Resilient Shield

Chapter 1

~X~

The next morning wipes away Naofumi's jovial mood. Why? Because the four of them were herded to a meeting room full of adventurers... and none of them choose him.

Look, he knew he wasn't liked, but isn't this too much?

Naofumi was twitching in anger. He was about to complain and declares if no one wants to party with him he can go alone when a pretty girl with red hair said she wants to join his party.

The girl's name was Myne Sophia.

She brought Naofumi to the town. A town that, mind you, won't be out of place from Middle-age, pre-Industry Revolution Europe. Except with touch of The Gamer: Fantasy Edition. Their first stop was the Weapon Shop.

...Naofumi finds out the hard way that he can't wield any other weapon or weaponizing anything else but the shield and his own fist. If he tried, the Shield would electrocute him and just for information, THAT'S HURT LIKE BITCH YA KNOW?!

In the end, Naofumi settles with a simple Chainmail Armor, with the added bonus it only costs 100 Silver.

They went to the field to do some warm-up.

Naofumi found the Low-level monsters were ridiculous. Like, a mutated balloon ridiculous.

Hell! The name itself was Self-Explanatory! Orange Balloons, anyone? You would think it was some party decoration rather than a monster.

And he was incensed with his low Attack stat. It took him five effing minutes to pop one balloon. Five. Minutes. While Myne was capable of slashing one in a single sweep.

...okay. He might be downplayed my fighting skill a little. But in his defense, the Balloon bounces back and forth and was quite difficult to grasp, so Naofumi was forced to downplayed his fighting skill until he got better grasp how to deal with these little pests. There's no use using awesome and deadly attack if it doesn't connect. All he would do was making a fool outta himself.

They spent the day till sunset in that clearing, attacking any Balloons they encounter... and even found Yellow Balloons.

The two of them returned to Weapon Shop to get Myne's armor. Naofumi cringed when she chooses an expensive armor which, in his opinion, won't do much. It's pretty and made from expensive material, but the design... the design blatantly told anyone with a lick of common sense that it was for decoration than practical use.

Sure, some Anime character has a weird and improbable outfit, but that's anime and not real life. This, was very much real and thus pretty-but-useless armor was just a waste of money.

Alas, she was undeterred and insist on it, which made Naofumi want to throw his hands up. God damn it, woman! They're going to war, not Conference! There's a quite debate before the Old Man pulled him aside and decided to sell the armor for a decent price. 450 Silvers than its original 480. Still a lot for Naofumi but at least he can save 30 Silver.

And when they're at the inn, Myne offers him Alcohol, which was 'ugh'.

Now, don't get him wrong. Naofumi can enjoy good alcohol. He just has insanely good Alcohol tolerance. He was Undefeated Champion of Drinking Games and he would have a visit to the toilet three or four times before he remotely buzzed. And by that time, everyone else was knocked out cold or cause shenanigans. However, he was not in the mood for a drink. Not when he had limited budget and Myne wasted it on decorative armor.

He retires to his own room early. There, Naofumi sat on his bed and open his Status. To his surprise, the Status window had an upgrade so to speak, with Skill, Magic, and Party Members have their own page. He opens the Status Page and found he has passive Skill.

· Arsenal of Shields (Passive): Level MAX (Allows you to hold and instantly swap between an infinite array of shields, transforming the Holy Shield. Allows the user to create new Shields by absorbing Objects into Holy Shield and unlock new skills and abilities. The Skills and Abilities related to a Shield is usable as long as the Shield in question is equipped.)

· Blessing of the Shield (Passive): Level 1 (Grants an additional point to Endurance.)

· Burden of the Shield (Passive): Level MAX (Locks Weapon use besides the Shield. Lock any attempt to use anything else besides the Shield as a weapon. Any attempt to violate this will result in a Penalty (Electrocution). Prevents the Shield from being sold, traded, broken, or lost.)

· My Body Is My Shield (Passive): Level 1 (Grants Damage Resistance (Lesser) and Pain Resistance (Lesser). Damage Resistance (Lesser) and Pain Resistance (Lesser) is applied to the whole body.)

· Haggling: Level 1 (Automatically active "Persuasion" and "Trading" with merchant/shop owner/trader. 5% chance of gaining discount price)

It wasn't much but Naofumi takes what he can get. If he was being optimistic (or naive) he would think it was a good skill set to have.

Looking at the Haggling skill, Naofumi can't help but remind on the money he had.

From the 800 Silvers the King gave them because Naofumi only has ONE party member, they had spent 100 Silver for his Chainmail Armor, 450 Silver for Myne's not-so-useful armor (Sorry old man but the design is too much), and almost for rent the inn (two rooms) and dinner plus Myne's alcohol intake. Leaving them with 249 Silver. Naofumi then remembers Myne didn't know that they got 30 Silver discounts.

Feeling oddly mischievous and vengeful, Naofumi put those thirty silver inside his inventory and resolved to not telling her.

Maybe this will teach Myne that splurging money is not good in the long term planning. Spending money is easy as flipping hand, earning those, however, was awfully hard.

Nodding to himself, Naofumi began to doze off.

He was rudely awoken when some Soldiers barges to his room. Fire Alarm rings in his head.

First, he was left in his undershirt and pants.

Second, his belongings? The armor and purchase yesterday? All gone. It was only because the Burden of the Shield he still has some semblance of armory and funds that he didn't flail out like a headless chicken.

Third and final, the soldiers were glaring down on him. Their expression was one of disgust, hatred, and one of them had dark glee on his face as if he had been waiting for this moment. Some even had their weapon pointed at him.

Naofumi had sinking feeling in his guts.