Hero And Fighter

by strike445x

Certainly, getting summoned with 3 other Japanese young adults was a surprising thing... but the main question was, why did he keep encountering things that reminded him of the main game he played? (Standard Harem Warning)

24. Reclamation Merchant

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:

("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 24

Village

6/18/0000: 1330

Third Person: Omni

"As the source of thy power, I order thee. Hide my presence with darkness, Shadow's Walk." Senka used one of her spells, probably the same one she used to get on the carriage, she immediately disappeared into some shadows of the tree.

"Let's get this poison flower dealt with," Naofumi said when the two sword users recovered enough for them to fight alongside him once more. They nod in understanding. Naofumi was still intermittently using his shield skills to support Filo and Raphtalia.

He blocked another set of acid projectiles from the pitcher plant with his shield while having the two behind him, allowing them to focus on the only plant that actually moved its main body.

They blurred into action with a flurry of quick footsteps, both of them syncing up in order to deliver a simultaneous dance of blades, leaving the large flower cut into pieces as gravity took its toll on the mass. It would still take a bit inorder to have the pollen settle.

The pitcher plant had tried to deviate a little bit and focus on the pair fighting the boss plant, though Naofumi was able to bring the attention back to his group of fighters with the use of the Chimara Viper Shield after a round of acid attacks, the shield considered it an attack and swiftly countered as they were close enough now.

Eclair was the one with the most mobility out of the distracting force, weaving through acid splatters and unfocused vine attacks. Rino was closer to him so that he could provide better protection, she had nowhere near the practice Eclair had when fighting, so Naofumi had to offset that fact with his own ability.

Senka was going in and out of her shadow magic, each period of visible movement had her spraying herbicide onto the plant's attacking vines, allowing the bird and raccoon pair more breathing room, though Naofumi could tell they were arguing about something.

"Air Strike Shield!" Naofumi commanded, instead of a platform for the girls to jump off of, he placed this one right at the pitcher plant's opening, stopping it from spitting acid out and giving an opening to exploit.

He almost winced as the swords cut through the plant, not out of sympathy for the plants, no he was far more worried about the state of the swords after going through such a corrosive acid.

"Melina, burn all the branching vines, I have got an idea," Naofumi commanded while remembering about when he used the herbicide and potion back at the medical tent, herbicide counted as a medicine when he used it on the villagers, he wondered if the effect of the sill worked even when not being used on a patient.

"Both of you, go help her and evade any plant attacks." Raphtalia slashed out the eye inside the flower that had opened up while he was fighting the pitcher plant. It instantly regrew as she fell, though Filo was quick to get her away from danger. Naofumi already noticed that the vine attacks did no damage to him, just like the balloons at the start of his journey.

"Naofumi-Sama?!" Raphtalia gasped when she finally got a look at her master who was just casually walking forward to the tree, every attack by the parasitic vines and bouts of vines that charged at him were deflected or just disintegrated after taking a few steps.

"Well then… it was good EXP for them at the very least," Naofumi said with a sigh as he stood at the bottom of the tree, standing atop the exposed layer of roots, though it made no sense to do in irregular flora. He already got notifications of several level-ups from the party.

"Well then, let's get rid of your current incarnation, may next time you be benevolent," Naofumi remarked as he grabbed several bottles of herbicide from a pack strapped to his belt. Uncorking each one had the smell of the plant killer waft out, the plant boss was quick to respond by trying to attack him far more frantically.

Without any flourish he poured the contents of three bottles into the root system of the plant, like the acid would have done to them, the plant immediately melted with a hiss, the vines stopped in place as they wriggled in pain.

The killer produced by Naofumi immediately went up through the network of xylem, melting through the leaves and more fragile branches. The actual trunk would make some good construction materials, as the villagers certainly needed it when he looked and saw a ruined village.

The tree was quick to drop all of its fruit, a race preservation method, though he knew it would take a long time for them to actually grow from the seeds, he would have to make sure to gather all of them.

"Alright then, to make sure that we don't have another monster invasion, we need to gather all the seeds and fruits." The flower shriveled up, and like a sunflower, a large number of seeds fell out of the flower. They were dark green with a great luster, each of them was about half of his palm in diameter, about 3 inches when converted.

"Yes!" They all heard him, Senka was already off collecting the fruits by the time the rest of them went to gather the seeds that fell onto the ground. Naofumi already thought about how to store them considering the large quantity of plant material that they would have to deal with.

"Filo, go find some empty crates inside of the village," Naofumi said before she went off with the rest of them to gather seeds, the large bird nodded before rushing off to do her assigned job. He walks over to the pieces of the two mini-bosses to unlock some shields, though he already placed a seed from the now known BioPlant.

"Hai, Master!" The bird was off in a cloud of dust. It was afternoon, and the gathering of all the plant material would take several hours, so it might be sunset or even night by the time they got back to the village with the crates.

(THE RISING OF THE SHIELD HERO)

"That should do it." He mumbled to himself as he placed the other two plants inside of the shield that was currently inside of her BioPlant Shield form. The mastery skill is Plant Reform, something to help fight the villagers' food issue.

He could already see several parameters as he looked at a seed with the skill, though instead of testing it now without any thought, he decided to wait till he got a plant analysis ability from one of the other shields first.

"Naofumi-Sama, could you please help us?" Raphtalia spoke up when she saw him just standing there and looking at the legendary shield. He just shook the train of thoughts about the plant alteration, he would rather get something to analyze the plant first.

"Right, I am coming to help out," Naofumi said while jogging over to the group of girls grabbing seeds and fruits, all of them placing in the recently delivered crate.

(DUNGEON FIGHTER ONLINE)

Village

6/19/0000: 0630

"Early morning wake up like usual huh," Naofumi mumbled to himself as he looked at the shield resting on his arm. It consistently woke him up at 6:30 AM, in whatever timezone that they were in. It wasn't unnatural like the abrupt sound of the alarm clock and left him wide awake to keep him from going back to sleep.

The others were not awake yet, usually waking up between 7 and 8 AM, with the exception of Melina and Senka, Melina waking up later and Senka waking up around the same time as him when they get a good rest and are not exhausted.

"Let's get to work." Not many of the villages would be up just yet, and the ones that were are probably inside helping the injured, it was only a day since the parasitic plant took root in the patients' bodies after all.

"Show me your secrets…" Naofumi said with a good-natured smile as he held one of the seeds in his hands, a more robust stat screen showed itself to him. The stats were what he expected for a plant with the exception of Intelligence on first thought.

"Let's change that now before anything else." The plant itself had two skills as well, Mutation Range Expansion and Last Chance Seed. The latter skill was fine, but the mutation range expansion was the more pressing one.

The new screen displayed this:

Propagation: 9

Production: 9

Vitality: 9

Immunity: 4

Intelligence: 1

Growth: 9

Mutation: 9

Ability:

Mutation Range Expansion: Expands the effect of the mutation stat to the plants around this plant.

Last Chance Seed: When the plant is killed, drop at least one seed with original stats.

"Well then, I may as well do a stat change and a test before everyone wakes." He looked through the other skill that he could pick from, settling on Quality Improvement when compared to the more outrageous of the options, like Humanoid Body, Sentience, or Dungeon Plant.

He ended up editing it into this:

Propagation: 9 3

Production: 9 15

Vitality: 9 7

Immunity: 4 1

Intelligence: 1 1

Growth: 9 15

Mutation: 9 1

Ability:

Quality Improvement: Improves the quality of products from the plant. (New)

Fertilizing Root Network: Heals the soil and keeps it healthy. (New)

Last Chance Seed: When the plant is killed, drop at least one seed with original stats.

"Turns out the max points is 15," Naofumi mumbled as he finished the adjustment, noting that he can't raise beyond the growth stat. He had found that other ability when looking through the list, considering the damage to the ground from the original BioPlant, it was nutrient-poor at the moment.

"That should keep them from worrying about the plant suddenly dying without looking at the soil." He already knew that people who did not truly know how to farm would not check the soil, this would keep them from having to check on it too often.

"Milord," Senka said while looking at him from the shadows. The others were slowly waking up now, Eclair would be up in a bit while dragging the other swords users to train, as they usually did whenever they could.

"Yeah I am doing a test, I have a bottle of herbicide to be safe." Naofumi was thankful for the plant not having that high of an immunity or vitality level. She just nodded and silenced herself to observe the test he would be doing.

The seed was placed into the ground and covered in the topsoil, a quick sprouting of the modified plant showed itself to the world, it grew before their very eyes in the dawning of a new day. The stem browned and became a trunk, the original petals fell away as branches took their places, quickly sprouting leaves to breath through.

"Success." Naofumi said with a smile as the first fruiting of the newly born tree budded. They all quickly changed to a deep crimson color with a far better luster than the ones that they picked up from the original cursed plant. Though now they would be using those to make some preserved foods for emergencies.

"Now I want to try creating more… though that will have to be saved for a later date." Naofumi said with a sigh as they both stood from their crouching positions that were used to observe the newly created plant.

"But for now, when everyone wakes up, we will be altering another crate into this version of the plant… though hopefully they won't be so foolish as to just only have this as a their crop"

Naofumi had heard of the problems with the english farming style in the US, something that Des taught him in a passing conversation. Senka looked at the young man who was already thinking about the future of a village that would be out of his hands after leaves this world. He looked quite handsome with that serious but youthful face.

"Well, it is a good business proposition at the very least." He said while stretching his body. They both heard light footsteps coming over to them. The rest of the party already knew that he was awake before even dawn.

"They look yummy." Filo said with a smile as her eyes sparkled at the new fruit tree. It was still incredibly young, but the tree had quite a few fruits on its branches. Naofumi plucked one off for himself, making sure to wash it with some water from his canteen.

"Sweet, slightly sour… the texture is more chewy than a firm fruit like apple. It tastes like apple…" Naofumi was already analyzing the plant, trying to think up a recipe that would use it's fruit. Of course turning it into a jam came to mind, and it did store extremely well, the containers to store it however, were not as quickly obtainable in Melomarc.

"Well then, I hope they have glass jars." Naofumi said in a joking manner as he knew glass was being monopolized by the church to make stained glass, though he wondered if there were anyone who would be able to make him some.

"Alright then, it is time for team sparing while we wait for the villagers to get up." Naofumi said with a smile, the girls all nodded.

(THE RISING OF THE SHIELD HERO)

"I curbed its ability to propagate and it's mutation potential while increasing yield and growth. It will also keep the soil more fertile. So you will get quite an amount of fruit from it without it turning into a monster." The villagers were gathered in a circle around the guest group.

"You will not experience another famine as long as you take care of it and any other crops, livestock, and the earth down the line." His face was serious as he said so, making sure to look at all of them with a gaze that said to tend to it properly, the farmers got what he ment immediately with a sheepish expression on their faces.

"Thank you Sir Hero, you not only saved us from danger but are giving us such a wonderful gift." Naofumi already had an annoyed expression slide onto his face at the choice of words the elder said, the more observant of the villagers face palmed at their leaders stupidity, he should have known that the Hero would not just give them everything.

"Okay, remember to not assume anything. I spent my time here to sell products, mainly herbicide. I did not use my entire stock so I did not charge you the entire amount. That would be a loss to my profits. I also went out and killed the BioPlant along with two other monsters, you paid for that so it won't count in my explanation. These seeds and that plant are things created by myself with time and effort."

All the girls had already heard his lecture about their money situation, due to what they were doing, it took alot of money to fight in the waves properly, they have been mainly getting by on his ability to get materials and his own crafting skills.

"So I will be selling them, of course subtracting the amount of coin the original seeds would have cost." Naofumi explained with folded arms. The smarter villagers already knew that Naofumi was not after their coin right now, as they had noe.

"We already gave you all our money for the extermination, treatement and herbicide." Naofumi had already thought of it.

"The amount not used will be treated as a return of an unused item and thus will be given back 50 percent of cost on unused herbicide, this will take place before I leave the village. You can pay for the seeds via goods to fill the rest of the gap."

"But we gave all we had…" The villager said before looking over to the fruits that had been harvested from the original bioplant, they still had seeds inside of them, and they could not really do anything with them either.

"How much can we get from half of the fruit." The village elder asked while gesturing to the baskets of the stuff. Naofumi thought about it, it had unedited seeds along with good flesh from what Filo told him.

"You can get two crates of the modified seeds and a batch of herbicide as a preventative measure." He did the quick calculation, he also including the herbicide into the cost, from this point he would get a good profit all tings considered.

"Right, we will get this all loaded into your carriage." The man motioned for the able bodied adults to go and get the fruits. Naofumi would be making dried fruits after seeding them.

"And that is how you negotiate them into the way you want." Naofumi said to Eclair, as the noble of the group, it is good to learn this now rather than later. She nodded in understanding as she looked at the relieved villagers.

"Naofumi-Sama, the egg is cracking!" Raphtalia announced, drawing the attention of Naofumi, drawing him the cart and to the mystery egg inside.

Number Of Words ~2900

Date Completed: 2/3/2021

Note: Hope you all enjoyed the chapter, a bit late but still on date, hopefully I can get back into stride. You can see my announcements in my discord.

Review Cove:

FFN:

Leonard lemon3891:This story is actually very good even with the misspelling but understandable. I have actually been wanting to ask cuz I'm quite confused. First, who is Desmond and Reimu? And how is this guy acquainted with Naofumi? Second, if you say that Melina is from Dungeon Fighter Online(DFO) the game that you've told about. Is she really Naofumi's created avatar? Cuz

Response: After the "Cuz", the rest of the comment is cut off. Desmond is my OC from another Fic of mine, Reimu is a character from the fandom that Fic is a part of. It is to say, that I connected the multiverse together for it.

Leonard lemon3891: Oooookay... I kinda have forgotten what I have wrote on my second comment... Uhhh... Ok how about you give me the name of the fic where Desmond is from? And a little spoiler pls. How is he acquainted with Naofumi? Cuzzz in the the story it sounds like Desmond and Naofumi had quite past with each other. Aaaand I just remembered one thing. Can you tell me how many people are in Naofumi's party right now? You've been Time skipping in the story so I got confused with both the names and their appearance.

Aaand just when the heck did Naofumi went to get those girls? - (don't need to answer this if it's gonna give spoiler.) also, Uhh sorry I think I said the wrong stuff. I actually got confused on how did he go and met the girls.

Response: A Retired Officer's Shop In The Eastern Wonderland. Desmond is a games shop owner and happened to play with Naofumi by chance, they also went to IRL events together with their group, but that is way in the future of AROSITEW that I haven't written it. Currently, Naofumi's party contains, Raphtalia, Senka, Melina, Filo, Rino, Eclair. As for the last two, Rino was bought from the slaver due to the Shadows' interference and Eclair was taken from the dungeon before repairing Lute, though I will be doing a flashback for both later on.

helrio uzugaku: Not bad, not bad at all.

A past reviewer commented on a few similarities to another fic "shall I show you a true shield?" I can understand where the comparison came from. But there's also a uniqueness here that can't be denied. The thing about stories, not just fanfics, but all story material is in one shape or form inspired by and rehashed to form something original.

In the above mentioned story I've seen a holy shield being used to oppose the necessity of using the rage shield. But not a holy shield that grants a passive resistance to curses. I personally enjoy that tidbit.

Something I'm hoping to see more on is what was written in that scroll by the queen during the race. It obviously had something to do with ownership or lordship of lute village. If bitch, yes that is the name I officially know her as, reacted the way she did it stands to reason that the queen decreed Naofumi as the new lord of lute. As added evidence of this theory, bitch specifically said "shield hero, fight us FOR THE RULE OF THIS VILLAGE." Which implies that Naofumi has a solid claim of lordship over lute which can be disputed by another royal.

Of course that is just a theory until we know exactly what was written on the parchment. I think it would actually fit fairly well with the story if it did happen.

Naofumi could leave the actual ruling to the old lord and turn the village into a place of trade so he can have a constant source of income. Especially if he took the time to teach a few people how to cook and craft using the metal they mine. I could see it becoming a fairly popular trade center. Of course, if they also had trade with this newest village that will come out with a plant that literally solves world hunger, a concept of effort that was seriously underappreciated I'd like to add, how much could a plant like that actually be worth? Think about it for a second, a plant that grows within minutes of being planted and watered, bears fruit seconds to minutes after full maturity, and if that wasn't aweinspiring enough the plant bears multiple fruits at once.

The only thing that could make them more value was if they were the single most delicious fruit in existence and they never spoil. But that would be too much.

Let's also not forget what that would do to prices in food. Food prices would deflate rapidly for fruits because their so easily available. This is going under the assumption they would sell the seeds in the first place.

Response: Shall I Show You A True Shield inspired me to write this after all, so it's influences will show. I actually got the idea for the Shield Of Blessings from the Shield of Compassion directly locking out the Wrath Series, While weaker, the shields will give a bit of protection than what would have happened without.

About Naofumi becoming a lord… Well technically he is… or atleast will be when the good Queen finally gets the letters sent by him and the results from the shadows.

My version of the plant is slightly weaker on the propagation side, though it is far more valuable than other plants. But it can't cover all the needs of the people, much like how they can not survive on bread alone without serious repercussions to health. But it would also be used in feeding livestock, feeding the homeless, the poor, etc. It also isn't fully grown either, so as time passes, the yield grows… if they can harvest it of course.

As for economics talk… I'll leave that for later in the fic.

Archive Of Our Own:

havefeith: Ah, that explains why there hasn't been any updates on this. Gotcha. I was almost starting to get worried, but then I decided to check back on this chapter, and see if there was a reason for it.

Now, on a separate note. I tried downloading DFO, but got my account "Blocked by an Administrator" while trying to download the game itself. I have to deal with downloading the remaining 4k items, while on a wireless connection that has me downloading at about 300-800 kbps at max. Most often it's at 300kbps. I haven't even had a chance to get into the game. They really need to fix the bot admin's sensitivity. At most, all it would've detected was my Wallpaper Engine. That's the only third party program I would ever have running in the background while downloading the game. I'd even went and signed up for the suggested 2 step verification. Couldn't do Goblin Pin, because that's only in-game, best I could tell.

Response: For DFO to do that… I honestly have no idea, the main thing I can say is contact Neople. Though this comment is a month late. I got a reply when I was in my active period (They block players from playing if they have not been active for a while) within a week. Though this is a month late now.

Robbie2413: And now they clean up that plant mess. After this should be the hot springs then the zombie dragon then checking on Itsuki. Wonder what you will change hehe.

Response: A surprise like usual.

Phara: Nice, even though I don't know a thing about DFO that was still good, wish you've done more changes from the original plot of shield hero but still fine.

Rather disappointed that you basically threw Eclair and Rino in without any introduction. It's fine if you don't want to spend too much time on presenting the new character but that's too much, Rino literally appeared ouf of nowhere.

Also good to see a fellow Azur Lane fan :)

Response: I will be showing the way Rino got into Naofumi's party when they actually talk to Motoyasu, though the text message from chapter 21 had "It showed a young woman with green hair and blue eyes. She looked quite distraught. He quickly read over what it said, finding out she would be sold as a slave and where to find her." in it.

On another note, I forgot to do the final prep stuff before maintenance as I am writing this.

(From the same comment from Phara) havefeith: You do know who Rino is, right? Pretty sure there was a bit of text in one of the previous chapters suggesting she was at the Slave Trader's place.

Phara: That must've been a really small piece of text cause I don't remember it.

Response: Yep, It was a small little tidbit that will be expanded upon, the main reason why she was just put into there was due to the fact that Naofumi would not be in Castle Town in quite a while, so I had to shove her in before he left for his longer journey.