LN Tate no Yuusha Prolog - CH 5 Vol 8 Bahasa Indonesia

Prologue: The Never-Ending Labyrinth

“—Fumi-san! Naofumi-san!”

Someone shook me awake. I could hear them shouting my name over the persistent dripping of water.

“Ugh . . .”

I was dizzy and shook my head to try to steady my senses as I slowly sat up to get my bearings.

“Oh thank goodness. Naofumi-san . . .”

Rishia looked at me, her eyes filled with worry. She sat with her legs splayed out like a duck.

“Where are we?”

“I . . . I don’t really know.”

I looked around the room. It was a small dark room, with walls built of stone—very dank and depressing. Behind me was a pile of damp straw on the ground. A crude bed lay in the other corner and iron grating formed the far wall.

“It looks like . . . a prison.”

“Feh . . .”

What the hell was going on?

I climbed to my feet and analyzed the situation further.

The iron grate made it clear that we were in a prison cell of some kind.

But jeez . . . How did we end up here? My memory was still fuzzy with sleep. I better go over everything I can remember and try to clear my head.

My name is Naofumi Iwatani.

I was a normal university student with otaku tendencies back in Japan, but that all changed on the day I went to the library and found a book called The Records of the Four Holy Weapons. I started to read it, only to find myself summoned to another world and treated as if I were one of the characters from the book—the Shield Hero.

The people that summoned me said they needed me to save the word from a great calamity called “the waves.”

At first I was thrilled to find myself in a new dream-like world, but things didn’t end up going so smoothly. Despite the fact that the people in charge of the country—Melromarc—had summoned me to their world of their own accord, they didn’t waste any time framing me for a rape I never committed so that they could throw me out into the streets, penniless and alone.

Eventually, after going through all sorts of hardships and trials, I was able to get rid of the people who were behind a conspiracy to destroy me, the Shield Hero. I was finally cleared of all charges, and the people that had framed me were punished.

Finally cleared of the charges against me, it was time to fight against the waves as a true hero—or so I thought. As it turned out, there was still plenty of trouble waiting for me.

The first problem was the most fundamental. I was summoned to serve as the Shield Hero, but the Shield Hero was specialized for defense and was completely unable to attack enemies on his own.

I was one of four holy heroes, and the other three were heroes of the sword, spear, and bow. All of them had been summoned from Japan, just like I had been. But there were many different Japans in different dimensions, and none of them came from the same one that I had.

What’s that? Why do I remember all this stuff about them?

The important thing about the other heroes is that, back in their own worlds, all three of them had played games that were remarkably similar to the new world that we had all been summoned to.

The world we found ourselves in really did have a lot in common with video games. People had levels and stats, we earned experience points by defeating monsters, and those points could be used to raise your abilities.

Naturally there was magic, and the world was stalked by creatures I’d never seen in Japan. Because you could grow stronger by battling your way through the world, obviously any information you had ahead of time would be useful.

But the other three heroes liked to keep secrets. They didn’t care at all about the conspiracies that had been plotted against me. And they certainly didn’t care enough to tell me any of the things they knew about this new world.

After I’d been cleared of all the charges leveled against me, I was able to convince the other heroes to sit down together so we could discuss what we knew about how to power up our weapons. Over the course of our meeting it became increasingly clear that they were having the time of their lives using their own secret knowledge to play the role of the world’s heroic saviors. They were so pleased with themselves that none of them had stopped to realize that they each only knew a single part of the full method.

After they had heard of the other power-up methods each of the other heroes were using, each one of them still only understood the method they previously knew about from the games they’d played. So they continued to battle against the waves with underpowered weapons. The stupidity was nearly too much for me to bear. In the end, I tried using all of the methods that we discussed during the meeting, and I quickly became much more powerful than any of them. It was a good thing I did, too. Soon after that we ran into all kinds of dangerous situations that I never would have survived had I not powered up the way I had.

A bunch of things happened, but the most notable was probably the battle with the Spirit Tortoise, an enormous monster that could save the world but could only do so by sacrificing a large portion of the world’s human population.

The Spirit Tortoise was a protective beast that existed to save the world, albeit in a very different way than we heroes were supposed to. The other three heroes all went to attack the beast on their own, were defeated, and then went missing. As usual, their failure became my responsibility. I faced the Spirit Tortoise in battle and was eventually able to stop it in its tracks.

With the immediate danger put to rest, my friends and I searched for the missing heroes, hoping to find and rescue them from whatever dire fate they’d encountered. It wasn’t long before we discovered that we weren’t out of trouble yet.

At around the same time that the Spirit Tortoise first appeared, a mysterious woman in a robe came to me and insisted that I should kill her. Her name was Ost Horai, and she was a Spirit Tortoise familiar (human type), a soldier of the enemy. Worse, she carried the burden of the Spirit Tortoise’s will within her.

I didn’t understand what was happening when she first appeared, and she vanished before I could ask anything further. That’s why I was a little slow in responding to the threat. The next time I saw her, she appeared to tell me that the Spirit Tortoise was still alive, despite the fact that we had already blasted its head off. When she appeared before me again, she begged me to finish the job.

She told me the Spirit Tortoise was being controlled by someone. This prevented it from carrying out its true purpose: using the souls of living things to form a magic barrier to protect the world from the waves. She said that if the Spirit Tortoise couldn’t carry out its true intentions then it would have to be defeated.

After that there was a long series of battles.

My friends and I joined forces with Ost to fight the Spirit Tortoise, and we were able to sneak inside of its body. We tried to defeat it in different ways, like attacking both its heart and head at the same time (a method we’d researched beforehand) and using a sealing spell on its heart.

Nothing worked. But then Ost helped us find the Spirit Tortoise’s core, and it seemed like we might be able to defeat the Spirit Tortoise there. That was where we ran into the strange scientist-like madman that had taken over control of the Spirit Tortoise’s body: Kyo Ethnina.

He wasn’t the only person we found in the core chamber. The three missing heroes were there, too. After their pathetic loss to the Spirit Tortoise, Kyo had taken them prisoner.

Kyo manipulated the core and used it to produce powerful Spirit Tortoise familiars to cause us grief. In the middle of the fight, Glass and her friends appeared and joined forces with us in the battle against Kyo.

Speaking of Glass, she was a human enemy that came out of the dimensional rifts during the second wave we fought against . . . or at least that’s what I’d thought. We found out that Kyo came from the same world that she did, and he possessed something called the book of the vassal weapon. According to Glass he had crossed over to our world to use our protective beasts in order to cause destruction and chaos—and that was something that could not be permitted. We shared a common goal. So we teamed up to defeat Kyo.

But Kyo had the power of the core behind him, and his attacks were extremely powerful. He used the energy the Spirit Tortoise had gathered to make himself even more powerful, and for a while we weren’t able to hold our own against the strength of his attacks.

His defenses were formidable too, and just when I thought we didn’t have a chance, something snapped in Rishia, and she and let loose a fury of attacks that, luckily enough, broke through his defenses just in time for me to use the special power that Ost had imbued my shield with: The Spirit Tortoise Heart Shield.

It had a special effect called Energy Blast—which was exactly like the killer attack the Spirit Tortoise itself had used against us when we’d fought its head.

I did as Ost asked and directed Energy Blast at the Spirit Tortoise’s core and was able to destroy it—breaking Kyo’s connection to the Spirit Tortoise in the process. Realizing he’d lost his advantage, Kyo opened a portal back to Glass’s world and escaped through it.

And so, finally, the curtain closed on the Spirit Tortoise’s rampage affair.

We were victorious, but the victory came at a heavy cost.

Ost asked me to destroy the Spirit Tortoise’s core, knowing all the while that if I did she would die. I knew it, too, but I did as she asked.

When the Spirit Tortoise was defeated, the energy it had gathered would awaken the next protective beast, and no waves were supposed to occur until that time. But the energy had been stolen, and Ost had interfered, so the next beast didn’t awaken, and the waves threatened the world as they always had.

We joined up with Glass and her friends and followed them back to their world to hunt down Kyo, the man responsible for all the destruction in the first place. The other three heroes were just as useless as ever, so we left them in back Melromarc.

So . . . how did we end up in a jail cell?

“Where are Raphtalia and the others?”

“I do not know. When I woke up, I was lying here with you in this room.”

I decided we’d better start by figuring out what was going on.

“Huh?

I decided to start by checking out the shield I was equipped with, because something clearly wasn’t right. I’d had the Spirit Tortoise Heart Shield equipped before I lost consciousness, but now I was equipped with something else—a feeble looking thing I’d never seen before. If it reminded me of anything, it was the Small Shield from a long time ago.

Beginner’s Small Shield

abilities locked; equip bonus: defense 3

What was this thing? When did I get stuck with this? I decided to change to my strongest shield, but an icon popped into my field of view when I tried.

Change conditions not met

Um . . . What the hell?

I called up my weapon book and quickly scanned the list of shields. There was a long list there, but it was nearly all greyed out.

“What the hell is going on here?!”

I couldn’t use any of my shields!

“Um . . . I . . .” Rishia hesitantly raised her hand. I had a really bad feeling about what she was going to say, so I didn’t even want to ask. Then again, avoiding the truth wasn’t going to make it go away. Besides, I had a pretty good idea what she was going to tell me.

“I’m afraid to ask, but what is it?”

“I just checked my status, and it says that I’m only level 1 . . .”

That’s what I was afraid of. Before we’d gone through the portal, Rishia had been at level 68. How could she be at level 1 all of a sudden?

Maybe the dragon hourglass had somehow returned her to level 1 while we were unconscious. I didn’t know what happened, but I knew what I had to do next. I didn’t want to do it, but I slowly, hesitantly, opened my own status menu.

Naofumi Iwatani

job class: other world Shield Hero Level 1

equipment: beginner’s Small Shield (legendary weapon) ○▼◆x type 2

“Nooooo!!!”

“Fehhhhh?!”

I screamed, and Rishia was so startled she screamed with me.

I was level 1, too? All that work—it had all been for nothing?!

Not good at all! This might have been the worst thing that has ever happened to me!

Shit!

I checked the party functions menu, only to discover that there weren’t any party functions available. Raphtalia and Filo’s names were nowhere to be seen. Rishia’s was the only name listed. Everyone else was gone.

Even the slave- and monster-controlling spells . . .

The slave spell, by the way, was a special spell that could be applied to someone, and then that person would have to follow orders or they would be punished instantly—and Raphtalia was my slave. Actually, at one point the slave spell was taken off of her, but she knew that I wouldn’t be able to trust anyone that wasn’t forced to obey me, so she volunteered to become my slave again so she could earn my trust.

I bought her from a slave trader shortly after I was framed and persecuted, back when I had completely lost the ability to trust anyone at all.

She was a young demi-human, which was a race of humans in the new world that had animal-like characteristics—she had ears and a puffy tail that looked like they were from a tanuki, or a raccoon. That made sense, because she’d said she was a “raccoon-type” demi-human.

She looked like she was about eighteen years old. She was actually younger than that, but demi-humans matured physically to match their current level, not age. She had long chestnut hair, a pretty face, and very fine, clear skin. Even Motoyasu, the Spear Hero, who was the most voracious consumer of female beauty I could think of, counted her high on his list of beauties.

I’d always been an otaku, so it’s natural for me to describe her as one of those beautiful young women you see in video games and anime. She was at least as beautiful as they were.

The first weapon I gave her was a sword, and she quickly grew proficient with it. I was useless when it came to offense, so she cut down enemies on my behalf. Personality-wise she was very serious, and she was always quick to correct me whenever I said something improper.

When the first wave of destruction washed over the world, it took her village and family with it, so she had a lot of heavy emotions connected to the waves. Her family was gone, and in the aftermath she was captured by slave traders and sold to the highest bidder. It was a dark time in her life.

In the end, I bought her from another slave trader, and we began to fight together. Now she’s my most trusted, dependable companion.

I normally never had to use it, but the slave spell was capable of telling me where she was at any time.

If I was ever going to use it, this was the time.

Out of slave spell observation range.

Well I guess that was that. What about Filo?

I received some funds from the crown after distinguishing myself in the first wave of destruction, and I used some of them to play a monster egg lottery-like game back at the slave trader’s shop. Filo hatched out of the egg I got. She was a young monster girl called a filolial—and she loved to pull carriages. Filolials were . . . Okay, it’s a little hard to explain. They are large bird monsters and looked like beefed-up ostriches. But Filo wasn’t just any old filolial. She was a higher-ranking monster—a queen? A mutant?

She was a filolial queen—a sort of boss filolial. She looked different from the others too. She was much fluffier and built like a mix between an owl and a penguin. Her coloring was mostly white, but streaks of pink ran over her feather tips.

Oh—she could transform into something resembling a human whenever she wanted.

When she was in human form, she looked like a little angel. She had long, wavy blonde hair and innocent blue eyes. She was as innocent and mischievous as she looked. She was a bubbly, bumbling ten-year-old girl with wings on her back.

Her hair was bright and smooth. Her skin was just as taut and clear as Raphtalia’s. And her face was pretty, too. She really looked exactly like a typical blonde-haired, blue-eyed, angelic little girl. She mostly wore a white one-piece dress with blue accents.

Her favorite weapons were her iron claws. When she was in human form she equipped them on her hands, and when she was a monster she wore them on her feet. She switched up her fighting style to suit whatever the situation called for. About her fighting abilities—well, she was even stronger than Raphtalia. She’d gotten us out of more tough spots than I could count.

I tried to use the monster spell to figure out where she was, but just like the slave spell, it didn’t work. For whatever reason, the spells wouldn’t even specify what direction they’d disappeared to.

Rishia was the only party member left.

Rishia used to be a member of the Bow Hero’s team, but Itsuki framed her for a petty crime as an excuse to kick her out of his party . . . You see, you couldn’t really depend on her for much.

She wore her hair in a French braid, and she came off as a bit of a sheltered, bookish girl. And truthfully, ever since she joined my party, she’d only proved herself useful outside of battle, with her knowledge and research. But that’s not how she saw herself—she kept saying that she wanted to be a stronger fighter.

After Itsuki saved her from a perilous situation, she fell head over heels for his commitment to justice and asked to join his party. It all fell apart pretty quickly after that. She went through the same thing that I did. Her teammates framed her for a crime and kicked her out of the party. In the end, it turned out that Itsuki himself had planned it.

My theory was that he didn’t like the fact that she had been more useful than he was in the battle with the waves.

She was very pretty, just as pretty as Raphtalia. Motoyasu, the Spear Hero, certainly spent a lot of time appraising the beauty of women—and Rishia was near the top of his list, too.

She, too, looked younger than she really was. I guess most people in my party don’t look their age. If you took a glance at Rishia, you’d probably think she was fourteen or so, but she insists that she’s actually seventeen. To sum it up, she looked really young, and I never really got the sense that I could depend on her for very much.

That reminds me. Lately she’d taken to dressing in a very strange way. She’d been wearing a kigurumi that looks just like Filo. She says she wears it because no one can tell if she’s crying or not when she’s in a kigurumi.

She had more surprises in store than just that, though. When we asked the queen for a battle specialist to help us improve our fighting skills, the old lady that showed up (who was a master of the Hengen Muso style) declared that Rishia had the sort of innate talent that only came around once every hundred years. And to be fair, she did pull off a good hit every once and a while. Actually, it was thanks to one of those lucky hits that we managed to make it out of the last battle alive. But most of the time she wasn’t so great.

But damn it! What were we doing in jail?! How were we supposed to get out?

It could only mean one thing: we’d been captured by Kyo. But how?

How could this have happened to us?! Damn it!

“Let us out!” I shouted, rattling the door of the cage. I had never been thrown in jail before. I wasn’t about to start crying about it, but I certainly didn’t want to be there. Since I’d come to the new world, I’d done plenty of things that could have gotten me thrown in jail. But I’d never actually ended up in one!

I was innocent! I’d been proven innocent!

Or . . . Maybe someone had just found me passed out and put me in a jail cell because they didn’t know what to do with me. I might be level 1, but I’d still find a way to fight back! A long time ago, an accessory dealer had taught me a lot about working with metals and jewels. Maybe I could fashion a key to get us out of there.

As I shook the door, I wracked my brain for a solution. I was thinking so hard about it that I barely noticed when the door just suddenly swung open.

“What the . . . ?”

“Feh?”

The door wasn’t locked. What was the point of jail cell if you didn’t lock the door? Whatever—it was better than being locked in.

“Um . . . okay. Well, let’s figure out where we are. Raphtalia, Glass, and the others might be somewhere nearby.”

“Alright.”

We quickly slipped out of the jail cell and looked around the stone-walled prison. The next room over was furnished pretty nicely. It looked like someone was living there. There was a thick bed, a sofa, and a bag that appeared to be full of food.

One of the jail cells had been renovated into a proper room. Raphtalia and the others were nowhere to be seen.

“Raphtalia! Filo! Where are you!? Answer me!” I shouted. There was no answer, so at the very least they couldn’t have been within earshot.

“Alright, I’ll lead the way. You follow me and keep an eye out. I’m depending on you.”

“Um, okay! I’ll do my besties!”

Oh jeez. Now I was even more worried than I had been.

“Hm . . .”

The prison must have been empty, because we didn’t run into anyone at all. The further we walked, the more confusing it got. Walking around an unfamiliar building made me feel like I was in a labyrinth.

Something wasn’t right. If we were in a labyrinth, I’d expect to run into monsters or something. Luckily enough, we hadn’t come across anything dangerous . . . yet.

We went along lazily following the path until we came to a dead end. There was a mysterious door set in the wall, and it was glowing with colorful, rainbow-like light. It was built under a strange arch, and the colors all swirled in strange patterns over its surface—like the surface of a bubble in the sun.

“What . . . What is this?”

“I don’t know.”

If I’d learned anything from my years of playing video games, it was that strange objects like this normally teleported the player to a new location. But I’d never seen anything like it since I came to this new world.

“Nothing’s going to happen if we stand here being scared of it. Let’s go through.”

“Feh . . .”

“What are you so scared of? Let’s go.”

Rishia stood there hesitating, so I grabbed her hand and pulled through the doorway with me. But what I saw on the other side left me speechless.

“What the . . . ?”

We were standing on a white sand beach. The sun blazed overhead in a clear blue sky, while waves rolled on in the distance. I turned back to where we came from and saw the doorway standing behind us in the sand.

“Feh! What’s going on here?!”

“How should I know?”

I didn’t know what was happening, but I knew that whatever this doorway was, it was capable of teleporting us through space.

“Get it together. We need to figure this out.”

I turned away from the ocean and looked the opposite way. There was a grassy field that was bordered by the beach and a close thicket. We didn’t have any other leads at the moment, so I decided to head for the field.

I hadn’t heard from Raphtalia or the others yet, so there was no time to waste standing around. We were running out of time. We had to find Kyo and make him pay for what he’d done.

“I know all this seems a little crazy, but we have to keep going. Would you rather wait here for help? Who knows if anyone will come?”

“Feh . . .”

I didn’t want to wait. I didn’t want to sit around hoping for something that might never happen. When I was framed and thrown out into the streets, there wasn’t anyone who could help me. Even if I found someone who believed me, they didn’t give me any way to prove my innocence. That’s when I learned not to depend on others. It’s true what they say—if you want something done, you had to do it yourself.

“I’m coming with you. I’m coming, so please don’t leave me behind.”

We headed for the field.

It wasn’t long before a creature I’d never seen before approached us, looking pretty angry the closer it got. I still didn’t know where we were, but the world seemed to function the same way the last one did—which is to say there was status magic that you could use in battle.

Maybe it was because I was down to level 1, but now that I couldn’t use any of my other shields, I was stuck with the one I had, and I wasn’t sure if it could actually protect us from anything.

Luckily all the status boosts and special functions I’d earned by unlocking all my previous shields were still in effect, which meant that I was more powerful than my lowly level 1 would imply. Furthermore, the power-up method that I learned from Itsuki, the one where you use the materials from defeated monsters to raise your stats, tied those boosts to all my shields at the same time. So all those boosts and abilities were still accessible.

Taken all together, I figured I could probably hold my own against a mid-level monster if I had to.

There was a monster in the bushes, something kind of white and angular. I looked at it closely, and its name appeared in my field of view.

White Box

I’d never seen the monster before.

It turned in my direction and came flying straight at me.

I immediately shoved my hand forward and snatched it out of the air

The monster was about the same size as my head. It was white and . . . square and . . . Wait . . . Was it a cardboard box?

It must not have appreciated being grabbed, because it opened its mouth—or whatever it was—and bit me.

It wasn’t strong enough to deal any damage. I’d never seen one of them before, but I had memories of something similar.

“This thing is like a balloon. Rishia, have you ever seen one of these things?”

“Feh? No, this is the first time I’ve seen one. I’ve never even seen one referenced in a book.”

Hm. If Rishia—by far the most bookish person I knew—had never heard of these things, then we must have been in a very strange place indeed. If you could depend on her for one thing, it was her knowledge.

“It’s just a weakling. Here, I’ll hold it. You stab it.”

“Okay!” she said, and then stabbed the white box with her sword.

The box let out a crushed sound, folded up flat, and X’s appeared where its eyes had been. It stopped moving.

What a weird little monster.

It acted just like the weak little monsters you’d find in a field of any online RPG. Oh well. I guess the balloons back in Melromarc were sort of the same thing.

Received 15 EXP

The monster was really weak, but it gave quite a bit more experience than the balloons had.

“It was pretty tough.”

“You’re just not very strong.”

Even if she leveled up, she didn’t have any abilities. I checked her stats, though, and they were actually pretty high, considering her low level. So maybe these boxes actually were a bit tougher than the balloons.

I absorbed the fallen white box into my shield.

Just as I suspected, the monster was like the balloons in another way. It unlocked some status-boosting shields when I absorbed it.

Beginner’s Small White Shield conditions met!

Beginner’s Small White Shield

abilities locked; equip bonus: defense 2

Well, that settled it. It unlocked a shield with the exact same stat boost that the first balloon I killed had. It was basically just a small boost on top of what my shield was already giving me. I’d seen it all before.

“Here’s the plan. I’ll hold the monsters down while you kill them.”

“Alright! Tee-hee!”

Oh jeez. More giggling.

Rishia was such a klutz. Now we were out leveling together, just the two of us. It reminded me of when Raphtalia and I had started leveling up. I wondered if I had been safer back then. Oh well, no point in dwelling on it. We kept on walking over the field. As we wandered around leveling and searching for our friends, I also found a lot of plants that looked like they were medicinal herbs. I figured they must have been, because they looked a lot like the plants we used to make medicine back in the last world.

And just like in the last world, the plants unlocked a shield like my Leaf Shield.

This time it was called a Tree Leaf Shield, which was weird because the leaf that unlocked it didn’t come from a tree—though the plant did seem to have the same status effects as the medicinal herbs I was used to.

As we came across a variety of monsters, I noticed another strange thing. Almost none of the monster’s names were written in katakana. Creatures resembling the rabbit-like usapils I’d come across in the last world were replaced with similar monsters, but this time they were indicated with the kanji for “rabbit.”

And like I’d noticed when we defeated the white box, the monsters seemed to give more experience points than I was accustomed to. In the few hours we spent wandering the field, I had already reached level 9, and Rishia had reached level 16!

I was careful to thoroughly break down any monsters we defeated for materials and drop items. We spent a few hours leveling up.

After I’d gained a few levels, a few of my shields became available again. I couldn’t help but notice that certain shields were still unavailable. I didn’t have any idea what the problem could be. What if I could never use the Soul Eater Shield, or the Chimera Viper Shield, again?

“Huff . . . Huff . . . I’m getting tired,” Rishia sighed as she followed close behind me. She was clearly out of breath.

“Let’s take a break.”

I was a bit surprised that there were so many monsters in such a place. Maybe it was because of the strange way we got here. Where were we?

I sat down to rest for a bit. I was starting to get really thirsty.

We didn’t bring a bottle or canteen or anything like that, so we were going to have to find some way to access fresh water. I habitually picked medicinal herbs when I walked, so my bag was starting to get full of them. Of course I hadn’t brought my pestle and mortar, or any of my other compounding or crafting materials, so I’d have to use my shield to make things. I put some materials into the shield and had it start compounding from a recipe I’d memorized. It seems the recipe was flexible enough to work with these new plants, so it appeared to be working.

Maybe if I were a chemist by trade I’d have been more excited about experimenting with a whole new array of plants—but I wasn’t, and it kind of annoyed me that I’d have to study all these new things.

“We’re doing pretty well for ourselves, don’t you think Naofumi?”

I was deep in thought for a little while, and Rishia wasn’t able to tolerate the silence any longer.

“Yeah, I guess you’re right. Good thing the monsters aren’t too strong around here.”

“I’ve gotten a little stronger, haven’t I?”

“ . . .”

Should I have told her that even though she’d gained fifteen levels her stats had hardly changed at all? Any change was so minimal it could have been attributed to a margin of error. I sat there worrying about how to best respond to her, when I noticed the sound of bubbling water nearby. There must have been a river.

I should have known! We were by the ocean, so of course there’d be a good chance of a river being nearby. I was thirsty, too, so I decided to go check it out. I pointed in the direction of the sound, and Rishia nodded, understanding exactly what I meant. She must have been thirsty, too.

We followed the sound and came across a riverbank.

There was a bridge made of fallen trees a little further down the bank from where we stood.

I had no idea where we were. I had no idea if the water was safe to drink. I took a long hard look at the water—it seemed clear and fine.

I scooped some up and drank it.

“Whew . . .” Rishia sighed. She relaxed after taking a deep drink.

We had come quite a long way from the shoreline.

Sitting there, drinking at the river, I was reminded of the day that we all camped out by the riverside in Melromarc.

At the very least, we were still capable of surviving here. We might have not been very strong yet, but we could survive. When I saw that I was at level 1, and that I couldn’t use any of my shields, I’d been really worried. But we still didn’t know where we were or what was going to happen next. It was no time to let our guard down. Whatever was going on, I knew one thing: I had to unlock more shields and get them powered up.

Maybe it was because of our low levels, or maybe there was something else going on, but I wasn’t sure when I should start thinking about powering up the shields. If I found a better shield right after I powered one up, it would be a waste. On the other hand, if I didn’t power up what I had, I might run into a monster that I’d be unable to overpower.

I was running the various options through my mind when I noticed a strange monster splashing through the river nearby.

“Is that a kappa?”

Sure enough, it was. The monster was green and frog-like, its back was covered with a tortoise shell, and it had a little water-filled saucer balanced on its head. It looked almost human, and it walked upright on two legs, just like how my childhood yokai picture books had depicted them.

“Gwah,” the kappa barked at me. It seemed angry.

Looking at the strange monster, I wondered what it would be called in the world I’d been summoned to. Was it a monster? A demi-human? A beast-man?

My shield was capable of translating the speech of people, so I wondered if it could translate what the kappa was saying. Unfortunately there was no time to find out. The kappa’s throat puffed up wide, and it was clearly about to attack us.

“Air Strike Shield!”

The kappa barked and sent a high-pressure stream of water shooting at us, so I quickly used Air Strike Shield to block it. The shield appeared in mid-air between the kappa and us, just in time to intercept the beam of water. But the attack was too powerful, and the shield shattered in an instant.

It must have been because my level was still so low. I hadn’t powered up my shield, either, and . . . this kappa monster was surprisingly powerful. If it thought we were enemies, then it didn’t really matter if it was a monster or a human.

It opened its mouth and started to charge up for another water beam attack, but we sprinted over to it before it got a chance to use it.

“Gwah!” it barked, swiping at me with its claws. I blocked with my shield, and it swiped at me with its other arm.

“Second Shield!”

Another shield appeared in the air and stopped the monster’s claws. That was my chance! I slipped behind him and grabbed his shoulders so he couldn’t move.

“Rishia!”

“Feh?!”

Jeez . . . Rishia! Did she have to be confused about everything?

“Hurry up!”

“O . . . Okay!”

“Gwah!” the kappa croaked, preparing to shoot a beam of water straight at Rishia. Like I’d let that happen!

I tightened my grip on its shoulders and forced the monster to the right, causing the water beam to miss. The kappa was kicking and writhing in my arms, but it couldn’t slip out of my grip.

“What are you waiting for?! Hurry up, Rishia!”

“Fehhh!” she shouted and stabbed at the kappa’s stomach, but the little thing was tougher than I’d expected, and it didn’t show any signs of going down yet.

“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 different 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.

Something odd must happen to equipment when it crosses the barrier between worlds. That would explain why Glass and her friends were dressed so strangely when we ran into them inside of the Spirit Tortoise.

“Take it off. There’s no point in wearing it if it isn’t helping.”

“O . . . Okay.”

Rishia obeyed my order and slipped out of the kigurumi. Finally, she was wearing normal clothes for once.

“So? Kizuna, how did you end up in this place?”

“I’ll tell you, but I’d rather you explained how you got here first. It wouldn’t be fair if I was the only one answering questions around here.”

She had a point. Besides, she was probably only answering my questions because she wanted to find out more about us.

“Where should I start?”

“Tell me how you got here. I’m curious what brought you to a place like this.”

She was one of the four holy heroes, so there was probably nothing to lose by cooperating with her...right? Then again, I didn’t really want to cooperate with the other three heroes I knew. They didn’t listen to anything I said. But my level was so low here that I didn’t see what choice I had. I needed her help. If she decided to turn on us, we wouldn’t stand a chance.

I decided to carefully watch to see how she reacted to my story.

“First things first . . .”

I started with how I was summoned to the world, how I was framed, and how I was exonerated, and I went on to tell her the main points about the other three heroes.

“Uh-huh. And then? What brings you to this place? To my world? I thought the four heroes weren’t allowed to cross between the worlds.”

“Ah, so you know about that?”

When Kyo escaped after our battle, I tried to follow him through the portal—only to discover that I couldn’t get through it. A warning appeared, saying that the four holy heroes were not permitted to cross over to other worlds.

Ost, just on the verge of death, intervened on our behalf, which is how we were able to get through the portal. Kizuna seemed to know all about the difficulties that crossing over entailed.

“There was this giant monster called the Spirit Tortoise that collected the souls of people killed in the waves and used them to make a barrier to protect the world from the waves. Anyway, someone took control of the monster and used it to go on a rampage.”

“Heh . . . A protective beast? We’ve got something like that over here, too. We’ve got the Black Turtle and the White Tiger, but I don’t know much about those legends. You say someone took control of this thing?”

“That’s right. He was crazy. His name was Kyo Ethnina. We chased him through the portal he made back to this world.”

“Hm . . . Maybe you played right into his hands. Maybe this was a trap.”

“ . . . I’m starting to think the same thing.”

Kizuna rocked in her chair and nodded. “I see. Sounds like a real disaster.”

“It was terrible. Still, Kyo was obviously violating all sorts of rules, so a few people, who were our enemies, ended up helping us out.”

“I don’t really understand it all yet, but you say they were your enemies?”

“Yeah. Glass and L’Arc Berg.”

I remembered everything about Glass and her friends and what had happened before we woke up in this place.

As things stood, we had put aside our differences to focus on fighting our common enemy, Kyo. Still, I wouldn’t call them allies.

I’ll start with Glass.

She was a beautiful woman with long black hair, and she wore a kimono, which made her look very Japanese. When we fought with her, she used folding fans for weapons, and her fighting style looked like dancing. Even after implementing all of the other heroes’ power-up methods, she was still so powerful that I wasn’t able to defeat her.

I don’t think she was human, because she seemed to turn a little transparent from time to time. I still didn’t know very much about her—she was a mystery.

L’Arc is next. His real name was L’Arc Berg. When I first met him, he seemed like a dependable, nice older-brother kind of character. He was laid back and easy to talk to.

After I was exonerated of my crimes, I met him on a boat we took to the Cal Mira Islands. There was a special event happening on the islands that would give us more experience points than usual for our battles with monsters.

I didn’t know we were enemies at the time. I just thought that he was a tough fighter and a nice guy. In fact, we even fought together for a little while. But then a wave occurred close to the islands. We were in the middle of fighting against it when he turned on us. According to him, he had to kill me for the sake of his world. Glass said the same thing.

He had spiked red hair, and he was very muscular. He clearly knew his way around the battlefield. He was handsome, too, but unlike Motoyasu (the other handsome guy around here), nothing about him was irritating or obnoxious. I actually liked him. If we weren’t enemies, I would have wanted him to join my party.

He fought with a giant scythe. Just like Glass, it was a special sort of weapon.

It was as powerful as you’d expect, but apparently he only had as much power as he had during our fight because we happened to be fighting at the same time as a wave. Still, he held his own just fine in the battle with Kyo, so it’s safe to say that he was a pretty powerful fighter.

At the very least, he was certainly stronger than the other three heroes in the previous world.

He had another person with him: a woman named Therese.

I hadn’t spoken with her very much, but she was clearly his partner.

She wore her glossy, blueish hair pulled back in a French braid. The color of her hair seemed to change a little depending on the angle you viewed it from. And when she used a magic spell, her hair turned red, which is something I’d never seen happen to a human—at least not humans in the world I was from.

She was calm, and warm, the sort of woman you’d go to for help. Both her and L’Arc seemed to be kind and dependable people.

She was a magic user in battle, and she normally used magic to cast support effects on L’Arc and Glass. The magic she used was strange, though. It seemed to depend on the accessories she wore in battle. When she cast spells, her accessories would flash and create a magic effect. I assumed it was a special form of magic from their world.

I can’t speak authoritatively on her personality, but from what I’d seen, she was very emotive and sensitive. I made her a bangle once, and she was very appreciative.

I think she was probably L’Arc’s . . . girlfriend. Maybe.

Anyway, those three were helping us chase down Kyo.

We had to find a way to punish him for what he’d done in Raphtalia’s world—for all the chaos he’d sown. That was why we followed him through the portal. We had to make him pay.

After we jumped into the portal, I found myself in some kind of fast, ferocious current, bathed in light. I thought that if we let the current carry us along, it would take us to Glass’s world.

That’s it—I remember now.

The direction the current carried us started to change, darkness swallowed the light, and suddenly we were being carried along by the current in dark space.

And that was when I heard it, the voice of the enemy. I heard Kyo speaking to us.

“Heh heh . . . You didn’t think there would be a trap? How stupid are you?!” He laughed, and lightning crackled in the space around us.

I held up my shield and prepared to blast through whatever trap he’d prepared for us.

But it didn’t work. A crashing sound filled my ears and pale lightning crackled in the darkness.

“Ahhhh!”

“Ugh, damn it!”

“Mr . . . Mr. Naofumi!”

“Ugh . . .”

The current that carried us along suddenly split, branching off in different directions and carrying us away from each other. It was like one of those tubular waterslides that split into different paths.

“Raphtalia!”

I reached out to her, desperate to keep us together, but it was too late. I couldn’t reach her, and she slipped away.

Damn it. I wondered . . . Could I save her with a skill?

“Air Strike . . .”

Before I could finish calling for the skill, Raphtalia and the others had already slipped far, far away.

“Mr. Naofuuuuumiiiiiiiii!”

“Raphtaliaaaa!”

I lost consciousness.

And according to Kizuna, I woke up in the middle of an inescapable labyrinth.

When I finished telling my story, Kizuna stopped rocking her chair and jumped to her feet.

“Glass! Where did you meet Glass?!”

“Do you know her?”

“She’s a close friend. She’s the person who gave me this haori.”

I’d wondered about her outfit, a haori paired with a western, gothic dress. It made sense if it had been a present. Still, she wore it naturally enough that I’d assumed it was some kind of fashion I didn’t know about.

So she knew Glass well enough to have received a present from her—what did it mean?

“If Glass has teamed up with you to take that guy down, he must really be a bad guy. No doubt about it,” Kizuna nodded, more energetic than she had been.

If she knew Glass, then that settled it: Kizuna must have been one of the four holy heroes from Glass’s world.

“And L’Arc nii-chan was with her, too? How’s he doing with Therese?”

“How should I know?” Seriously. I had barely even held a conversation with Therese. How should I know about their private lives?

“Is Glass here, too?”

“I don’t know. We fell into a trap of some kind while we were moving between worlds, and I ended up here.”

“Right . . . right. I probably would have known if she was here, anyway . . .” Kizuna muttered, nodding. I guess it’s my turn now.”

“Yeah. Start with how you ended up being summoned to another world in the first place.”

“You want me to start way back then? Well, I guess you told me your story . . .” she said, and began to speak.

Chapter One: The Hunting Hero

“I had the chance to participate in a special game with my two sisters...”

“A game?”

“At first I thought that I was in that game world, but no matter how long I waited, I never met my sisters. A bunch of stuff happened, and eventually I realized I was in another world altogether. I'll spare you the details.”

How was she supposed to enter a game world with her sisters?

Her story reminded me of the other three heroes, except that they had all mentioned something about dying. But hey, she was skipping over some important stuff—what was all this about “entering a game world?”

“Are you talking about VRMMOs? Did this game happen to be called Brave Star Online?”

“I’ve never heard of that.”

“One of the heroes in my world said that the world was just like that game.”

“Oh yeah? My game was galled Second Life Project. There was another one was called Dimension Wave, too.”

“Second Life Project?”

I’d heard of Dimension Wave before. It was the console game that Itsuki talked about. I couldn’t help but be intrigued by Second Life Project, though.

“It’s just how it sounds. It was one of those simulator games where you get to have a second life online. The game prepared these special pods that you go inside to enter the game world. They liked to say that a day on the outside is equivalent to a few years on the inside.”

It sounded a lot like what Ren talked about, but the technology seemed older. Ren had made it sound like VRMMOs were commonplace, the sort of thing that a normal family might have in their living room. At least, that’s how I’d pictured it.

“It’s a great system for working people that don’t have a lot of time to spend on games. It’s a quick way to feel refreshed. I think they call them VRHMMOs? It’s short for Virtual Reality Healing MMO.”

“Sounds like a real time-saver.”

Time is a seriously limited resource, and playing games takes a lot of time, even more so if you play online games. Back when I was in college, I knew someone that had to stop playing games altogether when they got a job. On the other hand, I knew someone that quit their job so they’d have more time to spend on their online games.

“Game 1 let in anyone that wanted to play, but you had to be admitted by lottery to enter Game 2. Of course my sister was admitted, so the three of us were able to join.”

“Hm...”

“Everyone starts the game together and ends it together. The game has a schedule that everyone has to commit to.”

That sounded like a bit much from what I was used to. It’s not that I couldn’t understand it; it just sounded like the plot of a futuristic movie or something. But if everyone started and ended at the same time, and if everyone was online at the same time, then that sounded like a very fair system.

And if it only took one day in the real world, that would save a lot of time.

“So I thought I was joining that game. After they summoned me, they started explaining a bunch of stuff. I just thought it was the tutorial.”

Oh man, now she really sounded just like the other three heroes in the previous world.

She thought she was playing a game but was actually summoned to another world. At least that was better than the other heroes, who knew they were being summoned.

And I had just read a book. How boring!

“Huh...”

“There weren’t any waves when I was summoned.”

“Then why did they summon you?”

“Because the ruler of the monsters, the Dragon Emperor, was causing havoc.”

“Sounds like a retro game to me.” It sounded like an old RPG to me.

“I know. That’s what I thought. It didn’t sound like the kind of game that was on the website. Even the instructions made it sound like something else.”

“So then what happened?”

“I went on a few adventures. I took a journey by boat. One day an ominous wind was blowing, and a ghost ship appeared. Glass and her friends helped me solve the mystery of the ship, and it disappeared. We ended up crashing, and I found myself alone in unfriendly lands. I was captured and thrown into this labyrinth. I already knew what sort of place it was, so you can imagine how angry I was to end up in here. I couldn’t stop thinking that I’d be here until I die.”

“Yeah...”

Just how unlucky was this girl? I felt like we’d been through similar things, so I was starting to sympathize with her.

“From then on, I’ve been struggling through every day, here in the labyrinth. I decided to stop counting the days—the years—a long time ago.”

So that’s why she didn’t know anything about the waves—or about the world.

Whatever the specifics were, we’d both been through similar hardships, and now we were both stuck in the same prison.

“How old are you, anyway?”

She looked like she was about middle-school age.

So if she was as old as she looked, then she must have been summoned to the world when she was still in elementary school. I guess I could picture that. I’d seen plenty of anime that involved young kids being teleported to other worlds. Maybe that was what had happened to Kizuna.

“Me? I’m eighteen.”

“Ha! You’re kind of an old loli-ba...” I stopped short of saying what I was thinking. Raphtalia would have been disappointed in me if I’d let that slip.

Speaking of Raphtalia, she looked like she was about the same age I was, but in truth she was only about ten years old. If I made fun of Kizuna for the opposite thing, it would hurt Raphtalia’s feelings.

“What’s the matter? Weren’t you going to call me a loli-baba?”

“It’s nothing. But hey, you know what that is?”

“I know I look young for my age, okay?! So I’m an otaku, so what?”

Heh, it was starting to make sense. All the summoned heroes shared certain otaku-leaning traits. But wait a second—what if people with legendary weapons stopped aging? In some ways that would be a great thing, but what would people think if you came back after being gone for thirty years and you hadn’t aged at all? I don’t think that would go over very well.

But there was no point thinking about it until I found a way home.

“Anyway, what’re you going to do now?”

“Do I have a choice? I can’t exactly stand around killing time here.”

“That’s what I thought. But you know, I’ve been looking for a way out of here for a long time.”

“You can tell me to give up, but I’m not going to.”

On the one hand, it would be nice to avoid the waves for the rest of my life, but on the other, I didn’t want to spend eternity wandering around the labyrinth.

“Feh... Naofumi, I haven’t understood anything that you two are talking about.”

“You’re supposed to be smart, but you can’t keep up with a simple conversation like this?”

“Hey, you’re making fun of me, aren’t you?!” Rishia cried.

I sighed. I was starting to miss Raphtalia.

Why did I have to get stuck with Rishia? Raphtalia was so much easier to talk to.

“Feh...” she whimpered, backing away from me.

God, she was annoying.

“I’m not telling you to give up. I haven’t given up, either.”

A grumbling sound roared from Rishia’s stomach. It had been a long time since we’d had a meal, and we’d done a lot of fighting since then. I asked her about it, and she started to giggle.

“Perhaps we should eat?”

“What do you have to eat around here? I’m guessing monster meat.”

“There’s fish, too. We’re right by the ocean, so you can fish all you want.” Kizuna went back toward the labyrinth for a minute and came back with food. It was mostly dried meat and fish and a few pieces of fruit.

“If you want sashimi or something, I could go catch a fish or two.”

“Do you have any medicinal herbs? I have some things, too, and if we combined our resources we could come up with some seasonings.”

“Yeah, I might have just the thing. Want to go get some?”

“Fine by me. But you should know that our equipment doesn’t seem to have any effect here, so we won’t be any help at all if we run into a strong monster on the way.”

Kizuna thought for a minute and then produced a drop item from her weapon. It looked like some kind of equipment. “I have some basic stuff I was going to use for crafting later on, but you can use it now.”

“Sounds good to me.”

She passed me a wooden piece of armor, some light clothing, a short sword, and a set of double swords.

“I don’t need any weapons.”

“Ah, I guess the heroes in your world are just like the ones here. We can’t use weapons aside from the ones we’ve been assigned.”

“That’s right. That’s a real problem for me, because I don’t have a way to deal damage directly to enemies. I’m stuck with a shield.”

Rishia took the weapons from Kizuna and equipped them. She was the only one who could level up, anyway, not that her levels were helping her stats much. Her stats changes so little that it made me wonder if leveling up was good for anything at all.

I guess she made up for it with—surprisingly—decent base stats.

“Can’t do direct damage, eh? So I guess you have to use counters and stuff?”

“Correct. Unlike you, I don’t have a wide range of weapons to pick from.”

What did a “Hunting Hero” actually use, anyway?

If it was anything like how it sounded, she must have had access to a wide variety of weapons.

“Yeah, I guess I can transform my weapons into all sorts of things. This is a tuna knife, for breaking down dead monsters. I can also use bows, and slings, and spears and stuff.”

“Quite a range.”

I’d figured she could use different tools, but I was surprised at just how many categories she had access to. I supposed I should have expected it, considering the vague title “Hunting Hero.”

“You think? Well, I guess it would be inconvenient to be like Glass, with the fan of the vassal weapons, limiting her to just fans. Is that how you feel, Naofumi? Limited?”

“Yeah, I’ve only ever been able to use shields.”

It wasn’t that none of my shields had good abilities—that’s not what I was saying. It’s just that I was always on defense, and there was no getting around that. The only shields I had that could do some damage were the Shield of Wrath and the Spirit Tortoise Heart Shield.

But the cursed Shield of Wrath was impure, and it cursed me whenever I used its skills.

The Spirit Tortoise Heart Shield was capable of a devastating attack called Energy Blast, but I couldn’t use that shield in this world. I couldn’t use any of my shields.

“I don’t have as many options as you. I’m the Shield Hero, and I just focus on protecting people.

“I’m not as all-powerful as you seem to think. My weapons have limitations.”

“Like what? I told you about my limitations, so you can tell me about yours.”

“Hm? Well the Hunting Hero is supposed to, well... hunt. That means I can’t really fight other people. I’m just like you. I can’t hurt people. I can’t fend for myself if people come attack me or capture me. All I can do is run away.”

So Kizuna couldn’t fight other people. She was limited to attacking monsters.

“If you don’t believe me, I’ll prove it,” she said, and immediately sliced at us with her tuna knife. I raised my shield to block it, but when she drew the blade back, it struck my cheek.

“Feh?!”

Rishia dodged the first attack, but the blade hit her the second time.

The cold steel felt awful on my face, but... it didn’t hurt. In fact, I could hardly feel it. I touched my skin, and there was no blood—not even a scratch.

Rishia was so surprised she looked like she was about to faint, but the attack hadn’t done any actual damage that I could see.

“See what I mean? I couldn’t hurt you if I wanted to, so you can relax.”

“You could have warned me.” I had done the same thing to the other heroes before. Once I’d even punched one of them with my bare fists, just to prove I couldn’t hurt them.

“On the other hand, I’m very effective when it comes to fighting monsters.”

So she was a hero that specialized in monster battles? It wasn’t quite the same deal I had, but it was similar in a way. The Shield Hero was probably supposed to have taken all of a normal hero’s attack power and dedicated it to defense instead. The counter-attack effects of the Shield of Wrath and the Spirit Tortoise Heart Shields were nothing but by-products.

But if I had a way to go on the offensive, maybe Kizuna had some special abilities that would let her hurt other humans.

I wasn’t about to take her word for it.

Still, she didn’t seem to think of us as enemies, so it was in our best interest to cooperate for the time being.

“Then let’s go look around, shall we? I’ve been cleaning this place out periodically, so there shouldn’t be anything too strong out there. Still, if you go too deep, we might run into something rough. Keep your wits about you.”

“Got it.”

Monsters were like wild animals, so hunting them wasn’t exactly the easiest thing in the world.

Kizuna led the way, and soon we were walking through a thick forest.

I didn’t see any monster footprints or anything, but it wasn’t long before Kizuna held out her hand and told us to stop.

“... Something is close.”

I held my breath to listen, and sure enough, I could hear something breathing in the bushes. Maybe it was because of my low level, but I felt like my intuitions were a little duller than usual.

“I don’t think it’s anything to worry about. Let’s hurry up and kill it.”

“Okay.”

Kizuna slunk over to the bushes, and a group of monsters leapt out when she approached.

They looked like very large green rats.

And that’s exactly what they were called: large green rats. It looked like there were four of them...at least!

“Hya!” Kizuna shouted. Her attack immediately killed two of them. The remaining two must have figured out that Rishia and I were the weaker opponents, because they came running over to bite us.

“Wait! Damn—Naofumi, don’t let them get away!”

“Alright! Don’t send any more of them in my direction!”

“I know!”

I blocked the first rat with my shield, but the second one got around me and bit into my arm.

“Ouch!”

I was surprised that a monster like that was able to hurt me. They looked like low-level, early-game monsters, and normally my defense would be too strong for them. The kappa looked pretty strong, so I could understand that. But now I was getting beat up by a rat? My pride could hardly take it.

I really needed to level up. I couldn’t help but yearn for my lost stats and power-ups.

“Feh!”

“Quit whining and do something!”

Kizuna was busy dealing with the hordes of rats attacking her. “Rishia, it’s up to you now!”

“O... Okay!”

Rishia dashed forward and plunged her sword into the rat I was holding down.

“Thrust Attack!” Kizuna shouted, thrusting her weapon at the rats. A shockwave with Kizuna at the center exploded outward, sending the crowd of rats flying. They died when they hit the ground with a soft chirp. They must have been cut by a blade of wind, because many of them were sliced clean in half.

“Flying Sparrow!”

Another blade of light shot through the air at the rat that was still attacking Rishia and me.

Judging by the appearance of the attack, it must have worked similar to Motoyasu’s Air Strike Javelin, which worked by hitting an enemy with a weapon formed from energy.

“Those things are a kind of tough.”

“Yeah, but they’re weaker than the kappa. Most of the adventurers in my world need to be at level 15 before they can kill one.”

We were struggling to defeat monsters that a level 15 adventurer could defeat. Rishia wasn’t the toughest girl around, so for her, at least I shouldn’t have been surprised.

“Let’s get back to our search.”

“The hero interference effect is making this more difficult than it should be.”

“Want to go on without me?”

“We don’t have the time to spend leveling up. We’re just out here to get food.”

“Yeah, right. So let’s get going.”

We restarted our search, and soon we found some banana-like fruits and some herb-like plants. Luckily my appraisal skills were still working, and Kizuna was able to confirm which plants were poisonous and which ones were useful. So we were able to collect a fair amount of medicinal herbs.

Like Kizuna said, the monsters we ran into along the way weren’t very powerful, and she was able to dispatch them without any trouble—as in, with only one hit. How strong was this girl, anyway?

Rishia was starting to get some useful experience.

We were only out hunting for two hours, but Rishia had already reached level 20. She was leveling really quickly.

Unfortunately, the hero interference phenomenon kept Kizuna and I from leveling up at all. As soon as Rishia and I were strong enough to survive on our own, it would be best to part ways with Kizuna.

“We should start cooking soon.”

“Good point.”

“You could wait for me, you know.”

“I don’t want to think about what would happen if you fed us something bad.”

“You’re not very trusting, are you?”

We went back to the beach house, built a fire, and grilled some mysterious meats and fish with the herbs. I thought about maybe making some barbecued skewers for later.

“Is there any drinking water? I was going to make a soup...”

“Yeah, there’s an underground spring over there. I normally drink from that.”

We were so close to the sea. I should have figured that any water in the immediate vicinity was going to be seawater.

Looking out at the ocean, I felt like I was back in the Cal Mira Islands.

Kizuna pulled out a water bottle and filled a large wok-like pan. Then she built a new fire beneath it. I added the bones and head of a fish and let them simmer.

Kizuna ended up with free time on her hands while I was cooking, so she decided to go fishing in the ocean. She said we could eat anything she caught as sashimi.

A few minutes passed, and...

“It’s done! Kizuna, it’s ready!” I shouted. The food was ready.

“It’s done already?”

“Yeah.”

“I have a big haul, too,” she said, smiling. She carried a line with a heavy fish dangling from it. She must have been pretty good.

“Let’s eat.”

“Yeah. Dig in!”

“Looks delicious!”

Rishia and Kizuna started to eat the food I’d made. Kizuna swallowed the first bite and nodded to herself. “Yum.”

“This is delicious. Naofumi, I didn’t realize you were such an accomplished chef.”

“I had to learn after being summoned to the last world.”

“I had to start cooking for myself after I ended up in this place, but I still can’t cook very well. I thought about grilling salted fish, but making salt from the seawater is too much work.”

“Don’t be so lazy. Fortunately, I found some rice, too, so I went ahead and made a paella. You want some?”

“I’m telling you, it’s really good! I never knew what to do with rice. All I could think of was making onigiri.”

I couldn’t imagine where she got rice for herself, but I found it among her things, so I made a paella. She didn’t have a great pan for it, so I had to make it in a clay pot.

“Is that better or what?”

“Feh!”

Kizuna was already done eating, but Rishia was still working on it, and tears streamed down her face. Had she really been that hungry?

“Alright. So what’s next?” Kizuna murmured as she watched the sun sink into the ocean. “You guys still up for some action?”

“I’m not against it, but if you’ve got a way out of here, you better tell us.”

“It’s not impossible...” she said, pulling something from her pocket. “Remember what I said? About how hard I tried to get out of here?”

“Yeah. You said you’d gone deep into the labyrinth.”

“I did. I really put my life on the line. I wasn’t sure I’d survive.”

“Where are we now as far as the labyrinth is concerned?”

“Pretty much at the very beginning. It isn’t such a bad place to live, I figure, out by the ocean like this.”

She sat cross-legged and watched the sun set.

She looked... sad. An air of loneliness hung about her.

“So anyway, when I was really deep in the maze, I found this flying thing there,” she said, passing me a flat disc that looked like a CD.

What was it for? How did you use it?

I was low on magic power, so I tentatively touched the disc, but nothing changed.

“You want to see where I got it?”

“If we can survive the trip.”

“I’ll go ahead to check the route,” she said, climbing to her feet and tossing the disc aside.

But before the disc hit the ground, it paused in the air, hovered, and started spinning and glowing. Kizuna ducked into the light and disappeared... Then she stuck her head back out.

“Looks fine to me. You want to come?”

“How amazing!”

“You’re full of surprises, aren’t you? You know...”

That thing looked like it might come in handy.

I did what she said and followed her into the disc of light.

On the other side, I found myself standing in sand... which was strange, because I was also in a large, solemn stone-walled room.

“Over here,” Kizuna said, pointing.

I looked to where she indicated and saw a stairway that led up out of the room and toward another archway of light. But there was a field surrounding the archway, and it looked just like the barrier I could make with Shooting Star Shield.

“I think we can go to the next space if we can find a way around this thing. Come take a closer look.” She climbed the stairs up to the magic barrier and motioned for me to follow her.

“What is it?”

“If we can find a way through here, I think we can get out of the labyrinth.”

“Why do you think that?”

It sounded like a major discovery to me. Had she been this close to getting out but just not had the manpower to break through? Had she been wandering around this whole time? Was that it?

I turned and saw something across the sandy floor. Two paths led out symmetrically from the center, and they each had a button-like object at the end. Maybe we just had to push them at the same time.

“That’s not the real problem. It’s here,” she said as she pointed at the archway again.

“What?”

“We can’t get in now because of the barrier, but if you get closer, you’ll see. It reacts to our weapons and won’t let us through, because it leads to a different world.”

Say what?

Kizuna watched my mouth drop open as I stood there, nodding.

“I get a warning that says the weapons are not allowed through. I don’t know what’s on the other side. I couldn’t disable the barrier by myself...”

I inched closer to the barrier and a warning flashed before my eyes.

Error.

The four holy heroes are not allowed to cross between the worlds.

This action has been rejected.

Whatever was on the other side of the archway, it must not have been my world.

“I figure that, no matter where it leads, it’s got to be better than just hanging around here, right? But if we go in there, we’d be summoned when the waves came, right? So maybe we could use the wave-summoning effect to be sent back to our previous worlds. You know?”

“Maybe. But I can’t get through.”

Just permit the action already!

What if Rishia opened it? Then maybe Kizuna could get through?

But...

“What if it’s just more of the labyrinth on the other side?”

“I know... That’s why I don’t know what to do.”

“What to do...”

It was worrisome, for sure.

“Let’s head back for now.”

“Okay.”

Rishia had been studying some writing on the walls, but now she came trotting over and joined the conversation. “If we solve the puzzle, can we get out of here?”

“Not exactly. It goes to another world.”

“Oh...”

“Let’s head back for now.”

“Okay.”

Kizuna used that teleportation item of hers and brought us all back to the beach.

The sun had set completely while we were gone, and the beach was drenched in the colors of night.

“The stronger monsters come out at night, so we should get back to the starting point. It’s safe there.” Kizuna led us back to the prison cells, and we decided to rest up.

“Umm...”

Kizuna, Rishia, and I all started to think about what to do next. I crossed my arms and tried to review what I knew.

There was a path through the archway that led to another world, and judging from the way my weapon reacted, it didn’t lead back to mine.

Rishia turned to Kizuna. “I’ve been thinking. Who built this place?”

I’d been wondering the same thing.

“Hmm... Well, I only know what I heard from Glass, but they say it’s a relic from a long time ago, when an ancient wizard made it with special spatial distortion magic.”

“Hmm... I wonder why he made it?”

“At first it was supposed to be a fortified castle, but there was a problem with the spatial magic, and it transformed into this inescapable maze... or something. There are a lot of old skeletons and books around that tell the story.”

“And no one has ever escaped?”

“Right. But I have heard of monsters coming out of the entrance of the labyrinth.”

“Hold up—that means the monsters were able to get out!”

“I don’t understand it. But from what I’ve seen, giant dragons and unusual magical monsters were thought to have come from the labyrinth.”

Huh?

There was a hint in there somewhere.

Were we really supposed to believe that giant monsters solved the labyrinth’s riddles and were able to escape?

“Could exits occasionally appear in random places maybe?”

“I guess they could. But how would you ever find them?”

Good question. You can’t wait around expecting an accident. That was just idiocy.

But why would only large monsters find their way out? There had to be a reason.

“So have you ever seen any of these monsters?”

“I’ve seen something like them.”

So how were they getting out?

Just a second—she said the labyrinth was formed when the wizard’s magic went wild and stitched together a bunch of different spaces, right?

“Could those monsters...”

“You have an idea?”

“Just a hunch. What if a really large monster wandered into a small squeezed space?”

“Uh-huh.”

“If the monster had too much mass for the space itself to contain, then... maybe they get popped out?”

I’d played a game like that once, a long time ago.

In the game, you collected furniture and used it to furnish a house. But if you put too much heavy furniture on the second floor, the game would warn you and then the furniture would break through the floor.

This place was complicated; there were so many spaces stacked and connected that the exit had disappeared.

So what would happen if a monster living in a small space grew too large for that space to contain it? Would it stretch the limits of the space and eventually get ejected out of the labyrinth?

“It’s not a bad idea, but what are you going to do? Raise a giant monster from the egg?”

It was going to take some creative thinking.

It would be easier if I could control a monster, like I could with Filo. But I didn’t know if it was even possible to add monsters to your party here.

Kizuna’s question was an answer itself.

If we found an egg, it would still take a long time to raise the monster. And I wasn’t able to invite an already grown monster into my party, either.

“It won’t work.”

“Just trying it would be a ton of work.”

We could keep the idea as a last resort option.

Damn it... I was all out of ideas.

And I didn’t want to waste any more time in this damn labyrinth!

Ost sacrificed herself to make this path for us. I had to find Kyo and make him pay for what he’d done!

Maybe it was more realistic to take the path that Kizuna had found. We didn’t have any other options, anyway, so I started to fold up the Barbarian Armor, and the Filo kigurumi, so they’d be easier to carry.

Then I saw something. There was something in the pocket of the Barbarian Armor.

I’d forgotten all about it. Actually, I’d put it there just in case I ever needed it.

And now I’d found it.

Then I looked through the drop items I had stored inside my shield.

“Hey, Kizuna.”

“What?”

I smiled.

“I think I have an idea.”

Chapter Two: Escape

“And this is the smallest space around, right?”

Kizuna led us to a small room in the labyrinthine structure.

We ran into a few monsters on the way, but we followed Kizuna at a distance, so she was able to take care of the monsters before they could pose a threat to Rishia and me.

The room she led us to was small. Its few seats and small altar gave it a church-like atmosphere. Inside, a large suit of armor paced back and forth like it was on patrol, clattering and crashing the whole time.

“As far as I know, this is the smallest room in the labyrinth. I can’t think of a smaller one.”

“Hm.”

The stained glass was broken, and I could see darkness outside. I wasn’t sure if I was looking at the night sky or not.

“Can you see outside through that?”

“I think I saw some dark clouds and a forested area. The spaces aren’t connected naturally, so you can’t actually reach that place. Judging from the look of the walls and floor, I think we are underground.”

Every time I had an idea, a new obstacle popped up to stop me.

“Hey, I did what you told me, but do you really think it will work?”

Since I was such a low level, I didn’t have enough magic power to do it myself. I had to ask Kizuna, who was a much higher level than I was, to do it instead.

I wasn’t sure it would work, but when she added it to her weapon, the same skill unlocked, which struck me as a good sign.

“It’s really interesting. Does it work like a shikigami?”

“Don’t get too excited. I don’t have very much left,” I said, making sure she understood before turning it over a few times in my hands and finally giving it to her.

“I don’t know if it will work, but there’s no harm in trying.”

I ducked through the archway that connected the spaces and aimed for the back of the room. Then I tossed the bioplant seed. Luckily it landed on the ground, between two split stones near the altar, and I saw it take root in the dirt there.

The suit of armor noticed us and started clattering in our direction, but we slipped out of the archway before it could catch us. According to Kizuna, the monsters couldn’t follow us through the archways.

“Did you do it?”

“Yeah. It took root and started growing really quickly.”

Standing on the other side of the archway from the church, I noticed a snapping, crackling sound. It looked like the plant had shot straight through the suit of armor.

It got worse—the plant grew inside of the suit and started to control it.

“Uh-oh. What are those seeds doing?”

“Making monsters.”

The suit started to prowl around the room, but the plant must not have had complete control over it yet, because the movement was tilted and strange.

I was watching the suit of armor when I started to hear a loud rumbling. Looking up, I saw that the archway itself was shaking, and sparks were flying out of it.

“You want to go through that? Doesn’t it look dangerous?”

“I know how you feel, but have you ever seen an archway do this?”

“No,” Kizuna said, smiling. She must have been thrilled at the chance to escape her boring life inside the labyrinth.

“Feh...”

“Rishia, stop freaking out and use your head.”

“Oh... Okay...”

Ugh... Without Raphtalia around, I had to depend on Rishia to get experience points. It was almost too much to bear. I couldn’t get experience by fighting with Kizuna, because she was one of the four holy heroes.

“He who dares wins! Let’s go!”

“I’ll go first. You two follow me.”

“Got it.”

“Here I go!” Kizuna shouted as she ran to the arch and swung the lure of her fishing rod at the rampaging suit of armor. A second later, she ran her tuna knife through the monster with ease. It clattered loudly to the floor.

It was amazing... or it looked amazing. I didn’t actually know how strong the monster was.

We ran through the sparking archway and found the church bursting at the seams with the rapidly growing bioplant. The whole space itself began shaking. The bioplant started to swirl and spin like a vortex, like it was being sucked into another place. Then the whole space started shaking violently, like an earthquake.

The black clouds started to suck in the walls of the room, and everything except for the area around the bioplant began to vanish.

“That hole! Let’s go through it!” Kizuna shouted while she sliced through the bioplant vines that whipped and snapped at us.

“Okay!”

“Wah!”

“Be careful!” I grabbed Rishia by the hand and pulled her after me as I ran for the hole, jumping and bounding over writhing bioplant vines along the way. A large one whipped in front of me, but I jumped onto it, used it as a springboard, and jumped through the hole.

It reminded me of what happened when I used Portal Shield. The scenery around us changed in an instant. There was a split second when I could see the church crumbling far off in the distance.

Then my field of view was filled with blue sky... and I realized I was falling.

Far below I saw a building that looked like a Shinto shrine set on manicured grounds. I couldn’t tell how far down it was, but I knew it was far enough that the impact would kill me.

“Air Strike Shield!”

I had very little SP, but there was just enough to use Air Strike Shield to make a landing pad. The shield wasn’t very large, but it was big enough to stop my fall.

“Feh!”

Rishia was hanging off the side of the shield by her fingertips.

Not to be the bearer of bad news, but the shield wasn’t going to last very long, anyway—and I didn’t have enough SP to use the skill again.

“This shield is about to disappear...”

“Naofumi.”

Kizuna held her hand out from her little space on the floating shield.

“You have an idea?”

She nodded, so I grabbed Rishia and took Kizuna’s hands.

Then Kizuna swung her fishing rod over her head and cast the lure far down to the shrine, where it hooked onto the roof. There was a high-pitched whir as the reel activated, and the whole shield lurched down toward the building.

“The shield is going to disappear. There’s no time.”

“We’re going to make it.”

The shield vanished, and I felt my stomach turn as we began falling again. The ground rushed up at us, but then I felt a strong jerk.

We’d stopped in the air, hanging by a thread, a mere two meters off of the ground.

“Looks like we made it.”

“Guess so.”

We jumped down and took in our new surroundings.

I looked at the building that looked like a Shinto shrine. We seemed to be on its manicured property. Then I saw the bioplant that had fallen with us. It was still growing quickly.

What should we do about that?

I passed some of the weed killer I’d made earlier to Kizuna.

“That thing is dangerous. If we don’t kill it now, it’ll destroy this whole place.”

“Looks that way. You said you increased its mutation and growth abilities? We better get rid of it now.”

Kizuna kept her distance from the approaching bioplant while she jumped in circles around it, scattering weed killer over its writhing body the whole time.

When I made the seeds, I gave them very weak immune systems, so the bioplant died quickly. I’d have to be careful. Anything left alive that still touched the dirt could easily spawn another main body.

The bioplant shriveled up and died, shooting a bunch of fresh seeds at us when it did.

I picked them all up, just to be safe.

“So? Think we made it out?”

Kizuna jumped when I spoke. She must have been zoning out. Then, when she realized where she was, a huge grin spread over her face and she started to jump up and down.

“Yes! We’re out! We’re finally out! This is it! This is a different world for sure!”

“Oh yeah?”

“Thank you! Thank you! Oh! I can’t believe it! I don’t have to be alone anymore!”

I couldn’t blame her for being excited, especially considering how many years she’d been locked in that labyrinth.

I had to start figuring out what to do next. My level hadn’t changed—it was just as low as it had been. I checked the hourglass icon in my menu. Once again, it displayed the time left until the next wave, and it was counting down.

There was no doubt about it. We were out of the labyrinth.

“So where are we?”

It looked like a shrine enclosed with a low wall. The entrance to the shrine itself seemed to be locked, and we weren’t able to see inside.

As for the wall, it looked like it was made of wood, but for a wooden wall it looked very tough and imposing. The gate was closed tightly. Even though the wall looked pretty tall, I figured I could probably think of a way over it.

Kizuna must have been thinking the same thing. She swung her fishing rod and caught the lure on the top edge of the wall. “You can go first,” she said.

“Are there guards or anything?”

“It’s the entrance to an inescapable labyrinth. Why would anyone want to get near it?”

“There could be monsters that escaped?”

“That hardly ever happens. I’m pretty sure it’s safe. Actually, it’s probably more dangerous to keep standing here.”

She had a point.

“Rishia, stick with us, okay?”

“Alright, what should we do with our belongings?”

That’s right. Between Kizuna’s things and our equipment, we had quite a bit of stuff with us. It would be hard to climb a wall with all of it on our backs.

“I’ll bring it all. Hurry up and climb,” Kizuna said.

“Are you sure?”

“It’s fine.”

She insisted, so I climbed up the wall first. When I got to the top, I looked back down.

It was a very tall wall. It must have been four meters off of the ground. Still, it wasn’t so tall that you couldn’t get down if you hung and dropped.

“You’re next, Kizuna.”

“Okay, I’m coming up—move over and make space.”

I did as she said, and she flipped the reel on her fishing rod. The reel whirred as it effortlessly carried her up to the top.

I was starting to like that fishing rod of hers. Then again, I had the Rope Shield, and I was pretty sure that I could do something similar with it.

“Alright! Let’s get out of here!”

“Yeah, before anyone comes to check on the place.”

“We... We’re running away?”

“Of course we are! This place is a labyrinth... a prison!”

As far as anyone that was associated with the labyrinth was concerned, we were their prisoners—and we’d basically just pulled off a shocking prison break.

We jumped down from the wall and cautiously left the grounds.

Chapter Three: The Unknown World

We ran through the forest, keeping an eye out for any trouble the whole time, and then we came across a road. We started to let our guard down a little bit, figuring that we were far enough away from the shrine.

“So? What’s next?”

“What do you mean?”

“We only teamed up because of the circumstances, right? So what do you want to do now? Split up?”

“Why would we do that?” Kizuna asked, apparently confused by the suggestion.

“Feh... Naofumi? We should stay with Kizuna. It’s dangerous out here.”

It was probably the best way to avoid trouble. But we had only known her for a little while, and she herself said that she was friends with Glass. So I had to be sure.

“Well, if I don’t make sure you’re on our side, you might lead us straight to the altar.”

“You really aren’t very trusting, are you? Besides, if you’re working with Glass then I’d have no reason to challenge you. Besides, I’m not on very good terms with this country, so I’d rather not travel alone. I’d really prefer if we stuck together for now.”

“Hm...”

I didn’t really understand the particulars of her situation, but she said she didn’t want to be alone.

“Crossing the border may prove difficult.”

“Can’t you use a teleportation skill?”

Hey, there’s an idea. I decided to check out my Portal Shield skill.

I called up the list of saved locations, but it was empty.

I guess you had to start over when you went to a new world. The skill itself was still available, so maybe...

I looked in the help menu but couldn’t find any useful information.

I guess the only way back to my world was to wait for the next wave to come.

“There are limits on what I can do. To go anywhere with it, we’re going to have to get there first. Our skills might work differently.”

“I guess so. Mine is called Return Transcript. But you need a tool to make it work, and I can’t use it in this country.”

“Mine is called Portal Shield. I can save three places that I’ve already been to, and then I can teleport to them whenever I want.”

“How convenient.”

“But right now, it looks like all the places I saved are gone. It must have something to do with the distance to the destination.”

“I get it. Sounds like a great skill—but you still can’t use it,” Kizuna said as she brushed dust off of her haori. “We have a couple of options. One of them is that we could head for the border. That way we can get to a country that is safer than this one.”

A border crossing... I hadn’t ever managed to do that successfully. When Melromarc had declared me a wanted criminal, they had deployed a bunch of troops, not to mention the other three heroes, to the border to keep me from getting across it.

“But we’d have to get through a few checkpoints. We might be able to buy our way through, but then we won’t have enough money for the journey.”

“You mean we can bribe our way out?”

“If you buy travel passes, then yes. I’ve only heard of it through the grapevine, but I hear it’s like Edo-period Japan. It’s easy to cross into the capital, but they make it hard to leave.”

Judging from the way that Kizuna and Glass dressed, I was starting to think that this world had a definite Japanese aesthetic. But then again, L’Arc and Therese didn’t dress the same way, so I couldn’t say for sure.

But these travel passes—they sounded like tolls.

The merchant voucher that I had back in Melromarc was similar, but not the same.

“That’s why it’s so difficult to get out of the country.”

“Sounds like a pretty controlled society.”

“It’s not as bad as it sounds. They mostly just restrict their citizen’s movement out of the country. It’s easy to head into it, though—to the capital. It’s probably even easier now.”

“Why’s that?”

“They don’t realize that I’ve escaped from the labyrinth, which means they aren’t watching out for me. I can probably get close to the dragon hourglass.”

“And what happens if you can do that?”

“Are they different in your world? If I get to the hourglass, I can teleport back to a safe place.”

I’d played MMORPGs that utilized similar systems. Portal skills existed to teleport players around, but generally speaking, only the strongest players had access to them. They were normally used to escape dangerous situations or to return to town after completing a quest. That must have been what Kizuna was talking about, because the skill only returned her to a country or town.

There were devices in towns that you could use to teleport to other similar devices in other towns. They weren’t the same as having a teleport skill of your own, but they were useful in their own way. A lot of games didn’t even have teleport skills, and all the long-distance travel was done through systems like these.

To make matters simple, I’ll refer to them as town portals from now on.

“The other idea is to wait for a wave to occur. I can see the hourglass on my status screen counting down again, so we could use that to hitchhike out of here.”

“Hm...”

So we had a number of options.

The first was to try to get out of this country—which was the country that threw Kizuna into the prison. But to do so, we’d have to get through a number of checkpoints, which would cost money. And there was no guarantee that we’d be safe once we got to the other side.

Another option was to try to approach the dragon hourglass in this country. That wouldn’t cost us any money, but there was significant risk involved in getting close enough to teleport.

The final option was to wait for the wave to arrive and summon us away. I wasn’t very fond of that option.

“How long does it say we have until the wave arrives?”

“Um... About two weeks.”

“That’s a long time.”

There was a limit on how long we could stay in this world. We were in a hurry, and I didn’t want to waste time waiting around. Besides, we had to find Raphtalia and the others. Where were they?

I tried to use my slave and monster control skills one more time, but once again they didn’t work. Lately, it felt like nothing was working. Raphtalia and Filo must have been in this world, but I couldn’t seem to find them...

“First things first, we should work on getting your levels up.”

“Good idea. We’ll need equipment too—and money.”

We would need money to get the equipment.

Kizuna had lent us some clothes, but to be honest they weren’t that great. She must have chosen things that we were able to wear at our low level.

“We need to start investigating, so we should probably head to a nearby town first.”

“Alright. And it sounds like we should stick together for now.”

“Glad to have you two around, Naofumi and Rishia.”

“Yeah, yeah. Rishia, without Raphtalia around, you’re going to have to handle my offense. Oh, and if we have to fight any people, you’ll be the only one that can hurt them. Don’t let me down.”

“Yes... sir! I’ll do my best!”

I sighed. She was so annoying. Kizuna was clearly trying not to laugh.

Why did she have to act so weak? All that power she showed off in the battle with Kyo was going to waste.

We made it out of the forest and found ourselves in a relatively large town.

The town looked... How to describe it... It looked like Kyoto from the Heian period. At first I’d thought it was like the Edo period, but some things about it didn’t quite fit in with that time period.

That’s how the town looked, anyway—the people were another thing altogether. They didn’t look like anyone I’d met in any world up until now. They had long ears, pretty white skin, and blonde hair. They sort of didn’t fit in with their surroundings.

They looked like elves.

“In this world, they’re called the grass people. They’re like the demi-humans in the world you came from.”

“They look like elves to me.”

You know, they actually looked really good in the Heian-period clothes. I was surprised.

But I could tell why. They just looked like long-eared foreigners flopping around in baggy robes. They didn’t wear their hair up in a topknot or anything like that.

Elves were a hunter-like race, but I always pictured them as wearing wizard-like clothing. I guess everyone had a different way of looking at things.

I found myself thinking that these Japanese-style clothes would look good on Raphtalia.

Aside from the elves, I also saw some semi-transparent people, like Glass, walking through the streets.

“Who are those people? They remind me of Glass.”

“You mean you don’t know? Those are the spirit people. People from other countries just call them spirits.”

“Spirits?”

“You might think they are actually souls, but that’s not quite right. But I can see why you’d think so. Their weapons are called things like Soul Splitter, after all. It’s easier to explain if you look at your status menu.”

I opened my status menu and looked at it.

My HP had been replaced by something else and was labeled “life force.” And my SP was relabeled “soul power.”

I was confused. What was going on?

“Spirits have life force and magic power... and if they wield a vassal weapon, then they also have soul power. But all those different powers are combined into energy for the spirit people.”

“What? So when they use magic, they also lose their life force?”

“It seems that way. All their other stats exist as energy, too. They don’t have levels. Energy is everything for them.”

“They don’t have levels?”

“That’s right. But they can be very powerful when their energy levels are high. They have an exceptionally high defense, much higher than a human could have. They can survive attacks that humans never could—they’re famous for it.”

That explained why Glass was so monstrously powerful.

“The problem is that there’s no way for them to recover their energy, unless another spirit person gives them some.”

“So there aren’t any items or spells they can use to recover?”

“That’s right. Unlike humans and grass people, they can’t rely on magic to recover in battle.”

“I never knew that!” Rishia exclaimed, nodding her head.

She had fought with Glass, after all. Of course she would find it interesting.

I know I did.

I’d hit her with the full strength of Iron Maiden, and it hadn’t hurt her. I’d burned her with the Shield of Wrath to no avail.

Huh?

“So if they could find some way to restore the energy they’ve lost, they could be really powerful, right?”

“Yeah, if something like that existed.”

I remembered watching L’Arc dump a bottle of soul-healing water over Glass. It seemed like she had instantly powered up. Did that mean that there wasn’t any soul-healing water in his world?

Hm... I’d have to investigate further. But before that, I needed to start gaining some levels.

“Okay, I got it. So can we hang out around here for a while?”

“It seems safe to me.”

“We walked with Kizuna through the town until we came to a fairly large building. It was bustling with activity. The building looked like an adventurer’s guild.

There were a lot of bulletin boards on the walls that were covered with job postings and wanted posters, promising cash rewards.

Kizuna scanned the postings and came jogging back over to us.

“It doesn’t look like they’ve realized we’ve escaped.”

“Good. But I’ve been wondering...” I said, indicating the back of the room where a crystal of some sort sat enshrined in a machine. It actually looked like a shaved-ice maker.

People filed past the machine and set pendant-like accessories on it, and then they tapped some buttons. It was almost like they were using a computer.

After a short amount of time a little puff of smoke would come out of the machine, and it would produce an item.

“That thing? We don’t need to worry about it.”

“Why not?”

“It’s a machine that simulates the drop item functionality that the heroes’ weapons, and the vassal weapons, already have. Crystal people like Therese use them the most. They’re a race of people that receive powers from special stones they call jewels. They built the machine, actually.”

Well, well. I was learning a lot today.

I remembered when we were out leveling with L’Arc in the Cal Mira islands. They had talked about drop items as if they were a typical, pedestrian thing, even though I’d thought they were only possible with the legendary weapons.

So it was looking like drop items weren’t a rare thing at all in this world.

“Well they aren’t as good as the legendary weapons, as far as probability is concerned, but you can choose certain drops and it will make them for you once enough has been saved up. With luck they can even get magic out of things, right on the spot.”

“Is that so...”

The people of this new world seemed to have access to more skill subtleties than what I was used to. So they could absorb defeated monsters into those pendants and then use that machine to produce whatever drops the monsters had.

Before we went back to the world we came from, it might be a good idea to get our hands on one of those pendants. Maybe we could even learn how to make them. We’d be rich.

“That’s amazing. To think of all the items you can get just from defeating monsters...”

“Itsuki could do it.”

I wondered why most people in the previous world couldn’t use drops. If there was some way to replicate the effect of the pendant, it was worth a try.

Chapter Four: Selling Drop Items

“Hey, are there pawn shops in this world?”

“Sure, there are shops. But... what is a pawn shop?”

I showed Kizuna the white box corpse that I’d stashed away in my bag. She cocked her head and looked confused. “Sure, you can use that thing as a box, but it won’t sell for much. The drop item you get from it is worth more.”

I was starting to understand. If replicated drop items were as common as they seemed to be, then shops would rather buy real drop items. I’m sure there were also times when raw materials were worth more than their drop items.

We did our best to absorb all the information we could at the guild.

“Looks like there’s a lot going on—apparently there was a prison break in the next country over.”

“There’s someone just like us out there.”

“Seems so—but at least they aren’t looking for us. Oh, look. There’s a sketch of the wanted people.”

“That is seriously a rough sketch. I can’t make heads or tails of it.”

It looked like the sort of sketch that police officers made from listening to a witness’s description. The face might as well have been a yokai or something out of a kabuki play.

“I’ve heard things about their prisons. They are supposed to be very rough. They have a way of negating your level gains and everything. I wonder how these people escaped?”

“You don’t think it could be Glass or Raphtalia, do you?”

If it was, then we were about to walk into some serious trouble.

“Oh, I don’t think so. What are the chances? I’m sure they’re just fine.”

“Right. Of course it wouldn’t be that easy to find them. It wouldn’t be like how you showed up just in time to save us from those kappa.”

“Hehe.”

“Haha.”

Kizuna and I laughed dryly.

“Feh...”

Uh-oh. We were laughing but Rishia started whimpering as usual.

“Anyway, Glass is pretty famous in this world, isn’t she? If she broke out of prison, I’m sure we’d hear about it.”

“Yes, well. . . It’s hard to know how much you can trust this type of information. They lie about the enemy state all the time. Saying things like people are on steroids when in reality their soldiers were literally giants...”

“Sounds like we shouldn’t pay much attention to it then.”

If it were true, that meant we’d have to find a way into the neighboring country.

We didn’t have time to go chasing after every unsubstantiated possibility.

“There are rumors that the neighboring country is developing new weapons. I hear things about savage monster experiments. It’s creepy.”

“You don’t think people are just having fun spreading rumors, do you?”

“Could be. Not everyone has entertaining lives like you and I do, Naofumi.”

“The world might be like a game, but people can get used to anything, can’t they?”

“Sure. But I hear they are researching teleport technologies, trying to duplicate the teleport abilities of the legendary and vassal weapons. They’ve already made a Return Transcript replica, but that’s not all...”

“They’re trying to make it so that everyone can use teleportation skills? That’s unthinkable where I come from.”

I had never heard of anyone trying to do anything like that in the world I’d been summoned to. Maybe I just didn’t know about it.

We chatted for a while, and soon enough the sun began to sink low in the sky.

“Naofumi, what do I need to do to learn to read the writing here?” Rishia muttered, flipping through a book she’d taken off of the shelf.

That’s right. Rishia not only couldn’t talk to people of this world but also couldn’t read anything that they wrote.

“I can’t read it, either. I can only handle conversation because my shield translates for me.”

Kizuna agreed. “Same for me. The only reason I understand what Rishia says is because my weapons translate it.”

“Oh... I didn’t realize... I thought that you understood our language.”

“Kizuna, can you read and write the language here?”

“Just the simple stuff. Glass was very insistent on it.”

“Wow... I’m impressed.” I reached for the book that Rishia was flipping through. It was very old, but I thought I had seen some of the characters before. Sometimes, it even looked like there were kanji mixed in. Maybe I could read it if I had enough time to practice.

The language in Melromarc was very different from what I was used to, like English and Japanese, so translating between them was difficult.

I didn’t have the energy to invest in study, though. My shoulders started to ache.

“It’s getting late. What should we do?”

“There are some inns where we could rest. We should be okay since our escape hasn’t been reported. No one has recognized me yet. I don’t think anyone would, except for maybe some high-ranking officials.”

“And you don’t think they will report our escape soon?”

“I did hear some rumors about something popping out of the labyrinth, but everyone is saying that whatever it was disappeared immediately. We should stay cautious, but I think we’re okay for now.”

I wasn’t sure I felt safe, but I’d still rather stay in an inn than out in the fields.

“Do you have money?”

“I sold some drop items I didn’t need, so I’ve got enough to cover the three of us.”

“Should I sell some stuff, too?”

“Like the box?”

“No, like drop items from the world I came from.” I figured that they should be worth a lot, considering how rare they were in this world.

But then again, it might attract unwanted attention if I started showing off tools and items that no one had ever seen. They might not even be able to read the item names—like what had happened with my armor.

“That’s not a bad idea. Normal things from your world might fetch a good price here.”

“It would depend on the dealer. We don’t want to attract too much attention.”

Dealers decided what things were worth by considering their effects or their rarity. That worked fine if they knew what they were dealing with, but how would they react when they saw something brand new?

The best test would be to see if Kizuna recognized the items first.

“Well, I think we’re all tired today. Let’s save the money talk for tomorrow.”

“There’s a larger town a little further down the road. Maybe we should head there first.”

“I’m tiiiired...” Rishia sighed.

I knew how she felt. Adventuring in unknown lands really sapped your energy. Our levels were low, too, so we had to stay on guard all the time.

If we were going to make money and get better equipment, we should probably wait until after I’d powered up my shield and gained a few levels. I’d need a fair amount of money to make it work, anyway.

At least we’d gained a few levels since we woke up in the cell. Rishia and I were going to have to level up together. But I was still worried about her poor stats...

According to Kizuna, we were in enemy territory, which meant we would have a hard time recruiting additional party members. Still, I’d seen plenty of people that looked like adventurers out in the streets, so it wasn’t necessarily impossible.

Kizuna led us to a nearby inn, and when we got to our room I started to think about what drop items I had that might sell for a good price. It was a difficult task, especially because I didn’t know anything about the local culture, and I didn’t want to cause trouble.

There was so much I didn’t know, but Kizuna seemed to know what was going on, so I’d have to defer to her judgment.

“I’ll show you a bunch of items that I have, and you pick the ones you think we can get a good price for.”

“Okay.”

I pulled out a few items that I’d stored in my shield, and Kizuna started to look them over. I didn’t know how she was evaluating their worth, but it looked like a lot of the item names were still legible in this world. I was grateful for that.

“You’ve got so much stuff...”

“I guess so.”

“What’s in this bottle?”

“Magic water. It replenishes your magic power when you drink it. Don’t you have that kind of thing here?”

“Not that I’ve seen. Normally people use earth crystals to replenish their magic power,” Kizuna explained. She pulled a red crystal out of her weapon and showed it to me. “Holding this crystal replenishes lost magic power.”

“Really? What a weird crystal.”

“You think? The idea of drinking something to recover magic power would sound pretty weird to anyone from this world.”

I decided to try it. I reached out and took the crystal from her. When I touched it, it snapped, cracked open, and disappeared in a puff of steam.

Dragon vein unlocked! Received 3000 EXP!

The words flashed in my field of vision as if I’d just won a battle.

That was a lot of experience points! Certainly nothing to scoff at!

“I just got a bunch of EXP from this thing...”

“What?” Kizuna gasped. Then she took the bottle of magic water from me and drank it. “Wow... This replenished my magic power, and then it gave me all the experience points I needed to power up my weapon.”

“You power up your weapon with experience points?”

“Yeah. Aside from their levels, my weapons all accrue experience points as I use them. Then they get stronger through a leveling system. My wooden fishing rod is basically like a mid-level weapon.”

“I see.”

So Kizuna had her own way of powering up weapons. I wonder if we could utilize each other’s systems, like I’d been able to do with the other heroes. I was thinking it over when my shield beeped to alert me that the healing medicine it had been compounding was complete. I took the medicine out of my shield and set it among the other items we were considering for sale.

“What’s this?”

“It’s a restorative item. Healing medicine. You rub it on your wounds to make them heal.”

“I wonder if it’s like our curing medicine?” Kizuna said, pulling out a similar-looking item.

“We drink this to heal our wounds. But that’s right—I saw you rubbing medicine on your cuts after the fight with the kappa.”

“There sure are a lot of differences. This really is a whole different world.”

“The scary part is what happens when the items have different effects.”

She had another good point. We had both experienced different effects when we used items from each other’s worlds. The idea of getting weapon experience from drinking magic water sounded crazy to me. I’m sure she felt the same way about the crystal and I.

That reminded me of something important. I pulled out a bottle of soul-healing water and passed it to Kizuna.

“What’s this?”

“It’s called soul-healing water. It restores your SP.”

“SP... You mean soul power? I’ve never heard of an item like that. From what I’ve heard, you can only recover lost soul power through weapon effects, or absorbing it, or by recovering over time.”

Well... It looked like this world didn’t have any way to rapidly restore lost SP in an emergency. I’d have to pay close attention to that. If I used a skill like Iron Maiden, which took all my SP, then I’d have no way to use other skills until I recovered my SP.

“When I fought with Glass and her friends, L’Arc dumped a bottle of this over Glass, and she became really powerful.”

Kizuna looked like she couldn’t believe what she was hearing.

And I could understand why. The implications were tremendous.

Glass’s people, the spirits, depended on energy for everything, even their levels. If they had a lot of energy, then everything about them, their strengths and abilities, would grow very powerful.

But according to Kizuna, it was difficult to recover energy once you used it, and most of the time people were forced to wait for it to recover on its own. What would it mean if these the spirits suddenly discovered an item that would allow them to regain any lost energy instantaneously?

“You mean this stuff can recover a spirit’s energy?!”

“That’s what it looks like.”

“Then this item is priceless! Any spirit out there would do whatever it takes to get their hands on it.”

“So you think we should sell it?”

“No one will know what it is, so there’s no telling what will happen. Are you okay with that?”

“Sure. Who do you think I am? I guess we decided what we’re selling tomorrow.”

I had gotten quite a bit of business experience under my belt when I was a traveling merchant back in Melromarc, so I had a few ideas when it came to making money.

“Then there’s the magic water, power-up stuff. And I’d like to get my hands on a lot of those earth crystals.”

“You think our power-up methods can be used at the same time? Should we try and share what we know?”

“Yeah.”

The more I knew about how to power up my weapons, the stronger I would be. Anything that could help with that was worth a shot.

“Well I already told you about the weapon experience points, right? What else? There are slips of paper you can stick to your weapons to add different functions... I know of a bunch of different ways. I’ll start with...”

I tried a few of the power-up methods that Kizuna told me about, but my shield didn’t show any sign of reacting. Kizuna was having the same luck with her weapons. But she also said that Glass had told her about a power-up method and that she’d been able to make it work.

“Glass says that you can take the magic power from defeated enemies, or any power that has leaked out of enemies and is hanging in the air, and absorb it. Then you can use it to power up your weapons. I was able to do that. So I want you to know that I do believe what you’re telling me.”

“Yeah, I feel the same way.”

It’s not that I didn’t believe her.

I couldn’t have used the methods I’d learned from the other three heroes if I hadn’t believed in them first. So I don’t think it was a problem with my belief in the ideas.

“I know that it won’t work if you don’t believe in it. So I’m trying. If it doesn’t work, maybe it has something to do with coming from a different world.”

“That could be it. The systems might just be so different that they aren’t compatible.”

“Too bad. If it had worked, we could have gotten really strong.”

“Yeah.”

Kizuna and I nodded in agreement.

The truth was that the power-up methods I’d learned were the reason I’d survived as many battles as I had. It was too soon to jump to final conclusions, but there was no point in sitting around fretting over it.

The next steps were obvious. The easiest way to get experience was to get my hands on earth crystals—and I would need money for that.

Chapter Five: Sales Demonstration

The next morning we crossed a bridge and followed the road to a large and vibrant shopping area. We set up shop in a corner and started calling out to customers. We even set out a straw mat to make ourselves look more like an official business.

Just to be safe, we bought some masks from a nearby store and wore them to hide our faces. There was always the chance that someone might recognize Kizuna, and we didn’t want that.

I clapped my hands and shouted as loudly as I could, “Come on over! You’ll never believe what we’re offering today! Any adventuring spirit would be crazy to pass this up! We’ve brought this unbelievable medicine from a distant land far across the ocean! Soul-healing water!”

Pedestrians started to take notice, and soon we had a small crowd of skeptical but interested people gathered around. Rishia and Kizuna hung back a bit behind me and chimed in whenever I stopped yelling to keep the momentum up. I had to tell Rishia to stop talking so much, because no one could understand what she said and it just made the customers more suspicious.

“What does it do?”

Kizuna kept the rhythm up and didn’t miss a beat. “Wouldn’t you like to know? There’s so much I’d like to tell you, but I don’t think you’ll be able to experience its full effect. But you! Over there! Yes, you!” She yelled, pointing at a group of three spirit people that had worked their way into the crowd.

I followed her lead and called out to them, “You are the only ones who will understand how invaluable this medicine truly is! Won’t you take a look? Won’t you try it?”

“Oh, um...”

The three spirit people came closer.

“Don’t worry. It’s not poison, and you don’t have to drink it! Applying just a small amount to your skin will make its effect clear! Please, try it!”

I poured a small amount into another dish and Kizuna passed me a brush, which I used to paint the soul-healing water on the spirits’ chests. At first they all looked skeptical, but soon their eyes lit up and they started to smile.

“It can’t be!”

“Is this for real?! I’ve never heard of such a thing!”

“This is the invention of the century!”

The other spectators looked at each other in confusion, not understanding what all the fuss was about. Meanwhile, the three spirit people were so excited about their experience that they were shouting at the top of their lungs.

“This stuff restores your energy! I can’t believe it!”

The crowd grew louder.

“That’s right! This medicine is made just for spirits! It restores energy—it’s amazing!”

“Feh... You sound different than normal, Naofumi.”

“You mean he acts different when he’s trying to sell stuff?” Kizuna whispered.

I wished they would shut up. I had to act that way if I wanted to attract customers.

If we had tried to sell the soul-healing water at a pawn shop or an apothecary, the staff would have been suspicious of us, and we would have attracted unwanted attention. Besides, they might have asked us how to make it.

And even if they had bought it, they would have just sold it to someone else, which would be inefficient. It was better to cut out the middleman and sell it ourselves.

“Today we have five bottles of this exceptional soul-healing water for sale. Have you all had the chance to sample it?”

“That’s right. Today we’re selling one bottle for one tamagin!”

The first spirit person flipped open his wallet and pulled out a small little bar of silver. Did they say tamagin? Did this world really use Edo-period currency? Did they use kohan, too?

“Then give us more!”

The three spirit people looked serious all of a sudden, glared competitively at each other, and started to fight over our stock of soul-healing water.

“Please don’t fight.”

“We’re limiting our sales to one bottle per customer! Please calm down!”

Of course they would want it—as far as they were concerned it was an amazing medicine that could get them out of any situation, no matter how rough.

Each of the three spirits purchased a bottle and left.

“We still have two bottles left. What do you say?” I asked the crowd.

The other customers still seemed to harbor some doubts. They must have thought it was a trick.

“I realize this is all quite sudden, so how about we use the remaining two bottles and allow all of the spirit people present to sample our medicine’s incredible effects for themselves? Please line up!”

Once again, I poured the contents of the bottles into a dish and used a brush to paint the medicine onto the spirits who had lined up for a sample. I kept going through the gathered crowd until I had used up all of the remaining soul-healing water.

The line in front of our little stand had grown very long by this point, and the spirits that had sampled the medicine had all grown very excited.

Quite a few of them stopped me to ask how I made it.

I made it with my shield—jeez. It was possible to make it from scratch, but it was a real pain. But of course, I couldn’t tell them that, so I just told them it was a professional secret of mine.

I was starting to get concerned about how much attention we were attracting, but then again, if I didn’t sell the stuff then I wouldn’t be able to get the materials I needed to power up my shield.

And I still had to buy an expensive travel voucher.

When I ran out of sample soul-healing water, I clapped my hands to get everyone’s attention and announced, “Now that you’ve had a chance to sample our wares, what do you think? Surely you see that this is not a joke or a trick? Surely you have seen that we are selling genuine articles?”

Most of the spirits in the line nodded in response, and it was clear that the mood of suspicion had lifted. We’d earned their trust.

The timing was just right, so I continued, “However, this medicine is very difficult to produce, and therefore our stock is somewhat... limited. I do not think we have enough for all of you gathered here today. Therefore, I suggest that we meet here tomorrow, at this very same time and place, to auction off our remaining stock.”

The crowd clapped. It was just the reaction I’d been hoping for. I suspected that some of the people that would come would be middlemen themselves, hoping to make a killing.

“Excellent! The auction will be for five bottles of soul-healing water, the same amount we brought with us today. I hope to see you all in attendance,” I said, ending our business for the day. We left as soon as we could.

“Are you sure this is a good idea? Everyone will be watching us, and we might not even make very much money off it!”

“What’s this about tamagin? I almost burst out laughing.”

“Naofumi, do you know something about this place?” Rishia asked.

She was the only one in our group that didn’t know anything about Japan.

“That’s what they use for currency here, so you’ll just have to get used to it. By the way, they use doumon, tamagin, and kinhan: 100 doumon is a tamagin, and 100 tamagin is a kinhan.”

The currency worked the same way in the world I’d just come from. But these names were just too much. It took all the discipline I had to keep from laughing. It’s like they were straight out of Edo-period Japan, only not quite.

“You’re talking about the auction? No, it’s perfect. The word will spread and all the nobility in town will come out to the auction.”

“You planned that out?”

“People love gossip. The size of the line is proof enough that we aren’t lying. Just wait. You’ll see.”

Heh heh... I hadn’t done much business lately, so I’d forgotten how much fun it could be. I really didn’t mind making money through the mercantile life. In fact, I liked it a lot.

“Makes me think you must have some good con men as friends back where you come from.”

“Feh...”

“Rishia, it’s about time you stopped freaking out about every little thing we run into here. We need money to survive, get it? Kizuna didn’t have that problem because she started out with money.”

“Well that’s true, but... but... I like business, too, you know. Just not as much as you do, Naofumi.”

It was looking like we were going to spend all of our time until the next day chatting, so I decided to focus on fighting to level up while we had the time.

Rishia would need to level up first, so I stayed behind and she went with Kizuna to hunt some monsters in the fields around the town. When they came back, Kizuna looked concerned.

“It seems like there are a lot more monsters out there than usual. What could it be?”

“Is there an activation event going on?”

“What’s that?”

“It’s a limited-time phenomenon that occurs in the world we came from. The monsters give more experience when you kill them during it. Know what I mean?”

“Oh yeah, I’ve heard of something like that. I wonder if that’s what’s happening. The monsters seemed stronger than usual, too.”

After that, I went out with Rishia to hunt the cardboard boxes. They were a little stronger than the one we’d fought in the labyrinth, and we got more experience for killing them, too. Hm... Well, there was no doubt that they were stronger than the balloons back in Melromarc. I had no idea why the monsters would be stronger in this world than they were in the world I’d been summoned to. But if everything was stronger here on average, that might explain why Glass and her friends were so powerful... right?

The next morning, we went back to the main street and set up our shop.

And of course we were careful to wear our masks.

By the time we were finished setting up, there was already a crowd of people waiting for the auction to start, and a lot of them weren’t spirits. That’s what I was hoping for. Anyone would want it. I was selling a medicine that replenished energy in a world where there were hardly any ways to do so.

There were researchers and middlemen merchants, adventurers that wanted it for use in battle... all sorts of people. Also, at the back of the crowd, there were some excited people that looked like they might have been government officials. They were probably in the service of the local nobility.

Kizuna swore that we didn’t need any official permits to do business there. If we needed something like that, I would have sold my wares in secret, behind the market.

Of course there was still the possibility that the noblemen might use their authority to stop the auction, but they wouldn’t do that. They wouldn’t want an angry crowd on their hands, would they? If anything, it looked like they were planning on joining the auction themselves.

“What a fantastic turnout! Thank you all for coming, despite your busy schedules!”

I handed the bottles of soul-healing water to Kizuna and Rishia for them to line up on the table.

“Now then, the efficacy of this medicine has already been proven, so rather than review the facts that are already known by all, I would rather just start the auction!”

The crowd erupted in cheers. It was so easy—like dangling a carrot in front of a donkey.

I felt like I’d found a tree that grew money. People were easy to control when they really wanted something.

I’d learned that in an online game. In MMOs, you can go hunting and find rare items. Some games would allow you to automatically sell the items, but others would let you hold an auction to sell the items to people that weren’t able to go on the hunts themselves. I’d made it a hobby of mine. I did it all the time.

So I felt really comfortable in the auction environment. It was easy to sell things to people when they were ravenous with desire. I could tell I was going to make a lot of money.

“Now then, let’s start the bidding with the price I’ve already received for one of these bottles—one tamagin!”

“One tamagin, 50 doumon!”

“Two tamagin!”

“Three tamagin, 30 doumon!”

It didn’t take long for the competition to heat up. Things were progressing just how I wanted them to. I just had to manipulate them to keep bidding.

Normally, it would be hard to get people to bid so aggressively over a single-use item, so I had to make sure I didn’t push it too far. I had to watch out for the officials in the back, too.

Honestly, I just wanted to get a bunch of money and hightail it out of there.

“30 tamagin!”

The competition was growing fierce. The crowd had gotten louder.

Back in Melromarc, that would be the equivalent of spending 30 silver pieces on one bottle of medicine. “I hear 30 tamagin! 30 tamagin!” I clapped my hands.

The bids grew less dramatic after that. People mostly just raised their bids by a few doumon here and there.

Finally the auction ended, and the bottle sold for 30 tamagin and 83 doumon.

“Will that be all?”

The crowd fell silent.

“Very well then. Sold for 30 tamagin and 83 doumon!”

I took the money from the winner and gave him a bottle of soul-healing water. The man looked like a normal merchant. None of the noblemen participated.

I flipped through my wallet to take stock of the sales. Did I have enough to purchase a travel voucher yet? I looked over at Kizuna for advice. She shook her head.

So I didn’t have enough. I might have even needed a lot more.

Well that wasn’t going to work, was it?

Fine then! I’ll just have to get crafty!

We shouldn’t stay in the town for too long. With all the people around, things were bound to get chaotic.

I signaled Kizuna with my eyebrow, and she immediately understood. Rishia stood beside her, holding the bottles of soul-healing water, and Kizuna stuck her foot out and tripped her.

“Ah!”

She dropped a bottle of soul-healing water and it shattered. But unbeknownst to the public, I’d secretly switched out the contents for plain water.

“Oh no! What a waste!”

“Feh... I’m so sorry!”

“You’re destroying our products!”

Before we left the inn that morning, we’d already agreed on the plan.

Rishia had been affected by Itsuki’s warped sense of justice, so of course she was a little worried about the ethics involved, but it was how I wanted to do things, and she eventually agreed—not that she had a choice. I pretended to shout at Rishia, who continued to apologize, before I turned my attention back to the crowd.

“Apologies! Due to my clumsy employee here, we only have one bottle remaining! She’s an illiterate fool! Hear me? I’ll make sure you pay for all that!”

“Fehhh!”

The crowd started booing Rishia, and pretty soon they started throwing things at her. That was probably enough of that. If I let it go on for much longer, poor Rishia would probably lose her mind.

“I’m terribly sorry, but we are down to the last bottle. Everyone, please find it in your hearts to forgive her.”

I took a deep breath, paused, and then announced as loudly as I could, “Now then, let us begin the auction for the final bottle of soul-healing water!”

“Three tamagin, 20 doumon!”

“Eight tamagin!”

“15 tamagin!”

“30 tamagin!”

Got ‘em. Everyone had been holding back because they knew there would be later opportunities. But once they were faced with an unexpected setback, they lost sight of their limitations and really threw themselves into the bidding war. They couldn’t help themselves. From where they were standing, they thought they only had this once chance to get their hands on a rare, unbelievable medicine.

They thought they’d never have another chance.

As long as you can get your customers thinking of things in those terms, you can get the prices to rise.

And rise they did.

“Three kinhan!”

“Three kinhan, 50 tamagin!”

Some of the town’s noblemen had worked their way into the crowd and had started a bidding war with the merchants—it was the perfect situation to make the prices soar.

The rest of the crowd had fallen silent. They waited breathlessly to see how high the auction would go.

“Four kinhan!”

“Ugh...”

“Will that be all?” I asked, watching to see if anyone would continue the battle. “Sold! For four kinhan! Everyone, thank you! A round of applause for the winner, please.” I clapped my hands to signal the end of the auction.

The winning nobleman came walking over and handed me the money.

So the first had sold for 30 tamagin, and the last had sold for four kinhan. Not bad at all.

The man was clearly wealthy, so I’m sure four kinhan wasn’t too much for him to shell out. Still, the look in his eyes was curious. He could have been after the production method. He could even be an assassin.

I didn’t care. I’d made a lot of money off of a single bottle, so I was pleased.

Back in the world I came from, the stuff helped people concentrate, and even then it was still pretty expensive. Of course it had a different effect on heroes.

Now I just had to keep an eye out and make sure no one tried to attack us.

“Thank you all very much for coming!”

The crowd cheered, and we hurried away.

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Siti Dara

Hi. I’m Designer of Blog Magic. I’m CEO/Founder of ThemeXpose. I’m Creative Art Director, Web Designer, UI/UX Designer, Interaction Designer, Industrial Designer, Web Developer, Business Enthusiast, StartUp Enthusiast, Speaker, Writer and Photographer. Inspired to make things looks better.

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