Chapter 3: Information is key —

"Is it really like a game for you, Naofumi?"

Naofumi, being interrupted in his awe for the performing magicians in the streets of the capital, redirected his attention to Lukas.

"Yeah, there is this status interference where my stats like attack, health and defence are displayed, but I must admit, I am no expert in such things. Do you have any suggestions?"

Games like Minecraft and Genshin Impact flashed into his vision, bringing him instantaneous ideas. "Do you have a crafting menu? A party menu? Skills and Ultimates?"

Obviously bewildered by the flood of gaming terms, Naofumi could only weakly admit his helplessness. "Sorry, it's too difficult to navigate through my status. I think I have to reserve some time in the evening to thoroughly learn the capabilities of my shield."

Letting out a sigh Lukas voiced out his complaints loudly as if he doesn't know that he attracted various gazes from the market people because of his foreign tongue. Myne, who was accompanying them all this time, was also not a fan of not understanding this conspicuous boy, but he wasn't bothered by this. "Why would the king leave you without a manual for the shield, or more ridiculous, why would your shield not have a tutorial?"

"They also say the heroes have pre-knowledge about the settings of this world but look at me. Nothing. Huh?" Out of nowhere Naofumi intensely stared at a bypassing housewife, deeply unsettling her. Actually, he was staring at his status screen. It was just invisible for everybody else, so it seemed ridiculous.

"I'm saved!", Lukas suddenly had both of Naofumi's hands on his shoulders. Naofumi continued: "I've discovered a help menu.

Not able to help but to laugh, Lukas let out a chuckle. He was feeling a little bit envious that he himself did not get a cardinal weapon, but he let himself get infected by Naofumi's enthusiasm. He wasn't even sure if he could handle the responsibility of saving a world, so he was fine with the future he is about to face.

Naofumi looked slightly concerned over to Myne. "Hey Myne, what do you think to where we should go first?" She finally was included into the conversation. She always gave herself off as anxious since the boys talked and always wore a grooming expression.

Lukas found this worrisome. He would ask her about it later. Well... with the help of Naofumi.

The group headed forth with Myne as the guide. Soon they found themselves in front of a weapons shop.

The blacksmith was intimidating, but under his giant build resides a warm and considerate character.

"Welcome to my humble shop. I haven't seen you two faces around, I assume you just started your adventuring career?"

Lukas faded into the background to amaze himself by the proud exhibition of weapons instead of awkwardly confronting the blacksmith without a way to communicate. Thankfully Mine took the lead to explain our needs.

It was not the first time the smith had to deal with novice adventurers, so he presented a stash of equipment perfectly suited for their kind.

Between strength and agility, it had always been the former which was preferred by Lukas, so he chose what he familiar with.

It made sense to him. While it might be flashy to be able to dodge waves of attacks it was always better to circumvent being attacked by a much stronger opponent in the first place. If the opponent was weak, a decisive strike would suffice instead of many small hits.

Myne intended to invest most of our silver coins into weapons and amour but Lukas advised against it and suggested to better buy basic supplies like camping equipment, magical potions and maybe an adventuring manual instead.

Obviously, Naofumi chose the more reasonable expense.

Finally, the trio left the store as two lightly armoured swordsman and swordswoman on top of a heavily armoured shielder after consuming slightly less than half of their initial budget.

Another 100 silver coins went to non-combative equipment.

Myne strongly protested against camping outside of the city, arguing that mobs could ambush them while they sleep. Lukas claims that this way was too inflexible, limiting them to only the outskirts of the capital. Naofumi, maybe under the illusion of being the protagonist, favoured the more comfortable option of resting in an inn.

Stoically skipping over his defeat, Lukas asked about the most important aspect since coming to this world. Magic. Naofumi was equally as intrigued while Myne seemed to be half-expecting us to investigate this mystical force. She promised them to explore tomorrow, so they left the city for the grasslands.

Out on the fields.

"Naofumi, take its Aggro! I'll flank from the right!"

"Got it." Naofumi nodded as he stormed toward a lone orange ballon.

From this point they split up. Lukas advanced along a half circle and prepared his two handed sword to exert seizable damage.

The quite lively nature of this creature made it quite hard to aim, but luckily Naofumi managed to lock their target on his arm.

"Now!" Naofumi yelled.

Its life was distinguished a mighty swing of a sword.

"Nice." Lukas gave him a thumbs up. "How's the loot?"

"Nothing." The shield hero didn't even look at him, still staring at the orange balloon corpse.

"Hm? Not even Exp?" His companion raised an eyebrow.

This time Naofumi looked at him with his frozen expression. "Nothing."

Lukas didn't have the status magic unlike his counter part so he didn't grasp his exp gain. He scratched his neck while scrutinising the legendary shield. "Shouldn't the shield feature exp sharing? How else can this be a legendary weapon then?"

Oblivious to them, Myne was snickering some distance away from the duo seemingly getting the idea about what they're discussing.

"What about calling it a day then? Just think of a way how to properly fight with that shield and we can meet up next time." Lukas sat down on the grass, thought for a moment and looked up to Naofumi, "You're a support class right? There is surely a crafting menu somewhere in your shield. Maybe you get exp from crafting, I'm just guessing."

Naofumi only hummed in acknowledgment, also sitting on the ground.

"Is something wrong, sir hero? Why have you stopped hunting for monsters?" Myne approached them from behind with a questioning look.

"It's just… I can't gain exp like this. As long as, I- AH!" Naofumi gasped in surprise.

Both of his companions were a bit baffled, until they both got a virtual party invitation.

After instantly accepting, a status window popped up in Luka's peripheral vision, displaying Naofumi's general status.

Naofumi observed them with expectation, but got a bit confused when he still hadn't got a notice from Myne. "What's wrong? You can see my party invitation, right?"

"Ah, I am so sorry, sir hero! I did not get anything from you, maybe there is something wrong with your shield?" Myne lied as naturally as she breathed, putting everyone's attention back to the shield.

Naofumi got a bit flustered. "I tried sending one to you for multiple times already, are you sure you didn't miss something?"

"No, sir hero. I am absolutely sure I didn't get anything." Her expression melted into a worried one.

"Did I miss something? Maybe I should try to find more about my shield." The shield hero stood up and held his shield against the afternoon sun to inspect it.

Lukas frowned as the conversation died down, he could not find any reason for why the redhead could not join their party. He let out his frustration with a loud breath.

"Anyways, we should go to farm more exp. I would me embarrassed if I remained at level one while the others have reached the double digits. Let's go!" Naofumi waved at them to come over to the next orange ballon in their sights.

Lukas smiled at his energy. He thought that it was kind of cute how Naofumi feels responsible in his role as a hero. I would have been the same if I were him.

Orange balloons were slaughtered one after another and even in swarms they posed barely a problem, because Naofumi could nullify their damage thanks to his unrivalled defence. Like before, they hung all over the tank only waiting to be split apart by Lukas.

Lukas was surprised at how easy their farming session processed. The ballon monster were only as though as soccer balls and even the higher leveled ones can be compared to car tires.

At the end a day of hard work, Naofumi gained four levels while Lukas' level rose to level 8.

And regarding their female companion… she had obtained nothing as she only stood by the sidelines. She claimed to be too exhausted from her travel to the capital the day before and would like to rest for that day.

Lukas shrugged at that, but in his subconsciousness a seed of suspicion had been planted. He was more excited for how his leveling affected his capabilities.

Lukas didn't feel any different despite him gaining a lot of exp. He asked Naofumi about it and he plainly replied: "My status window says that you have yet to use your stat points. But I can tell you that your health and mana bar has almost doubled." He seemed be in deep thought for a moment. "Hey Lukas, I think your strength stat went from 6 to 9." Lukas' eyes flashed for a second.

"Wait, let me try something." Lukas got into a meditation position and focused on his desire to perform magic. He then felt some mysterious formless force within himself and tried to condense it.

It didn't work.

He then imagined a gravitation field that will suck all energy into a certain spot. It moved! He tried to reinforce it with other things he came up with ranging from electromagnetic fields to a fan blowing the cloud of energy (he now figured out that is was his mana).

What he sensed now reminded him of a galaxy in which single particles of mana rotating around a gravitational centre.

Some of them were escaping it due to their high velocity and gradually the galaxy got dimmer and more spread out as the acceleration was not evenly distributed.

"Whoa, what are you doing? Your Intelligence stat went up by 5 and your mana bar is plunging." Naofumi realised too late that his sudden interference in his friend's meditative state wasn't too welcome, "sorry."

"It's alright. I'm just feeling a little drowsy. It feels so weird to have mana." Lukas held his forehead with his right hand. "By the way, what are my stats?"

Lukas pictured his status window as Naofumi described it to him.

Level: 8

Name: Lukas Weber

Class: None

Race: Human (Otherworldly)

Attributes: 9 STR, 5 AGL, 9 VIT, 15 INT, 5 CHA, 5 LUK

Free Attribute Points: 0

Health: 193

Mana: 321

Gross Attack Power: 23

Gross Defenses: 10

Elemental Affinities: [Unknown]

Bonuses:

Shield hero's party member (+10% defense, LvL. 1)

"Man, all my stat points automatically went into defense and vitality, it's not fair." The shield hero let his head hang.

"But you are the one who is overpowered, at least in certain areas." Lukas let the evening sun crawl on his skin. "I think it's time for me to head to my language lessons" He passed by Naofumi and causally said: "Myne doesn't trust us. Be careful around her. Maybe invite her to a game of cards. Might loosen her up."

Naofumi looked bewildered. "What do you mea-"

Inwardly tensing up after realizing the ambitious meaning behind his words, Lukas hastily marked his departure with a cheerful waving hand.

After saying goodbye, Lukas made his way back to the castle. It was not difficult to find as it was literally the centre of the city, massive enough to be seen from outskirts of the city.

Myne seemed so distant. Is it because of the language barrier? She barely did anything but observe us. Is she shy? Introverted? But she seemed so extroverted at the beginning…

"And Naofumi's offensive powers…" He shook his head and fell into his thoughts again.

What if they attached a weapon to the shield? Would that still count as a shield or some sort of hybrid weapon?

Unlike the potions they have tested beforehand the shield didn't considers the arrow as a onetime consumable item, so Lukas thought about something alike yet very different.

He definitely wanted to try designing a customised shield, one having a gun in the inside of it. The shield will then function similar to a wristband while Naofumi's attacking potential will skyrocket.

The gunpowder will be that consumed item while the bullet will be propelled as a side effect. This is in need of further research.

A different thought arises in Lukas.

What if he started a company? With the help of his 'all-knowing' iPad there would be no problem establishing a new business. No, certain laws of the kingdom or the lack there of will certainly hinder a decent development. Being the target of some coalition of grudging merchants and craftsmen, not to mention jealous nobles is also something Lukas would like to avoid.

'Better lay low and live comfortably. Or is this a waste considering this world is alike an IRL-RPG? People of my world were miserable in life even when living standards were the highest than ever.'

Only now did Lukas notice the lack of people in this allay. Maybe just going straight forward to the castle wasn't such a good idea.

Prepared to being intercepted by local gangs, he was taken aback to witness a circus tent just being casually there amidst the maze of buildings.

Trying to avoid the awful smell emitted from it, he tried to circle around this abnormality.

It might be that it was his lucky day, thus he passed the area without complications.

And now it's time for language lessons. He sighted. It would be much more convenient to have Naofumi helping me to study. Hopefully it won't be that strenuous to start from zero.

Unbeknownst to him he was taken notice by the owner of the circus tent.

A/N

Hi again. Ok, I am terrible at update schedules so for now don't expect anything. I completed half of this the day before a major math exam just to relive myself from the stress. Uhm, yeah, I did not expect the amount of favs and follows and thank you for sticking with me. Bye.