The Rising of the Shield Hero Vol 08

by Aneko Yusagi

“I am the Shield Hero, the source of all power. Hear my words and heed them. Give her everything!”

  “Zweite Aura!”

  I cast support magic on Rishia, and a big chunk of my magic power vanished. I would have preferred to end the fight without resorting to magic, but Rishia looked like she was at her limit.

  A piercing pain shot through my back.

  “Ugh . . .”

  Was there another kappa? I turned to look, and sure enough, another kappa had snuck up behind us and plunged its claws into my back.

  It really hurt. These things were pretty damn tough!

  “Rishia, hurry it up already!”

  “I . . . I know! But it’s too tough! I can’t get the sword through!” she shouted. She was stabbing at the kappa with all of her might, but the blade kept ricocheting off of the monster’s belly. I had already cast support magic on her. Had we already run into a monster we couldn’t defeat?

  Damn! The second kappa sliced at my back again, and I felt a trickle of blood dribble down my back.

  Things weren’t looking good. I wasn’t sure how much longer I could keep my grip on it.

  “Hurry up! I can’t hold on! If you can’t kill it, then we’ll have to make a run for it!”

  If they were as strong as they seemed, we didn’t stand a chance. Our levels clearly weren’t high enough to take on these monsters. But I also wasn’t sure that we’d be able to escape.

  The water beams looked like they packed a serious punch, and we’d be wide open for attack from behind if we tried to run.

  We were really stuck in a tough spot now, and things looked like they were getting worse by the second. Was I really going to die in a place like this? I wasn’t going to give up, but I was also fresh out of ideas.

  A third kappa appeared a little ways down the river and started running toward us. We were about to be surrounded.

  “Fe . . . Feh!”

  Damn it. Was this the end? Now I didn’t see how we’d be able to escape.

  But then . . .

  The kappa that had been running at Rishia suddenly stopped in place. Then its head went flying from its neck.

  “What the . . . ?”

  “Blood Flower Strike!”

  There was a flash of light along with an unfamiliar voice, and then the kappa that was attacking me from behind, and the kappa I was restraining in my arms, collapsed in a bloody pile.

  What was going on?

  I felt like I’d just witnessed a new, mysterious art form. Was it a skill?

  Skills were special powers and techniques that only heroes like myself could use, like Air Strike Shield. But Glass and her friends could use them, too, and they weren’t heroes. Sometimes we call magic “spells” and techniques “skills,” which made it a little confusing. I wasn’t sure if what I’d just seen was actually a skill or not.

  “Are you okay?”

  I noticed her ferocious eyes first. They were deep brown eyes. Her skin was . . . the same color as my skin. I don’t mean that she had masculine skin, only that she was clearly human. It looked very healthy, a bright white tinged with pink here and there. It was tight and clean.

  She was about as tall as a sixth grader, or maybe a seventh grader, but she carried herself with a confidence and dignity that made me think she might have been older than she looked.

  Her hair was long, and pulled up into two pigtails on either side of her head, and she wore very feminine clothes that seemed to contradict her powerful and confident carriage. She wore a gothic dress and covered it with a threadbare haori. As for her chest . . . Even accounting for the extra frills and folds of her dress, there didn’t seem to be anything there.

  For a moment, I wondered if she might be a he . . . but I decided against it. It would be creepy for a man to wear his hair in pigtails. Besides, her face sure looked like a girl’s. She had a soft aura about her as well, and I couldn’t picture her as a man.

  A pole—or no, a fishing rod—hung at her waist.

  Her face was really pretty. She seemed strong, but still feminine. I might even go so far as to call her a tomboy. It was hard to tell how old she was.

  And there was something . . . undeniably Japanese about her. Was I just imagining it?

  “I only looked away for a second. I’m surprised they made it this far. If I hadn’t shown up, that would have been it for you.”

  She clearly wasn’t our enemy, but that didn’t mean she was our ally, either. It was easy to imagine someone pretending to be our ally just so they could stab us in the back later.

  I didn’t have enough magic power left, so I used the medicine I had to heal my wounds. I spread the ointment on the surface of the kappa’s ragged claw marks, and they healed before my eyes. I had to admit, that was one of the things I liked about being summoned to a new world. Back in Japan, wounds took a lot longer to heal.

  “I’ve been watching out for you since you two fell out of the sky.”

  “Who are you?”

  Of course I was grateful that she’d saved us from the monsters, but I still had to figure out whom we were dealing with. You could never be too careful. It was good to have people owe you a favor, and who knew what she was really after?

  “You don’t trust me?”

  “Of course not. We get out of a prison, only to end up in a fight we can’t win just in time for you to show up and save the day like a hero. It’s hard to attribute it all to coincidence.”

  “Oh, right. I guess that makes sense. I guess,” she sighed, annoyed, and scratched her head.

  What was with this girl? Was she the one who’d returned us to level 1?

  I decided to err on the side of caution and slowly slipped into a defensive position.

  “We might as well get acquainted, considering we were lucky enough to meet out here. Let’s chat.”

  “Maybe you should offer your name before you ask for someone else’s.”

  “I guess you’re right. Okay, I’ll go first. I’m Kizuna Kazayama, and I’m one of the four holy heroes—the Hunting Hero, to be exact.”

  “ . . . What?”

  What the hell was she talking about? She was a holy hero? The Hunting Hero?

  As far as I knew, the four holy heroes were the Sword, Spear, Bow, and Shield Heroes.

  “I gave you my name. Now give me yours,” she said, irritated to see me standing there speechless. I decided it was best to tell the truth and see how she reacted.

  “My name is Naofumi Iwatani. I’m also one of the four holy heroes—I’m the Shield Hero.”

  “ . . . What?”

  Kizuna looked just as confused as I was. She even said the same thing I had.

  “Is there a problem?”

  “No. I’ve just never heard of a ‘Shield Hero.’ Are you sure you’re one of the four holy heroes?”

  “Oh yeah, well, I’ve never heard of a ‘Hunting Hero.’”

  Kizuna crossed her arms and pondered. “Hm . . .” If she was curious, she didn’t show it for long. She immediately looked at Rishia and clipped, “You’re next.”

  “Feh?!”

  “Rishia, introduce yourself. I don’t think she’s our enemy.” At least not for the moment.

  “Oh, um . . . Okay. My name is Rishia Ivyred.”

  “Oh, so you’re not calling yourself a hero?”

  “No, she’s just my friend.”

  Kizuna looked Rishia up and down and then nodded to herself.

  “Okay, so, Naofumi—Can I call you Naofumi?”

  “Sure. I’ll call you Kizuna. What is it?”

  I could tell from the way she spoke. Her name had been a dead giveaway. The holy heroes were all summoned from somewhere else, so . . .

  “I guess it’s safe to assume that you were summoned from Japan, right?”

  “ . . . Yeah, whatever that’s worth.”

  “I don’t know what you mean by that, but I’ve never heard of a ‘Shield Hero,’ which makes me think you must have been summoned to a different world to serve in a diffe
rent set of holy heroes.”

  “ . . . It does sound that way, doesn’t it?”

  We had followed Glass and her friends, so we must be in their world. Which meant that this girl Kizuna must have been one of the four holy heroes in this world.

  “I don’t know how a hero from another world ended up here . . . but things don’t look so good for you.”

  “Why do you say that?”

  “You’re right that there’s a prison here, but it’s not a good one—it’s one of the worst.”

  “Elaborate.”

  “This place is a never-ending labyrinth. To make it simple, there aren’t any guards, but it’s impossible to get out. It’s a special kind of space.”

  An inescapable, special kind of space? Ha!

  “What’s so funny?” Kizuna seemed irritated again.

  But how was I supposed to keep from laughing?

  “It’s nothing. They summoned me to the previous world, and I’d been looking for a way out ever since. I’m pretty accustomed to these ‘inescapable spaces’ by now. I’ve been in one for months!”

  Isn’t that basically what Melromarc had been the whole time? They summoned me to serve as the Shield Hero, but they wouldn’t let me leave. The way I saw things, the whole world was a prison. Now Kizuna says I’m in a special space. It was all the same to me. Another trap I could only escape by breaking through a dimensional wall.

  Anyway, the first thing I had to do was confirm that we were in the right place—Glass’s world. If Glass was from another world, then there was no guarantee that that we’d come to the right one. Maybe there were more.

  “That sounds like a very broad interpretation.”

  “I guess you’re one of those people that just can’t get enough of life in these crazy worlds. Is that it?”

  If she was a holy hero, she might have been just like the other three heroes from my world. But she didn’t confirm or deny it.

  “I . . . I wouldn’t say that, exactly.” She turned her eyes away, which only made me more curious—the heroes I knew wouldn’t act that way. No way. All three of them were over the moon to be where they were. Kizuna’s ambiguous reaction made me suspect that there was more going on. But it wasn’t the time to dig into all of that. I had to find Raphtalia and the others and make sure that they were okay. That was my highest priority.

  The next priority was Kyo. I had to make him pay for what he’d done.

  A long, thin blade hung from Kizuna’s waist. It looked like a tuna knife. I’d never used one, but I’d seen them before.

  The Hunting Hero must have used hunting tools for weapons, but was that sort of knife considered a hunting tool? What was a Hunting Hero, anyway? Could she use anything related to hunting?

  That seemed like a very broad category. Compared to the Shield Hero, who was stuck with shields and shields alone, it seemed like a much better title to have.

  “What is it?”

  “Nothing.”

  Kizuna inspected the kappa corpses. She seemed confused.

  “That’s odd. I killed the monsters, but I didn’t get any experience points for it.”

  “Probably because there’s another hero nearby, don’t you think?”

  “Is that how it works?”

  Didn’t she know about the interference phenomenon that kept the heroes from fighting together? Whenever a hero fought a battle near another hero, neither of them received experience points. That was why the heroes always had to split up and go on adventures on their own.

  When the waves came we had more important things to do—and hordes of monsters to defeat—so there was no reason to worry about experience. I explained what I knew about it to Kizuna.

  “Interesting . . . I’d never heard of it.”

  “You haven’t met any of the other heroes in this world?”

  “No, I haven’t.”

  I was so jealous! I couldn’t stand it!

  But weren’t all four heroes summoned together at the same time? I was thinking it over when I noticed that Kizuna was giggling to herself.

  “What is it now?”

  “It’s nothing. I just haven’t talked to anyone in years—it’s so much fun!”

  “What?”

  What did she just say? She hadn’t spoken to anyone in years? Was she some kind of antisocial maniac—someone that could never figure out how to enter conversation, so they just didn’t ever say anything? She didn’t seem like the soft-spoken type to me, though . . .

  “Of course I haven’t. I don’t even know how long it’s been since I was thrown in here—at least a few years, though, I’m sure. When I tried to count the time, it just made me sad, so I stopped.”

  “What about when the waves come? Don’t they teleport you out of here?”

  That’s right, I forgot to mention it: whenever the waves came, the dragon hourglasses automatically teleported the heroes to the site of the wave’s occurrence. I hated it. It meant that you had to fight even if you didn’t want to.

  “Waves? You mean the legends about the stuff that happens in the outside world? Are they real?”

  “You’ve never fought in the waves?”

  “I already told you, this space is separated from the outside world. I don’t know what’s going on out there,” Kizuna said. She looked depressed.

  I slowly opened a menu and called up the hourglass counter that had been moving, back before I came through the portal, and . . .

  —:—

  It was blank. It wasn’t counting down to anything.

  Huh? Did that mean that I wasn’t going to be summoned to fight in the waves as long as I was in this place? The space was so inescapable that the hourglasses couldn’t even summon me to fight in the waves? Just how isolated was this place?

  “Anyway, what do you want to do with these things?” Kizuna asked, pointing to the dead kappas.

  “Turn them into materials? Break them down?”

  Kizuna nodded.

  “I got all the materials I needed from these things ages ago. The drops are boring now, too.”

  “Then I’ll take it.”

  I absorbed the kappa body into my shield.

  A sound indicated that I’d unlocked a shield, but my level wasn’t high enough to access it yet. The drop item wasn’t very good, either, but it was better than nothing.

  “Um . . .”

  I turned to look at Rishia, who looked ashamed. She wasn’t a hero, so she should have gotten some experience from the battle—that is, as long as this world functioned the same as the last one.

  “Can you still form parties here? Some stuff seems to be different from the world I came from, so I wonder . . .”

  “As far as I know, heroes won’t be able to get experience when they fight together. But Rishia isn’t a hero, so can you try giving her your points?”

  “Huh? Oh, sure. Even if it doesn’t work, I don’t mind. Which one of you is the leader? Send me an invite.”

  I raised my hand. Kizuna clearly understood what I meant, so I went ahead and sent her an invite. At least party formation appeared to function the same way in this world.

  She joined my party, and the experience from the battle naturally went to Rishia.

  “This isn’t the best place to sit and talk. Let’s go somewhere safe.”

  “Sure.”

  Kizuna led us back down the path we’d come by, all the way back to where we’d first appeared on the beach.

  “This is one of the safest spots around. If you put on equipment that lets you breathe underwater, then you can go into the ocean and walk on the ocean floor, but you’ll soon discover that it’s a maze down there, too. This is an island, so if you walk inland it’ll soon turn into thick forest, and that’s a maze, too. Once you get to the other side of that field, you’ll be in the woods.”

  She explained the situation like it was the most obvious thing in the world. I guess it was safe to assume that we’d been dropped into a place that functioned similar to a roguelike game.

>   “It’s pretty weird, isn’t it?”

  “Yeah.”

  “It’s a tough place. I hear it’s made so that you can’t get out.”

  “And how do you know that?”

  “I heard about it before I ended up here. They say that once you enter, you can never leave. The labyrinth is basically a world in and of itself. I’ve spent a long time exploring it, and I’ve gotten pretty far.” She sighed and then spat. She looked stressed out. “As far as I can tell, they were right. There’s no way out.”

  So even though we were supposed to have followed Glass back to her world, I ended up with Rishia, stuck in some mysterious labyrinth instead.

  “It’s best to go back to the jail cell if you want to sleep. But it’s safe enough to talk here.” Kizuna pointed to a house built near the beach and started walking in its direction.

  “Ah . . .”

  She was right. It was probably best to take a break. I had no idea how long I’d been unconscious, but I was definitely approaching exhaustion after all those battles in the field. We could all use a rest.

  “Feh!” Rishia gasped, still surprised by every little thing. When was she going to come to terms with what was going on?

  “I have to say . . . You both certainly have an interesting way of dressing.” Kizuna took a seat in a sooty chair at the beach house and looked us over.

  I couldn’t disagree with that, either. The Barbarian Armor +1? was really beat up after the fighting with the Spirit Tortoise. I tried to look into the state of the armor using the status magic system, but all the letters were garbled and illegible.

  It was so banged up that it probably didn’t even count as armor anymore. I slowly slipped it off and...Yup, my stats didn’t change at all. The armor had become completely ineffective. The old guy at the weapon shop had made it especially for me, but there was no point it wearing it if it wasn’t doing anything.

  “Rishia, how’s your kigurumi holding up?”

  “Feh?!”

  She looked through her equipment menu and squealed in surprised.

  “Feh?! It says something strange!”

  I suppose that meant that at the very least her equipment wasn’t so beat up that it was ineffective.