it." her former master told the Slave Trader as he counted the money that he got for her.

"C'mon, she's on the verge of death." the Slave Trader informed the bad man, "I can't use her in this condition, so I'm going to have to subtract lost time from the price."

"I understand. Yes." her former master said with a sigh, unhappy about this, but knew that he wouldn't get the full amount for this slave.

The Slave Trader was a short fat man dressed in a nice suit. He was different from the last Slave Trader that brought her, whilst dressed nicer than the others, he was creepy and he frightened the young slave.

"I'm sure you could have treated her a little better…" said the Slave Trader with a sigh. Whilst he didn't care what happened to the slaves once he sold them, he did care that as he brought them, they were sold to him in a good condition. As it would make it much easier for him to resell them. But with how this slave was now, he was unsure if he would be able to sell this slave. All he could do was hope that he could get his money back from this slave. There was already a few that were dying and wouldn't be able to sell.

'What would my next owner be like?' Raphtalia thought to herself as she coughed, hoping that whoever it was, they were better than this one was.

"I don't think she will last very long."

Raphtalia's former owner said as he put her in a cage.

'So… I finally wasn't worth anything to anyone.' Raphtalia thought sadly as she heard this. Her father was gone, her mother was a slave and her village was gone. It was like the world was telling her to die.

The thing was that she wanted to die. She was in pain mentally and physically It hurt. She wanted nothing more than to die, to end the pain. She wanted it to be quick.

Now Raphtalia didn't know how much time passed, hours, day, it could have been weeks. All she did was to stare through the bars of her cage. Hoping that she would die. Over time, many people came and went.

And then…

"This is about the cheapest I can offer you." She heard the Slave Trader say at some point when he brought a young man to where she was. "The one on the right has a genetic disease. He's a rabbit. The one in the middle has panic attacks and is a raccoon, and the last one is a mixed-breed lizard man.

"They all have their share of problems."

As the young man was negotiating with the slave trader, the young man suddenly met her gaze for a minute.

His eyes were sharp enough to kill. He looked angry.

Raphtalia couldn't help but gasp, whilst his eyes wandered to the other two slaves. She saw that his eyes were scary.

He was filled with hate, more hate than the man that whipped her. It looked like he hated the whole world. Raphtalia feared that should he buy her, she would probably die in a day or two if he acted like her last master…

"She has panic attacks in the night. She's a lot of trouble…" Raphtalia heard them say, unsure if they were talking to her or not, she wasn't able to do so.

In the end, though, the young man bought Raphtalia. For the fourth time, Raphtalia had the spell recast on her to register as a slave. She hated the spell, as it always hurt her.

Either way, she knew that this man would be her last master one way or another, either he would kill her if he was like her master, or she would die from her cold if not cured. So she knew that if she wanted to survive, she had to use the skills that she gained from her second master to help her to survive. As if she didn't she would be dead soon, so as they left the shop, she didn't realize how much her life would change.

To be Continued!

Author's Note - PLEASE READ TO THE END:Here ends the first chapter of my new story, this was something I wanted to do for a while, but until now never got around to write it. I have a few ideas as to what I want to happen, but if you got any ideas as to what you would like to see happen, please let me know. So you know, until things happen to break from the manga/light/web novel fully, I'll be following the plot/story for a bit, altering things here and there to make the story my own.

This will be a darker version of Naofumi, there'll be new shields for him to get, not only that, but he'll have more slaves. I found it strange that as he gained more money, he didn't get more slaves to help him. I can understand only get one at the start, not having much money, but as he gained money, I thought he would have gotten more.

Now because of this, I would like ideas for slaves and new shields, for slaves I'm after names, looks, powers if they got any and backgrounds. I have a few shield ideas which you can see below that I'm planning to use but want your help with.

For those who read the light novel of this story, you notice that I know that most of this chapter is from bonus part it, but most of the readers either watched the anime or/and read the manga and not the light novel. And whilst some of it was highlighted in the anime/manga, there are parts in other chapters that are missed in the anime/manga or altered.

Now I was planning to use the first few chapters of the light/web novel to help with writing my story, as I find it why should I mess around with something that works. But after having Ryujin Maou who wrote Shall I show you a True Shield? read the chapters before I post them, he told me that it needs work, that I'm overworking a bit the introduction of the story, that I am throwing too much into a single plate. That I should ease the readers into the story, then give some action, then I can do the world-building.

Because of this, I'm going to post this chapter now. The plan was to wait until I wrote a few chapters before posting the story, but I would like a co-writer for this story or someone who can help to make this story better. After this, I'll be writing a few chapters before posting again.

Now as I said at the start of the story, I'll be altering the system and planning to add new shields and powers, but I would like your help with that. What would you like to see in the new system and shields, I am after ideas to help me with that and I hope you can help me. Here are three shields I'm planning to use in the story, one is from the story and another is from Shall I show you a True Shield? by Ryujin Maou. I hope that looking at these, you can come up with ideas for new shields I could use for the story and write them out for me to use.

The first shield is from Ryujin, who is okay with me using:

Cartographer's Shield: A brown leather binder like shield, that when open, it is full parchments, each page showing a 3D image of the area of the map that it was fed. The also system shows a more detailed image of an area depending on what part of the map Naofumi focuses on. The binder only shows details on the map, more detail is added when Naofumi visit the areas. The binder leaves a little dotted trail following the locations he visited for the day, resets each morning.

Requirements: Feeds the Shield maps to unlock.

Equipment Bonus: Defense +3

Special Effect(s): Cartography Proficiency; Terrain-Recognition Proficiency, World Map

Upgrading: By adding maps and visiting the areas, new areas open up and extra details are added to existing pages.

The next shield is based off the Slaver Trainer Shield and Demon Trainer Shield

The Slaver Shield: A round shield with a chain motif around the edge of it. In the centre was a symbol of three interlocked circles, with two bat-like wings emerging from them, all inside a larger, horned circle with several arrows pointing outward.

Requirements: Slave Crest Ink.

Equipment Bonus: Slave Modifying Skills.

Special Effect(s): At higher levels, able to turn monsters and demi-humans slaves into slaves.

Upgrading: For the basic levelling up, you'll need to use skill points to do so, over time it becomes stronger and gains new abilities. By adding an eggshell from a monster, it'll allow the shield to be able to control and modify monsters along with humans/demi-humans slaves. The shield gains an eye-like symbol above the horned circle.

This shield idea comes from reading The Shielded Savior by RLTygurr and Shall I show you a True Shield? by Ryujin Maou.

? Shield: A leather vambrace with three metal pleats, the shield's gem on the back of the hand. It had a wallet like sleeve, to place the coins. It looked less like a shield and more like a method of deflecting weapons with one's forearm.

Requirements: Naofumi's wallet gets absorbed into the shield.

Equipment Bonus: Defense +4

Special Effect(s): Coin Storage, at level 1, the shield can hold up to 500 Bronze Coins, 200 Silver Coins and 20 Gold Coins.

Upgrading: By using skill points to level the shield up, Naofumi would be able to carry more.

Now I need help with some shields, coming up with ideas to what the shields should look like, as well as Equipment Bonus and Special Effect(s). Got a few ideas, but I need help in filling in the gaps, most of these I'm thinking that a few would be some sort of binder or book. I got the ideas from here: wow . gamepedia Profession

Bestiary Shield: Need help with the looks, possible binder/book.

Requirements: Unsure, need ideas for this, I hope you can help me.

Equipment Bonus: Also combine with Cartographer's Shield, it shows where to find them once they are added to the shield.

Special Effect(s): Informs Naofumi about the animals that he faces.

Herbalism Shield: Need help with the looks, binder/book.

Requirements: Unsure, need ideas for this, I hope you can help me.

Equipment Bonus: Makes the plants and herbs better than the ones he picks. Also, combine with Cartographer's Shield, it shows where to find them once they are added to the shield.

Special Effect(s): Informs Naofumi about the plants and herbs that he finds.

Pickaxe Shield: Two metal crescents on opposite ends of a patterned disc, with a gemstone set in the centre.

Requirements: Absorbing a Pickaxe.

Equipment Bonus: Makes the ores that he finds better. Also, combine with Cartographer's Shield, it shows where to find them once they are added to the shield.

Special Effect(s): N/A

Now I have the following ideas I want to become shields, but I don't have name ideas for them nor the Requirements, Equipment Bonus, or Special Effect. I hope that you lot could help me out here, as these shields, other than a few others who can be used to counter and fight, will be some of the main ones that he'll use.

Alchemy

Blacksmithing

Cooking Upgrading Idea - Absorbing food to gain recipes

Jewelcrafting

Skinning/Dismantling

Enchanting

Leatherworking

Tailoring

Fishing

These last two I'm not too sure about, as I don't know how to work them into the story… so I would like your thoughts about this, I hope you can help.

Archaeology - although with this one, I might remove, as I got other ideas that'll do the same thing as this.

Inscription - although with this one, I might remove, as I got other ideas that'll do the same thing as this.