The Rising of the Shield Hero Volume 02 Read online

  That brings me to the main problem: how to imbue something with magic.

  If you couldn’t use magic, you couldn’t do it.

  I couldn’t use magic yet, so I was sitting there with the book in one hand, muttering along, when the accessory dealer started talking again.

  “Hero, are you unable to use magic?”

  “That’s right. I’ve asked my helpers here how they do it, but they just say to ‘synchronize with my spirit.’ I don’t know what they are talking about.”

  “Ah… yes, I think I am beginning to understand.”

  The accessory dealer reached into his pocket and pulled out a small, translucent piece of something.

  “What’s this?”

  “It’s a piece of very valuable ore.”

  “Huh…”

  “Can you read?”

  “A little… if it’s simple.”

  I’d been studying the writing for about a month now, and if I focused hard enough, I could read it. If it was very complicated then I couldn’t follow it, but if it was simple enough, I could.

  “Then let’s work on your magic practice. If you can learn to feel the power, that’s enough.”

  Ugh... This sounded like torture to me.

  I was worried about the prospect of study, but I reached out my hand and took the shard of ore. It began to glow.

  What… What did it mean? It was like… like feeling a hand move that you didn’t know you had—yes, it was like that.

  Or it was how a bird must have felt when it opens its wings for the first time and flew.

  “Something feels weird.”

  “You can actually feel your magical power without the aid of that stone, but you were raised without knowing that. I thought it might help you, so I handed it over. Turns out it was a good choice.”

  “I guess so.”

  I thought back to a concept I had translated from the magic book and began to recite it.

  I imagined magic as another arm, and then I tried to image that that other arm was MY arm.

  Some words appeared. It was only for me—my own, private magic.

  “I am the source of all power, hear my words and understand them. Protect them!”

  “Fast Guard!”

  I became aware of a target marker blinking in my field of vision. I chose myself as the target to practice the spell.

  I was suddenly covered in a soft light.

  I checked my status screen to see that my defense had risen dramatically.

  “Woah…”

  “Looks like you were able to figure it out. Now allow me to show you how to imbue an object with magic.”

  The accessory dealer ignored my impressed reaction and immediately moved into his lecture.

  It had been a big step for me, but apparently he wasn’t impressed.

  I listened to his lecture, and pretty soon I had learned how to imbue an object with magic.

  I tried imbuing the jewel that we’d made with magic, which involved controlling the natural tendencies of the stone.

  It was a little difficult at first, but I could use magic now, and the skills from the shield were helping. Eventually I was able to produce a few pieces. Apparently there were more advanced techniques, like using different stones and mixing their properties, or absorbing the magic from different plants and then imbuing other objects with that magic.

  “Well, that’s the gist of it. I think you can figure out the rest by yourself. I hope it helps you and your business.”

  The accessory dealer gave a final farewell and then climbed down from the carriage.

  Now I had another skill besides compounding—I could craft magical jewels.

  We would need different ores to use in the crafting, so we visited the mining town we’d stopped by earlier.

  “Ah… so he sent you here, did he?”

  A large man, a miner, was looking me over suspiciously, but I showed him the letter of introduction the accessory dealer had given us.

  “Yeah, that’s his handwriting. But to think you’d be introduced by him? He’s very strict about money.”

  “What’s that supposed to mean?

  I listened to the miner’s gossip. Apparently the accessory dealer was well known as a miser.

  He’d thought it suspicious that a guy like that would introduce me, but he accepted it once he saw the letter.

  “Well, if he sent you here then sure, you can buy from me. How much are you looking for? I think I can accommodate you.”

  “You think I could go mine them out myself? That should help keep costs down, right?”

  “Huh? Oh, well… If you want to do it yourself, then it would basically be free, but…”

  We talked it over, and before long Filo, Raphtalia, and I were down in a cave with pickaxes in our hands. The rhythmic clanging of our pickaxes echoed in the silent cave. Honestly, it was a real racket.

  The air was so stuffy and hot—I couldn’t stand it.

  The walls rippled with glowing veins of ore—much different from the last mine we’d been in.

  “This is a pretty safe and stable cavern, so you should be fine to dig and mine anywhere you want. Having said that, there is always a chance of a cave-in, or of falling rocks, so do be careful.”

  That only made sense.

  From the way he made it sound, there were a number of caves, but he had led us to the richest one.

  I raised my pickaxe and brought it down against the stone wall. When I did, a glowing cross appeared on the wall.

  It was just like when we were looking for Light Metal.

  “Hiya!”

  I swung the pickaxe with all my might.

  The impact echoed in the cavern, and the wall cracked. The crack slowly expanded, creaked, and the wall fell apart.

  “Huh?”

  The miner was staring at me, wide-eyed.

  “You broke through that hard stone with one hit?”

  Was it so hard?

  Thanks to my collection skill, I was able to break through the rocks easily, and pretty soon there were piles of ore rolling out from the cracks. And yet, no doubt because of my level, I still came upon walls that I couldn’t break into, no matter how severe my effort.

  “Please take this.”

  “Oh, okay.”

  We stuffed the ore into a bag and hurried from the mine.

  By the way, even outside the mine itself, we were able to find ore pretty much anywhere we swung our pickaxes. Apparently it was really easy to find in the area.

  The only problem was that any ore found near the surface tended to be of poor magical quality.

  Back in my world, I think I had heard that if you find a place rich in ore, it would be everywhere, and easy to take too. Maybe things were different here, and good ore was somehow a function of its depth below the surface.

  You made a Ruby Bracelet!

  Ruby Bracelet: quality: good to excellent

  I tried out my new skills and, I guess, because the original materials were good, ended up with something very nice.

  Now it was time to try imbuing it with magic.

  Ruby Bracelet (fire resistance up): quality: excellent to normal

  Damn… I was able to imbue it with magic, but I lowered the quality rating in the process.

  We went on with our travels, and I tried crafting different accessories in the back of the carriage.

  You know, crafting in the back of a moving carriage is not an easy thing to do. When I thought about how long it took compared to the relative ease of compounding medicines, I wasn’t sure if it was any more profitable. And on top of that, I let the shield absorb both finished pieces and raw materials but was never able to unlock anything. Apparently my level and tree were not advanced enough.

  I’d have to focus on sales.

  By the way, that bracelet that I made sold after only two days for 80 pieces of silver. But it took a long time to make the base of the bracelet.

  And it seemed like jewels were less valuable in this world th
an they were in mine.

  I wondered if the design of the accessory, and how in-line it was with the current fashion trends, would affect the price I could get for it? Would its design affect its price? The very idea struck me as ironic.

  But apparently they were in the midst of a popularity boom, and apparently there were fashionable trends in this world too.

  I guess I just didn’t know what jewels could be sold for a good price. Even still—I was making money. Pretty soon it would be time to buy all new equipment.

  Iron Ore Shield: conditions met

  Copper Ore Shield: conditions met

  Silver Ore Shield: conditions met

  Lead Ore Shield: conditions met

  Iron Ore Shield: ability locked:

  equip bonus: metalworking skill 2

  Copper Ore Shield: ability locked:

  equip bonus: metalworking skill 1

  Silver Ore Shield: ability locked:

  equip bonus: damage from demonic monsters reduced by 2%

  Lead Ore Shield: ability locked:

  equip bonus: defense 1

  I was unlocking a bunch of abilities that seemed better left in the hands of the guy from the weapon shop. It didn’t make sense to try and do EVERYTHING on my own.

  The Lead Ore Shield seemed to be taking the place of something else.

  I don’t think that skill will see much use.

  We had been traveling like that for a few days when we arrived at a town in the South. That’s when it happened.

  The accessory dealer had told us that there was an area that was desperately in need of large quantities of weed killer.

  We’d have to travel quickly to reach them in time, but that’s what the bird-god… That’s what Filo was for.

  If we stood to make a lot of money, then there was nothing to debate. We hurried to the Southwest.

  Chapter Fifteen: Why it Was Sealed

  So there was a village that needed a large quantity of weed killer. We hurried there.

  “Master!”

  “What is it?”

  “Um… These plants are amazing!”

  Raphtalia and I craned our necks to look outside. The street was covered in writhing vines so thick they threatened to cover the entire street.

  “What the hell?!”

  It was moving slowly, but if you watched closely you could see the vines crawling out further and spreading over the road.

  “The village…”

  I looked around to get a sense of our surroundings, and I saw something in the distance that looked something like a refugee camp.

  “Filo, take us over there.”

  “Okay.”

  We arrived at the camp and quickly started selling our products.

  “All right, so what price should we set for the weed killer?”

  They must have needed it to try and control those vines we’d seen.

  I was starting to understand why the accessory dealer recommended this place to us—sure enough, we should be able to do some business here.

  But how much? How much money would we make off with?

  “There might be a specialized buyer.”

  “Good point.”

  We climbed out of the carriage and started asking around.

  I changed my shield into the Book Shield. Then I rotated it around to the inside of my arm and pretended to be a merchant just walking around with his book. If they didn’t notice my shield, they wouldn’t think I was the Shield Hero.

  “I heard that you were in need of weed killer, and were willing to pay for it.”

  I found someone in the camp dressed better than the others. He seemed to be in charge.

  “Ah… A merchant? You’re just in time.”

  “What happened here?”

  I looked off in the distance to see the whole area covered in vines.

  “Yes, well… Our village was experiencing a severe famine.”

  That reminded me… I think I’d heard about this place. But didn’t Motoyasu take care of it?”

  “The Spear Hero was able to release the seal on an ancient miracle seed for us. That solved the famine, and yet…”

  “You mean this is from the miracle seed?”

  I looked back at the vines. Looking closely, I saw various fruits and vegetables growing from the twisting stalks.

  So the refugees had plenty to eat, and the famine was solved. They were able to get potatoes from the roots. They were digging at the vines with shovels.

  So apparently they were able to fix the famine problem, but the vines were too powerful, and they ran out of space to live?

  How stupid can you get?

  Thinking back on it, that must have been the reason the seed was sealed away in the first place. If they had just left it there, everything would have been fine.

  Motoyasu, the fool! What was he thinking?

  Oh yeah… We’d been nearby a little while ago, when we were with the witch.

  “To he who would break the seal of the seed. It is my desire that this seed never be released into the world. It will play with the people’s desire to be freed from famine, granting their wish in the worst way imaginable. The seal is not so easily broken.”

  Yeah, that’s what it had said. Why would he break the seal on the seed?

  He must not have read it. He must not have known that from all his game experience.

  “Out here on the periphery there is no major problem. But if you head into the village, the plants have begun to turn into monsters.”

  So the plants could mutate… Great.

  He really was an idiot.

  It was so easy to put me in a bad mood. It had happened so quickly this time.

  He was very skilled. He knew how to ruin my mood.

  “So that’s why you want weed killer?”

  “Yes.”

  If these people were famers, you’d think they already knew how to control weeds… but whatever.

  “At first we were all so happy. But once the vines came over our fields, and then our houses… Well, we went out with axes to try and hold the vines at bay, but they were too fast.”

  “When did all this happen?”

  “Once the Hero moved on, we didn’t have any trouble for two weeks. But about half a month ago, things started to…”

  “Uh huh. Didn’t you report to the Crown?”

  “Yes. But they said that it would take a while before a Hero would be able to make it out here. Therefore we have been forced to do what we can with weed killer for the time being…”

  Huff… I let out an involuntary sigh.

  “Why don’t you try burning it?”

  “We’ve tried everything that we could think of.”

  “So I guess you tried burning it…”

  They had probably tried reaching out to adventurers for help too.

  I looked around the camp, and sure enough—there were a bunch of people with weapons and equipment there. They would not be villagers.

  “Ahhhhhhhhhhh!”

  An ear-splitting shriek came from the direction of the village.

  “What was that?!”

  “We tried to stop him, but there was an adventurer that wanted to fight in the village to raise his levels. That must be him.”

  The villager sighed his answer, as though he’d done all he could.

  “Damn! Filo!”

  “Okay!”

  I pointed in the direction of the village. Filo had been stuffing her cheeks with fruit from the vines, but immediately took off running at my signal.

  She ran, full speed, right into the village and came back shortly with three adventurers. They were beat up pretty badly.

  “How did the village look?”

  “Hmm… Well, the monster plants were wriggling over everything. There were some cool ones that spit poison and acid and stuff. Weak adventurers shouldn’t go in there! Stupid!”

  “That last part wasn’t necessary.”

  “Okay!”

  The villagers were shocked whe
n they saw Filo talking.

  “Oh, we’ve heard of you! You’re the miracle-working saint with the bird-god carriage!”

  As if they just noticed me, they ran over and shook my hand.

  “Well I don’t know about saint… but I have a bird and a carriage.”

  “Please save our village! There are people even that have been consumed by the vines!”

  “You mean they are parasitic? Oh jeez…”

  I took some restorative medicine and some weed killer and then was led over to a tent. Inside there were a number of people laying down, and their bodies were half-transformed into plants.

  “I can’t promise that I can cure them. And besides, I’m no philanthropist. I expect to be paid.”

  “Yes…”

  I went over to the closest patient, a child that seemed to be having trouble breathing, and administered the restorative medicine.

  The child was enveloped in a soft light, and his breathing seemed to stabilize. I then applied weed killer to the affected areas of his body.

  The child was in pain for a short time, but then the leaves withered and fell off, and the child seemed to be cured.

  “Oh…”

  “That’s a saint for you!”

  Everyone was whispering in amazement. I administered the same medicine routine to the remaining patients.

  Once everyone had been treated, the atmosphere around the camp improved greatly. I guess anyone would be happy to see their lot improve, however little.

  “Thank you! Thank you so much!”

  Everyone thanked me.

  “Time to pay up.”

  I asked for a price that was higher than the average market price.

  Here’s why: if they had already appealed to the Crown for help, then there was a chance that another Hero might show up at any time. And if he did, then pretty soon they would know who I was too, and then they’d be singing a different tune.

  The villagers happily paid me. Everything was going according to plan.

  “All right, I’ll sell you the weed killer. Let’s try to make this quick. Once you buy it, I’m out of here.”