by Aneko Yusagi
At the very beginning of all this, I had definitely been way behind the rest of them. But these days it seemed like I had made up for that initial difference.
Motoyasu had a pretty hard time defending himself from Filo, and that had been before she’d even leveled up.
I didn’t know what their actual levels were, but from what I had heard, they’d all participated in quite a few battles around the world. I’d lost all that time when I’d traveled around selling items, and so I hadn’t been able to class-up as soon as the others. Yet they had still lost to me in a battle. What did it mean?
And they were heroes too, so at the very least they should have been more powerful than your average, everyday citizen.
Trash had also given them all a substantial amount of money to start their travels, so they shouldn’t have had any trouble in the money department either.
“The citizens of the world wish for the heroes to cooperate. I trust you understand what I am getting at.”
“Very well.”
The three wore expressions of deep disappointment, but they seemed to grasp the point of the meeting.
“Naofumi, why don’t we hear from you first?”
“Why do I need to go first? The queen started this by addressing you.”
“Well to be honest, I find your strength odd, considering the level that you and your teammates currently are. You’re too strong. That ridiculous shield of yours also seems strangely overpowered.”
“Yeah, I want to address that too. The Raphtalia girl, not to mention that monster Filo, are both much stronger than I would have expected. It’s not natural.”
“Yeah. Little Raphtalia-chan and Filo can really hold their own.”
These creeps. We were supposed to be sharing information, but instead they were using this as an opportunity to get me to do all the talking. They had some mixed up priorities.
I guess that meant with all they supposedly knew about the world, they weren’t expecting to run into the curse series, or for Raphtalia and Filo to be as powerful as they were.
Then again, I couldn’t just tell them whatever they wanted to hear.
“And what are you three planning on giving me in exchange for this information?”
“What?”
“Is that such a crazy question? Think back to the beginning of all this. You all sat me down and told me that the shield class was underpowered and weak. You cut me off and left me to my own devices. You didn’t tell me anything. Now you want to know the secret of my power, but how am I supposed to know that you’ll share what you know once you get what you want out of me?”
If I had information that they wanted, that put me at an advantage for any negotiations that were about to start. I didn’t want to give that up.
If they wanted information out of me, they’d have to go first—they had to tell me everything that they knew.
“It’s not like we purposefully kept secrets . . . .”
“Look at your help screen.”
“I suppose we could have been a little more forthcoming with our knowledge, but . . . .”
The three of them all responded pathetically.
“However you spin it, none of you helped me. You might say ‘look at the help screen’ and try to act all cool. But would the help screen tell me the most efficient areas of the map for leveling?”
I had to really read their reactions if I wanted to get any information out of them at all.
Had I forgotten how to get information out of someone?
Sure, we were all trying to manipulate each other. If you wanted success in negotiations, you had to find some way to control the flow of the conversation.
I’d managed to create an atmosphere where they realized they would have to indulge me in information if they wanted to get anything out of me.
If I made one final push, maybe I could secure an advantage.
“Just like the rest of you, I have some secrets of my own. I think it’s finally time we all had a real heart-to-heart.”
“Ha!”
Ren snorted, obviously annoyed.
“And you know what else? You three need to realize that you’ve already lost against the waves once. If you mess up like that again, you’re going to die.”
“What are you talking about? That was a special event battle—you have to lose that one.”
“What?”
“Yeah, if the heroes lose that battle, they just get carried to the hospital and they wake up there. You don’t die. The story is set up that way.”
“Yeah, it’s as good as proven. Just look at what happened once we lost to the high priest—we woke up in the hospital.”
What the hell were they saying? Were they out of their minds?
“What are you three saying? Occasionally I have trouble understanding what Mr. Iwatani is saying, but this is something new altogether!”
The queen exclaimed. She seemed very troubled. I felt the same way.
It’s like the three of them had just claimed immortality in front of us. They thought that they would never die, no matter what they did.
“Well, just so you know . . . I actually defeated that high priest after you lost to him, so . . . .”
The three of them all shouted in unison again.
“There’s no way a shielder could win that fight. It’s because of that weird shield you have.”
Damn, they were getting annoying.
If they lost, they’d just wake up in the hospital? Was that how their game worked? Did they honestly think this was just a game, and that these were only events to advance the plot?
Even though they lost I remembered how they’d condescended to me and my shield. It made me furious just thinking about it.
It . . . It was . . . .
“Anyway, that stuff doesn’t matter. Let’s move on.”
Doesn’t matter? These idiots were still treating everything like a game!
This was absurd—absolutely crazy! Their misunderstanding of the situation needed to be addressed immediately.
“You idiots. You know this isn’t a game, right?! If you die here, it’s all over!”
“Right, but we are protected.”
“Yeah.”
“Exactly.”
There was just no reaching these people.
This conversation was making me very uncomfortable. Even with all the problems I’d run into since arriving in this world, this conversation might have been more dangerous than any of them. I tried to tell them all, but they just wouldn’t listen. So what else could I do? I had to just go along for the ride.
I had to be strong enough to survive after they’d all died. With the way they were talking, that day might not be far off.
But wait . . . no. Fitoria had said that the waves would get more severe if the heroes died.
“So that’s how you think the world works and you guys still tried to kill me? What would have happened if you’d succeeded?”
“What do you mean? You just would have died.”
Itsuki said it like it was nothing.
So they didn’t feel any hesitation at the thought of murder? As long as they got ‘the bad guy’ everything was just fine?
“I thought it was a little weird. I figured we wouldn’t be able to kill you.”
“I just figured you’d end up back in your own world. Crazy.”
“Motoyasu—I should send YOU back to your own world!”
Why did he even think that would happen? What an idiot!
“Anyway, enough with thinking of everything like a game. Enough is enough! It's a miracle that you three are still alive at all!”
The three of them let my words blow by without comment. They didn’t even respond. They wouldn’t understand until the truth waltzed over and slapped them in the face—but by then it would be too late.
I sighed. “Anyway. You all better start talking. Tell me everything you know, right from the beginning. If you don’t, then I don’t have anything to tell you either.”
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br /> “Well there’s no avoiding it then, is there? It’s a pain, but if you insist . . . .”
“Yes, and the heroes must also stop interfering with one another’s successes.”
“Whatever. Nothing will change in the end. Nothing at all.”
They better start talking, and fast. I needed to know what I needed to do to get stronger.
They’d wrested control of the conversation through sheer idiocy, but it was time for me to take the controls back.
“And Itsuki,” I started. “Certainly a hero that fights for justice would never take the side of liar to appease his sense of balance . . . would he?”
“Lies? I do not lie!”
“I wonder. What’s less cool than lying, eh Ren?”
“Who knows?”
“And women don’t like liars at all, do they Motoyasu?”
“No, they don’t.”
Was that enough? I hoped I’d sealed off the possibility of their continued lies before the conversation started moving again.
I imagined that Ren was very concerned with looking as cool as possible.
Motoyasu wanted the ladies to like him.
Itsuki was all about justice. Sure, he could define that however was convenient at the time—that’s why I made sure he associated it with lying at the table. With that in his head, he’d find it hard to lie straight out.
With all the pieces in place, the three of them were more likely to tell the truth.
“Alright, Itsuki, you go first. Tell me everything right from the beginning.”
“Why are you in charge?”
Itsuki knit his eyebrows together in annoyance but turned to the rest of the table and started talking.
“The heroes’ weapons are unlocked by the materials that are absorbed into them. This also expands the skill tree that is available. The system is very similar to the game I used to play, Dimension Wave, but there are differences here and there.”
“Huh? It’s not the exact same?”
“No—but it’s very similar. There are a lot of weapons here that I’ve never seen.”
That would mean that he didn’t know all there was to know about the different weapons in this world.
That made sense. If he had known all about the different weapons and their skills, then he should have known about the slave and monster shields as well.
“The biggest difference is probably that, in this world, when you change to a new weapon, the other weapons you have used remain available to you.”
Ren and Motoyasu nodded along. So this place wasn’t exactly like the games they were used to? That was kind of worrisome.
“I’ll go next.”
Ren raised his hand and started to speak.
“I’ll take over where Itsuki left off. When a weapon is unlocked, certain equip bonuses become available to you.”
I knew that I could trust that information, because I already knew it to be true.
“Still, the equip bonus system is a little different than what I’m used to from Brave Star Online.”
“How so?”
“In my game, you normally learned skills by earning skill points through skills you already knew.”
That made sense to me too. In games that I had played in the past there were skill points available to the player, and they could assign them however they wanted to customize their character.
I felt like . . . like if I could just unlock the skill tree of this one shield, then all the skills would suddenly be available.
Anyway, what really surprised me was that, despite all these differences, the three of them still seemed confident that they were in the same game as the one they were familiar with from their own worlds.
“You’re right. It was just like that.”
“Yeah.”
“But I think that only the heroes are able to unlock the entire skill tree.”
I was starting to understand. Normal adventurers could only unlock certain portions of the skill tree, depending on the conditions that open up to them in their growth. Only the heroes, because of their legendary weapons, could unlock everything.
“My turn. If you hold a weapon type that you specialize in, you can copy them. I think they have a ‘weapon copy system.’”
“What?”
What was that? I’d never heard of anything like that!
“Yeah, that’s a lot different from the game I was used to, but I was able to get a really strong weapon for free, so it ended up being a big help.”
“Well, we are heroes, after all. We do have some advantages.”
“I’m sure everyone already knows this, but the weapon shop in the capital of Zeltbul, the mercenary country, has the best equipment.”
The other two went along nodding with what Motoyasu said.
“What’s that now?!”
I was so upset I practically screamed.
Weapon copying?
I’d never seen anything like that in the help menu. I’d already spent four months here, so I’d taken the time to go through the entire menu item by item.
It sounded like they were saying that if you just picked up a weapon at a shop then you could unlock the ability to use it.
“Naofumi, you mean to say that you didn’t even know that? I’m impressed you’ve managed to stay alive for as long as you have!”
Ugh . . . now I was getting pissed. Really pissed! I’d just assumed that I could only use special shields I unlocked myself!
I’d only seen weird things like iron shields and round shields and book shields up until this point—I thought those were the only kinds available.
“You guys figured this out on your own?”
“Not really, we just went to buy weapons at the shop. That’s a normal thing to do, right? Considering that the weapon you start out with is so weak.”
I had tried to do the very same thing when I first got here. I’d wanted to give up on being a shielder, so I tried to use a sword I’d picked up at the weapon shop.
But when I did, a warning popped up that said, “You are unable to equip or carry a weapon other than the legendary weapon you have been assigned.”
It meant that I couldn’t use anything other than my shield in battle.
“The rules say that you can only use the weapon you’ve been assigned, but if you use the weapon copy system, you can pretty much equip anything.”
“Yeah.”
“That’s right.”
This was starting to give me a headache.
Besides, I was stuck with a shield. Attacking was the most important thing for me to focus on, so I had pretty much ignored the shields that were on sale at weapon shops.
I was already equipped with a shield that leveled up with me, so I had only been focused on trying to get a weapon, like a sword, into my other hand.
Maybe that’s why I had never noticed?
“Alright, keep talking.”
If they’d already covered such major things that I hadn’t been able to figure out, I was nervous just thinking of how much else had been kept from me.
“When you kill a monster and it turns into materials that you absorb into your weapon, you can open the weapon menu at the same time to get the monster’s dropped items.”
Dropped items?
Hmm . . . I’d seen something like that in online RPGs before. Normally monsters would leave items behind once you defeated them.
They might leave behind something that had nothing to do with the sort of materials they were made from.
I’d been so stupid! I should have been able to figure something that simple out for myself!
“There are items that cost a lot of money at shops that get dropped pretty frequently. I have a bunch of rare stuff now, it really makes me feel like I’m in a whole new world.”
“It does, doesn’t it?”
“You’re right. Sometimes the monsters leave really useful items behind.”
They just kept on coming out with more and more important information. And on to
p of that, it seemed like they all already knew all of it.
They’d made me feel this way the first day I'd met them, but now I felt it again—that searing feeling that I was at a disadvantage.
“What else? Oh yeah, you can make tools.”
“Tech skills, right? Yeah, we’ve had those from the very start.”
“Keep going, I’m listening.”
The information that they took for granted might all be new to me. I needed to prepare myself to hear them out.
“If you have the tech skill and the recipe, then you can give the necessary materials to your weapon. It will absorb them, and after a certain amount of time the weapon will make what you want.”
The weapons could systematize item production?! Were they joking? I couldn’t bear to think back on all the time I’d spent crafting medicines.
Apparently the effectiveness of the item was the same whether the weapon made it automatically or if you stayed up all night working on it yourself—but if you had a recipe, and the weapon could do all the work for you, why go through all the trouble?
That must explain why Motoyasu had a stock of magic water—he wouldn’t have gone through all the effort to make that on his own.
Maybe the materials needed to make it were easy to obtain from monsters?
“The only bad part is that you can’t really use items aside from the drops you picked up or the ones you made yourself.”
“That’s right. You can’t use them easily.”
Apparently there were some issues with the item system. Not that I was concerned with that.
I couldn’t believe there were so many empowering techniques I hadn’t known about.
“As for efficient leveling areas, well, I don’t think we can sum that up in a sentence or two.”
“Right. We could make up a chart or something, listing good places and monsters depending on your level range. That way if you just stuck to the list appropriate for your level you wouldn’t really run into any major problems.”
“We have to make sure not to overlap though.”
“Good point.”
“Is there anything else you want to tell me about?”
I took mental notes of all the points they’d brought up and tried to keep the conversation moving.
“It seems like there is one major technique for getting stronger quickly that Naofumi doesn’t know yet. I suppose I should tell him.”