Y/n

I was sitting next to a tree waiting for Rifana to wake up. I had already put away all the stuff that I had used last night, the only thing left out is the blanket on top of Rifana and another cloak that I had taken out of my inventory. After seeing the clothing that she currently had on, I figured it would be better to have her wear something else, and since she is supposed to be dead it is better to have her hide her features. When she woke up she looked around, panicking a bit. I walked over to her and put my hand on her shoulder "hey, calm down. You're safe" She she looked at me and then hugged me tightly, crying. "what's wrong?" She hugged tighter "it w-wasn't a dream..." I looked at her "no, this is about as real as it can get. So why are you crying?" She spoke, not removing her face from my chest "I-I'm free from there... you are treating me so nicely, but the others...." I moved my hand to the top of her head "it's gonna be okay, once we are stronger we are going to come back for them. and free all of them." She mumbled "not all of them....." I frowned "We will save whoever we can, but right now we need to become stronger so that we will be able to." She looked up at me "What about Raphtalia" "is she the raccoon girl that was taken away from there yesterday?" She nodded and I sighed "well, apparently they were taking her to a slaver in the capital, so when we head there we can see about saving her" She hugged me tightly again. "okay.."

I grabbed the cloak and put it on top of her head "put that on" She let go of me and looked at the cloak "why?" "well, it's better than the rags that you are wearing at the moment, and you are supposed to be dead so it would cause a problem if you were suddenly alive again." she nodded and put on the cloak, pulling the hood over her head I looked at her and nodded "perfect, how does it feel?" she pokes the sleeves on it "it is soft and comfy..." "yeah, but it doesn't offer much protection so I'm gonna need to get you some armor to wear under it. I might even give you a mask to wear in public so no one can see your face." She nodded slowly "okay.." I picked up the blanket and stored in back in my inventory, looking over at her "we need to start training you to become stronger so I'm gonna give you a dagger to use for hunting." "b-but.." "if you can't fight then I wont be able to help you save your friends." she looked down to the ground and nodded. I created a knife in my inventory and it was immediately ejected from the gem on my bracelet with a message appearing in front of me [The user of the cursed chain can not use any non cursed weapons]. "pick that up and lets get going." She picked up the sheathed dagger and put it on her side. "wh-where are we going?" "first we are going to level you up a little, then we are going to start traveling along the road to the capital." She nodded and followed me as I walked deeper into the forest.

We walked around the forest for a while, hunting monsters to raise up Rifana's level. At first she was hesitant on attacking the monsters that I trapped with my chain, but eventually she was able to attack without hesitation. However, she was still having trouble with killing animal monsters. She was scared of it, not liking blood or the thought of taking lives. After she had made it to level 7 we stopped to take a break nearby a river. I let her use the water to wash off the blood from her clothes and weapons, giving her a fresh set of clothes. She had cleaned her cloak but didn't put on the new clothes yet when there was a loud growl in the bushes nearby. I looked over as a bear monster came out, it was heavily injured and very angry. Rifana got scared as she held her dagger in her hand, the bear turning it's attention to her. Rifana shook as the bear started walking towards her, but before it could get to close I used my chain to restrain it, causing it to fall down to the ground in front of her. I held the chains tightly as the bear struggled against the bindings, the bear was strong so I couldn't hold it for long "Rifana! you need to kill it!" She still shook, starting to cry "I-I can't!" I held my chains tighter as the bear started to drag me slightly. "You have to! If you don't kill it then it will kill us!" She didn't move from where she was standing, staring into the eyes of the bear while she cried.

The bear managed to struggle out of the chains and went to attack Rifana, but I ran quickly, grabbing onto her as the bear swung it's arm, sending us into a tree. Since I held onto her, I took most of the damage, depleting a large portion of my hp. She only lost a bit of her hp from the force. I let go of her slowly and looked at the bear, blood ran down from the top of my head "if you can't fight it, then get out of here. I will distract it as long as I can." Rifana stared at me, putting a hand on my forehead "you're bleeding....." I frowned "Rifana, now isn't the time to worry about that. get out of here" She stood up, holding onto her dagger tightly. "It hurt you... I can't leave" I stared at her as she turned to face the bear. The bear went to swing at her, but before it could Rifana had suddenly kicked it down onto it't back and stabbed it in the head. The bear was dead, however Rifana pulled the knife out and kept stabbing it. "He saved me, He fed me, He cured me of my illness, He was nice to me! AND YOU HURT HIM!" she stabbed repeatedly, despite it being dead already. I got up and walked over to her putting a hand on her shoulder. "Rifana, It's dead" She stopped stabbing it and dropped the dagger, looking over at me. Her face was covered in blood as she stared at me with innocence in her eyes. She suddenly hugged me tightly, crying onto me "I'm Sorry! I should have killed it when you told me to! A-And you got hurt cause of it" I hugged her and rubbed the back of her head "it's okay. What matters now it that we are safe." She nodded and let go of me slowly, grabbing her dagger and putting it away "I-I wont hesitate anymore......I will fight with you and get strong. Then we can save everyone" I nodded and pat her head "okay. but now we need to change into clean clothes. you can change into the clothes I gave you earlier, I will need to change my cloak" She nodded and went back to the river. I looked the other way as I took a clean cloak out of my inventory and exchanged it for the bloody one. After that I put some of the bear's fur into my bracelet and then stored the usable things from the bear in my inventory.

Rifana was changed into the new clothes and was wearing her now dry cloak, for some reason she seemed to look like a different person now. I smiled at her "You no longer look like a dying slave girl" She huffs and crosses her arms "Of course I don't, you've taken care of me and helped me become healthy again." I nodded and pat her head "it seems you are level 10 now, So it's the perfect time to start traveling." She nodded and we started walking out of the forest. Once we got to the road we started traveling along it. We walked most of the days, camping at nights and leveling in the morning. We took small breaks along the path to look at things such as plants or strange happenings. We met few people during the day and gathered information from them such as any issues along the road or any problems we would face at the villages. I traded some things with a few travelling merchants and picked up some skills from them. Since we didn't carry much on us we weren't bothered by bandits or thieves, but I had to give Rifana a mask to wear since some people bothered her when they saw her face. At one of the villages I had gotten Rifana a short sword to use so that she had a better weapon than her dagger as well as some basic light armor that she put on under her cloak. When we stayed at villages I listened to rumors about current affairs at the capital that was passed around villages from nights and priests from the 3 heroes church. According to the rumors the king had the church summon all 4 heroes to save the country, However there were bad rumors going around about the shield hero. Rifana seemed to be upset about the rumors regarding the shield hero, but she had held back from causing any problems.

By the time we made it to the capital, Rifana was level 30* and I had managed to get to level 59. The capital was much more lively than the villages we had been through, however there were also a lot a slaves doing manual labor jobs here. We walked around the town and got a basic understanding of how the city was divided. After asking around a bit in a tavern I had found out where the slaver was in this city. We decided that we would head there at night time in order to avoid dealing with too many people, so we headed to a blacksmith to get new equipment. We found a nice blacksmith shop that didn't have too many people and looked around at the items. The store owner was a large man that looked to be in his 40's. I walked up to the counter and looked at him "Do you sell any light armor here?" the man stared at me "hmm, Nothing that would be about to be worn under those cloaks of yours. however I can make you some stuff made to order." "how much" "if you can provide the material, 200 silver coin." I nodded and took some metal and gems out of my inventory, setting it on the counter. "will this be enough material to upgrade both of our armor." The man looked surprised but nodded "yeah, just need you to leave the armor here over night and I will have it done in the morning." I nodded and looked at Rifana. She nodded and went into the changing room "hey, if you want I can make those cloaks a part of your armors." I frowned and thought about it before nodding. Rifana's mask should be enough to keep her from being recognized by anyone. "Alright, will that cost any extra?" He shook his head "nope. its a part of the service" I nodded and reached into my pocket "200 silver each or for the entire order." "200 for each" I nodded and took out the money from my pocket, setting it on the counter. Rifana came out of the dressing room only wearing her basic clothes and set the armor and cloak on the counter. I went into the dressing room and took off my armor and cloak, putting on a mask for myself. Without the cloak my face would be visible and I didn't want anyone to see my face just yet. I gave the armor and cloak to the guy and thanked him before we both left.

I didn't like not having my cloak on since it left my chains out in the open for people to see, and since I didn't want anyone to think I was some sort of prisoner I had the chain changed to silver chains with a metal spike ending. Since it was later in the day we headed to an Inn to get a room for the night. I got a room with 2 beds to save some money as well as keep the chance of someone breaking in low. We walked up to the room and waited for nighttime. Once it was dark enough, I had the door locked and we left through the window. We headed through alleyways until we made it to a large circus like tent. I walked inside and saw inside and saw a rather chubby man wearing a purple outfit sitting at a desk counting coins. When he noticed us walk in he smiled "Why hello there, customers I presume?" I nodded and walked over to the desk "We're here to get some information from you. I'm willing to pay for the information if you think it is something worth charging for." He smirked and let out a chuckle "all information has value. So what are you wishing to learn" "I heard that a demihuman raccoon girl had been sold to you to be sold as a slave. I was wondering if you still had her here or if someone had bought her and who had bought her." he had an evil smirk on his face "that information will be 20 silver" "that is the price of a low end slave, probably barely bellow what you'd sell her for. make it 15" "well informed I see, very well. 15 silver" I set the coins down on his desk and he counted it "The girl was sold a few days ago to the shield hero, you would have to wait until the end of the next wave to get a chance to see him" I nodded and set another coin down on the table "thank you for the extra bit, I'll be sure to come here if I need any more information." He nodded and me and Rifana left the tent.

I sighed as we walked to the 3 hero church. I needed to find out exactly when the next wave would hit, and since it was nighttime only the church staff should be there. As we stepped into the door of the church, a nun approached "Welcome visitors, what have you come to our church for at this time. A late night prayer?" I shook my head "I wish to see the Dragon Hourglass" The nun stared at us for a bit "a class upgrade or something else." I looked at Rifana for a second "a class upgrade if possible would be nice. But I came here to see how much time until the wave comes." The nun nodded "follow me" She guided us back into a large room where the Dragon hourglass floated above a shrine. "a class upgrade will cost you 10 gold coins." I nodded and took out the coins from my pocket. the nun took the payment and I signaled Rifana to go up to the hourglass. Rifana walked up to the hourglass and put her hand out, the hourglass glew for a moment before a display appeared in front of Rifana. She selected what she wanted before walking back over to me. I looked at the nun and bowed my head "thank you for allowing us your services this late at night. I wish good fortune upon you" We left the church and headed back to the Inn, climbing back in through the window. Once we were settled in Rifana spoke "how much longer till the wave?" "24 hours." She nodded and sat down on one of the beds "what kind of person do you think the shield hero is...." i looked at her and shrugged "I don't know. There are so many rumors around about him being a bad person, but something feels wrong about it." "will I be allowed to show Raphtalia my face when we see her?" "No, not until we can trust them fully" "I've known Raphtalia my whole life!" I looked at her "I'm talking about the shield hero. If Raphtalia is his slave, then he could force her to betray you. So keep yourself hidden until I tell you you can stop hiding." She nodded slowly. "okay..." I laid down in my bed and sighed "goodnight Rifana" I closed my eyes and after a while I heard her whisper "goodnight Master Y/n"