The Rising of the Shield Hero Volume 05 (6 page)

“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 top 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.”

Itsuki stuck his chest out and spoke with an important air about him.

“In this world, the rarity of a weapon is very important. The abilities it comes with are just an afterthought. If the weapon itself isn’t strong and rare, then it won’t be worth very much.”

“You mean unique weapons or legendary equipment?”

“Yes, something like that.”

“Stop lying!”

“It’s not right to start off telling the truth and then switch to lies halfway through.”

Ren and Motoyasu both snapped and spat at Itsuki. Here come more lies.

“What? What are you saying? I’m telling the truth!”

“Nope. That was a lie.”

“Yeah, you’re a liar.”

“I am not! I’m not lying!!”

What was going on? Itsuki had lost his cool. He really seemed to be angered by the other two.

Something strange was going on.

“Let’s hear him out.”

I waved off their little argument and signaled for Itsuki to continue.

“Right, well . . . . It depends on the type of weapon you’re working with, obviously, but normally you can use ores to make them stronger.”

It sounded like he was talking about some kind of refining system. I’d seen things like that in games before.

“Iron plates have the most amount of ore slots.”

“I’m sure there’s a risk of failure. You shouldn’t tell such dangerous lies.”

Motoyasu spoke out to silence Itsuki.

“No! It never fails!”

Wait, so there was no risk of failure? What was the truth?

“What are you talking about? You don’t use ores to power up anything.”

“You better stop calling me a liar! What about you, Ren? How do you power things up?”

“Me? Good question. I don’t want to see Naofumi get all confused by your lies, so I guess I should step in and tell him the truth.”

Why did he need to call me out by name? Whatever, he was right that I was getting confused.

“This world is all about your level. There might be other things to worry about, but in the end it all comes down to whether you have leveled up enough.”

“Another liar.”

“You! You think you can lie all you want if you keep your face all cool and aloof!”

What was going on here?

“Naofumi, apparently both of these guys are planning to lie their way to the end of this meeting. I guess it’s up to me to tell you the truth. If you want to power up your weapon, it’s all about skill mastery.”

“Skill mastery?”

“Exactly. The more you use a weapon, the stronger that weapon will get. The important part is that when it’s time to switch weapons, you have to turn that weapon’s accumulated skill mastery into energy. Then you add that energy to your new weapon, and that will unlock the new weapon’s hidden powers.”

“That’s one of the more impressive lies I’ve heard yet.”

“Don’t worry about him. You just need to keep increasing the rarity of your weapons. You may fail or you lose a weapon, but our legendary weapons are safe.”

All of their stories made it sound so simple. But none of the things they mentioned could be found anywhere in the help menus.

I didn’t know who to believe. Were Ren and Itsuki lying?

“Just listen to yourself, lying with a straight face like that. You’re no better than Naofumi.”

Motoyasu brushed Ren off.

“What was that?!”

“He’s right, you shouldn’t listen to him—he’s lying.”

“You’re all crazy. Who is he supposed to believe? And I am NOT lying!”

“See for yourself. Open up your skill tree and look at a weapon you use a lot. You can check its skill mastery right there.”

I did like Motoyasu said and opened my menu, then looked for the Chimera Shield.

But when I got the menu for the shield open, it just displayed the status like it always did.

He said I should check something? It was looking like a lie.

I reached a finger out to touch it but nothing happened.

“Nothing happened.”

I should have known it was a lie. I knew enough not to believe them from the start of this, but I was surprised that they would lie to my face when I could check the veracity of their claims.

If that was a lie, then their claims about the weapon copy system were probably lies too.

“I am not lying! You’re just trying to ruin my reputation!”

“I can’t do it either.”

“Me neither. That option just isn’t in the help menu.”

“Ugh! Whatever! I was stupid for trying to help you in the first place!”

Ren got very upset at each of Itsuki’s and Motoyasu’s explanations, sighing and crossing his arms angrily. He slumped down in his seat.

Ren was normally so cool and collected. In fact, I don't think I’d ever seen him so upset. Still, both of the other heroes insisted that he was lying, and a quick look through my own help menu seemed to verify as much.

“I wasn’t finished. There is another way to power up your weapon. You have to take the energy out of another item and use it to enchant the weapon. If you do it will increase the power of the item by a certain percentage.”

“You mean like raising the attack power by 10 percent?”

“Yes, but there is a significant risk. If you fail, then the value falls to zero.”

“Another lie. Stop telling Naofumi about some other game.”

“I’m telling the truth! This is how I’ve gotten stronger—by using the energy of different monsters and items to enchant my weapon. It works for all of my weapons. It's a parallel system to your current level—like having a job level.”

Thinking over what he said, I realized I’d seen similar things in games I’d played in the past. You could level up your equipment to gain new abilities. It wasn’t very exciting, but it worked. Still, I think I remembered learning some really powerful abilities that way.

“Okay, okay . . . Ren and Itsuki are getting a little out of control. Allow me . . . .”

“I’m not expecting much, but go ahead.”

I was already expecting nothing but lies out of the whole group.

“I’m telling you, the most important thing to focus on is smelting weapons and status levels. The performance that you get out of status levels is way more important than what you get from your actual level. Even if you stick with the weakest weapon, the one you started with, if you smelt it properly, it can be really strong! I made all my equip bonuses work to raise my attack power.”

“Now THAT’S a real lie!”

“It is. Naofumi, don’t listen to him!”

Motoyasu brushed their protests aside and kept speaking directly to me.

“It’s different for every weapon, but the first thing you need is to collect ores for smelting. Now, in
Emerald Online
you would lose your weapon if the smelting process failed. But that doesn't happen with our legendary weapons. Here, if you fail, the smelting value just falls to zero.”

“That’s not true!”

“Yeah!”

The argument was getting intense and out of control. The queen looked puzzled by all the disagreements.

Honestly, I was pretty confused myself.

Did they think they could get away with lying if they all lied?

“Anyway, then there are the eye spirits and the status enchantments. Depending on the piece of the monster soul you combine with the weapon, the effect will be different. The options vary by weapon, but let’s say that you have a weapon for dueling. You can raise the damage the weapon does to other humans.”

“Itsuki, didn’t you say something similar to that?”

“There are only so many slots available on the weapon, and the percentages are fixed.”

“Tell the truth!”

“Yeah, I’m tired of hearing about some other game.”

Both Ren and Itsuki shouted to silence Motoyasu, who turned, frustrated, to face them both.

“Why do you all keep lying?”

“Why are YOU lying?”

“Both of you are lying!”

“Well I don’t know who’s lying and who’s not . . . .”

The conversation had gone so well until we reached the end. Then apparently everyone had a different version of the truth.

The three of them all looked incensed—I don’t think I’d ever seen them all in such blatant disagreement.

“Could it be that all of your weapons are powered up differently?”

“Let’s just agree to disagree.”

“It works as an explanation in the short run. Let’s leave it at that.”

“Fine—but so far none of your explanations have meshed with what I’ve seen going on.”

And then, apparently, the conversation was over.

If all of them were as angry as they seemed to be, then they probably weren’t lying.