We were escorted by a group of about a dozen guards or so to the outskirts of the town.

Around this area I spotted these small, round balloons with an angry looking face and glowing eyes. Each of them was a different color, though the orange ones seemed to be more common.

"Hah!" The sound of my breath was accompanied by a loud popping noise from these balloon type monsters we encountered on the outskirts of the city.

I finally managed to destroy one of these balloons with just my shield, though it did take quite a while compared to the others. The defeat of the balloon monster was accompanied by a glowing +0 EXP in the corner of my field of view

"That sure took a while. Eh, Naofumi?" Said Motoyasu, making fun of how long it took to kill the balloons. What was I supposed to do? I only had a shield after all.

Ren and Itsuki decided not to say anything and changed the subject.

"So it's true after all." Ren said, although he didn't seem as bothered by it as the others.

"Seems like it. We're going to need to find enough people for all of our parties." Agreed Itsuki, sighing in disappointment.

"Yeah, unfortunately." Replied Motoyasu, although his small grin made it seem like he didn't care that much about it.

That +0 EXP was what popped up whenever we defeated a moster near each other, each one of us tried killing a balloon and was met with this message.

"It seems we're going to have to go in different directions after all." I added after proving what the prophecy said.

"We should head back then, it's getting dark already." Ren called out to us.

"Yeah." Itsuki replied in agreement.

"Let's head back for now." Motoyasu said while going ahead of us.

And so, we were on our way back to the castle.

After coming back the king told us he would find us some companions and said we should go to our rooms and get some rest, but we decided to share what we knew about this world with each other beforehand.

First of all, what I had discovered from the time I had spent looking through the menus, is that we all had stats, they were things such as health, defense, attack, magical defense, agility, etc. But on top of that there was also a sort of map of forms that each of our weapons could transform into, though obviously all of them were locked currently. I assumed that these different forms had different stats, and were part of the reason we needed to go on a journey to get stronger.

On top of this, it seemed like we all started off with one beginner skill, basic things we could do with our weapons depending on the type of weapon we had. In my case I got a skill called "Barrier", which as the name implies, creates a barrier around me that blocks incoming attacks.

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The other heroes also each got a skill for their corresponding weapons. As far as I knew; Ren's sword got the skill "Sharpness", which makes his sword do more damage; Motoyasu's spear has "Javelin", which allows him to materialize and throw a javelin from his spear; and Itsuki's bow has "Haste", which makes him able to shoot arrows faster and makes the arrows travel quicker.

After we finished talking about that, we decided to find out whether or not we were all from the same world; and as it turns out, we all came from different worlds. Ren came from a world in which VRMMO's were commonplace, explaining the reason why he was the first to notice the menu icon. Both Itsuki and Motoyasu came from worlds closer to mine than Ren, but they still had a lot of differences, things like who was president of x country, what games were most popular, etc.

And it also seemed like they all had played a game that was very similar to this world, thus explaining their previous attitudes towards everyone that wasn't me. They probably thought this was a game world and everyone else was just an NPC.

"So we're all from different worlds huh?" I concluded.

They all agreed.

"Though it might not have been a random summoning." Ren added.

Motoyasu and Itsuki both seemed to agree with his suggestion.

"It just seems odd that we all seemed to have played a game that is basically the same as this world, don't you think?" Itsuki voiced his suspicions.

Motoyasu seemed to be onboard with this theory as well.

"So, what? Do you think we were hand-picked by those guys in robes that summoned us?" I asked, already recognizing the main problem with these suspicions.

They all nodded, confirming their agreement with what each other was saying.

I decided to tell them. "But there's one key problem with that theory; I've never played any sort of game like this. Hell, I barely even played games at all back in Japan!"

After saying this they all looked like they wanted to tell me something, something bad to be specific, they looked like parents trying to tell their kid Santa wasn't real.

Motoyasu spoke up first. "Look, I'm gonna make this as clear as I can, just try not to take it too personally." He put his hand on my shoulder and looked me straight in the eye.

"You see, the shield is by far the weakest of the four weapons. It's basically useless in the late game!"

When he said this it took a while to process it, it was quite a thing to say to someone that possessed said weapon.

"Nooooo!" I yelled out of disappointment.

This had to be some sort of mistake, right? After all, why would they summon the shield in the first place if they knew it wasn't anywhere near as powerful as the others? But then again, I didn't even have any prior knowledge of this world, so maybe this was the truth!?

I looked to Ren and Itsuki, only to find them avoiding eye contact with me.

"Well, don't worry about it too much." Said Ren, confirming Motoyasu's statement and trying his best to comfort me.

"Yeah, I wouldn't worry about it if I was you." Added Itsuki, trying to sympathize with my situation.

"Just leave it all to us! You just do what you can to help." Said Motoyasu, trying to soften the blow of the statement he made earlier.

"But why is the shield so much worse than the others!?" I asked desperate for an answer.

Ren decided to answer my question. "Well, the game I played clearly had some favoritism towards DPS characters, so they end up doing a lot of damage once they're fully leveled and upgraded. Meaning that there's no need for a tank if you can just focus on doing damage faster than the enemy."

Seriously!? What kind of developer forgets to balance all the classes around each other!?

I looked to the others, and saw they were agreeing with what Ren said.

"Damn it!" I get put in such a cool fantasy setting, only to end up with the worst weapon!? It really pissed me off!

I decided to go over to the balcony and try and forget about it. I looked up at the sky, it looked so much more beautiful than back at home, I just couldn't help but be mesmerized.

Alright, I've decided! Even if I have the weakest weapon, I'll make the most of this opportunity! After all, you don't get summoned to a fantasy world every day!

After deciding this, I went back in and we all decided to get some sleep and get started on our adventures tomorrow.