The Rising of the Shield Hero Volume 05 (19 page)

porcupine spirit counter efficacy up defense 50

status enchantment strength 30+

After powering up the shield I could hardly believe how powerful it had become. It was now even stronger than the Chimera Viper Shield.

Maybe it’s because I got the shield from the last wave boss, but it seemed to respond more dramatically to powering up.

The special effects drain null, wall escape, and undead control all appeared once the shield was awakened.

Wall escape meant that you could pass through solid objects, but to pass through a single wall would use the entirety of your SP points. I’d also only tried it on a very thin wall, and I’d barely made it through, so I was a little worried about what would happen were I to try using it on a thicker wall. Undead control, I assumed, would allow the user to control undead-type monsters. I’d have to try it out to be sure though.

According to the numbers, my defense stat was now four times higher than it had been.

Finally, even though I would only use it if I were absolutely forced to, I decided to try powering up the Wrath Shield.

I really wanted to avoid using it if possible, since I was still cursed from the last time.

I’d healed a lot since then, but I still wasn’t back to normal.

Wrath Shield III (Awakened) +7 50/50 SR: abilities locked: equip bonus: skill “change shield (attack)”, “iron maiden”, “blood sacrifice”

special effect: dark curse burning S, strength up, dragon rage, howl, familial rage, magic sharing, robe of rage (medium)

Mastery Level 0

Apparently you could use items or spirit enchantments on shields that hadn’t been unlocked yet. It was the same for the mastery level. I don’t think it was even possible to unlock the Wrath Shield.

But the stat books were impressive.

If I switched to it in battle, I felt like it would completely take over my consciousness, which scared me.

Morning came, and the timer flashing in my periphery was much lower than it had been.

00:20

I think I’d done all I could by way of preparation.

The other heroes should be waiting on the boat. The only question left was where we would be teleported to.

Just to be safe I had a boat prepared for us and ordered it set aside in a nearby river. It was a small thing, only useful in a river, and it wasn’t outfitted with sails.

But that just meant that we could shave off all the time it would take to load a larger boat.

“Mr. Naofumi?”

Raphtalia came walking over with the queen.

“Mr. Iwatani, the preparations are complete.”

“Is this your first time participating in a wave battle?”

“I have participated in a battle before, but it was in a different country. I have a basic understanding of the battle strategy.”

“Great.”

“Yes. While it is still a little early for this type of thing, perhaps we should do something to raise the morale of the gathered troops?”

She was right.

If the soldiers weren’t fully motivated, then there would be more casualties than necessary.

“Everyone! We must keep the destruction to an absolute minimum during the battle!”

“Yes my queen!”

The gathered crowd snapped to attention when the queen spoke.

I hoped the other heroes were doing something similar.

00:10

There were ten minutes left.

“Now it comes down to location. Will we be on the ocean or on an island?”

We didn’t know exactly what we were going to be facing. That was why we needed to prepare for all possibilities.

“Fighting on the sea may prove difficult.”

“I know.”

We didn’t really have any experience fighting on the water yet.

I imagined that simply swinging a sword through the water would be more difficult than we might expect. If so, we’d have to try using other weapons.

As for Filo, I’d seen her take out monsters in the water before, so I was pretty confident about her abilities.

If we were in the water, then we didn’t even have the ground to depend on. An attack could come from any direction.

I was hoping that I could use shooting star shield to buy us some time, but I didn’t know if it would be effective against the powerful monsters that tended to appear during the waves.

“Raphtalia’s right. This might be a really tough battle.”

“If only Sadeena were here. She’d know what to do.”

“Who’s that?”

“She fished for my village. She was like an older sister to me.”

“Oh yeah? Was she a good swimmer?”

“She was the best in the village.”

“Was she the same type of demi-human as you?”

“No . . . she was an aquatic type.”

I could picture it now. She would have had unique swimming skills. Raphtalia was right. I wished Sadeena were here.

But this was no time for daydreaming.

“I hope she’s still alive.”

“Me too.”

I forced the thought out of my mind. We had other things to focus on now.

The time was almost here. I raised my hand and made an announcement.

“If we end up on land then your priority is to split up and protect the civilians. If we end up on the ocean, then we need to get to the larger ships and support the heroes!”

“Yes sir!”

I turned to Raphtalia and Filo.

“This is the third wave we’ve fought in. Let’s power through! Everything will be fine!”

“Yes! And we’ll keep the casualties to an absolute minimum!”

“Imma do my best!”

Chapter Eleven: Inter-dimensional Whale

00:00

The timer ran out.

At the same time, our surroundings all disappeared, and for a second it was like I was floating in the air.

A clanging sound came from the boat.

A second later and my periphery was filled with other boats, many of them, and we were floating in the ocean.

So it would be an ocean battle. I looked towards the rifts that had appeared in the sky. They marked the presence of the wave of destruction.

The sky was violet, and warped, and covered with fine cracks.

“Hurry! We have to get to the larger ships!”

The queen shouted the order, and the knights and soldiers on board began rowing furiously, bringing us up to the side of a larger ship nearby. We all climbed out and boarded.

Filo was in her filolial form, and Raphtalia and I climbed on to her back, then she jumped up on to the deck, delivering us to the ship in one fell swoop.

The heroes where standing on the deck and staring off in the direction of the rifts.

I could hardly believe my eyes. One of Itsuki’s party members was standing there in a risuka kigurumi, a different colored Santa hat on his head.

I knew I shouldn’t worry about it, but I couldn’t stop staring!

“Fueee . . . .”

Large, intimidated eyes gazed out from the kigurumi. But, which one of his party members had eyes like that? It must have been that Rishia girl.

Anyway, the pekkul kigurumi had come with great stat boosts and abilities, so the risuka version probably did too. It wasn’t so strange to imagine her wearing it for a major battle. At first glance it looked like they weren’t taking it seriously though.

“What’s happening?”

“It just started so we don’t really know yet, but I’ve seen monsters start to come out of the rifts.”

Itsuki said and pointed to the rifts in the sky.

It looked like giant fish, or something like fish, were streaming from the rifts.

I had expected birds or something like that. So I guess this was better in a way.

“How should we fight?”

At least we had sailors now, thanks to my Melromarc detour.

“The best swimmers are all already in the water, fighting the monsters there.”

The queen was acting as the high commander. She came running over and reported on the plan.

“Water-type demi-humans led the charge. Many adventurers joined them, trusting their knowledge of the sea. They are already swimming and battling.”

“Good thing we recruited those adventurers around town.”

Melromarc was a human supremacist country, and so there weren’t many demi-humans in the army.

As a consequence, most of the soldiers that could fight in the wave, or that we could organize to fight in the wave, were humans. And humans could really only fight from the deck of a ship—with cannons.

That meant it was going to be our job, the heroes’ job, to get out on the front lines.

“Let’s get going.”

“Mr. Iwatani, wait just a moment.”

“What is it?”

“There are a great number of smaller monsters to deal with, but I think we can handle them. I would like the heroes to focus on the larger threats that come from the wave.”

“I understand. But how are we supposed to find the larger threats?”

I sort of imagined they would be concentrated at the foot of the wave, where the rifts in the sky met the surface of the water.

The surface of the ocean was white and frothy. You could see that it was writhing with creatures moving towards the ships. We were going to have to dive into the water to fight them.

I spotted a swiftly moving shadow under the water. A second later the beast had flung itself up onto the deck. It was an inter-dimensional sahuagin shadow.

It looked like a half fish, half man-type creature. As for the shadow, I wasn’t sure, but it might have been a type of demi-human.

“Shooting Star Spear!”

Motoyasu stabbed at the saguahin with his spear.

“This thing is tougher than it looks!”

“Hya!”

Bitch and her retinue, Ren and his party, Itsuki and his party, all of them ran to attack the line of monsters that was threatening to overtake the boat.

“Hya!”

Filo flew forward and spun, kicking one of the monsters high into the air and off of the boat.

But there were more monsters. A lot more.

I looked around. There were ten ships or so. How were we supposed to protect ten ships?

The troops were made up of the strongest adventurers on Cal Mira and experienced soldiers from Melromarc. I hoped they could stand their ground.

But the battle line was getting chaotic. Should I use the shooting star shield?

It would be impenetrable to anyone not in my party though and it wasn’t large enough to protect the entire ship.

I saw a crowd of monsters fly off the ship.

“Full Moon Army!”

It was L’Arc.

He was swinging his giant scythe.

Wow, with so many monsters swarming the deck it looked like a scene from that Dynasty battle game. He seemed to be having a good time.

Therese was behind him, casting a spell.

“Shining stone, showering thunder!”

A sharp crack of lightning shot out of the sky and killed a monster in front of her.

Those two were really something. I had to find some way to get them into my party.

“We’re dropping a rucolu explosive barrel into the sea! Warn the adventurers!”

The queen shouted the order and another soldier blew into a conch—the sound resounded and echoed over the ships and water.

The adventurers and demi-humans in the water all came swimming back to the ship. One second later, and a number of barrels were pushed overboard.

“The explosive barrels . . . .”

I looked over the side of the ship to see what happened.

The barrels slowly sunk. How effective would they be?

The second I though it, the barrels exploded dramatically, sending up a geyser of bubbles into the air. The sea itself slowly turned red.

Whoa! Slowly, the corpses of fish and monsters came floating to the surface. There were tons of them.

I guess the whole sea really had turned into alcohol.

Of course it was only effective in the immediate area, so over time the water would mix with the rest of the ocean and the effect would diminish. But in the interim, it seemed to have a deadly effect on the monsters there.

It was amazing. I never would have thought those little fruits were so powerful.

“Don't get too comfortable!”

“Right!”

“Where’s the boss?!”

That reminded me. I’d actually never seen the arrival of a boss monster before.

I’d only seen the other heroes battling the boss from far off in the distance.

“Should we jump in and swim out to find it?”

I think that maybe you had to attack the rifts directly to get the boss to appear.

I wasn’t going to be able to do that by myself, but with Raphtalia and Filo it wouldn’t be impossible.

And we didn’t really have another option. The monsters had not stopped coming out of the rifts.

There was no point to stay on the ship and keep fighting these minor monsters.

“But if we don’t kill the boss first, it will take a long time.”

Damn.

That was why they’d dedicated all the energies to defeating the boss during the last wave. I guess.

We were talking over our plan when one of the neighboring ships flew into the air and broke apart.

There must have been a huge monster below it.

The sailors and soldiers all started to scream.

“What was that?!”

I spun on my heels to look. There was a massive whale falling back into the ocean from where it had jumped. It had massive horns growing out of its head.

Its name appeared in my menu screen.

Inter-dimensional whale.

How big was that thing? Judging the best I could, it looked like it was over 150 meters long. It looked like a sperm whale with a twisting horn like a drill, and the whole beast was unnaturally white.

In a few places there were large bumps that seemed to be jewels. They made the whole thing look like it had an undefined shape.

All in all, it didn’t really seem right to call it a whale—it was too different.

It also seemed safe to assume that we were looking at this wave’s boss monster.

I pointed to it and made sure that Ren, Motoyasu, and Itsuki were looking at the same thing that I was.

Ren was shaking his head, Itsuki was nodding, and Motoyasu was pointing.

“That must be it.”

“It can’t be!”

“You can wait here, Ren. Deal with all the minor monsters while we’re gone!”

“Dammit! Hundred Sword!”

He held his sword a loft and it shattered into hundreds of smaller swords that flew into the air and rained down on the weaker monsters in the ocean.

What could he do if he couldn’t swim? He’d have to do what the other adventurers were doing—shoot cannons and stuff like that.

Itsuki had turned his bow into a giant ballista and was shooing arrow after arrow.

Was there no job left for a shielder like me?

“Motoyasu! You’re the Spear Hero, aren’t you? That’s the same as a harpoon! Go kill that thing!”

Isn’t there some story about a captain who wants revenge? Channel that energy and kill that thing!

“Motoyasu! Do a kamikaze run at the thing!”

“Naofumi! You bastard!”

“Stop arguing!”

Raphtalia snapped at me like I was the bad guy or something.

“Mr. Naofumi, we need to think of a plan instead of arguing.”

“You’re right. Motoyasu?”

“What?”

I motioned for him to come over to the edge of the deck. He came over suspiciously, wondering if I really had a plan.

“You’re weapon is the best suited for a battle at sea, so you need to get closer and lead the charge!”

And I pushed him over the edge.

“What?! AHHHHHH!”

That was easier than I had expected. He just fell right over the side.

He fell heavily in the water, sending up a spray of foam behind him.

“Oh nooooo! Mr. Motoyasu!”

Bitch and her friends all screamed.

“The Shield Hero is trying to kill the Spear Hero!”

Bitch raised her hand to point and berate me, but when she did the slave seal on her chest activated.

“Kyaaaaaa!”

“Myn…. Whore!”

Bitch turned to hear what Motoyasu was shouting. He had finally surfaced below.

“This is part of Mr. Iwatani’s plan. You must respect it!”

The queen turned and shouted at Bitch.

Bitch would try to ruin my life whenever she got a chance.

“I have a suggestion. Mr. Kawasumi and Mr. Amaki will support the battle from the deck of the ship, focusing on ranged attacks.”

“Very well.”

“Fine by me.”

“Motoyasu, if you can fight in the water, then please do so.”

“I’d rather not!”

“You are the only one who can effectively attack in this situation. Doesn’t this seem like good opportunity to earn the funds necessary to buy back my daughter’s freedom?”

“Um . . . .”

He thought about disagreeing for a moment, before giving up and diving beneath the surface.

The legendary weapons could give the user skills that enabled better swimming, and if they were combined with a pekkul kigurumi, then you could really stay underwater for a really long time.

You didn’t even have to have goggles on to see easily underwater.

“What about me?”

“Mr. Iwatani, I would like you to protect our ships in case that monster comes to attack us.”

“That sounds like you want me in the water. If the monster dives to the ocean floor and starts charging upwards, you want me to block it!?”

“Naturally, I don’t want you to do it if you don’t think you will be able to.”

“Oh, um . . . understood.”

I didn’t really know if I would be able to block a monster that big, but her plan was definitely the best one we had.

“Oh, and Ms. Raphtalia? Please use the ship’s ballista to aim at the monster.”

“What?”

Raphtalia was shocked she was being considered for the job. I could hardly believe it myself.

I guess it made sense. I couldn’t picture her standing on its back and stabbing down at it with her sword. I guess that’s all Motoyasu could really do though.

“It seems that your friend, Raphtalia, is quite powerful. If that’s true, then I think she will be able to get the most out of our powerful ballista.”

“Huh? I don’t really understand what you are getting at.”

I knew that a ballista was more powerful than the sort of bow that you could draw back with your hands. But why did it matter who used it? Itsuki might even have a skill or two specifically to use with ballistas. He was the Bow Hero, after all.

I couldn’t think of a reason that Raphtalia would use it better than anyone else though.

Maybe there was some system that I didn’t know about? Like how I hadn’t known about the hero power up systems?

“Bows and ranged weapons still are subject to the stats of their users.”

So guns and bows were similar to other weapons in this world?

In my world, the power behind a gunshot or an arrow didn’t really depend on who used them. You were sure to die if you were hit. But I guess in this world the stats of the user had an effect. Maybe it worked by increasing the speed of the arrow or something like that.

It really was like a game.

Things like that happened all the time in games. Bows and guns and swords could all be just as powerful as any other weapon.

That wouldn’t make sense in my world, but then again, we didn’t have numbered stats in my world.

I had to think of this place as something completely different. If I treated it like the world I was used to, I was going to end up dead.

Thinking about it from the queen’s perspective, it probably did make sense to let Raphtalia do the shooting.

“Got it. Okay Raphtalia, you attack the inter-dimensional whale using the ship’s ballista.”

“Oh . . . . Okay.”

“I’ll show you how it works, so please don’t be worried about that. Now then Mr. Iwatani, take Filo with you and please protect out ship. We will be casting ceremonial magic to support you.”