by Aneko Yusagi
I was wondering what had happened when the pain came shooting back up my arm.
“Ouch!”
What was going on? I glared at the owner, thinking he must have been up to something, but he shook his head. I didn’t think that Myne would want to interfere with me, but just to be safe I looked over at her as well.
“It looked like it just flew out of your hand.”
But it couldn’t be… It just couldn’t. I stared at my own palm for a moment. As I did, words began to appear in my periphery.
“Legendary Weapon specification: a weapon besides the assigned equipment was held, violating the rule.”
What the hell?
I rushed to bring up the help screen and read quickly through the articles there.
I found it!
“The Heroes may not hold a weapon, aside from their assigned Legendary Weapon, with the intent to fight with it.”
What?! Was that supposed to mean I couldn’t use anything other than a shield in battle? What kind of crappy game only let you fight with a shield?
“Well,” I said, wincing and raising my face to the others. “It looks like I’m only allowed to use a shield…”
“But why? Can you let me see that?”
I held my shield arm out to the shop owner, but that was all I could do, as I was still unable to put the shield down.
The old guy whispered something to himself, and a small ball of light shot toward my shield, only to bounce off harmlessly. “Well,” he said. “It certainly looks like a normal Small Shield… but it behaves…”
“Oh, do you know it?” I asked.
The shield was also called a Small Shield on my status screen, with “Legendary Weapon” added in parentheses to the side.
“You see this jewel lodged in the center of the Shield? I feel a great amount of energy emanating from it. I tried looking into it with my appraisal magic but was unable to glean any information. If it was somehow cursed, I should have known that instantly.” He sighed and looked at me, stroking his trademark beard. “Well, you’ve certainly shown me something interesting. I guess you’ll be wanting some defensive goods?”
“Yes, please.”
“I’d like to give you what I can for 250, which probably means a suit of armor.”
Considering I already had a shield, I had to agree with him.
The owner pointed to a variety of armor suits that he had around the shop.
“Full plate armor tends to inhibit your movement, so it’s not well-suited to adventuring. Regardless, chainmail is better for a beginner, anyway.”
I reached for a suit of chainmail. It rattled and clinked in my hands. It was a whole shirt made from chains! I guess that was it though. Was that all he had to offer?
An icon was flashing at me, and I quickly opened it.
Chainmail: raises defensive power
Use: slice resistance
Size: small
Ah hah. No information came up when I touched the swords because I was unable to equip them.
“How much does this cost?” Myne asked the owner.
“I’ll give you a discount. You can have it for 120.”
“What could we get for it?”
“Hm… I suppose you could get 100 or so.”
“Why’s that?”
“I was asking because if the Shield Hero outgrows it, we could probably sell it back.”
I was starting to understand. I was still at level one, so as I leveled up, I would be able to equip better things, meaning this chainmail wouldn’t necessarily be useful for all that long. It looked like the shop had better armor available, but that was about the best I could do at my current level.
“All right then, we’ll take it”
“Thank you very much! I’ll throw in some inner-wear to show my gratitude.”
We said our thanks, passed 120 silver pieces over to him, and received the chainmail.
“Will you change into that here?”
“Yes.”
“Very well, right over here.”
He led me to a changing room where I changed into the undershirt and chainmail. He then took my original clothing and packed it away into a sack for me.
“Hey now! You’re starting to look the part, lad!”
“Thank you.”
I guess he was trying to say something nice.
“All right then, Hero. Shall we be off to battle?”
“Right on!”
I was starting to feel like a real adventurer when Myne and I left the shop.
We made our way back to the castle and entered through the main gate. On our way through, a knight bent his head to me, so I waved back in response. I was feeling good.
How exciting! My adventure was finally beginning.
Chapter Five: The Reality of the Shield
Upon exiting the castle, fields of grass extended in every direction.
There was, at least, a cobblestone road meandering over the scenery, but once we left the town, it seemed like the world was nothing but green and green and green.
It reminded me of Hokkaido.
It struck me as novel and fascinating. I could see both the expanse of the sky and the horizon itself. I figured that running around in giddy excitement would not reflect well on me, considering I was the hero and all, and so I did my best to swallow my emotions.
“Now then, Hero. This land is filled with rather weak monsters, and battling them should make for very good practice.”
“Good idea. I don’t have any experience with battles and all, so this seems like a good chance.”
“Do your best.”
“Huh? You’re not fighting with me, Myne?”
“Before I participate, I’d like to get a sense of your ability.”
“Oh? All right then.”
I suppose it only made sense. She had more experience than I did, and of course she would want to see how strong I was.
To start off, I thought I would fight a monster that Myne thought would be easy enough for me.
We poked around in the fields for a little while before spotting something among the grass. It looked like an orange balloon.
“There’s one now, Hero. We call these ‘Orange Balloons,’ and they are rather easy to defeat.”
Well that’s a stupid name. There was a severe lack of creativity here.
“Gah!”
It let out an angry cry and flashed aggressive eyes at me, confirming its enemy status.
And so a creature sort of like those balloons we put in fields to scare away the birds rushed to attack me.
“You can do it, Hero!”
“Got it!”
I needed to look cool in the process, considering Myne was there and all.
I held the shield in my right hand, and made to hit the beast with the pointed tip.
“Haa!”
I managed to connect with my hit, but… BOING! My strike bounced back. The thing sure was resilient!
And I thought it was just going to pop…
The Orange Balloon reared back, bared its fangs, and came at me again.
“Ah!”
I heard a clanging sound from where the beast was biting me.
Oddly enough, there was no pain or irritation at all. The Orange Balloon continued to bite my arm, but its attack seemed to have no effect.
I felt like the shield was emitting some kind of soft, defensive barrier around me. Could that be the true strength of the shield?
I silently looked over at Myne.
“Do your best, Hero!”
It seemed like I was unable to either deal or receive damage.
“AAARRRRGGGHHHH!”
I pummeled the Orange Balloon with my fists, like some legendary warrior.
Five minutes later…
Pow!
With a soft puff of air, the Orange Balloon popped.
“Huff… huff… huff…”
I heard a persistent beep, and saw that my experience meter now read: 1.
I guess t
hat meant I’d earned one EXP point.
But if it took that long to earn one measly point… I didn’t want to dwell on that for too long.
Besides, this was HARD. There was only so much you could do with your bare hands.
“Nice job, Hero.”
Myne was applauding me, but something about it felt hopeless.
“Huh?”
I heard footsteps approaching. I turned around to see Ren jogging with his retinue. I thought about calling out to them, but they looked so serious and focused that I decided not to intrude.
Three Orange Balloons appeared in front of Ren.
… But.
Ren swung his sword in a large arc, and all three enemies burst instantly.
One hit?! Come on now, this didn’t seem fair at all!
“…”
I was concerned, but Myne threw her hands up and waved them in my face.
“It’s fine! All the Heroes have their own ways of fighting.”
“… Thanks.”
What I gained from the process of fighting the Orange Balloon was that, after being attacked for five minutes and taking no damage, I must have had a significant amount of defense.
The Orange Balloon had left behind some battle loot which I picked up. It was the Orange Balloon’s skeleton. Upon touching it, my shield began to beep.
When the loot got near the shield, it was enveloped in a soft light and absorbed into the shield’s gem.
Orange Balloon acquired.
The words flashed before me, and the weapon book icon began to glow. I looked inside and saw a small, orange shield icon. Apparently I hadn’t collected enough, but the Orange Balloon was a necessary item for upgrading the shield.
“So this is how the Legendary Weapons work?”
“Yes. It seems that to power them up, they need to absorb certain items.”
“I see.”
“By the way, how much could we get for the loot we just scored?”
“Hm… maybe a piece of bronze?”
“How many pieces of bronze are worth a piece of silver?
“100.”
I suppose that was to be expected, considering how easy they were for Ren to defeat.
“All right Myne, your turn.”
“I suppose you are right.”
As she said it two Orange Balloons appeared a short distance away and started coming in our direction.
Myne drew a sword that she’d had at her waist and swung it twice in quick succession. Pow! Pow! The Orange Balloons both burst.
Woah… was I really THAT weak?
Regardless it was clear that I… or at least my shield, was not going to win me any battles.
At this rate, it made more sense to have Myne fight, and I would handle the defense of our party.
“Ok then, Myne, you be the fighter, and I’ll cover defense. Let’s see how far that gets us.”
“Ok,” she nodded.
We stayed in the fields until the sun started to slant downwards in the sky. We fought any Orange Balloons we came across, and also discovered some Yellow Balloons.
“If we pressed on a little further, we’d encounter some stronger monsters, but we’d better head back if we want to be in the castle by dark.”
“Well, I kind of wanted to fight a little bit more…”
Considering I wasn’t taking any damage, and defending against the balloons was so easy, I wanted to keep going.
“Let’s head back early today, and use the extra time to revisit the weapon shop. If I get some new equipment now, we could go that much further tomorrow.”
“I guess you’re right.”
It will take a little while longer to level up, so I guess there was no reason not to wrap it up for the day. Also, my shield had absorbed all that it could, so the Orange Balloon loot just remained where it was.
Apparently, when I leveled up, my shield would also grow stronger.
Anyway, we decided to stop adventuring for the day and began our journey back to Castle Town.
Chapter Six: A Backstabber Named Landmine
Evening drew near as we reentered the town. We decided to have another look at the weapon shop.
“Well, if it isn’t my little Shield-Buddy. The other Heroes stopped by too, you know.”
I guess the shop really was famous.
The owner approached us, beaming from ear to ear.
“Yup. Hey, do you know of a place that would buy this off of us?”
I showed him the loot from the Orange Balloons, and he responded by thrusting his finger towards the door.
“There’s a shop set up for buying loot just down the road. I’m sure they’d buy it off you.”
“Thanks.”
“Sure. So why else did you decide to stop by?”
“Oh, well I thought I’d get some equipment for Myne, my travel companion.”
I looked over to her as I spoke. She was closely inspecting various weapons around the store.
“How’s your budget looking?”
I still had 680 pieces of silver. I wasn’t sure how much of it I should use.
“What do you think, Myne?”
“…”
She was deep in thought, comparing pieces of equipment.
It was like she couldn’t even hear me speaking to her. I had no idea what hotels went for around here, but it seemed like I’d better set aside at least a month’s worth of lodging.
“Well, as for your friend there. Of course, it’s true that you’ll be stronger with better equipment…”
“Right.”
It looked like there wasn’t much I could do to increase my own attack power, so I had better focus my resources on buying Myne’s equipment.
“You might fix the prices on me, so let’s talk them out right now.”
“Ahaha, this is a tenacious little Hero!”
“80% off!”
“That’s crazy. 20% up!”
“You’re raising it?! 79%”
“You haven’t even seen the products yet, you fool!”
“Whatever, 90% off!”
“Give me a break, 21% up!”
“You’re not supposed to raise it! 100% off!”
“Like I’d give it to you for free!” he snorted. “Fine, 5% off.”
“That’s it? 92%…”
We argued like that for a little while before Myne came over with a cute piece of armor and an expensive, gold-inlaid sword.
“Hero, I think these will be sufficient.”
“What do you think, old man? 60% off.”
“I’ll give you a deal, 480 pieces of silver. And that’s at 59%”
Before Myne decided on what she wanted, we were actually able to haggle a good arrangement for ourselves. But all we had left was 200 pieces of silver. Would it be enough?
“Myne, think you could downgrade a bit? I don’t know how much things cost around here, but I need money to survive on.”
“It will be fine, Hero. With my new equipment, I can make back the money with relative ease. Battle loot will cover it.”
She batted her eyelashes and leaned her breasts against my arm.
It really must be a different world, and what a ROYAL summons it was.
I’d never been popular with girls before, and now look at this girl pressing up against me!
She might be right. We did need higher attack ability.
“Well, I guess…”
200 pieces of silver. Ren, Motoyasu, and Itsuki all had at least three people with them, so their expenses were sure to be that much higher.
Besides, 200 pieces of silver was probably plenty to live on for a month. Regardless, to recruit other people, I’d need to level up and make more money.
“Fine then, old man. You’ve got yourself a deal.”
“Thanks boy. You seem like quite the Hero already.”
“Ahaha. What can I say? I enjoy business.”
Whenever I played online games, I was pretty good at making money. I’d always try to buy things as cheap
ly as possible at auctions and then resell them for profit. Haggling was easy for me. It came naturally. There was a number you could see, so it always made sense.
“Thank you, Hero.”
Myne looked thrilled. She kissed my hand.
Things just kept getting better and better. Tomorrow was sure to be a great adventure.
Myne changed into her new equipment, and the both of us made for an inn.
30 bronze for one person, per night…
“We’ll need two rooms,” said Myne.
“Isn’t one room enough?”
“But…”
Myne seemed to be playing a waiting game.
Uh… fine.
“Two rooms please.”
“Very well then, if you will.”
The innkeeper showed us to our rooms, wringing her hands the whole time. I kept our budget in my head the whole time, and we ate dinner in an attached restaurant. Meals were not included, and dinner for one cost us 5 bronze.
“Just to confirm, the fields we hunted in today were… right here?”
I’d unrolled a map on the table that I’d bought on our way back to town. The map had a lot of information about the geography of the area. Sure, I could have just asked Ren or Motoyasu, but considering how they’d acted earlier, they probably would not have told me much. If it meant getting ahead, it seemed like there was nothing they wouldn’t do. Since I knew so little about the place, I had to do what I could to avoid being led into a powerful monster’s lair. To that end, I unfurled the map.
“Yes, that’s where we were.”
“Based on what the other heroes said, once we leave the fields, we enter the forest, right? Is that the next training ground?”
The map was really helping me get an idea for the geography of the place.
Basically, the castle stood in the center, and was surrounded by fields. There were roads leading to the woods, the mountains, and another road that led to a river, and another that led to a remote village.
The map was pretty small though, so I wasn’t able to make out much about the neighboring villages.