Chapter 0 / Prologue Between Friends
"There really doesn't seem to be anything good here…"
Naofumi went down the library's aisle, hoping there would be some book that would grab his attention. So far, he's been passing a lot of the usual genres that he would have immediately indulged himself into, but all that achieved was a defeated white flag. He would have found something, but not today. Not even the typical fantasy novels would soothe the yearning mind.
At the very least, there weren't many people around to watch him pace back and forth like someone building up their courage to confess to their crush.
These days were transitioning over to the digital age, where physical books are becoming part of the past. Nevertheless, Naofumi always enjoyed the sensation of holding a book and flipping through its pages. It felt better than swiping along a screen, but he could certainly think of a few people that would argue otherwise.
How many times has he gone back and forth already? Five? Maybe six times? Nothing, and he meant it when he thought that absolutely nothing was making him stop to pick any books up. He would have thought that his mind would have made him pull a few books out haphazardly through pure spite by now, but he ended up leaving empty-handed. Aside from the few groceries he was holding in his hand. It would have been nice to pick up a book while he was out already, but alas—
"I guess you can't get what you want every time." Avoiding the seventh trip, Naofumi was about to leave the library when a book suddenly fell from the shelf. "Hmm?"
How strange. No one else had been in this aisle, nor were there anybody else in the adjacent aisles either, but Naofumi didn't think too much about it. Things accidentally fall off from heights all the time and since no one else was around, he decided to put it back where it came from. It wasn't a particularly difficult or time-consuming task.
There was a small problem.
"Didn't the book just fall from there?"
The shelf itself was still as packed as it was when he first walked by. And the second to sixth time as well. It was as if the book didn't even belong there in the first place,coming from elsewhere.
But where…?
"It was supposed to be here, but…"
The book hadn't been a small novella. It was a decently sized hardcover textbook with metal platings on it. It didn't even feel too heavy, despite its appearance. There was no way that this was casually slipped into the thin crevices between the other books and then slipped out all of a sudden, but the more Naofumi inspected the book, the more it drew in his curiosity.
Naofumi didn't know what to make of the incident. Maybe it was worth looking into the book, since there were places to sit down and read, but he was already running late on time as it is. It might have been destiny, so he stuffed it into his arms and headed off back home.
-/IV/-
"Destiny, huh…? What does destiny have to do with you forgetting the eggs?"
"I said I'm sorry, okay? I'll go grab the eggs tomorrow after my classes."
The black-haired boy shrugged at Naofumi's response. "Whatever. You're the one who's cooking, and if you needed eggs so badly for dinner, you would have already returned to the market."
"Yeah, you wouldn't need to worry about it."
He knew something else was nagging at the back of his head when he came back home. It only took one of his apartment buddies to point it out for him to realize as he was storing the food into the fridge in the cabinets, all while his friend's eyes leered at the book Naofumi laid out on the table.
"Still though, that entire book situation sounds pretty weird. Falling off a shelf that's already packed? It's like it showed up out of nowhere."
"Doesn't it? And get this, Ren! The library didn't even have it in its system! Not even a barcode! They got a few librarians over to check out what might have been going on, before ultimately deciding to just give me the book for free! How's that for a crazy story?"
"So it's a book that someone else could have dropped," Ren sighed. Acting all disinterested, even the mystery of its circumstances were still enough to pull his friend in. Naofumi wasn't inattentive enough to miss the glances Ren were stealing at the book. "Maybe you just weren't paying enough attention."
"I wouldn't say that."
"And I wouldn't count that as a crazy story." From over the counter, a blonde-haired man with a ponytail sipped on some alcohol, listening in. "I can tell you an example of a crazy story! Like, the time when I went to this party a few months ago and—"
"No one asked, Motoyasu," Ren sighed.
"Ouch, cold shoulder again! Man, ya gotta loosen up!" Motoyasu tried to budge his younger friend on the shoulder, but he stepped out of the way, causing him to stumble.
"And isn't it too early in the day to start drinking?"
"It's barely anything. You want to try it?"
"I'll pass, thanks."
Footsteps came down from the hallway as a light brown-haired boy came into the kitchen area. Hearing the small commotion was probably enough to draw him over, considering his room was the closest to the kitchen space.
"What are you guys talking about here?"
"Hey, hear this out, Itsuki," Motoyasu responded. "Naofumi found that weird textbook on the counter over there. I mean, well, he didn't find it on that particular counter—"
"—Itsuki's not that stupid—"
"—Hey."
"—but he found it when he visited the library. Apparently, it just suddenly appeared behind him on the ground without any reasonable explanation."
"This one?" Itsuki approached the book and looked at it. He picked it up, looking at its exterior before settling it back down.
"No, the invisible one beside it." Ren's sarcasm displayed itself without mercy.
"Wow, thanks for the clarification," Itsuki deadpanned. "Really appreciate it."
As his trusted friends and roommates bantered with each other, Naofumi finished up getting everything back into place. Of course, he might have appreciated it a bit if his friends helped it out, rather than standing around and talking. There was no way he could get too annoyed at them though, since the mystery of the book was keeping his mind distracted.
"I was planning on reading it before I got started on tonight's dinner. I've never seen a book like that, so I'm interested in what type of story it is."
"You don't even know the synopsis?" Itsuki's eyebrow raised.
"I tried looking for one, believe me, but there wasn't anything like that on the book's exterior. I looked inside on the reverse cover, but still nothing."
"Ohoho! How about a little storytime with the boys!?" Motoyasu cheered, lifting his drink. "I've been looking for a little distraction! And what a perfect opportunity to arise!"
"You want me to read it out loud?" Naofumi hadn't been much of an outloud reader, but it was likely the case for many people who read books in their free time. Nevertheless, it wasn't as if he would easily stumble over the words as they came. "I mean, I don't really mind if you guys want me to."
"Hmm? I don't really care either way, but if you're willing, I'll stick around for a bit. I would have to admit that the book does intrigue me to a certain degree."
"Yeah, it does sound like a fun way to pass some time."
"Then it's set! Storytime with Mister Naofumi Iwatani as our trusty narrator!"
Naofumi sighed, leaving a smile in its tracks.
"You guys…"
His apartment friends were always like this.
Before moving in, Naofumi's homelife hadn't been too eventful. Since he first started to become more interested in video games and Otaku-related past-times, he began to drift away from his studies for the sake of self-enjoyment. His parents weren't too happy with that decision, so they abandoned their efforts and redirected their focus on his little brother.
Needless to say, it backfired. His brother ended up breaking down underneath the pressure, but thanks to Naofumi's introduction to his hobbies, he was able to bring his brother back. In that process, his parents' mood towards himself lightened up a bit, but by that point, Naofumi had already wanted to move out due to the neglect. His parents were already rather toxic towards him, so it didn't matter what happened in the end.
That was when he found a listing online that brought him here. Originally, it was only one other person, but as time went on, two more people moved in and the rest was history. Spending time as roommates normally didn't automatically make them friends, but in this instance, Naofumi was fortunate to come across roommates that he could call friends. In fact, the environment here was significantly more uplifting than whatever he could experience at home. Or anywhere, actually.
And it wasn't if he was missed. His parents knew where he was staying, but only his little brother spent enough effort to come visit him once in a while. This apartment ended up being a place where he could find peace and enjoyment, even outside of his hobbies.
"Alright, then get settled down around the campfire," Naofumi jested.
He brought the book over to the dining table as everyone else sat in their respective seats. However, Naofumi could have sworn it was slightly heavier than before. No matter, it might have been his imagination fooling him, so he didn't think twice about it.
On the front pages, the name of the book was revealed.
"The Record of the Four Holy Weapons."
Something was off about that page. Either he was blind, or he couldn't find the credentials anywhere and he was certain that he didn't need glasses yet. Usually, they would have all those details along the book's title page, but it was left blank. Not as if it was erased, but if it didn't exist.
For the second time, he decided to ignore the irregularities.
"Let's see what we got here…"
The book, despite its shortcomings, did actually have text in it; what a surprise! However, for all of the mysterious intrigue that it managed to pull in, it was pathetically generic at first glance.
It started off depicting a world-ending prophecy of a fantasy setting, where a wave of destruction would tear open the skies and set chaos to the land. In order to defend themselves against it, heroes from different worlds would be summoned in order to fight it off and save their land. Each hero was assigned the namesake of the book, the Holy Weapons.
"The Hero of the Holy Sword was someone of great strength. The Hero of the Holy Bow was someone of rightful justice. The Hero of the Holy Spear was someone of undying loyalty. The Hero of the… Holy Shield…?"
Naofumi winced at the word. No, he read that correctly; it did say "shield".
"The Hero of the Holy Shield was someone that protected the people who believed in him and in return, those same people would be inspired to protect him as well."
"Sounds like some protagonist energy right there," Ren scoffed.
"But a shield isn't a weapon, right?" Motoyasu asked, speaking aloud Naofumi's current thoughts. "I mean, there's a certain reason why people don't bring it into boss fights on Emerald Online."
"People don't bring shields to fights in Emerald Online because that game's meta is oriented around burst damage," Ren responded. "That's not a fair comparison."
"And do people bring shields to fights in BSO?" Itsuki followed up.
"... Alright, good point."
"Shields aren't even considered as weapons in Dimension Wave; they're just offhands to support the main weapon," Itsuki continued. "Whoever gets stuck with the Holy Shield in that book is up for a world of hurting. Maybe the story is about him and his problems?"
Naofumi had a vague recollection of the games they were mentioning, but he could confidently say that they were referring to their favorite games. Emerald Online was a top-down MMORPG, BSO or Brave Star Online was a VRMMORPG, and Dimension Wave was a traditional RPG. He remembered trying the games, but none of them were his style of preference, especially considering he fell out of playing video games as intensely as before within the last year.
Digressing aside, Naofumi progressed onwards into the narrative adventure.
The four heroes went off on their journey to protect the world and grow stronger after their summoning, having the story give the spotlight between the four unnamed characters. While on their journey, they would come across adveresies such as—
Ren suddenly stood up from his seat with a heavy sigh.
"I take it back. This is disgustingly boring."
"Yeah, I see what you're getting at here," Naofumi groaned. Even he couldn't defend this book, trying to grasp for straws to push himself through. "The only unique thing that I'm seeing here is the fact that the narrative tries to structure itself around the four heroes, but other than that, it's executing the narrative elements decently at best. There's even only a single heroine, who is the princess of the country, but it looks like she was written to be a terrible person. Being obsessive and manipulative of the heroes, she was usually the obstacle in the way for them. It's because of her that the heroes had a habit of going up against each other, whether it's through another one of her schemes or trickery."
"Well, the writers probably want to stir up conflict between the four heroes in some regard."
"Should we just drop it back at the library?" Itsuki suggested. "I feel offended by its presence. Should I actually be offended by its presence?"
"Maybe there's something else worth seeing in here."
"Yeah, keep telling yourself that." Ren rolled his shoulder as he started walking away. "I'm out."
Naofumi looked over to his side, noting that Motoyasu hadn't said a single thing about it. He wanted to ask what Motoyasu thought about the book, only to get his answer immediately in the image of his friend collapsed onto the table, snoring quietly in a quick nap.
He was planning to give it a few more pages, but if it doesn't hold his belief well enough, Itsuki's idea might have been more tempting in following through. Would he have the heart to leave this misfortunate disaster of literature with them? On second thought, maybe not.
Naofumi flipped to the next flip, holding his breath, expecting to see something, anything, but he hadn't been anticipating its next progression.
"... Huh?"
When he flipped to the next page, it was blank. Naofumi frowned, flipping through more pages frantically to see where the story went, but after setting everything up, the story acted as if it disappeared off the book. It actually felt more like, just as the credentials, it wasn't written yet.
Ren stopped, noticing the rapid pages flying from left to right, before turning back to the table.
"Something wrong?"
"It's just that… nothing is here."
"What? Let me see!" Itsuki stood up from his seat and came around. He widened his eyes after seeing the same sight. "That's really weird. You would think a book would be complete if it was out there in the public like that."
"Probably some bait, if you actually think about it." Ren sighed once more, and turned to break out of the table. "Call me back when dinner's ready."
"Isn't Motoyasu supposed to be helping you with dinner today?"
"Yeah, I should probably wake him up."
Leaving the book open, Naofumi left the irregularities for a third time, but he didn't think the application of baseball might be applied to their situation. Three strikes and an out? That might have been the thing that everyone didn't expect.
"Hey, Motoyasu. Mind helping me out with dinner to… night…?"
Naofumi stumbled out of his seat, accidentally pushing Motoyasu off. He didn't do it on purpose, as his head suddenly started spinning. Both Itsuki and Ren looked at Naofumi funny, but when Motoyasu didn't even wake up after colliding with the ground, Naofumi's concerns started to swirl.
It was as if… Motoyasu had passed out rather than fall asleep.
"Hey, Naofumi? Are you alright?"
"You don't look so—Wha!? Gragh!"
Suddenly, Ren and Itsuki started stumbling over themselves, grabbing their heads in pain. They grunted as if trying to resist whatever agony they were suffering through. Naofumi shortly experienced himself, comparable to a splitting migraine of the highest caliber—as if someone had been trying to tear his skull into two pieces. A blood-curdling scream erupted from Naofumi's throat.
"GAHHHHH!"
"W-What's happening!?"
"Hell if… I know!"
It was too much.
Before Naofumi could get answers, he heard the thumps of more two bodies hitting the ground. Soon after, one more thump came around from himself, slamming onto the table in a desperate move to stand himself up. He slowly glanced up, wincing in the torment, to see that the blank pages were suddenly glowing. That was the last thing he saw before his eyes closed, causing him to collapse onto the ground.
His consciousness slipped away, leaving the questions unanswered and the safety of his friends left unresolved.
[SKIT 000 : Skit Explanation]
[Naofumi] : "Hmm? What's this section?"
[Ren] : "They're called [Skits]. They'll appear at the end of every chapter, concerning the events that the chapter has taken place. You can consider them as the conversations that take place between the various scenes, whether indicated by line break or not."
[Itsuki] : "Yeah, I heard that the main story had terrible pacing. This is to alleviate some of the character interactions during the editing process that were be removed in other to keep the pacing of the story as healthy as possible."
[Naofumi] : "We're simply going to be talking like this then? In script format? Is that even allowed?"
[Motoyasu] : "That's right! Whether it be to see more interactions, get better insight on someone's thoughts of the situation, or a mere comment to describe the mindset of a character in the moment. Whether it be whimsical, funny, or serious. That's what the skits are all about! And the best part is that they're entirely optional, so if readers are simply here for the story, they can skip these interactions and monologues entirely while missing little of value!"
[Itsuki] : "It really is taking the cake and eating it too!"
[Ren] : "And now, we should probably get back into the story. That's enough fourth-wall breaking for the time being."
[Naofumi] : "Hold it! You guys ignored my last question!"
[A/N] Welcome to ROT4H.
As it appear, this is merely a story on having the four heroes start out already as friends before their summoning together. Not exactly the most complicated setup on the surface, but there's going to be things down the line as to how that might end up changing things in their past. There will be some liberties in everyone's personality to attribute to those changes, but there will be an attempt to keep them as reasonable as possible.
Since I know that it's something that a few select readers like about "Rising of the Shield Hero", Naofumi won't be developing the same way as he did in that original story. Actually, if you've read spin-off, "Reprise of the Spear Hero", you'll see far more similarities to some of those versions of Naofumi and ROT4H Naofumi than the main story, being a far softer and mild-mannered Naofumi.
Knowing some folks though, they'll still complain since it's not the version of Naofumi they want to see, and completely miss the point of the changed theme of this fanfic compared to the original. And they would probably dismiss "Reprise of the Spear Hero" altogether. Quick tangent, but I once made a meme about Reprise in the r/shieldbro subreddit and there was frankly a very large number of people who didn't know it even existed.
So that's your disclaimer here. Stop reading if you fit into this category. That'll save both of us the effort.
Look, I'm just tired of hearing it from folks that are trying to force something into this fic that isn't supposed to be there. Sorry for the pre-fanfic rant.
¯\_(ツ)_/¯
This is simply going to be a story about a group of friends, figuring out what it means to be a friend. Friends make mistakes, friend misunderstand, but at the end of the day, how does it accumulate to their beliefs? That's the entire theme of this fanfic, something you'll see throughout this story.