A/N: (Note/Disclaimer) All recognizable characters belong to their respective owners. Such as Neopeople for Dungeon Fighter Online(Also known as Dungeon & Fighter) and Aneko Yusga for The Rising Of The Shield Hero
Note 2: Praise the NEET Princess… wait wrong fic. Well, another chapter for this one.
("Human/Speech")
("Thoughts")
(Attacks/Weapon names)
(Other/Foreign/ Speech & Text/Book/Scroll)
(Actions/POV)
(Titles/Flashback/Time/Dates/Place)
(Narration & Everything else)
('Demonic Speech')
("Demonic Thoughts")
Hero And Fighter Chapter Base
Throne Room: ? Castle: Kingdom of Melromarc
5/17/0000: 1600
Third Person: Omni
"So, these men are the four cardinal heroes of legend." The old king sat upon his throne, staring at all four of them. His violet robes were of course symbols of his royal stature. His white hair putting him at a fairly old age. Naofumi could feel that the archer relaxed slightly when the king said 4 men.
"I am the king of Melromarc, Alutcray Melromarc XXXII. Heroes introduce yourselves." He also had the dignity that belonged to only those in power… though he could stand to have less arrogance considering who he is talking to. But Naofumi could at least give him the image of being unbending to even the greatest foes.
"Amaki Ren, 16 years old, a high schooler." The newly appointed swordsman decided to step up with his introduction first. He holds the sword with both hands, one directly on the blade, it should have cut him but didn't. Whether it was the blade actively refusing to cut the user, or it was extremely dull to be unable to cut him.
I'm Kitamura Motoyasu. 21, a college student." The next to step up was the blond, his spear not quite resting on his shoulder as he held it up with his right hand. His smug smile plastered onto his face as he stared directly at the king.
"I suppose that I am next. I am Kawasumi Itsuki, 17 years old, and a high school student." They moved up in stride after shifting the legendary bow over their heart. Their green eyes stared optimistically at the old man.
"Then I am last. I am-" Before even getting to finish his introduction the king decided to interrupt. But Naofumi could already feel the hate that the king looked at him with.
"I see. Ren, Motoyasu, and Itsuki huh." He directly cut him off that way. Naofumi could tell that it was fully on purpose and stopped himself from speaking over the king. It would be far easier for the king to show his true intentions that way. He felt the pleased eyes of the king, not because of being the shield hero… but because he successfully cut off the shielder.
"I suppose I owe you an explanation." Naofumi took a glance over at the nobles in the room. They hid their thoughts behind the social masks that were developed over the years. He was thankful for the books he read about court manners.
"My country, Melocromac, and the rest of the entire world is heading into destruction." The king started on his request for the four in front of him, switching to a serious note. It was akin to the book that he had read, a prophecy of apocalypse. Waves of monsters called climates will bring the world to ruin if they were not thwarted.
Each country has an ancient dragon hourglass that predicted when a calamity would occur. The first wave that occurred on this country wrought through the lands, only barely fought through by the local knights and adventurers. Each wave was said to be more potent than the last with the hourglass trickling down till the next wave.
"We underestimated them." He remarks with a heavy brow, it was only a month till the second wave would occur. He took a breath with his eyes closed.
"We realized once we experienced one that only the Four Cardinal Hero's could counter them." All his words flowed into their minds, but Naofumi could feel something was wrong with them, as important information was being withheld from the four.
"So we followed the legend and summoned you." He could feel the nobles move slightly, but they did not speak infront of the king. He felt that they knew what he was not talking about. Naofumi thought a few moments, what about the other countries?
"We have no time to delay." Naofumi went through a revelation, it was the exact same as the book… if the facts stayed accurate to the story then an outside party would sow discord among the heroes.
"We have the gist of it. But surely you did not think you could summon us expecting that your salvation would come for free?" Ren was the spokesperson of the group now… though why they collectively decided that he would do so when he was probably antisocial was a fairly glairing mistake in Naofumi's opinion.
"Of course, once you repel the waves, we shall reward you handsomely." A sleazy looking man to the side of the king decided to be the one to speak about the compensation. Naofumi immediately noticed the wording… waves in the plural, of course, there would be multiple… but they should have given rewards per wave. But not it would seem that they are trying to get them to help with the calamities for the rest of their lives…
"Will you now? Well as long as we have your word." Motoyatsu was the one who spoke first, it would seem that all of them did not notice the wording of the agreement.
"We'll work with you, provided that you don't turn on us. But don't think for a moment that you can tame us." Ren decided to speak up as the second person. Already laying down that they wanted to stay cohesive… sadly Naofumi got the feeling that they would split them up to be mere puppets.
"Exactly, we can't have you looking down on us." He almost sighed with how they spoke… full of confidence yet not knowing the landscape or political situation. He was no better, but he would keep to the background till he could find out what situation they were in… especially his own situation. It was certainly a hostile place to him.
"I trust we have an agreement. Heros, you should check your status." The king finally spoke in agreement… but with how they are scheming, it would seem that they knew that the better hand the deal was theirs.
"Status?" Naofumi asked, it was certainly hard to notice anything about the world when they immediately brought to the king.
"Uh…" At least Itsuki was in the same league as him.
"What's wrong with you guys? It should have been the first thing you noticed." Ren was the one to speak. Though that was easy enough for him to say…
"Didn't you notice the icon at the corner of your vision… focusing on it will bring it up." Ren seemed like the advice-giver considering that while not talking, the blond was actively looking down in order to even observe the addition to their vision.
"Level 1 huh, that's worrying," Itsuki spoke out about their current level while their head tilted down in order to access the status menu. Naofumi didn't move his head to notice the icon but was still slightly surprised at the sudden pop up in his vision. It was very much like some of the isekai novels he read.
"Yeah, there is no telling if we can fight like this." Naofumi nodded in agreement as the numbers took his vision, his physical and magic defense was high as well, as expected from the shield that picked him. But that wasn't saying much when the rest of his stats were 0.
"What's all this anyway?" Naofumi decided to be the one to ask them, the first time speaking up since he got into the throne room. The other two that discovered their status still engrossed at looking upon them.
"Status magic, an magic that is exclusive to heroes." The probable minister or king's right hand spoke about it. It was definitely something that would not have been mentioned in the legend, so it was extremely likely that there were heroes before them.
"So what are we supposed to do?" The blade user seemed to be the most on top of things out of the four. The others felt that question manifest in their minds, though it was only a scant few seconds before the sword of the group asked.
"You must leave on an adventure in order to upgrade and level up the weapons that you have equipped." Naofumi could already see that the weapons were reduced back square one in terms of utility. His own shield being only able to cover his forearm. It at least had a point to it, so he was to use it as a pile bunker it would do some damage at least.
"They aren't maxed out of the box huh…" He remarks on the thoughts that come into the others' mind, voicing out their slight annoyance in not having an easy start.
"Well, even then mine is only a shield." Even he would feel that he had a bad combat power, inadvertently voicing his own thoughts about the weapon that chose him.
"Couldn't we wield other weapons till these become usable?" The blond moved through several motions with the spear, getting an even better feel of it. It was as if he had held the things for many years now. Though if that were the case, what was the point of the weapons… there probably is a restriction on what they cloud wield besides the legendary equipment… maybe even disallowing combat with them.
"We can figure it out while we go. Anyway, we ought to train ourselves." Ren did not do the same thing as the spear user, just observing the sword in his grip. Naofumi did have to give him that, none of them have really experienced live combat.
"We'll have to level up as much as we can." The opposite in range of his comments. It would help out… but they could not do it alone.
"Sadly we can't form a party… I get the feeling that the weapons dislike working together outside of waves." Naofumi said to the rest of them, causing a help popup to show itself to them, saying that the operation of two weapons together causes an adverse reaction and that it was advised to work separately.
"You will have to recruit and adventure separately." The governmental official states, though now that Naofumi thought about it… he was talking too much. It was as if he was trying to use the unspoken power of the king. They all nodded, already knowing the explanation behind it from the help menu.
"The weapons are translating visual and audio information into Japanese for us I see." He already felt the function made sense, they could have summoned us from across different language barriers, for all he knew, the other three didn't even speak Japanese at all. It would be good to learn the language manually though.
"Rest up tonight, and set forth tomorrow. We shall be gathering the best of the best to form your parties." The king finally decided to speak… though Naofumi felt that he would not be getting anyone to party with due to all the hostile intentions that the king glared at him with.
"We have prepared rooms for all of you. Please, come this way." A young woman with a yellow dress spoke to them. Naofumi felt that it might be the uniform for the maids here, but it just wasn't as classic as the western maid outfits.
_(RISING OF THE SHIELD HERO)_
Castle Town: Kingdom of Melromarc
Rumors Of The City
"I hear the Four Cardinal Hero's have been summoned."
"All four of them in this country?!"
"Are they sure about this?"
"Wait that means the Shield Hero is also…"
"Indeed, let's hope the queen can keep us out of a war."
"Did you hear about a strange disease that has been happening?"
"The one about demonic left hands? If so I met a woman with it…"
Heroes' Room: ? Castle: Kingdom of Melromarc
5/17/0000: 1800
"I guess you get special treatment when you're the summoned heroes of legend huh." Motoyatsu sits on the bed of the room, the chandelier chained to the ceiling hangs high above them, lighting the room in a warm glow… it was still darker than they were used to.
"The girl that showed us here was cute as well." And Naofumi noted in his mind that the spear user was a horndog, though he is alright at hiding it. The shielder looks outside the window into the dark town from the couch set up right infront of it.
"Our dinner was scrumptious, it tasted usual though." It did make sense, different cuisine made different tastes. Despite the constant recipes that he cooked, he still had not even scratched the surface of cooking in his old world. Much less a brand new one with different ingredients influencing food.
"Hey, isn't this kinda like a game?" He decided to remark now that there was not any overt way for the court to do stuff to them, though they probably had spies hidden in the rooms around them, listening in on them.
"You mean it is one?" Motoyatsu looked over at the man on the couch, he could already feel the stares of others from the admission.
"It is exactly like Emerald Online." He remarks with the spear shrugged over his shoulder… Naofumi could already feel that something was wrong, thoguh it was also going to be hard for the hidden ears to decipher what they were talking about, so that was a plus from all this.
"Are you serious? It is super popular!" He remarks a bit stunned at the admission of the green-eyed man of similar age. Now he knew that something was wrong, there was no such game that came out…
"What are you talking about? It isn't some online game, it is a console game called Dimension Web." Itsuki told them from his place on the chair. Another title that Naofumi never heard of… and it was not like he was out of date with gaming trends either.
"You're wrong, It is a VRMMO, exactly like Brave Star Online." The only standing man in the room commented his few yen from his place in the room. That admission was definitely out there with the concept of VR games only barely in its infancy… much less being able to handle VRMMOs. It did explain why he noticed the addition to all their visions when they arrived though.
"Let's sort out our information then. Ren, can we take VRMMO literally?" Motoyasu stood up from the bed, resting the spear on the ground, showing that it was his height exactly.
"Yeah." Ren also looked a tiny bit interested in why the information was not adding up.
"You guys know what it means right?" Motoyasu asked the other two in the room for confirmation on the matter.
"I think a sci-fi game that I am familiar with explored the concept," Itsuki remarked while still sitting in their chair.
"We are at the infancy of VR tech over here," Naofumi remarked from his place on the couch, all observation of the outside halted for now so that he could observe the expressions of his co-summons properly.
"Just to be sure, let's check our general knowledge. Who is the person on the 100 yen bill? In 1. 2. 3!" They all spoke out jdiffrent names at the same time… the first question was probably to note time periods.
"It seems that all of us are from different Japans." Itsuki sat back in their chair, after a whole round of fact-checking they figured out just why the information was not matching up.
"Looks like it, they sound nothing alike," Ren spoke while still standing, motioning his arms for emphasis.
"I thought that we were from different eras but I guess not if they are so different." They all sigh at that statement. Parallel universes were not an undiscussed topic among the populous, so this confirmed it.
"Why did you three get games about this world…" Naofumi remarked, it was slightly an unfair advantage… till he thought about whether or not he would think of it as a game in the long run.
"W-well I thought it was because you were the shield hero," Itsuki remarked while leaning their head down slightly. The other two just nodded at the statement. He could already feel their disappointment at the third hero.
"As far as I know, the shoulder class is for losers. No high-level players use it." The others also nod at the general consensus… this might be why he didn't have a game to work with.
"Are you sure that it is not because the class was too difficult to master?" Naofumi spoke his thoughts on the matter, the others just gave blank looks, none of them had ever bothered with the knowledge in the firstplace.
"Well, it is real life, so I do expect things different things to come up." He remarks with a sight. Hopefully, the other three don't get caught up in the world is just a game mentality… though he got the feeling that Ren was the most likely to fall in that trap.
"Well the tank is supposed to thwart attackers anyway, so it would only come up in team play. It would make sense that no players picked a class that relied on a good party." He steps out onto the balcony to look at the city once more as he listened absentmindedly to the conversation of the others.
"Yeah, we were set in rooms of two right?" Itsuki remarked after a little while of conversation. For some reason they were in rooms of two, whether or not it was due to not having prior notice, the maid staff originally prepared one. They only just got another prepped for them.
"I will room with Naofumi then," Itsuki remarked it would be the second oldest rooming with the oldest and the second oldest rooming with the youngest of the group. Itsuki looks over to the oldest with a slightly distrustful eye, one that Naofumi was familiar with only due to his female friends at conventions they went to.
"Sounds good with me," Naofumi responded after coming back inside. He opened the door and went out last, with Itsuki leading the way. He made sure to take his bag with him.
Word Count: ~3100
Date Completed: 12/7/2020
Note: Another chapter, and it has been only a day since the last update to any of my fics. I dont know how long I am able to continue this trend though. I might focus on this one cause my muse demands it. Though you could probably tell by chapter length. Hope you enjoyed every one.
Comment Cove:
FFN:
Azure-Star-Dragon: Is Naofumi going to get powers from the other half of the crossover or is it just going to characters and locations popping up?
Reply: Powers will be gained from DFO.
Dcraus: Naofumi x Harem Romnace pairing
Reply: I have no idea how to respond to this… oh well.