We exited the town and headed over to the plains on the outskirts.
There was nothing but green, it definitely looked extremely beautiful from here, the grassy plains seemed to extend for a long distance, so much so that they were all you could see from here. There were only a few trees scattered about, most of them in a forest farther away.
Once we got farther away from the town we started running into those angry balloons me and the other heroes fought yesterday.
Enemy: Angry Orange Balloon LV. 1
"Sir Shield Hero, could you demonstrate your offensive abilities to begin with? I'd like to know how much damage you're capable of doing." Asked Myne.
"Huh, you're not fighting with me?" I asked confused.
"The enemies here are very weak, so I think it'd make good practice for later battles." She replied.
"I see, you're right, I don't have any battle experience at all." I replied. "You must already have some experience as an adventurer, right?" I asked her, and she nodded back.
"Here comes one, Sir Shield Hero. This is called an Orange Balloon, they're the most common type of balloon monster and is known to be very weak." She summarized all the info she could before the balloon got here.
Once it did I raised my shield and blocked its attack, and it bounced off my shield, I tried to counterattack by hitting it with the pointy tip of my shield, but it seemed like it only did about a fifth of the balloon's health.
As I hit it, it bounced back to me and bit me in the arm. I expected some kind of pain, but oddly enough there was none, and along with that my arm was covered in some sort of green barrier. I'm fairly certain this is an ability unique to the Legendary Shield.
After a relatively long struggle I managed to pop the balloon that had clung to my arm. It took a while but it finally happened.
EXP +1
What?! All of that for just 1 experience point?! That had to be a joke, how was I supposed to level up if monsters like these gave me so little experience?!
On top of that, if this was anything like a game then as I got to a higher level surely it would need more experience. It all seemed like it was going to be impossible to level up, much less catch up to the other heroes.
After checking my status it seemed like I needed 20 experience to level up.
Damn it! It really seemed like everything was going wrong for me.
After destroying the balloon I picked up its remains, and when I did my shield's gem started lighting up slightly, and it got brighter and brighter as I brought the loot closer to it.
Once the loot made contact with the gem it was absorbed by the gem, and once I let it absorb all of the remains it gave me a pop-up.
Orange Balloon Shield: Conditions Met
Orange Balloon Shield:
Upgrade: 0/50
Phys. Def. – +50
Magic Def. – +40
Ability: None
This pop-up told me that I had unlocked a new shield from the orange balloons. Though the stats it gave did seem good, comparing it to my base shield it was more or less the same.
Legendary Small Shield:
Upgrade: N/A
Phys. Def. - +45
Phys. Def. - +45
Ability: Damage Mitigation +5%, Language Translation
It seemed like the balloon shield had better physical defense but lower magical defense. And it was lacking the damage mitigation bonus from the base shield. The base shield also came with the ability to translate different languages, though I didn't know the specifics, I assumed that it meant the shield could translate spoken language to my native language, and since I could read the shop names earlier, I assumed that it'd translate written language as well. After all, with this being a different world it'd be strange if everyone here spoke Japanese.
Though the balloon shield wasn't very good, it said it could be upgraded, whereas the base shield couldn't. I guess it could be upgraded by killing monsters and absorbing their remains, so in that regard it made sense that the base shield wouldn't have a way to upgrade it.
For context, my base stats looked like this:
Naofumi Iwatani
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Class: Shield Hero Magic Affinity:
Max. HP – 200 Fire – 0
Max. SP – 50 Water – 0
Phys. ATK – 5 Wind – 0
Magic Power – 15 Earth – 0
Phys. Def. – 50 Lightning – 0
Magic Def. – 50 Light – 0
Agility – 20 Dark – 0
"Oh, is that the way the Legendary Weapons work?" Asked Myne, seemingly marveling at the sight of the weapon absorbing monster remains.
"Yeah, it seems like they need to absorb certain items in order to grow stronger." I wonder if it could absorb other items, and not just monster drops.
I turned to Myne "Alright, it's your turn now Myne."
She nodded and drew her sword.
As she did this two orange balloons appeared from the grass and jumped at her. In response she slashed each balloon once, and both of them went "POP" and burst.
It seemed like I was extremely weak compared to just about everyone else. It was clear that I wasn't going to win any battles by myself.
"Hey, Myne. Let's try fighting with me on the defense and you on the offense, I'll block any attacks so you can go ahead and attack the balloons without worry."
It seemed like we would be better off if we had designated roles in a battle, with Myne on the offensive I shouldn't have the need to attack since I deal so little damage. So we would benefit greatly if she focused on attacking and I focused on defending
It also seemed like the enemies around here were very low level, the highest level I spotted was a level 3 balloon that Myne took down, so this was the perfect opportunity to try and get accustomed to fighting as a team.
We stuck around the fields fighting balloons for a while. Eventually we saw the sun was starting to go down.
"If we went ahead into the forest we'd encounter some stronger opponents, but since it's getting dark we should head back for now and continue in the morning." Said Myne, proposing we wait until tomorrow to explore further.
"I wanted to fight some more though…"
Since defending against the balloons was so easy I felt like I could keep going for a while longer.
I absorbed the remains from the balloons Myne took down, which made the Orange Balloon shield's upgrade meter go from 0/50 to 5/50 and both of its defense stats seemed to raise by 1% of its base stats every time the upgrade meter went up by 1.
The sun was already setting, so we decided to get back to town and find an inn to stay at.
Once we got back to town we got to an inn and decided to rent two rooms and buy some food. Each room costed 50 copper a night and each meal costed 10 bronze each.
By the way, it seems 100 copper equals 1 silver judging from the 80 copper I got as change for paying with 2 silver coins.
Myne and I sat down to eat, and once we were done I pulled out a map I bought on the way back.
I figured I'd need something like this, since unlike the other heroes I don't know anything about this world, much less where to go and what places to avoid.
"So this is where we were fighting the balloons right?" I asked while pointing to a certain part of the map.
I analyzed the map and tried to take mental notes of all of the places that were marked as having higher level monsters. After all, it would be unfortunate if I died because I accidentally entered an area with monsters double my level.
She nodded, confirming that it was indeed where we were.
The map was as follows: The castle was in the center of the town, the town's shape being more or less an oval. Outside of the town there were fields all around, along with mountains to the north and multiple roads in all directions, presumably leading to other towns, although they weren't visible on this map.
"So tomorrow we're going to the forest near the last area?" I asked, since there seemed to be some low level monsters in the forest nearby.
I couldn't see what was on the other side of the forest, but I doubt we'd be going that far for now anyway.
"Well, it's not visible from this map, but there's a village on the other side of the forest. The village is called Lafan, It has a dungeon on the outskirts that is frequented by beginner adventurers and the like. I think it'd be best to go there to try and raise your level." She explained whilst pointing at the location of the village on the map.
"A dungeon…" Just hearing the word dungeon made my heart race. It felt so surreal that I get to fight and experience a world of fantasy like this one.
"We won't make much money there, but we will raise our level a lot in a short amount of time, so it's definitely worth it." Myne clarified.
"While we will depend on your defense, we should be just fine as we are."
"I see, I'll highly consider going there."
"That's fine. By the way, would you like to have a drink with me?" She asked while holding up her wine glass.
While I had gotten one as well, I hadn't even taken a sip from it.
"No, thanks. I don't drink alcohol."
To be clear, it's not like I can't drink it, I just can't get drunk or feel any sort of side effects from consuming alcohol. Whenever I went to college parties in Japan everyone would get drunk except me, so I'd always get to be the one that drove everyone back to their house. In the end, I ended up disliking it completely.
"Is that so? Couldn't you make an exception for now?" She said, a bit annoyed that I wouldn't follow her lead.
"No thanks." I replied firmly.
"Oh… All right then." She looked a bit dejected as she said this and put her glass of wine back on the table. "You know, it's very rare for men to refuse a woman's offer, since Melromarc is a matriarchal country." She explained.
Huh? So apparently here in Melromarc women had more power than men in society. Still, that didn't really matter to me right now.
"Sorry for refusing your offer, but thank you for sticking with me until now, despite me being unable to fight." I apologized and thanked her for her help. "And I'm sure I'll make it up to you someday." I smiled at her.
"It's fine, Sir Shield Hero. Good night." She said smiling back at me.
"Good night, Myne." I said as I stood up from my seat.
"Sure, let's head out early tomorrow." She replied.
I waved goodbye at her and left the loud restaurant to head for my room.
Once I got to my room I went ahead and took off my armor, since it's too bulky to sleep in, and put it on the back of a chair.
I then went ahead and counted all the money I had left.
After counting all of the money I had 447 silvers and 80 copper, which seemed like a lot, but I didn't quite have a good grasp on how much it's actually worth. I still tried to save as much money as possible.
After counting it I decided to store 50 silver in my pants' pockets, since I had no wallet or anything I'd have to keep the money in my pocket, I'd just keep this in case something happens.
It had been a very busy day, we had gone to fight the balloons for a while, and we already had plans for where we were going to tomorrow.
And while I might be a bit behind the others, since I was one of the heroes I could rely on help from the king and the royals in general.
Thinking back on today made me so excited for tomorrow that I couldn't calm down. But I decided to force myself to sleep for now.
I sat down on the bed and heard Motoyasu and Itsuki talking in the hallway, I guess they were staying here as well.
I decided to turn off the lamp and went to sleep, despite it being kind of early.
Tomorrow was going to be a good day!
…
...
...
Unfortunately, this never came true.