Lullaby at Dawn

Lullaby at Dawn is the fourth episode of The Rising of the Shield Hero anime.

Synopsis
A party is being held to honor the success of the heroes in subjugating the waves. Motoyasu came to know of Raphtalia being a slave of Naofumi and challenges him to a duel for her freedom. Naofumi is being forced to participate in the duel.

How can the shield hero win with only defence capability? Will he be able to keep Raphtalia as his comrade ? or will Raphtalia part away from the Shield Hero?

Plot
After the previous wave the Heroes and the Companions are being thrown a victory celebration inside of Melromarc's castle. Naofumi curses for being there but had to, for his promised payment. He scrolls through his menu and learns of teleporting a register members to the wave and was considering it for next wave. Naofumi also sees the knight captain bragging about defeating a huge monster when he was actually done nothing. The crowd of Nobles were discussing the heroes success for the casualties being in one digit.

Motoyasu was surrounded by Noble ladies who enquirers about his love life which was interrupted by jealous Myne. Motoyasu sees Raphtalia and tries to talk to her, before which Myne whispers to Motoyasu Kitamura that Raphtalia is forced to be Naofumi's slave and that he should save that poor girl. Raphtalia is trying to get Naofumi to eat some of the food but he claims he's not hungry, not seeing much point in eating delicious food when he can't taste it.and he focus on reading the help menu to fight the next wave. Motoyasu challenges him to a duel for her freedom, if he wins. Naofumi calls out that it is Motoyasu's own opinion and that Slavery was permitted in the land .Motoyasu maintains that it is morally wrong for someone, especially a hero, to take a slave. The other heroes are also shocked to learn Nafoum having a slave as a party member and was disgusted with him.

When asked what Naofumi will get if he wins, Motoyasu answers after a pause that he could keep things as it is. Naofumi wasn't interested in taking part in a duel that he gets nothing for winning and attempts to leave, but Aultcray forces him to anyway. When Raphtalia claims that she followed Naofumi by her own will, she was silenced and dragged away by the soldiers. The King reasons that Raphtalia might be forced to defend her master by the slave crest. Myne reminds Nafoumi that a shield hero can't attack much to sneer of the crowd. After getting another painful reminder that he can't use any other weapons, Naofumi is escorted to the courtyard where he meets Motoyasu.

Motoyasu mocks Naofumi with the tale about the all penetrating spear and the unbreakable shield and wonders which one is stronger. Naofumi soon proves his mettle, He stopped the attack with Light Metal Shield. Motoyasu uses his powerful attack skill, Chaos spear which had little effect and it's cool down time kicks in which renders him to wait for the second attack skill. Nafoumi begins to take advantage by using the hidden balloon monster and various shield unlocked. Motoyasu calls him for using the monster but was now attacked by The Dog Demon Shield to counter attack, knocking Motoyasu down with air strike shield, and siccing Balloons on him& locking in Shield Prison.

Then, on the cusp of victory, Naofumi is suddenly blown away by wind magic fired by Myne and Motoyasu regains his second wind and his cool down time being ended unleashed a savage attack, Lightining spear to beat down on Naofumi. Naofumi calls on the cheating and asked for the witness from the audience. But, no one answered to his claims. Declaring the fight in Motoyasu's favor the King congratulates the hero and that his daughter choose wisely, revealing that Myne is the Princess Malty Melromarc. Malty makes fun of Naofumi for he again had to fight alone and laughs maliciously. Every noble member of audience begins to demean the shield hero. Naofumi, realizing that he was set up from the very beginning and everyone was in on the conspiracy against him, sinks even further into his despair and rage, he slams the floor in frustration.

Naofumi's deep, intensive, festering rages begins to awakens the cursed series, as cloud of dark aura from the shield begins to engulf him. He watches Raphtalia (in her child form) have her slave crest removed. Naofumi under the influence of the curse, begins to hallucinate the child Raphtalia leaving him and also he unable to run away from the shield. This hallucination unlocks the mysterious Curse series in Naofumi. Meanwhile the newly freed real Raphtalia rewards her would be savior with a smack to the face and tells him that she never asked to be freed. She starts lecturing the spear hero on the things that Naofumi has done for her. while Motoyasu denies Naofumi to be such a person while he begins to tremble. He still tries to defend his action and that he actually done the right thing.

Raphtalia finishes by telling Motayasu that if he wants to help a slave so badly he should have bought one and does all that Naofumi done for her, for which he couldn't answer. Unable to stand it any further, Malty demeans Raphtalia for being a demi-human and raise her hand to slap her. But, was interrupted, as Ren and Itsuki points out the foul play done against Naofumi and tells Motoyasu that he lost the duel. They also called out on the unfairness of royalty in the duel. Raphtalia goes over to Naofumi who is continuing to rage against the world and his shield.

Naofumi refuses to hear the traitor, as he hallucinated her leaving him and pushes her away when she tried to touch him. Having enough of this, Naofumi tried to rip of the shield from his body. Raphtalia who appears to be a child, calms Naofumi down and says that the shield and Naofumi saved her and others many times. Nafoumi denies of him being a good guy but the child Raphtalia hugs him and continues his good deeds and also She will denies all the false accusation against him. She appears as teenager now and promise to be his sword and will follow him till the end.

Finally the curse series get neutralized and the mist that engulfed him clears off. Naofumi is confused to see a fully grown Raphtalia in-front of him and ask who she was, as he always seen her as a child. After answering his question, she again promises that she will follow him always till the very end. Naofumi breaks down in tears while realizing that she already told him the same before, but he didn't gave any value to her words. She hugs and comfort him. Dissatisfied with the result the King, Myne and all the nobles of the audience leave the courtyard.

Motoyasu downcast for his action and trembles in shame. but still tries to weakly defends his action with his own ideals, that heroes are not to have slaves and that Raphtalia could be brainwashed. Both Ren and Itsuki were surprised by his words, as anyone who sees them can say that, it was not the case. Nafoumi falls asleep crying on Raphtalia's lap in the empty courtyard throughout the night.

Next morning, Naofumi wakes up and realizes that Raphtalia was indeed an adult and ask her about it. Raphtalia explains that Demi-Humans share a unique biological quirk with monsters: Demi-human children rapidly age in proportion to their level, and this is one of the main reasons why they're considered the same as monsters and discriminated in Melromark. Raphtalia scrounges together the leftovers of the feast in the kitchen for the two of them with Naofumi realizing that he can taste the food.

Characters

 * Aultcray Melromarc XXXII
 * Naofumi Iwatani
 * Raphtalia
 * Motoyasu Kitamura
 * Malty Melromarc
 * Ren Amaki
 * Itsuki Kawasumi
 * High Priest

Adaptation Notes
Light Novel: Volume 1 Chapters 21-23

Manga: Volume 2 Chapters 7-8

Trivia

 * The level of Naofumi, Motoyasu and their party members were shown
 * The causalities of the waves were revealed to be of single digit