Rising of the Shield Demon - Part 1

by The Dark Dragen

AU Story: A young man named Naofumi is unwillingly summoned to another world to become one of the four Cardinal Heroes, the problem was the hero he became was hated by the kingdom that summoned him and was considered weak. Read as he overcomes this and the events surrounding this, where he slowly become a darker version of himself. This is a slow and dark story, not for children.

2. Chapter 1

Author's Note:In this chapter, I'll be writing about each of the four heroes, telling you a bit about their past and how they got to Azeroth. I'm having it so that the heroes come from different timelines, but all around the timeline where they had computers in one form or another. I'm doing this as it was said that those who were summoned to this gaming like world were meant to have an understanding of this world, so that means that they were summoned from a time where gaming was well known. So I decided to use different timelines sort of deal, but they would be close to each other, a few years difference.

Please note that as you read this, this isn't a beta read story, so there WILL be mistakes. I have dyslexia and have some learning difficulties which make it hard for me to see mistakes like grammar and spelling, I spell it as I think it should and rely on spell check to fix the rest of it. If you're interested in Beta Reading this story, please let me know. Please know that this is slow going story, as I have other stories in the works too that I'm working on.

Chapter One.

The Four Cardinal Heroes!

Motoyasu Kitamura, Earth 2402, Year 22nd of February 2010:

In this chapter, we'll be talking about four people who'll be summoned to another world to become heroes and save the world. The first of the four hero's was Motoyasu Kitamura, a twenty-one-year-old young man, he was tall with long blond hair held back in a ponytail. He was considered by most who meet him as handsome. His parents were rich, being owners a few companies, so he lived off of them most of his life. He went to the best school that his world had thanks to them. His parents were proud that despite his status, he was loyal and kind to others, unlike many other rich kids.

But whilst their son was loyal and kind to his friends, Motoyasu had become a womaniser, using his money to date those he liked. At times more than one at a time. And some women are willing to share his bed with other women because of his money. As long as their son was spending his money on them, they were willing to share him.

The problem was that Motoyasu was incredibly naïve and gullible, believing that the women he dated liked him and not his money. He believed anything that the women he was with said. This made it so that he lost friends and allies that he had, as the women saw them as a threat and so decided to lie about them so Motoyasu would push himself away from his friends and allies.

So to save their son from himself, his parents sent him to the best University in the world, hoping this would make him less naïve and gullible. Hoping that seeing the world would open his eyes and make him see reason and become better for it.

It sort of worked, Motoyasu worked hard and got top grades at his University. And during his free time, he would either be going out or playing online video games. At the moment, he was playing a new and popular online game called Emerald Online. For a bit, it seemed to work, but after a year or so at University he met two women that he really liked, Momiji, a shy and quiet girl, and Ikuyo, a bossy girl who was also one of Motoyasu's classmates, both of whom held feelings for him and ended up confessing their love towards him.

Unlike the other women in his past, they weren't willing to share him and so he cheated on them. But one day, the two found out about it. And so Ikuyo finally demanded Motoyasu to choose one or the other, Momiji chose to run away from the situation and derail the topic.

But after there, Ikuyo ran out of patience and let her temper get the better of her. As one day during a meal at Motoyasu's place, she grabbed a knife from the kitchen and pointed it towards Momiji, proclaiming if she was out of the picture, Motoyasu would've been able to finally date her.

Motoyasu was shocked by Ikuyo's sudden violent nature, seeing that he was both friends with them and cared for them both, he ran over to stand between the two, hoping to stop the fight before it got worse. But it didn't end up the way that he wanted, instead of stopping it, he ended up getting stabbed on the side of the chest not by Ikuyo, but by Momiji, who also had a knife in her hands.

Motoyasu couldn't believe it, Momiji, who was usually shy and quiet, started displaying yandere-like traits and ended up stabbing him. She said tearfully admitted that she feared that he was secretly visiting other girls besides herself and Ikuyo. She had developed the idea of dying with Motoyasu and being with him in the afterlife. Ikuyo, in a fit of jealousy, stabbed Motoyasu as well, declaring that if anyone was going to be with him in the afterlife, it was going be her. Motoyasu was repeatedly stabbed by both Momiji and Ikuyo, the young man died from profuse blood loss. He couldn't believe that this was how he died.

'What's going on?' Motoyasu thought to himself, remembering what happened to him, as his eyes were adjusting to the sudden bright light as he could see again, 'Those crazy bitches killed me.'

As he could see again, he saw that he was in a throne-like room, as he looked down, he saw that he was standing on some sort of altar with a geometric pattern that had been painted in some sort of fluorescent material. As he looked around he saw that within the room, there was a smaller altar with candles, herbs and other stuff on it. In front of the altar, there was a group of people in robes praying. The place reminded him of the inside of a temple from one of the games that he played in the past, one where demons were summoned to fight for the heroes.

'Is this heaven?' thought Motoyasu, wondering if this was the way how the dead came to heaven. It was then where he realized that he was holding a spear, 'Where did this spear come from?'

Before he could ask about this, three other people appeared within a few seconds of each other, each holding something, a bow, a sword and strangely enough a shield. Each of them was just as confused as he was, he had to wonder, 'Did they die too?'

"Where are we?" asked the one with the sword.

"Fantastic, the summoning was a success!" one of the people in the robes called gracefully, he had his hood down, he had blonde brown hair, brown eyes and he was wearing a basic gold circlet with a red ruby in the centre of it, "Ohh, brave heroes, please won't you save our world from pure evil."

"WHHHAT!?" Motoyasu and the other three asked at once.

o0OoO0o

Itsuki Kawasumi, Earth 3492, Year 12th of April 1998:

Now our second hero is Itsuki Kawasumi, a seventeen-year-old male with naturally curly blonde hair that flops, giving him a charming appearance. Whilst his family was well off and he went to a decent high school, in fact, he was in his final year, Itsuki had a rough life. His mother had an unknown illness that keeps her in bed often, whilst his father was a drunk and abusive, not only that, he was often bullied at school too.

So when he wasn't at school or doing homework, he was at home in his room playing on his console playing the popular console game, Dimension Wave. It was a game where he could escape reality, the problems in his life, where he was special and superior. He would play the part of a hero of justice, being like robin hood, being a stealthy character doing missions to kill corrupt nobles and save villages. In the games, he could be strong and powerful and be the hero that he couldn't be in real life, where he could help and protect others.

Now life went on as normal for Itsuki until one day on the way home, he was crossing the road when out of nowhere a speeding truck hit him. His last thought as the world around him went black was this, 'I can't believe it, I was killed like this, by a hit and run. I died without being a hero at least once, I hope that in my next life I can become a hero of justice.'

Although his world went black for a few moments, he knew it could have been weeks, months, years or longer before he knew what happened next. As when he was able to open his eyes again, he found himself in what he believed was a summoning room from one of the games that he played before.

Whilst the place was dark, he believed that the walls and the pillars were made from some sort of marble, the same with the altar he seemed to be standing on. He believed that it was a summoning room, even more, when he saw people in robes chanting in front of an altar with stuff, who he believed were mages of some sort. At first, he thought he was either having strange visions due to him dying or this was a heaven of some kind. But seeing that he still felt some pain from being killed, he believed he wasn't in heaven, as if he was, he didn't believe he would feel pain. It was the same for the vision, he didn't believe that if he was having one, he would feel the pain.

That left with one other option, however strange it might sound to him, seeing that he didn't think magic like was real, he believed that he was summoned to wherever he was. So it meant that either he was summoned just before he died, or he was summoned sometime after he died for some reason. Maybe, just maybe, if he was summoned here, then they would need a hero, something he couldn't become in his own world. Although, even if they needed a hero, he wasn't just going to do it for free, as even heroes need some sort of reward so that they can get by.

Then in a matter of seconds of all this happening, a few things first he had a bow, his favourite tool he loved to use in games, the other is that he was next to a tall blonde male with long blond hair, which was held back in a ponytail. He was holding a spear. Just before he could ask who he was and what was happening, two other people suddenly appeared, a person holding a sword the other oddly enough holding a shield. 'Were these guys also summoned here for the same reason as me?' thought Itsuki, 'And if so, what was this reason, is it to become some sort of heroes for this place?'

Before he could ask questions, male with the sword asked, "Where are we?"

"Fantastic, the summoning was a success!" one of the people in the robes called gracefully, he had his hood down, he had blonde brown hair, brown eyes and he was wearing a basic gold circlet with a red ruby in the centre of it. Itsuki believed that with the way he looked, and the only one with his hood down, he was some sort of High Mage, "Ohh brave heroes, please won't you save our world from pure evil."

"WHHHAT!?" Itsuki and the other three asked at once. Sure Itsuki might have thought that he was summoned here for some reason, even to be a hero, but to save the world? He wasn't that skilled in much and he didn't think he was that strong to save the world, so why would these people summon someone like him to save the world. Wouldn't they summon someone stronger, someone, better for the job?

o0OoO0o

Ren Amaki, Earth 2301, Year 30th of June 2022:

Now our second hero is Ren Amaki, a sixteen-year-old male with long dark blue hair, or that's what everyone apart for his parents and a few trustworthy people believed he was. The truth was that he was a female by the name of Renka Amaki, where she was living in a world where men dominated the world and females were nothing more second class. Where that if they weren't house-wives as many men would like the female to be, they were either nurses, secretaries, some sort of assistant or things along those lines. In this world, females won't be allowed to become successful and have high paying jobs.

This wasn't something her parents wanted though, they wanted her to have a better life, with a high paying job and a better life than most women normally had. That meant that they had to have her daughter pretend that she a male, only allowing those she trusted to know about who she really was. Because of this and not knowing who to trust, she became a loner so that it would be easier to hide who she was.

The only time she could be herself was in a Virtual Reality Massively Multiplayer Online, otherwise known as VRMMO, where she could make her character as a male or female, which of course she made her character as a female. The game was Brave Star Online, it was popular in her world with guilds, monsters and outer space themes.

Whilst she was part of a guild in her game, Renka normally hunts monsters and do missions alone, the only time she would work with others is when the prey he seeks to kill is too strong for him to hunt alone or when the mission was too difficult. His guild believes that the comrades who are weaker than the other members should work to individually or work with other weaker players to increase their powers to catch up to the stronger ones.

Now like the other two, she too died young - but unlike the other two, her death was more heroic. You see at the time there was a serial killer going around, everyone in her town knew about it and because of the killer, there was a curfew to make sure people were safe at night. Whilst it was a few hours before curfew, she decided she would take her best female friend home, one of the few people she felt close to. Her friend didn't know Renka's secret, as Renka feared what her friend might think, should she learn the truth.

Either way, as Renka was taking her friend home the two had to take an alleyway to get to Renka's friend's home. But as they walked down the alleyway though, they were stopped by none other than the killer that people were worried about. Long story short, the killer tried to kill Renka's friend, but before he could though, Renka stepped in as she picked up a pipe and knocked the killer out before he could kill her friend. But the problem was that before she knocked the man out, the man stabbed her a few times in her sides.

Her friend called the police and the ambulance. The problem was that Renka was bleeding to death. Whilst the police were able to come fast and arrested the killed and tried to save Renka, the ambulance was yet to come. As the police were trying to save Renka, they found out that he was a she. Finding this out, there were whispers by the police of having her arrested for pretending to be a male, not only that, they talked about arresting her family too should they know about this.

Renka remembered that as she feared what would happen to her family, she heard her friend whispered to her that she knew about her secret for a while. As she saw her friend naked one day at the school locker rooms, but she didn't say anything as she understood why Renka did it and not say a word about it. She also whispered that she hoped that should Renka be reborn, she was born in a time and place where she didn't have to hide who she was. As Renka's world blackened, she smiled, happy to know that her best friend knew the truth and was fine with it. Renka didn't think she could have rested in death if her friend didn't know and that she hated her for it.

Renka didn't know how long the world around her was dark, but the next thing she knew was that she was in some sort of chamber room, with two other people there. She was the same age as she was killed and wearing the same clothes. Like the two before her, she saw the type of room she was in and the mages in the room. Pinching herself, she realized that she wasn't dead as she thought she was, so she couldn't be in heaven.

Knowing that she was alive somehow, she thought about her friend and parents, 'I hope they are fine.' Renka thought to herself, 'I hope they didn't get arrested because of me.'

Just as she thought about them, she noticed that like the other two people in the room, she too had a weapon. But instead of a bow or a spear, she had a sword. Not only that but at the bottom right of her vision, she saw a floating icon. It reminded her of the icon from the VRMMO games. 'Have I entered a gaming world?' Renka thought in shock. She knew it was meant to be impossible, but why else would the icon be there for?

Before she could think more or do anything about this though, another person came appeared out of nowhere. It was another male, but unlike her and the other two weapon holders, this one had a shield.

Seeing the confusion about what was going on and where they were, she decided to be the one to ask. "Where are we?"

"Fantastic, the summoning was a success!" one of the people in the robes called gracefully. Like Itsuki, Renka believed that he was some sort of High Mage or High Priest, "Ohh brave heroes, please won't you save our world from pure evil."

"WHHHAT!?" Renka and the other three asked at once. Renka couldn't believe what she heard, whoever these people were, they seemed to be the one who brought them here and wanted to save their world. Whilst she was grateful for them to bring her back from the dead, she wasn't willing to save some strangers for nothing. One thing she knew from her world, never do anything for anything, as they could lead you to problems later on.

o0OoO0o

Naofumi Iwatani, Earth 309, Year 5th of January 2019 - Japan, Odaiba, Morning:

Now onto our last hero, our protagonist to this story, Naofumi Iwatani. He was a year-old male with unruly black hair and green eyes. At this moment in time, he was sleeping, having a strange dream.

He was standing on the coast of some unknown land, looking out to the sea. The coast itself was peaceful, there were hills around him, seagulls flying over him and he was looking at the different kinds of islet out in the sea. Some were big enough that a few people could live on them.

Whilst he didn't recognise the land he was at, it felt familiar somehow, like he has been there before, even though he knew that he hadn't. In this dream, he was wearing some kind of outfit, something that fit in the mediaeval times. He also had a strange small shield on his right arm.

Naofumi didn't know why, but the dream version of himself at peace, as he had been through hush times and for the first time in ages he was at peace. As he was looking out in the sea, an orange ball rolled out to him, hitting the rock he was sitting on. He gave a small smile when he saw the ball, Naofumi somehow recognised it from somewhere.

So standing up he picked up the ball and waited. Whilst he wasn't sure who he was waiting for, there was a part of him that knew who he was waiting for.

A few moments later, a girl came into view, but she was unlike any girl he had ever seen before. She reminded him of a Demi-Human that he read in manga once, if he had to guess she was some kind of raccoon-dog Demi-Human.

She was wearing a red garment, underneath it was a long-sleeved leather protective, she also wore a black robe with bronze-like trimmings. The most noticeable thing was that she had iron cuffs on each wrist, along with an iron collar and some sort of red marking on her chest.

The problem was that whilst he knew she had light brown hair and had ears on the top of her head, Naofumi was unable to make out any facial features. If he had to guess by her size and how old her skin seemed to be, he had to guess she was no older than ten to fourteen years old.

As she faceless girl came up to him, she said happily, "Master, are you ready to go?"

"I am £& #&£ #." said Naofumi.

The thing was, as he said her name, a huge seagull appeared and made a powerful squawk so that he couldn't hear the name he was saying. At the same time, the squawk woke him up in the real world.

Naofumi groaned as he awoke, "Damn, that dream again, I've yet to see the girl's face and learn her name."

This wasn't the first time that he had this dream, in fact, in the last few months he had this dream several times along with several other similar dreams with different people in it. Whilst one could say that they were different dreams, the one thing that connected them all was the shield that he wore in each of these dreams. The dreams were vague though, he only remembered small parts of them. Although he was thankful the parts he could remember were what the people looked like, while most of the looks, for whatever the reason, he could never seem to be able to see the faces of the people in his dreams.

Either way though, he was thankful that he was able to remember the rest of their looks, as he would draw them down before the dream leaves him like most of them do. Although this raccoon-dog Demi-Human seemed to stick in his mind. He sensed that she was trustworthy, but yet, she wears a collar and calls him a master. Part of him was worried about it, as he didn't see himself liking lolis. Sure, this was only a dream and most likely meant nothing, but it got Naofumi thinking, why did he dream about having a young girl as a slave instead of a full-grown female.

Now for the people from his dream that he remembers, he draws them down in his notebook. It takes a few dreams to get the full details of them, but he was able to draw them well, even if he can get their faces.

Now whilst he was a college sophomore studying economics, his main passion is drawing and trying to create his own manga. You see he was an otaku, thanks to some of his friends introduced him to manga, video games, (although he did play video games before, it wasn't as much as he did now seeing how his friends set him up with better games than he used to play,) anime and otaku culture, where he realized how much he enjoyed it and decided could never go back to caring about something as boring as studying.

Before he found his interest in the otaku culture, he was in the top ten of his year in studies. His parents wanted him to learn something useful just in case the art career didn't pan out. Whilst he knew that artists would always be needed, he knew that there would be someone better or his style of art might become out of date or he just couldn't find work, so they believe that he should have something to fall back on. Which is why Naofumi decided to learn about economics.

So getting out of bed, he went to disk and opened his art book and looked through the pages until he found the page he was looking for. This page was of what he has done with the raccoon-dog girl so far. He also placed a few notes on the page, feelings that he had about her that he had in his dream. He did this for all the people that he drew from his dreams. Like for this young female Demi-Human, he had a few pictures of her from young to late teens, her notes say loyal, slave, his sword, love interest. Naofumi just hoped that the love interest was for the older version of her.

He had other pictures like this too, one was a red-headed woman. The side notes that he had for her was princess, bitch, whore and she was manipulative and shouldn't be trusted. Another was a long-haired male with a spear, the side notes for were naïve and gullible along with the princess's bitch. The other one was of an old man, his notes for the man trash king, daughter of the princess along with manipulative and shouldn't be trusted.

The reason that he drew these people from his dream was that he was trying to create his own manga. You see his favourite theme for manga, video games and anime were Isekai, where a normal person or people from Earth gets transported to, reborn, or trapped in a parallel universe, usually a fantasy world. He likes it when they gain powers and becomes a hero or if the plot was good, a villain.

His favourite Isekai anime was Log Horizon, it was about where thirty thousand Japanese gamers were transported to the game world known as Elder Tale. The story went on about Shiroe and his group of friends getting along in the new world with the others that were teleported to it. The story went on with them trying to recreate things from their world, the problem was that this new world had low technology, so that they had to use old fashion technology to build a new home for them. The interesting thing that they built was a steam engine to power things and such. Naofumi liked the idea of this, so he decided he would create his own version of the story. So in his free time, he went to his local library to research stuff like building an old fashioned steam engine, cranes and other items and things that he thought might be useful and wrote notes to make them, like medicine and such.

Now as he was drawing the raccoon-dog girl, he heard a knock on his bedroom door. It was his little brother, Kaito. Kaito had blonde hair and was sixteen years old. As Kaito entered his brother's room and seeing that he was drawing and seeing what it was, the young man said, "So you have a dream about her again?" than seeing that his brother was adding a little detail other than the face, he said, "So you still haven't seen her face?"

Naofumi smiled somewhat warmly to his brother, until about a year ago, Kaito didn't have a good time of it all. The reason, him, his oldest brother had made his little brother's life hard. When their parents realized that Naofumi cared more about his new otaku lifestyle than about college and the future anymore, they started off with cutting his allowance seeing he was a lost cause. If he didn't care about his future, then they wouldn't pay for his new lifestyle.

Naofumi had to admit that he was shocked when they did this, as before he would be able to get whatever he wanted, he was somewhat spoilt. Now whilst he understood somewhat where they were coming from, it didn't mean he agreed with them about not caring about his future because he did. But it wasn't the same future that they wanted for him, instead of spending all his time studying and getting a high-end job, he wanted to take it easy and relax. As for a job, he realized he wanted to create his own manga. That didn't mean he would leave college, just that he wasn't going to force himself to worry and burn himself out with all that work and studying.

Because he lost his allowance, he had to get a part-time job, to pay for the things he needed, that meant cutting down on his porn, manga and anime and stop playing video games altogether to work.

But back to Kaito, because their parents saw Naofumi as a disappointment, they decided to focus their efforts on Kaito instead, forcing him into some big-name cram school to 'ensure his future.' And to make sure that Kaito didn't out like his older brother, their parents limited what Kaito was allowed to do and not spoil him either.

Unfortunately, over time, not having an outlet to deal with things, Kaito cracked from the pressure of living up to their expectations and preparing for entrance exams, he ended up dying his hair blonde and talking like a punk. It was a really dark time for their family.

Realizing that he was the way that his brother turned out to become foul-tempered, Naofumi decided it was down to him to help his little brother. He did so by telling his brother to play a certain mega-popular dating sim that he knew of. Kaito was, of course, sceptical about this at first, but when he realized that when a relaxation specialist like Naofumi makes a recommendation, well, even Kaito couldn't help but have his interest piqued.

To make a long story short, the world gained another otaku. Since then, Kaito's room has been totally transformed, filled to the brim with merch from the dating sim that his brother recommended. On top of that, with his stress gone he managed to pass all his exams and get into a super prestigious high school. Naofumi would be lying if he said it wasn't just a little bit irritating.

Now thanks to helping his younger brother out, their parents lightened up on Naofumi, which allowed Naofumi to finally enjoy a carefree college life. No more of his parents getting on his back to do well with his studies and getting a good job. But it also meant that to his parents, he was the black sheep of the Iwatani family. They were also willing to give him his monthly allowance back to him, in fact, they were willing to give him an extra ten thousand yen.

Naofumi didn't mind being called a black sheep of the family if it meant that it would get his parents off his back. He was even happy to have the extra money too, as it meant he could cut his hours at work. Naofumi preferred to have a relaxed life anyway, where he could do as little as possible.

But there was a catch if he wanted the extra money, his parents wanted him to do one active activity if he wanted to have his monthly allowance of twenty thousand yen. As if he didn't do so, he would have to have a monthly allowance of ten thousand yen. As they didn't want him to become a shut-in, or that he became lazy and all he did was play games, read manga or watch anime.

With his tuition, and now once again his food expenses, being covered by his parents, Naofumi knew that if he wanted to keep the way he wanted, he had to agree with this deal. As if he didn't, he would have to take up a part-time work during the school year instead of summer and winter Comiket, along with the various local festivals, where he would get another fifty thousand yen.

So Naofumi resentfully agreed to this deal and done one active activity, this activity was in martial arts. In this way, not only would it get his parents off his back, but he would be able to defend himself should he ever need to.

It had been a year since this deal was made since then things were slowly getting back to normal for Naofumi. Whilst he didn't have to worry about money as much, he couldn't spend his allowance on all the things that he wanted as the cost of things went up.

Whilst his parents paid for some of his martial arts classes, he had to pay for the rest. He had to admit, whilst he wasn't as skilled as he hoped after a year there, he was happy enough with what he was able to do, with how much time he spent going there.

Not only that, now that he had time to create his own manga, he had to pay to get the paper, pencils and the rest of the things he needed out of his own pocket.

For the rest of his allowance, he converted it directly into his light novels, anime, manga and porn. But because of the cost of things, he had to buy them second hand be from second-hand shops or from his friends. Also, he brought them to help with creating his manga. Sure some would wonder how porn would help him other than giving him a hard-on, but that wasn't the case, okay it was part of the reason, but the main reason was to help him draw the naked body. He wanted to put some adult themes into his manga, but he had problems drawing the naked body, which is why he brought the porn magazines.

He also began to read random books from used bookstores and libraries to help with ideas, not only that but to help him with research for some ideas.

He knew that he wanted to do an Isekai manga where his character is sent to a game-like world, where they level up, gain skills, do quests and fight monsters. The problem was he was coming up with a good plot. He had a few ideas, like the main character being a Tech Student, who like those from Log Horizon, use his knowledge to build things in the new world that they haven't seen before. Naofumi heard about Steampunk recently, so he thought it would be interesting to create steam weapons in the gaming world. So he was having his hero learning about steam before he was transported to the other world. This meant to have an understanding of what he was going to write about, Naofumi did some research in steam weaponry.

He found out that in theory, it would be possible to create steam weapons, but the problem was that they didn't have a metal to prevent overheating. This was something simple to deal with in manga, so he started off designing steam like weapons and vehicles.

As he was drawing the images for the steam items, he was trying to figure out the plot and the characters for his manga. Then about five months ago, he began to have dreams of people and places he had never seen before, but whilst the dreams were vague, they were familiar somehow even if the things won't be possible. When he awoke from these dreams, he was able to remember some of what he saw, but the content of the dream he was unable to remember.

But still, he drew what he could remember and decided to use the pictures for his manga he was writing, the only problem he had was that he was unable to see the faces of the people in his dreams, so he couldn't do them. That's where his brother came in, he offered to draw the faces and see he was unable to do so at the moment, he agreed. But he kept two of the characters to himself the raccoon-dog girl and a young blonde girl who was able to transform into a bird.

The others he didn't care if their faces didn't match what Naofumi felt they should look like, but these two, he just knew he had to be perfect. So he wanted to keep them until he was able to see their faces within dreams. The only time he would draw them any other way was when he had to send the manga to print.

Only his brother knew about his dreams and that he was using them for his first manga. In fact, his younger brother is the reason that he comes home at the weekends every so often instead of staying at college during the semester. As his brother offered to help with the manga, something he wanted help with. So when he asked about the raccoon girl, he replied with a sigh, "Not yet, it is a pain though. It feels like she's important somehow."

"Are you saw you don't want me to draw her and the bird girl's faces?" offered Kaito, "Maybe then it would allow you the time to come up with a plot for your manga."

"I would like your help, but at the moment I just can't allow myself to allow anyone else apart from me to work on them." Naofumi informed his brother, "They feel too important to me, that I have to draw them."

"Are you sure you don't have a loli fetish, with are guarded you are with them?" the younger brother joked.

"Of course, I don't." Naofumi denied, although of late, he often questioned himself about this himself, "It's just that they are going to be the main companions to the hero, so I want to be the one to finish not someone else. I'll give it another month or two and if I can't draw their faces, I'll give it a break and work on the plot."

Kaito believed he could understand where his brother was coming from, if he was him, he wouldn't like someone else to work on his main characters either. Just as he was looking at his brother's work, he noticed the steam weaponry that his brother was working on, so he asked, "What are those ideas that you're working on?"

"Some weapons and vehicles ideas I'm thinking of using." explained Naofumi, as he sorted them out for his brother to look at, "As you know my main character is going to be a Tech Student and he would be transported to a gaming like world, where you fight monsters, do quests and level up. Now the world won't have the same level of technology as we do, in fact, I was thinking they would have a mediaeval level of technology and use magic for things like boats and such. So when my character comes to this world, he would use his knowledge with the magic tech to create these items and vehicle."

"I have to say, it does look like a good idea," Kaito admits, "a fantasy Steampunk world feel to the story. But I do have a comment about weapons though, and that's it looks like a nightmare to load ammo into it."

Naofumi could see his point on this, the weapons didn't have a popular magazine for the ammo, so he said, "I agree, but they are just basic ideas at the moment, I'm planning to work on them later."

"Fair enough, but I do have another comment," the blonde told his brother, "the other problem you have to deal with, is the tedious weight and maintenance issues. You would need some kind of steam engine backpack for it. And on top of that, you must work around the tedious weight and maintenance issues. How would you sort that out in your story, from your images, the weapons looks too complicated to clean and maintain, thus harder to get familiar with for the common soldier because of having too many parts? In fact, I would say that these weapons are specialist weapons, so unless you can work around these problems, they should be used by a select few instead of common soldiers."

"Hmm, I thought about this myself and whilst I couldn't figure out how to deal with the weight problem, I thought I could use the gaming system for the maintenance issues." explained Naofumi to his brother, "Whilst it has been a while since I played video games, I do remember that there equipment with auto repair and auto clean, which should deal with the maintenance issues."

In fact, he was considering getting back into playing RPG games once again to get ideas for his manga, to help with working out the systems. The main problem was time, with collage, part-time work, working on his manga and martial arts, so he wouldn't have to level up fully as he would like. You see, he was the kind of guy that values breadth over depth. Rather than racing for the level cap like most people, Naofumi preferred to spend all his playtime leisurely making money. In fact, at one point, he had a character selling rare items in the in-game marketplace, he would have to check on that character at some point.

"Whilst a cheap way around it, for a game world setting, that would make sense." Kaito told his brother, seeing the sense in his decision. It was a cheap workaround but at the same time though, in the gaming world, this sort of things do happen. So with a smile, he asked his brother, "So what do you have planned for the day?"

"While going to my martial arts class and afterwards I'm planning to go to the library to finish my assessments for college and do some more research for steam and maybe look up a new way for weapons." Naofumi informed his brother.

"I didn't realize you were still doing assessments," admitted Kaito, "I thought you more or less give up on college."

"No, I haven't given it up, instead I give up putting so much effort in doing all the work," Naofumi told his brother, "I'm not that stupid and think that my manga will be a hit. I would need a backup plan just in case I need it. So I'm working enough to get passing marks."

"I see, that makes sense." Kaito said with a smile, happy to see that his brother had a backup plan should his manga doesn't work out. Then he felt uneasy, he wanted to ask his brother something, if he could put an idea that he had in his manga.

Seeing his unease, Naofumi was worried about his brother, so he asked, "What's wrong Kaito?"

"Well I would like a favour Naofumi," Kaito told his older brother, "I would like it if you would be willing to add a few ideas of my own into your manga."

"Seeing how you are helping me with it, it would be wrong of me to say no outright Naofumi to his brother, "Before I decide, do you have anything on paper to show me, if not could you? As I would like to see how things would look like before I decide to add it to my manga."

"Give me a minute." Kaito said with a smile as he left the room, happy that his brother would hear his idea out. He returned a few moments later with a roll of paper in his hand, where he handed them to his brother one at a time, as he gave the first one, he explained, "These ideas are based around pneumatic, the one you're holding has a rifle."

As Naofumi took the roll, he opened to reveal a few pages, the first few were of an old 1886 order rifle, but where the stock was an air tank were the pumped air would be stored. Where the ammo would have been was a box-like item, where from Kaito's pictures show would be harpoon-like ammo instead of normal bullets. And underneath the box was a handle where you would pump to add air into the air tank. It looked very decent, Naofumi knew that his brother could draw, seeing he was able to draw faces, but he didn't know he could draw weapons too.

"I'll admit I tried to do handguns with an air tank too, but they came out too bulky for my liking." explained Kaito, "Instead I designed these." With that, the younger brother handed Naofumi another roll. The next roll revealed an old-style858 Revolver. Now where the hammer would have been, there was a tube that leads to a tank which could be found on the outer thighs of the legs, which you hand to pump to add pressure to shoot the gun. Instead of bullets, it fired pellets.

Naofumi had to admit that these weapons were better maintenance wise, there were fewer parts to clean too. Sure he was thinking of using the auto clean and repair idea, and he loved the design for the steam weapons, but this was more effective. So far, it would be ideal for him to add to his story.

The last roll that his brother gave him was some sort of mobility gear, it had some kind of gas cylinder which would be found in the centre of the upper back of a person. The drawing's notes said this was the power source for this outfit. On each side of the gas cylinder, was two winches, these stored thin cables that had hooks. From his brother's drawings, the hooks are fired from two guns. Once fired, they would be pulled towards where they aimed as the winches pulled them along. The hook would easily be pulled out of whatever it was stuck into and back into the gun to be fired again. These guns fire single-use cartridge, consisting of a barrel, and preloaded projectile and powder charge. The ammo for them was attached to the outer thighs of the legs. But the problem was that you could only have six cartridges on each leg, so you only had twelve shots. These were all attached to a leather harness.

Once Naofumi finished looking over the pictures, he told his brother, "Okay, I have to admit I love the designs for the guns and once I have done some research on pneumatic weapons and how they work, I'm willing to add them. But I'm unsure about your mobility gear."

"Why not?" asked Kaito, whilst he was happy that his brother was willing to use his first two ideas, he had to wonder why he wasn't willing to use his last one.

"It seems a bit too complicated," explained the older brother, "whilst I don't know about the plot yet, the design looks like once it was made, it would take months or even years to train to use. Not saying I won't use it, but until I figure out the plot, I don't think I'll be using your last idea."

Kaito had to admit he could see his brother's point of view on this, as he thought about it unless he knew the plot, he wouldn't know if his brother could use the idea or not. He was glad that his brother was willing to think about it, and if he was able to use the idea he would, but if he couldn't, he wouldn't.

Before he could say more, he saw his brother check the time as he said, "Sorry Kaito, but I have to go, got my martial arts class in an hour. I need to get a bus. We'll talk more about this once I get back from the library."

"That's fine Naofumi, I'll talk to you later." Kaito said with a smile as he left his brother's room.

Once his brother left the room, Naofumi got changed and got his things together for his martial arts class, as well his bag that he uses for his manga research. Once he did so, he left for his martial arts class.

o0OoO0o

Naofumi Iwatani, Earth 309, Year 5th of January 2019 - Japan, Odaiba, Minato Library, Morning:

It was two hours later and Naofumi found himself in the local library, his martial arts class went well enough, in fact, his sensei told him that he could get his Green Tip for his yellow belt soon. It was something Naofumi was happy about.

As he was in the library, he rented out any books that had information about pneumatic, so he could learn more about it and maybe add his brother's idea into his manga. Naofumi liked to get as much information that he could before adding anything to his manga so that he could put some of the knowledge into the manga to explain how things worked. As if he decided to have one of the characters from the gaming world how the weapons that the main character made worked, he would have at least some information to tell them.

Once he got the books that he could, he decided to find any books that caught his interest and read a few of them before heading home. He loved books where the hero saves the kingdom from some evil and ends up saving a damsel in distress. He would love to read the sex scenes if the books had any.

Naofumi went to the section dedicated to fantasy novels and scanned the books to see if there was something he might like to read. To Naofumi, he believed that fantasy was as old as humanity itself, so he loved to see if there was anything of interest in the old books if he could find any. To Naofumi, the bible is basically a fantasy novel, when you get right down to it.

Sure the people might be real, but some of the things that it wrote in it, he found hard to believe. Like the story of Noah's Ark, for example, there was the story of a great flood and Noah had to build a huge ark for two of every animal to live in for forty days and nights. He had a few problems with the story, the first was how could a small group of people take care of so many animals? The second was to how could the animals live in a small space for such a long time? Third, was where did they keep all the food and other things they needed?

For the animals, the people and the things that they would need for a long journey, they would need a damn huge boat, a boat that was too much for a small group to handle alone. So this is why Naofumi had such a hard time believing in the bible. But he did love the stories in it though.

As Naofumi was looking through the shelves, he picked up a worn-out book that fell off the shelf for some reason. 'Maybe the last person that looked at it had been careless when they put it back?' Naofumi thought.

Naofumi he picked up the book, he saw it was red with worn markings on it, and the writing and markings were in gold. As he looked at the title, Naofumi found the book was called The Weapons of the Four Saints. This piqued Naofumi's interest, so he took the book to one of the tables there and seat down as he began to read it.

Naofumi began to flip through the pages, apparently, it was one of those books that start off by going over the setting in excruciating detail.

The young man had to admit that there was a lot to take in, the plot was one of a prophecy that foretold the end of the world. According to the prophecy, the world would be destroyed by something called the Wave of Disasters. In order to avert this calamity, the people of this world had to summon Heroes from another world to save them. The Heroes would have to fight each wave until they defeat the final wave.

As he read through the pages, Naofumi muttered to himself, "…It's a pretty cliched plot, but I guess I can't expect too much from an antique. It must have seemed pretty fresh back in the day."

As he continued to read, he learned that the Four Heroes that were summoned wielded four weapons: sword, spear, bow, and surprisingly enough a shield.

"Haha, what? A shield isn't even a weapon, it's armour!" Naofumi muttered in confusion, he couldn't believe it, what could a shield do against a wave of monsters other than protecting himself and the others. Sure protection was all good and all, but what if the Shield Hero was overcome by monsters? How would he be able to defend himself if the other Heroes were dealing with other monsters, the Shield Hero would more than likely end up dead. He laughed wryly at this but kept on reading to see how the Shield Hero would hold out. In the end, the Heroes set out on a journey to gain strength and polish their skills in order to fight the Wave of Calamity.

As Naofumi read the book, Naofumi felt a wave of sleepiness washing over him as he got somewhat bored about it. Seriously, would it have killed the writers to add a cute girl or two to keep the reader's interest? I mean, technically there was a princess, but Naofumi felt that she was a total bitch. The way she toadied up to all of the Heroes was totally disgusting. Like, just pick a guy and stick with him, right?

Although the Shield Hero was somewhat weak, Naofumi had to admit that all in all, the four main characters seemed pretty damn cool, he believed that all four were the main protagonists of the book. So he suspected that each of the characters would have their own chapters now and then. The dashing Sword Hero, and the thoughtful Spear Hero. The Robin Hood Bow Hero, working to topple a corrupt kingdom. But when the story turned its attention toward the Shield Hero… the pages were blank. As he flipped through the pages, he saw that everything after the page about the Shield Hero was completely blank. No matter many how many times he looked, there was nothing there.

"What the hell is this?" Naofumi said aloud, confused at what he was seeing, why would the pages be blank for. As he was thinking about this, his vision started to grow dim and his consciousness began to fade as the book began to glow and the pages began to flap fast. Never in his wildest dreams, would he ever imagined that when he came to, he would find himself in another world.

o0OoO0o

Naofumi remembered that when he came to, he heard the sound of murmuring voices around him.

When he opened his eyes, for some reason, a bunch of guys in robes were staring right at him.

"What the…?"

Naofumi shifted his attention toward this new voice and realized he was surrounded by three guys who were apparently in the same situation as him. Naofumi tilted his head in confusion. 'What the hell is going on? Wasn't I just in a library?'

No matter which direction he looked, Naofumi saw nothing massive stone walls loomed over him. Or maybe they were brick? He couldn't tell. At any rate, whilst he didn't know how he got there in the first place, he knew that he never been in a building like this before in his entire life. Beneath him was an altar of some kind, with a strange pattern drawn on it in glowing paint.

It looked like a magic circle one would see in an anime or something. As he looked around, he saw that within the room, there was a smaller altar with candles, herbs and other stuff on it. In front of the altar, there was a group of people in robes praying. But as he looked around the place, trying to figure out where he was, he saw that within the room, there was a smaller altar with candles, herbs and other stuff on it. In front of the altar, there was a group of people in robes praying.

He also felt something strangely light, and almost felt like it was clinging to his left arm. 'Where did I get this shield? I didn't have it when I lost consciousness and why can't I drop it?' Naofumi thought as he saw the shield and tried to drop the damn thing, but no matter what he did, he couldn't remove it, all he could do was move it up and down his arm.

The problem was that he felt disoriented and had problems remembering a few things, as all this, the chamber, the people with the spear, bow and sword, he even recognised the shield, all of it felt somewhat familiar, like from a dream.

"Where are we?" asked the person with the sword.

"Fantastic, the summoning was a success!" one of the people in the robes called gracefully, he had his hood down, he had blonde brown hair, brown eyes and he was wearing a basic gold circlet with a red ruby in the centre of it, "Ohh brave heroes, please won't you save our world from pure evil."

"WHHHAT!?" Naofumi and the other three asked at once.

To be Continued!

Author's Note: Here ends chapter one of this new story, I thank you for reading and I hope that you enjoyed the story so far, one way or another, please let me know what you think. For now, things will more or less follow the storyline as seen in anime, manga and novel. There'll be new shields, as well as dark themes, but the real change won't happen until after the first wave where Trash and Bitch try to take Raphtalia, that's when things will get darker or I hope they well - lol. So if you got any ideas for plot, OCs, new shields and such, I would like to hear them.

You might be wondering about the dreams of that Naofumi had, well in the anime the show started off with him dreaming about himself and Raphtalia. So I decided to use that and expand on the idea of what you have seen in this story.

I know that I give a lot of info dump in this chapter, but I did say something along the lines of this in the last chapter and ask for someone to help me with this. But I had no offers, so I'm posting this as is, as I don't know how to change it to make it better.