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 that 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.