CHAPTER 4.

Naofumi had to admit the man-made a bit of sense. But they still needed to confirm it. When he expressed the idea, the other three nodded.

"Okay, who is the current Prime Minister of Japan?" said Motoyasu.

"I don't know any presidents of Japan Motoyasu," Adrian said with an amused smile. " But I think you three will find different answers."

And indeed they did, Naofumi had never even heard of the names the other heroes mentioned. When the continued with more global things lie wars or major events, Naofumi found that they had nothing in common.

"I believe that we have sufficient proof to conclude that we are from alternate Earths," said the Sword Hero.

"Yeah"

"I guess you're right."

"Seems so," said Naofumi nodding.

"It seems that you two probably have a great deal of information on this world that we do not." noted Adrian, his tone calm, and Naofumi had to agree with him, compared to these two gamer pros who seemed to know everything about this world and this absurd guy who was always chill he was at a massive disadvantage, he needed to learn more,"Would you mind sharing some basics with us? It would help us survive."

Their hesitation was as plain as day, but in the end, they capitulated.

"Alright guys just let me handle it." said Motoyasu," Now the waves are events with raid bosses at the end of it, each boss normally has its gimmick but as long as you've got a decent party and have level enough it's pretty easy to beat. There are tons of adds and you can get a lot of XP if you kill them but they don't matter much. It's best to just avoid them."

He continued from there with the occasional interruption from Itsuki. He spoke about the bosses, the fact that the waves bosses had levels that went up by like 15 levels each time and that if you failed to beat a wave boss then an event starts up where you have to fight the adds that you missed out on.

Naofumi was a little stunned at the sheer amount of information that Motoyasu knew about, he felt his gratitude surge at the man's help. Itsuki knew a lot but he wasn't sharing much but Motoyasu was getting into it.

He then started about the weapons, "Now Black your Sword is pretty much standard DPS, high attack, medium speed but shitty defence. You need a healer but if you've got one you're pretty much set."

He then turned towards Naofumi," You're a Shielder. It's got great defence and in the early game you're pretty much unkillable but in the late game, you're kinda screwed."

Naofumi was a little stunned at the sudden negative turn but Motoyasu continued," In the mid-game the enemies get a lot stronger and so they began to get past your defence but in the late game their attack is high enough that your best shot is to attack hard first, Shielders tend to be shit at attacks. In EMO almost no one took Shielders after the first month or so, I even heard that they were planning on deleting the class."

Naofumi had to interrupt here," Does the Shielder have an evolved class or something?" he asked a little desperate, he needed something!

"Nah man, the advanced classes were pretty shit too. Took way to long to get there, and it's pretty much the same thing just intensified. All defence and no attack. Like I said shit class." he said casually like he hadn't just told Naofumi that he had drawn the worst weapon.

Itsuki nodded at Motoyasu's words," Indeed. Dimension Wave had much the same scenario when it came to the Shield wielders. They were decent enough tanks in the early game but the difficulty curve for them was insane later on, most only took the class if they wanted an impossible challenge."

Naofumi felt his heart wither. This was bad, really bad. He looked at his Shield, and had to admit that it made a little sense, hadn't he been the one to think that a Shield wasn't really a weapon at all?

But! That didn't change a thing, so what if he could not attack? He would have party members to help him with that! He would keep them safe, he was the Shield Hero after all,

and they would attack for him.

Black's voice brought him out of his little inspiration session, "It does not seem wise to dismiss the only defensive armament we have among the four of us. The ability to damage is all well and good but surely there are enemies where defensive capability is critical as well?"

Naofumi felt a surge of gratitude at the older man at that. He didn't seem to be the type of guy to throw around empty words, so he must believe what he said. And it did make sense, after all, who heard of a pure DPS raid teams, they needed healers and tanks as well.

"Nah man, the Shielder is pretty shitty, there are better tanks, better healers and way better classes. No offence man," Motoyasu said turning towards Naofumi," You got a shitty deal with that shield."

"It's fine," said Naofumi, with confidence he didn't feel," If I can't attack I can at least support my party members right? I'm still a hero and this is a Legendary weapon, I'm sure it will work out."

He wasn't certain who he was trying to convince, these three or himself.

The pitying looks he got from Motoyasu and Itsuki did not help. Black, on the other hand, was simply silent with an expressionless face, he was clearly thinking. Probably about how useless the Shielder was.

Naofumi felt a surge of envy, this guy didn't even want to be here, but he still had a damn good weapon, from what Motoyasu said the guy had the best DPS weapon of all of them.

"I don't think it would be wise to assume that our weapons will follow all the same patterns as the games." Black said after a long moment, "I'm guessing that in those games all players had access to the same classes?" he asked, and waited until Motoyasu and Itsuki nodded," Then it would seem that we have access to some special versions of the same classes given that these are meant to be Legendary weapons. It seems likely that we shall have access to more things than just what the games provide. Maybe the Shield can be useful here even if it was worthless in the game."

Naofumi felt his envy turn to shame. Here he was thinking shit about the guy and he goes and defends him, but more than that he felt a little spark of hope, Black was right, the Shield was shit in the game, but that hardly meant that it was useless here.

Motoyasu scoffed at that, "Dude, everything about the weapons is pretty much the same as the game, it's nice that you're trying to help Naofumi out here, but the fact is that the Shield is a pathetic weapon. Hell, it barely counts as one since it can't attack at all just defend and counter."

Black shrugged at that," I don't say things simply to be nice." he stated, his tone calm, "But you may be correct, only time shall tell for certain."

The conversation stalled here as they were called for dinner. But Naofumi felt his excitement surge again as they got up to follow the steward.

So what if he had a shield?

He was going on an adventure!

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Adrian took a careful look around the bedroom he had been assigned and felt a small smile emerge as he noticed a number of potentially useful items. The items were normal ones, like a number of candles, some incense sticks, some sort of odd magical lights, a number of different fabrics and some furniture but those things along with the objects he had in his pockets from his homeworld would be what he needed tonight for the testing.

Adrian knew that in this world the only asset he had that could not be easily turned against him was the Legendary Holy Sword, he did want to learn magic but that would require help, in contrast, the Sword was something that he could use right away, and all it needed was to absorb some material and level up, something that no one was likely to stop him from doing.

Truly he was grateful that the Sword prevented people from enslaving him with a cursed seal, it was the number one thing he was most grateful about, otherwise he doubted that these people would hesitate to bind and enslave him so that he did their bidding, no doubt an obedient pet would be preferable to a free hero.

Adrian shook his head slightly as he walked towards the unlit candles, now was not the time for such contemplation, he needed to test out his Holy Sword to check if it functioned as the Legendary Weapons did in the Light Novel, the knowledge he had of the LN was one of his only advantages in this world, he could not afford to wait to test if that knowledge was accurate, until now all signs pointed to the fact that save for himself everything was the same but who knew how many differences there truly were.

So he broke the candles in half and pulled out the wick, then he took some of the wax and offered it to the gem embedded in his Sword. For a moment, nothing happened, and Adrian felt despair seep through, if the Sword could not even perform a basic absorption then his knowledge was completely invalid, but then the wax began to glow and he felt his Sword react, in an instant the wax vanished and in the corner of his vision he saw a notification.

Wax Absorbed.

Conditions Met: Wax Sword Unlocked.

Adrian felt like laughing, only the certainty that people were no doubt spying on him stopped him from doing so. He quickly opened up his status menu fully and focused on the weapon tree. Instantly the massive three-dimensional structure filled his vision and Adrian focused on the flashing icon indicating the newly unlocked sword.

The weapon tree seemed to fade from view and a new screen opened up in front of his, it held the details of the Wax Sword.

Wax Sword (unmastered)(0/10) : Lv 1 0.00% +0

Energy Level 0/100

Rarity: Very Common

Enchantments: None

Status Enchantments: None

Equip Boosts : Attack +1

Equip Skills: Moulding 1

Special Ability: None

A moment of focus on each term in the help menu clarified things, everything was as the norm in the light novel. The level indicated the amount that had been boosted by using the energy gauge, the energy gauge filled up the more the weapon was kept active. Adrian could also boost the weapon using items as shown by the enchantment section and the (0/10) and the +1, though it seemed to need different types of items for each system.

Adrian had no monster parts so he could not test out the status enchantments but the fact that he had the option was incredibly reassuring.