Chapter 5
Home Tate no Yuusha LN Sekai no Owari no Encore

Chapter 5

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 .