by Aneko Yusagi
I was standing at the town gate, ready to leave for the fields, when the weapon shop guy called out to me again. I turned to him, and he tossed a small bag in my direction.
“You’ll never make it dressed like that. At least take this.”
I looked inside the bag. It contained a sooty cape, and some cheap clothes.
“How much are these worth?”
“Somewhere around 5 bronze pieces. I just had them in the back.”
“Got it. I’ll bring you your money soon enough.”
Honestly, I was starting to worry about going around in my underwear.
“I’ll be waiting for that money.”
“Sure you will.”
I flung the cape over my shoulders, changed into the clothes, and made for the fields.
I decided to base myself out in those fields, and to hunt balloons.
“Arrrrgggghhhh!”
It took about 5 minutes to kill one of them, but they weren’t able to hurt me, so all it took was time.
I spent most of the day fighting, and was able to secure a substantial amount of balloon skins.
Level up!
You are now level 2
Orange Shield: conditions met
Yellow Shield: conditions met
I spent the rest of the day carefully reading up on my preparations.
Just as the sun was going down, I realized that I was hungry. I trudged back to the gate and made for the shop I’d been told would buy my battle loot.
A portly man stood behind the counter. He was laughing heartily as he looked me over. He was going to turn me away. I could tell.
There was another customer there also, already selling loot, among which I spotted some balloon skins.
“Yes, yes. How about one bronze piece for two of these skins?”
They were deciding on a price for the balloon skins.
So, only one piece of bronze for two of them…
“Please.”
“Thank you very much.”
The customer left, leaving me alone in the shop.
“Hey, I brought you some of my battle loot. I hope you’ll buy it from me. Heh, heh.”
“Welcome! Welcome!”
Did he think I couldn’t hear the giggling that followed all of his sentences?
“So you’ve got some balloon skins, huh? How about one bronze piece for ten of ‘em?”
A fifth the price?! He was looking at his feet the whole time!
“Didn’t you just offer that customer one piece for two skins?”
“Did I? I can’t seem to remember…”
He went on for a few minutes, making various excuses about his stock.
“Fine then,” I said, grabbing him by the collar and pulling him close.
“What are you doing?!”
“Buy this stuff off me too. He’s still alive, and a real kicker.”
I had an orange balloon hidden under my cape, where it was fruitlessly biting my shoulder. I removed him and put him right in the shop owner’s face, where he promptly bit down on the man’s nose.
“AHHHHHHHHH!”
He started screaming, and rolling around on the floor. I pulled the balloon off of him, and pulled him up by the collar.
“Should I take these little things back to the fields where I got them, or do you want to buy them off of me?”
I pulled back my cape to reveal five additional orange balloons. I’d realized that their attacks didn’t hurt me, so I was able to carry them around, and use them against others, if I chose to do so.
It was an ingenious strategy, if I do say so myself. It would help with my negotiations. Besides, I had no attack power, so I wasn’t able to threaten anyone without them.
Surely, the man would understand. Surely, he knew that if I left the balloons there, they’d eat the guy down to his bones.
“I’m not asking for much, just a fair price. Our talks start with the market price.”
“But the country will…”
“Look, what do you think will happen to a merchant who tries to cheat a hero out of his fair share?”
Exactly. Merchants had to rely on the trust they’d gained. If he had tried to pull something like this on any other adventurer, he’d have gotten a swift kick in the teeth for sure. And hey, there was always the chance that his customers would stop showing up altogether.
“Ugh…”
“But, it doesn’t have to go that way. If you’ll buy from me consistently, I’ll sell to you for just under the market price.”
“Honestly, I’d like to refuse, but there’s no sin in business.”
So the guy just never gave up, but in the end I was able to convince him to buy my loot at just under market price.
“Feel free to tell others about me. Tell them I’ll punish other sneaky merchants with my balloons.”
“Sure, whatever. You’re quite the customer, aren’t you?”
I took the money for my loot, went back to the weapon shop, paid the owner for his clothes, and finally went to a restaurant to get some dinner.
The food, however, tasted like nothing.
It was like eating unflavored gum. At first I thought someone was pulling a trick on me, but soon enough I realized the problem lay with me.
Where would I stay? I had no money, so I slept in the fields. The balloons weren’t capable of hurting me, so there was no real problem.
When I woke in the morning, I was covered in balloons. It was something like a Tibetan Sky Burial. It didn’t hurt though, and I used them to burn off some stress, popping them one by one.
I was already filling my pockets, and I’d just woken up!
Just then, I came up with an idea. I could make money without having to kill these things all day.
The first thing to do was to find some loot, besides the balloon skins, that I could sell for a profit. There were grasses in the field that had medicinal value, and I’d seen an apothecary in town, and I am pretty sure I could sell off the grasses if I picked them.
I walked around the fields, picking grasses as I found them. Suddenly, my shield began to react. It absorbed the grasses as I picked them.
Leaf Shield: conditions met
That reminded me, I hadn’t looked at the weapon book recently. I opened it, and focused on the flashing shield icon.
Small Shield: ability unlocked: defense 3
Orange Small Shield: ability locked:
equip bonus: defense 2
Yellow Shield: ability locked:
equip bonus: defense 2
Leaf Shield: ability locked:
equip bonus: absorption ability 1
I decided to look into the help menus.
Weapon Leveling Up and Unlocking Abilities:
Weapon leveling up means that your currently equipped Legendary Weapon will change form. If you hold the weapon in hand, and picture what you wish it to become, the weapon will change into the desired form.
The weapon ability refers to abilities that can be unlocked simply by using the equipped weapon. Once unlocked the equip bonus will last forever.
Equip Bonus:
Equip bonuses are special abilities that can be used while your weapon is equipped. So if a weapon has unlocked the Air Strike Bash ability, that ability can be used as long as that weapon is equipped. If a weapon has an Equip bonus of “attack up 3,” the user’s attack stat will increase by 3 while the weapon is equipped.
I got it. So as long as the abilities were unlocked, you could use them even when you have a different weapon equipped.
The experience was something you earned, and slowly collected while you battled enemies and leveled up your equipment.
The world really was like a video game.
Despite being a little annoyed by the whole process, I did find the equip bonus of the Leaf Shield attractive.
“Absorption ability up 1.”
It must mean that I would receive some kind of bonus when collecting items.
At the moment, I had no money. Wh
at that meant is that I needed to find the best products to sell, for the least amount of effort. I quickly changed my shield into the Leaf Shield.
There was a sudden rush of wind, and suddenly my shield had changed in my hand. It was green now, and appeared to be fashioned directly from leaves.
My defense stat didn’t drop at all. Apparently my original Small Shield was as weak as they come. Now to test my theory; I reached for a clump of grass.
Blip!
A positive sound rang out, and the clump of grass tore free easily.
The clump of grass glowed with a faint light.
Absorption up 1
Aelo: quality: fair to excellent: medicinal herb for treating wounds
An icon describing the change appeared.
Well, it was nice to get such an immediate explanation.
I spent the remainder of the day walking around, mechanically picking grass and filling my bag. Also, and I don’t know if it was because I had been collecting grass all day or just because time had passed since I switched shields, the Leaf Shield equip bonus was unlocked.
The rest of my Small Shields also had the equip abilities unlocked.
I made my way back to town and decided to try and sell my herbs.
“These are in excellent shape. Where did you get them?”
“In the fields around the town. Didn’t you know it grew here?”
“I did, but I’ve never seen such high-quality stuff around. I thought only junk grew out there.”
We chatted for a little bit, and eventually he bought the grass off of me. My stash was worth one piece of silver and 50 pieces of bronze… which was much better than I had done so far. It was a new record.
I had a cheap dinner at a restaurant. As I was eating, a few people stopped by to ask if I would join their party. Unfortunately they all looked… disreputable. I soon came to find their intrusions annoying.
Ever since that day, all the food I ate tasted like nothing.
“I’ll join YOUR party, Shield Hero,” said some guy, who clearly thought a lot of himself.
Honestly, I didn’t like the idea of joining up with anyone at that point. Besides, they all had this look in their eyes that reminded me of her. Just looking at them made me angry.
“Fine. First let’s go over the employment conditions.”
“M’kay.”
Stay calm, stay calm. If you back down now, these guys will follow you everywhere you go.
“All right, employment will be based on your performance. Do you understand?”
“Nah-uh.”
Jeez, I could punch the crap out of these guys.
“It means that, as we are out adventuring, we collect a certain amount of loot, yes? So let’s say we earned 100 pieces of silver, I will take a plurality of it, which is at least 40% and divide up the remainder among you according to your performance. If it were just you and I, we would split the remainder. If you were just standing around all day, you don’t get anything. The amount you receive depends on my judgment of the matter.”
“What the hell! That means you can just take however much you want, right?”
See what the people were like in this country?
“But if you do your part, you’ll get paid. Get it? You got to do your part.”
“All right, fine then. That’s all good. Let’s go buy some equipment.”
“You buy your own equipment. I don’t see why I need to take care of you all that much. Take care of yourself.”
“Pfft.”
Exactly what I expected. Even if I did buy his equipment, he would probably just slack off the whole time. In the end he’d run off, leave me in a tight spot, and sell his equipment for a profit. The gall of these dirty men. They were just like her.
“Fine then. Just give me some money.”
“Hey, what’s a balloon doing here?!”
I had taken a balloon from my cape and let it bite the man’s face.
“Ouch! Ahhh!”
People threw a fit. I had brought balloons into the restaurant, but what did I care? I pulled the balloon off of the screaming man, put money on the table for my meal and left.
Were there no good people in this world? They all looked like rotten cannibals to me.
Anyway, I kept this pattern up for a few days, and finally started to save a little money.
Chapter Nine: They Call it a Slave
One… Two… Three…
I worked like this for two weeks and managed to save up 40 pieces of silver, which means that I finally made back what I’d thrown to Motoyasu the day he betrayed me, plus a little extra.
Something about it all felt hopeless. I mean, my attack power severely limited the places I could visit.
I didn’t get hurt or anything, but one time I did try visiting the forest.
I think it was a Red Balloon. I was attacking it with my bare hands, and it was hitting back. I must have pummeled the thing for 30 minutes or more, but it showed no signs of weakening. It ruined my mood, and I left the forest with my head hung low.
It meant that I couldn’t actually leave the fields, and therefore was forced to do my leveling up there, which I did for two weeks. I eventually reached level 4. I wonder what level the other heroes had reached. I don’t want to think about it.
There was still a Red Balloon chewing on my arm. It just kept going and going, like it could saw through the bone or something. I’d gone to the forest a whole week prior. I must have leveled up since then. I tried hitting the balloon.
Clang!
“Sigh…”
My attack was still too low.
If my attack is low, I can’t hunt monsters.
If I can’t hunt monsters, I can’t get EXP points.
If I can’t get EXP points, I can’t raise my attack.
Dammit! There was no end in sight. I was walking down an alleyway, behind the restaurant. It led to the fields.
But that day was to be different from the rest.
“You seem troubled, sir.”
“Huh?”
A strange man called to me from the alley. He was in a silk hat and coattails. He was a strange gentleman by any measure: absurdly obese and furnished with polished glasses. He didn’t seem to fit the world, which was much more like the Middle Ages. So he stuck out dramatically from his surroundings. Deciding it wise to ignore him, I hurried on past.
“You need people.”
I stopped in my tracks. He knew exactly what to say to get me to stop.
“That’s why you can’t hunt stronger monsters.”
Everything he said annoyed me.
“I’m not sure what that has to do with you.”
“If I helped with recruitment, you might still stand a chance.”
I didn’t have the funds, or the desire, to hire a greedy capitalist.
“Party members? Ahaha, no. I will provide you with something far more useful.”
“For example?”
The man slid over in my direction.
“Interested?”
“Don’t stand so close, you creep.”
“Ahaha. I like you, kid. Fine then, I’ll tell you.”
The gentleman puffed out his chest, looking very important-like, spun his walking stick, and pontificated, “A SLAVE!”
“A slave?”
“Yes, a slave.”
A slave… what was that again? I hear they used to exist in the real world, but now they showed up from time to time in games and manga (like the kind where someone gets summoned to another world).
To put it bluntly, it meant that you could own other people, much like someone might own furniture, and you could force them to do physical labor for you. I sort of pictured them as being whipped.
Anyway, slaves were living things.
Did this mean that slaves were bought and sold here?
“They do not lie, and they do not betray their masters.”
Hmm…
“Slaves are under a powerful curse. If they contradict or betray
their masters, they must pay with their very lives.”
“Hmmm…”
Now the story was getting interesting.
If they disobey, they die. In some ways, that was exactly what I was looking for: someone who wouldn’t use me, and someone that didn’t have any funny ideas.
My attack was too weak. I needed someone to help me. But people betray you, so I couldn’t afford to pay them. I couldn’t get anyone to help me. But a slave wouldn’t betray me because betrayal meant death.
“What do you think?”
“I’ll hear you out.”
He smiled. “Right this way, sir.”
He led me down a back alley, and pretty soon I noticed an alarming number of scruffy, dangerous-looking people. The air was filled with aggressive shouts and the sound of fragile things breaking. More than anything, it smelled terrible.
Apparently this world had a bad side too.
It was sometime around noon, but there was no light where we were. We turned a corner, and there, at the end of the alley, was something like a circus tent.
“Right this way, sir.”
“Uh huh…”
The slave trader walked with a creepy air about him. It was something like skipping, but he spent more time in the air. He led me towards the tent, and pulled back the flap.
“Let’s get this out of the way up front. If you’re tricking me…”
“Ah, yes… your balloon punishments are quite infamous around town. You’ll cause a ruckus and then run off, eh?”
So people were starting to talk about me. Fine. It was a good way to punish groups of bad people, and I shouldn’t be surprised that it made me famous.
“To be fair, there were those that wanted a Hero, like yourself, as a slave for themselves. I had originally approached you with that goal in mind, but since then I’ve had a change of heart.”