Chapter Text
When I woke up, I was called to breakfast. Though their idea of breakfast seemed a bit heavy first thing in the morning, so I had some porridge in the kitchens instead, but before I left, I was told I would be summoned in a few hours by the King once again. Not knowing how best to spend the time, I went to the Library, which is where I am now.
The Castle Library is quite large, I started by simply picking a random book off the shelf and looking at it, however, this caused me to discover and unfortunate truth I had suspected. I couldn't read this worlds languages. That was when I got a notification on my Shield, a new section had been added to the help menu, under miscellaneous. I opened it.
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Translation Function
The Cardinal Shield is equipped with a auditory communication translation function, this is capable of translating all spoken languages to ones understood by the user, and accounts for regional dialect, slang terms and jokes, including puns, though this last function will not always carry over effectively. Note that this function ONLY applies to spoken language.
Settings
Learner mode (in addition to translated languages, actual spoken language can be heard simultaneously): ON/ OFF
Target Languages: English , Japanese
Shield UI Language: English
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Seeing this, I flipped 'Learner mode' to 'ON', since I would rather know the real language, and this way I could learn, plus, this would make it easier to learn the written language of Melromarc, this country.
Unfortunately, I would need help to learn said written language, so I would have to leave it for now. As such, I put back the book and left the library. Instead I explored the castle, or rather, castle keep, not wanting to have to get directions anymore. After I finished, I still had another hour, so I went to the training grounds to practice blocking attacks with my 'Small Nuclear Shield'. After that, I went to the throne room as instructed.
King Aultcray Melromarc XXXII sat before us, as yesterday, but this time there were a number of people in combat gear to each side of him, they didn't look like the knights or soldiers though, were they mercenaries?
"Attention!" Boomed Aultcray. "Heroes, before you are several adventurers, they have volunteered to be in your parties. I will now also provide funding." At that moment I got another notification, another addition to the Misc section of the help menu, explaining the party system, I quickly read it, it seems like Exp is shared to some extent, and you can view some information about party members, I simultaneously paid attention to the King while I read, it seems like Heroes cant gain Exp when near each other, since their weapons clash, or something, as he said this, it was added under the party section of the help menu as an addendum.
The adventurers then lined up next to all the heroes but me, I was a little surprised, but not annoyed, in fact, I would much rather find my own party, I didn't trust these people, especially the red haired person still standing at the back. It seemed like the King was going to comment, but I just smiled and beckoned to continue, he looked taken aback for a moment, but then continued.
"In any case, I will now provide funding, Mr Naofumi will receive more due to his lack of party members." Saying so, some soldiers handed out bags of money to all the Heroes, mine contained 'Sixty Silvers', apparently.
After receiving my money, I left the keep and went into the castle town, the entrance to the keep was awesome and I stared at it for a bit first though.
Walking through the streets, I considered my priorities, I needed two things, Party Members and equipment. Deciding to start with the former, I thought for a moment. I wouldn't trust people I just met, but I didn't really think I could go solo as someone with only a shield, unless I wanted to risk 'Nuclear Release', which seemed a bad idea, then, the thought struck me, perhaps I could have a tamed monster or something! After all, things like hunting dogs were common when hunting animals on Earth, or at least I thought so, and a mount would be vital for travel in a pre-industrial civilization! Following this train of thought, I asked around for where I could purchase monster eggs or something and was directed to a large, slightly suspicious looking tent, with trepidation, I stepped inside.
The inside of the circus-like tent was dark, large cloth partitions preventing me from seeing past the opening reception-like area. Noticing my presence, a short person dressed very smartly by my standards, with a top hat and coattails, hurried over. They had thick glasses that obscured their eyes, and a mouth fixed in an unnaturally broad grin.
"Greetings dear customer!" They began, "For what purpose have you visited my humble establishment?"
"Im looking to buy a monster egg, what do you have?" I replied, looking at them a little suspiciously, this place felt off. The Merchant proceeded to present me a box with various eggs slotted into holes in the top, and began talking once again.
"Allow me to explain dear customer, in this box are numerous monster eggs, varying greatly in value, for the same set price, you may purchase a single egg from these, however, you will not know if you got a bargain on a rare monster or not until they hatch! Even so, you will at least get a Fillolial for your troubles!" Understanding that this was essentially a lucky dip, I considered for a moment. Fillolial were the Ostrich like creatures that pulled carts instead of horses in this world, I was told they were created by a pervious Hero from ages past, as such, it would at least fit the bill of being my mount.
Deciding to go for it, I agreed and purchased and egg. I then found my eyes once more drifting to the partition obscuring the rest of the tent, and asked what was beyond, the response appalled me.
"Why Slaves of course!" Said the dodgy merchant, revealing themselves to be a slave trader. I was disgusted, and took a step back without realizing, I should have expected this considering the history of earth but I still didn't even want to imagine it! Gritting my teeth, I headed inside, deciding I would buy and release whoever I could afford, whether they wanted to leave and live their lives or join my party after that was up to them, I despised the practice and wanted to do something, even though I knew I would only make it worse by doing this.
The sight before my eyes was sickening indeed, numerous cages containing many people, mostly those with traits of various animals like ears, the so called 'demihumans', I wasn't surprised the slavery system was built on racism like Earths slavery systems of the past. Some of them were even children! Deciding that freeing the children was the priority, I picked out what looked like a small girl with raccoon ears and tail, who was coughing and shivering, obviously sick, they didn't deserve this, nobody did. However, I then learned something worse, these slaves were magically forced to obey via some sort of tattoo like curse on their chest, and it would cost a small fortune to get it removed, I could only afford to free one slave if I wanted any equipment for myself later.
Telling myself that buying slaves to free them only fuelled the system more anyway, I accepted this sad truth and handed the slave trader the low sum for the aforementioned child, and left with said child right away afterwards...
As we walked out, the small child, who looked to be about ten years old, struggled to walk beside me, as such I stopped and crouched beside to talk to them
"Hey there, what's your name?"
"Ra-Raphtalia-" They replied falteringly
"Is it alright if I carry you Raphtalia, I'll get you free of that curse right away and then its up to you what to do, I can look after you if you want but I don't know if id be the best person for that.." I, in kind, replied, losing confidence toward the end. Raphtalia nodded slightly in response to my question, I picked them up and put them on my shoulders, advancing much more quickly now, and headed to the church, where I heard they could remove slave curses.
The Church was very large and spacious, in fact, it was a cathedral. The people here seemed to distrust me and kept glancing at me, I had not failed to notice that the spire on top of the building had a sword, bow and spear, but no shield. It seemed I was not welcome here, unfortunately. After paying far more than it cost to actually get Raphtalia from the slaver, I was able to get her slave curse removed, though once more, I hadn't failed to notice the mutterings of the nuns and priests about 'wicked demis' or 'the accursed shield'. While they performed the process, I checked my shield, having received some notifications when it brushed against the ink required to alter the slave curse to mark me as the 'owner' when I bought Raphtalia to free her, as I had learned she was a her on the way by asking.
Checking the 'Shield Menu' it seemed one of the many branches of the Large flowchart-like tree had turned from a transparent grey to white, and text, along with an image, had appeared in a box branching from the starting shield, displaying the 'Post apocalyptic Thrall Shield', a cancerous looking shield made of black ink, with spikes growing all over it. Which, to my dismay, was a shield that buffed Slaves in the party and 'corrected their growth', my opinion of whoever designed this shield and/or the possible intelligence inside it, which I now suspected to exist based on the shield absurd adaptivity, decreased greatly, and I closed the menu, not switching to said shield, despite its superior stat buffs, though its appearance did suggest that the designer/the shield itself had a poor opinion of slavery like I did, so I held back my impressions slightly.
After Raphtalia was finished being freed, I took her with me temporarily, not trusting the clergy a fraction, while I did the other thing I had come here for, visiting the so called 'Dragon Hourglass', as I entered its chamber I was amazed, in front of me stood a great hourglass levitating above a pit of sand, with large, metallic, dragon themed decorum orbiting it. I walked up to the hourglass and experimentally picked up a handful of sand, pouring some on my shield, unlocking something new to my satisfaction. I then lifted my shield to the hourglass experimentally, causing a beam of light to shoot from the hourglass and touch the gem on my shield, a countdown appearing in my vision, presumably displaying the time until the next of the 'Waves' I had heard about. I then left the church with Raphtalia, checking my newly unlocked shield on the way, this one looked far more promising, so I switched to it at once, almost instantly, in a flash of light, my shield warped and changed form, transforming into a huge starburst of smooth rainbow glass, with eight points and the usual green gem in the center, the 'Starfold Glass Shield' its description claiming it granted me the power to fold reality and teleport to one of three saved locations or any visited dragon hourglass by using SP, with no limits on distance, other than travel time, apparently taking an additional minute for each lightyear, which sounded insanely fast to me! I wondered aloud if it would allow transport between this world and my old one, but of course, I had saved no locations or Dragon Hourglasses there. Wanting to see the effects, I checked my stats:
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Name: Iwatani Naofumi
Age: 20
Class: Nuclear Shield Hero
Level: 1
HP: 35/35
MP: 10/10
SP: 10/10
NP: 6/10
STR: 1
AGI: 1
VIT: 10 (+1)
INT: 1 (+25)
MND: 1 (+25)
CHA: 1
DEF: 100 (+25)
NUC: 1 (+25)
Skills:
Standard Skills:
Active:
- Starfold
Passive:
N/A
Nuclear Skills:
- Nuclear Release
- Radiation Shield
Shield Menu
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Based on the bracketed values, which I assumed were what the equipped shield and possibly other equipment added, it seemed this shield substantially increased my power. Also, it seemed the stat bonuses from the equipped shield did not increase resource values. Now leaving the Cathedral, I turned to Raphtalia
"So, what do you want to do now?" I asked as gently as possible, unfortunately, emotion that was probably fear still flashed across her eyes
"I- uh, can- can I stay with you?" She almost whispered, increasing in speed and volume as the sentence progressed, I was taken aback by this request but then it hit me, of course a child wouldn't want to wander off on her own when they could stay with quite possibly the first half decent person they had met in a long time, though I felt this judgement of me was misguided, I decided I had to take responsibility for this child, just like the egg I bought before I knew that that tent was a slave market.
"Sure." I said firmly, and picked her up once more, setting off to find somewhere to buy some equipment...