Lullaby at Dawn

Lullaby at Dawn (暁の子守唄) is the fourth episode of The Rising of the Shield Hero anime.

Synopsis
Celebration 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 coerced into participate in the Duel.

How can the Shield Hero win with only defense alone? 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 their companions are being thrown a victory celebration inside of Melromarc's castle, with the King personally congratulating them. Naofumi (who is sitting on his own) curses for being there but had to, for his promised payment. With everyone ignoring him, he scrolls through his menu and learns of teleporting feature for registered members to the Wave and considers it useful for the next Wave. Naofumi also spots the Knight Captain bragging with some young noblewomen about defeating a huge monster when he actually deserted Naofumi and did nothing. The crowd of noblepeople meanwhile discuss the Heroes's success for limiting the casualties to one digit.

Motoyasu, for his part, is surrounded by nobleladies, who inquire him about his love life, which is interrupted by a jealous Myne. Motoyasu then spots Raphtalia and tries to talk to her, but Myne stops him. She then whispers into Motoyasu's ear that Raphtalia is Naofumi's slave, forced to fight for him and that he should "save" the poor girl. Raphtalia, meanwhile, 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 focuses on reading the help menu to fight the next Wave.

Upon seeing Raphtalia feeding Naofumi anyway, a seething Motoyasu takes off one of his gloves and throws it at Naofumi's feet - challenging him to a Sacred Duel demanding Raphtalia's freedom, if he wins. Naofumi calls him out on this, stating that it is only Motoyasu's own opinion and that slavery is permitted in this land. Motoyasu maintains that since they are people from another world, it is morally wrong for someone, especially a Hero, to take a slave. The other heroes, Ren and Itsuki, are also shocked to learn that Nafoumi has a slave as a party member and are disgusted with him.

When Naofumi asks what he will get if he wins, Motoyasu answers (after a pause) that he could keep things as it is. Naofumi, however, isn't interested in taking part in a Duel where he gets nothing for winning. He attempts to leave with Raphtalia, but Aultcray's guards stop them, and the King forces Naofumi to take part anyway. When Raphtalia claims that she followed Naofumi by her own will, she is silenced and dragged away by the soldiers. The King reasons that Raphtalia might be forced to defend her master by the Slave Crest. Myne then 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, however. He stopped the attack with Light Metal Shield. Motoyasu uses his powerful attack skill, Chaos Spear, which had little effect and it's cooldown time kicks in which renders him helpless as he has to wait for the second attack skill. Nafoumi takes advantage by using the hidden Balloon monster as his weapons and also uses various Shields he unlocked, to defeat Motoyasu. Motoyasu calls him out for using the monster but is suddenly attacked by The Dog Demon Shield, knocking Motoyasu down with Air Strike Shield. Nafoumi sics Balloons on him and locked him in the Shield Prison for the monsters to devour Motoyasu. The noblefolks and Myne are shocked to see this and suddenly realize there is a very distinct possibility that Motoyusa is going to lose.

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 cooldown time being ended unleashed a savage attack, Lightning 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. Malty makes fun of Naofumi for he again had to fight alone and laughs maliciously. Declaring the fight in Motoyasu's favor, the King congratulates the Hero and that his daughter chose wisely, revealing that Myne is the Princess Malty Melromarc.

Every noblefolk member in the audience begins to demean the Shield Hero. This causes Naofumi to realize that he was set up from the very beginning. The Princess would frame him for a false rape crime, which the King would then back up and every single one of the nobles was in on the conspiracy against him. This causes him to sink even further into despair and rage. Naofumi's deep, intensive, festering rage begins to awaken something called the Curse Series, as a cloud of dark aura from the Shield begins to engulf him and he slams the floor in frustration.

He watches Raphtalia (in her child form) have her Slave Crest forcefully removed. Naofumi, under the Cursed Shield's influence, begins to hallucinate the child Raphtalia abandoning him, and also him being unable to run away from the Shield. All this hallucination unlocks the mysterious Curse Series in Naofumi.

Meanwhile, the newly-freed real Raphtalia rewards her would-be "savior" with a massive slap to the face. As everyone stares on in shock, she yells at Motoyasu, calling him a cheater, and telling him that she never asked to be freed in the first place. She begins lecturing the Spear Hero, saying that he knows nothing about Naofumi or the things that he has done for her. Visibly shaken, Motoyasu tries to defend his actions, insisting that Naofumi is not a kind person but he is only merely abusing her by forcing her to fight and that Naofumi will just use Raphtalia for his own benefit before throwing her away. He also insists that nobody should be forced to fight against their will (all the while ignoring that he and everyone else forced Naofumi into this confrontation in the first place against his will).

Raphtalia counters each and every one of these arguments by saying that Naofumi had never forced her to do anything she couldn't do, and only activated her Slave Curse when she needed it. He took Raphtalia in and cared for her, when no one else wanted her, giving her medicine when she was sick and plenty of time to rest. She finishes by asking a visibly rattled Motayasu if he would do such things for a sickly and almost dead slave. When he insists that he would, she declares that if that was true he would have bought one and done all that Naofumi has done for her, for which he cannot answer.

Unable to stand it any further, Malty openly demeans Raphtalia for being a demi-human and raises her hand to slap her. Before she can, however, they are interrupted by Ren and Itsuki, who march onto the scene, much to the noblekin's confusion. The Sword and Bow Hero proceed to call out Malty's interference and tell Motoyasu flat out that he lost the duel. When the Spear Hero argues that that can't be the case since no one pointed it out, Ren and Itsuki tell him that the King ordered everyone to stay quiet, expressing their disgust that the royal family and nobility would debase a Sacred Duel like that.

Raphtalia storms past Myne, Motoyasu, and the King without looking at them. She goes over to Naofumi, who has not heard any of this, continuing to rage against the world and his Shield. Naofumi initially refuses to listen to the "traitor", as he hallucinated her leaving him and pushes her away when she tried to touch him. Having enough of this, Naofumi tries to rip the Shield from his body. Raphtalia, who appears in his vision as a child, proceeds to calm Naofumi down. She says that the Shield had saved her and others many times. When she admits hearing about the rumors, Nafoumi states that he is innocent but that nobody would listen to him. He denies being a good guy but the child Raphtalia hugs him and continues to tell all his good deeds. Raphtalia continues that she will deny all the false accusations against him. Releasing him from her embrace, she appears as a teenager and promises to be his sword, who will follow him until the end.

Finally, the Curse Series gets neutralized and the mist that engulfed him clears off. Naofumi is confused to see Raphtalia, now fully grown, in front of him, and asks who she was, as he always saw her as a child. After answering his question, she again promises that she will follow him always until the very end. Naofumi breaks down in tears while realizing that she already told him the same before, but he didn't give any value to her words. She then hugs Naofumi close and comforts him.

The King, Princess Malty, Knights, Priests, nobles and other Heroes meanwhile watch all of this unfold in the background. Since the Slave Crest has now been removed, it has now made clear that Raphtalia's pledge of loyalty was made entirely out of her own free will, and realize that there is nothing they can do about it. Dissatisfied with the results the King, Malty and all the nobles in the audience leave the courtyard in silence.

Motoyasu, meanwhile, stares on, downcast at the fact that his actions didn't accomplish anything. Trembling with shame, he weakly tries to defend his action with his own principles; that a Hero should not own slaves and that Raphtalia must have been brainwashed. Both Ren and Itsuki call him out on this, stating that anyone who sees them can tell that is not the case. till weeping, Nafoumi falls asleep on Raphtalia's lap in the empty courtyard throughout the night.

The 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 against in Melromarc. Raphtalia scrounges together the leftovers of the feast in the kitchen for the two of them, with Naofumi, visibly marvelled, realizing that he can taste the food once again.

Trivia

 * The levels of Naofumi, Motoyasu, and their party members were shown.
 * The causalities of the waves were revealed to be of in the single digit.
 * Naofumi uses Balloon monsters as his weapons in his fight against Motoyasu.
 * Magic exists in this world as Myne used a spell during the duel.
 * Myne's affinity for magic is revealed to be Wind magic.
 * Demi-humans age to their primes as they level, because of which they are seen as monsters by Humans.

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