Tate no Yuusha no Nariagari (LN) - Volume 21 - Chapter Pr

Prologue: Use of Floating Weapons

“Hah!” I caught the swift strike on my shield while looking across at my training partner—Ren. “Try harder!” I was training with Ren in the village. The reason was simple: Ren had asked for me specifically to train, but I wasn’t sure why. Raphtalia would be a better choice for training with the sword, or even Eclair—especially seeing as he had the hots for her.

This was coming on top of the fact he had placed all sorts of crazy restrictions on me. For a start, rather than defend, he had asked me to try using a “sword.” I used a long and thin shield that was possible to use like a blade. Then he had asked me to use Float Shield and control them like I would swords floating in the air. I was now battling Ren with Float Shield and using Change Shield to turn them into various different forms. Of course, he had also forbidden me from using skills, magic, and life force. We’d even aligned our stats to be close to each other. It seemed like a lot of hassle for a training session.

Ren dropped back a little, squatted, and rushed at me with a shout. It was still a training session, so Ren had also turned his own sword into one with only a dull edge. He had been fighting with just one sword until a moment ago, but after he stepped back, when he rushed in again, he was suddenly attacking with two. I took the incoming strikes on my shield, meeting him head-on while also sending my float shields around behind him for a pincer attack.

Ren gave a grunt in response, his eyes still fixed on me while he used one of his swords to stop one of my float shields. That was impressive—almost like he had eyes in the back of his head. Not that my attack had been difficult to read. Then I used the second float shield more sneakily, cutting it in low across the ground.

“I saw that one coming too!” Ren crowed, quickly backstepping to avoid the float shield. His reliance on hit-and-run tactics was alive and well, but he also seemed more precise—aside from his stats—than when he’d fought Eclair. He had been training with lots of different people since then.

“Naofumi, try harder! I want you to use every possible trick in the book to attack me! You can do better than this!” Ren taunted.

“Easy for you to say,” I replied. Ren seemed a lot more into this than normal. Our training had already attracted the attention of Eclair, Raphtalia, Fohl, and others from the village, who were watching from a safe distance. Eclair seemed especially interested, as though there was maybe something she could learn from our clash.

“I’ve been wanting to see Hero Iwatani using a sword . . . and the results are most interesting. Is that how he normally uses one?” Eclair asked, looking over at Fohl. I normally fought to protect rather than attack, which probably created a fundamental difference in my overall approach to combat.

“No. Brother’s sword stance is normally more like the one used by Raphtalia, and before he would use the same kind of quick-tempo attacks as Atla while copying your techniques, Eclair. He admitted it was all a bit monkey see, monkey do, if that’s the phrase—he certainly isn’t fighting like that.” Fohl provided an accurate analysis. He was talking about when I fought Takt. I’d totally beaten the crap out of him, basing my movements on Raphtalia and Atla after training with them for so long, while unleashing my own copies of Eclair’s attacks. “I don’t mean to be rude, but he doesn’t look very comfortable fighting like this.” That was because I was normally the one blocking the attacks, not unleashing them like Raphtalia, Atla, Fohl, Ren, or Eclair. I wouldn’t be surprised if my attempts to fight looked like some crazy and pointless dance. “That said,” Fohl continued, “the fighting style he’s using now is also very hard to read. If you fought him only watching his movements, you’d definitely get hurt.”

“Because he’s normally so focused on defending us . . . he moves around us so skillfully, in order to keep us safe,” Raphtalia chimed in.

“That’s right, Sister,” Fohl agreed.

“Hmmm. It definitely is a strange form of attack. Very interesting,” Eclair observed.

“Are there any other examples of this fighting style that the Sword Hero has asked Mr. Naofumi to use?” Raphtalia asked.

“A book on martial arts I read long ago referenced it—a style of fighting using weapons floating by magic. It seems the four heroes from the past have made use of it,” Eclair revealed. The little party of spectators seemed to be having fun chatting away while Ren and I hammered at each other—and Ren wasn’t giving me the chance to join in the discussion.

In fact, focused intently on the training, Ren was only pushing himself harder and harder. He came at me again with a roar.

“Naofumi!” he shouted. “Why don’t you use twin shields to fight two-handed?”

“Sorry to say it, but I still haven’t found that skill yet,” I admitted. The very idea of a combat style with a shield on each hand sounded pretty crazy to me. Even if it did offer an increase in defense, taking incoming blows on both shields felt like it would be really difficult. It might give skills like Shooting Star Wall a boost . . . I mean, I could run game-style simulations in my head all day, but I’d never get a real answer without actually trying it out.

Seeing as I could only have one shield in my hands, I wondered if that counted as a handicap. This was a completely different world from Japan, after all, with the existence of stats like a video game, so it was a mistake to take even small things for granted.

“I see . . .” Ren said, sounding a little disappointed. He tried to drop away and put some distance between us again, but with a shout I lined up my two float shields with the shield on my arm, forming a horizontal wall and then closing in on him.

A loud sound rang out as our weapons clashed, Ren grunting as he was pushed to defend with his sword. One of my float shields landed a blow, and so I slashed with the other directly behind him.

Ren proceeded to catch it on his other sword. If his plan was to keep on dodging, then my best course of action would be to press the attack with the float shields and then close in once he was busy blocking them. I just needed to take a moment to see what his response was going to be.

“Pretty nice . . . but not enough!” Ren exclaimed, swirling his swords in a wide circle that appeared to leave him completely exposed. I was ready to take advantage of that when he crossed his swords in front of himself and slashed them downward in a powerful cross. Even if I took this new attack on the float shields and tried to attack him from the side, I wasn’t going to be fast enough. I didn’t like it, but there were no rules saying I couldn’t evade rather than guard, Shield Hero or not. In fact, I needed to try and read beyond what Ren would be expecting from me, meaning dodging something might be a nice surprise for him.

I backstepped away, avoiding Ren’s descending attack, and then placed the float shields to prevent any follow-up attacks in the spot I came down in. Ren’s blades slashed down where I had been standing, one of them sticking into the ground and the other one landing on one of the shields. Ren paused for just a moment before launching a follow-up attack with a wordless roar. He circled around on the spot and came right at me, swinging his sword quickly, but without too much force behind it. I was impressed by his reflexes. This kind of breathless succession of attacks would certainly be difficult for someone not as well-versed in defense as myself. Even quick, light attacks could create an opening, after all, if enough of them were performed. I had the two float shields and the shield on my arm too—three shields in total, and he was keeping the pressure on me.

“The Sword Hero has really improved, hasn’t he?” Raphtalia commented. “From a purely technical level, I’m not sure I could match him anymore.”

“Indeed. Ren has impressive concentration, that’s true, but I don’t think he’s watching anything other than Hero Iwatani. In the chaos of an actual battle, that might leave him unable to respond to unexpected attacks from the sides,” Eclair said, cutting to the heart of the issue and proving again that she was an expert warrior herself. “Have you noticed the difference with Hero Iwatani? He’s been glancing over here every now and then for the entire time they have been fighting. A good indicator that he’s tracking his surroundings.”

“Yes, I noticed. Even as he fights the Sword Hero, Mr. Naofumi is listening to us talking,” Raphtalia said.

“Ren trained with the Spear Hero too, but he didn’t show this level of concentration. Hero Iwatani is most impressive too, being able to push Ren to such a high level,” Eclair replied. I wasn’t sure it was all that impressive. This was just Ren’s tendency to fixate on one thing coming out again, which I didn’t consider a good thing. His intense focus on a single adversary in situations like this was an issue to be addressed, not praised. He was much stronger in one-on-one fights.

“I’m more interested in how Brother is using those floating weapons. Sister, isn’t there something like this for the seven star weapons? A vassal weapon from another world is similar enough to the weapons here, correct?” Fohl inquired.

“Duel-wielding is the best I can do, I’m afraid,” Raphtalia admitted.

“It’s likely something that can’t be copied easily. I’m pretty sure it would make me crazy, trying to pull off a trick like that. You need to use life force and magic while in a strenuous combat situation. Just thinking about it makes my head spin,” Eclair said.

“I know what you mean,” Raphtalia agreed.

“One thing though . . . the seven star heroes do have weapons they can make float too, correct? Like the ones I’ve seen Hero Iwatani use during practice,” Eclair said.

“That’s right . . . He used them when he borrowed the Staff from the Wisest King of Wisdom,” Raphtalia recalled. “Maybe we should look for them.”

“It would be wonderful if something turns up, but I can’t imagine they would be easy to find,” Fohl said.

“Indeed . . . they seem quite different from the holy weapons, at least in this regard,” Raphtalia agreed. Both she and Fohl seemed quite disheartened by the prospect.

Back with Ren and me, he was now breathing hard after launching a succession of attacks. I wasn’t going to let that opening slip past me, so I thrust my shield out—he avoided that, but I was already piling on with my float shields, slashing down at him. The biggest demand on me here was mental control of the shields, which meant I wasn’t expending the same kind of stamina that Ren was.

Ren grunted and went on the defense while I slid the float shields around behind him, outside of his view. Then I quickly slashed them down at him from the air. I was waiting for the instant in which Ren’s attention would be caught by the incoming shields. I was ready to circle around him and start slashing at him again. My shield made contact with his abdomen, not a heavy hit, but enough to make him gasp for air. Then Ren lowered his swords, accepted defeat, and started to breathe hard.

“Phew . . . looks like you beat me,” Ren said.

“You were moving pretty well out there,” I told him. “You just need to stop concentrating quite so hard on what is immediately in front of you.” Just as Eclair had already pointed out, Ren tended to elicit incredible focus in battle. Intense concentration wasn’t a bad thing, but it could also excessively limit your perspective—an extremely inflexible way to fight.

“I see,” Ren replied.

“Hey, we were both fighting with odd handicaps that we wouldn’t normally have to deal with. I don’t think a normal battle would require quite as much concentration,” I said.

“No, it’s important that I reflect on this,” Ren asserted, not accepting the out that I allowed him. He definitely had a stoic attitude. “We don’t know what kind of foes we will be facing in the days ahead. Naofumi, I hope you’ll train with me again. As I improve, can you also start using magic to launch ranged attacks at me? Stone, rocks, any kind of missile would be fine,” Ren asked.

“Sure, I guess,” I replied noncommittally. I didn’t need a flying rock taking him out, I thought to myself, spinning my float shields idly. Ren was watching them as they spun. “I guess there’s something else I should say.”

“What?” Ren asked.

“If you’re so taken with my float shields, maybe you should use a similar skill yourself?” I suggested. I’d heard that his weapon from the Spirit Tortoise materials had included a skill that allowed him to attack with floating swords. If he could freely strike with swords in all directions over a wide area, that would be a pretty difficult assault to deal with.

“To be honest . . . I’m not that great at controlling floating weapons,” Ren admitted. He quietly called up a floating sword and tried to move it around in front of himself. It looked like he was doing pretty well with it.

“Looks pretty good to me,” I told him.

“Maybe when there’s nothing else going on. But if I’m moving around myself or have to concentrate on attacking, the swords stop moving. I don’t think I could keep moving them around so freely in battle like you do, Naofumi,” Ren admitted.

“I have it easier because I’m normally just blocking stuff,” I told him. All I had to do was watch the movements of my opponent and move my shields when I wanted to redirect the impact of an enemy attack. If I actually needed to attack as well, that would make things much harder for me.

“I don’t think that really matters. You were using the shields skillfully in our fight just now. If I tried that, the swords would just hang in the air. Watch.” Ren started to run around with his back to the float sword, showing me how it wouldn’t even follow him unless he concentrated on it. “If this was two or three swords we were talking about, that would make it even harder,” he said.

“Hmmm,” I pondered. This was the same problem that Eclair had brought up earlier. It seemed silly for a moment that there was something I could do so easily that Ren had so much trouble with. But then again, I also had skills that Itsuki and Motoyasu couldn’t really use either. “Maybe you should try training with the swords out all the time?” I suggested.

“I’ll give it a try, but please don’t expect too much from me. I don’t think I can match you, Naofumi, or . . . a certain other someone . . .” Ren said. I’d been sensing something else going on here, and his mention of an “other someone” clinched it.

“Hey, Ren. You’ve been trying to fight someone else through me, haven’t you?” I asked. Based on how Ren was acting, and the things he said since we started this special training, I was sure that he was trying to get me to match the movements of someone from his past.

“Yeah, that’s right. I’m sorry to put this on you, but I couldn’t think of anyone else who could possibly do this for me,” Ren admitted.

“I had a hunch,” I told him. “Is this from back in your VR game days?” Back in his own Japan, Ren had been hooked on a game set in a world very much like this one. I imagined that a boss or some other character in that game had used an attack pattern like the one he had made me copy. It had been unorthodox, but honestly, it had been good training for me too, so I wasn’t complaining.

“Kind of, but also . . . not quite,” Ren replied noncommittally.

“Which means?” I prompted.

“It wasn’t in Brave Star Online, but someone I knew on the network. I wanted you to try and copy the same movements they used,” Ren explained, sounding like he regretted it after the fact. I wasn’t angry about it, so there was no need to be so repentant. He could really be a buzzkill sometimes.

“Ren, you were using Hero Iwatani to fight a powerful foe from your past?” Eclair asked, coming into the conversation.

“Yeah. I’m sorry for not being up front about it, but I thought Naofumi could match that same combat style,” Ren admitted.

“So that’s what this was about,” I said. Someone spinning around floating weapons—what were they, some kind of psychic? “What kind of person are we talking about?”

“Like a combination of half your personality now and half your personality when I first met you,” Ren explained.

“They sound like a real pain in the ass—but I don’t know what Brother was like before,” Fohl chimed in.

“Hey, Fohl?” Raphtalia cautioned. “You might want to choose your words more carefully. Mr. Naofumi is glaring at you.” I had to wonder again exactly what Fohl thought of me. If I didn’t like the answer, I might have to put the screws to him—like sending him off on a long journey with the overly excitable puppy Keel. Trying to keep up with all the crazy stuff she came up with could be super exhausting. She was different, but just as dumb as the filolials. She also seemed to think that Fohl was incredibly cool, while for his part Fohl wasn’t exactly sure how to act when he was around her. Putting them together sounded like a great punishment, at least for one of them.

“There wasn’t a skill like float weapon in Brave Star Online, which is why I was able to win there,” Ren continued.

“This is the same person you mentioned when you defeated me that time?” Eclair asked, to which Ren nodded. Back when Ren had still been full of himself, he’d been on the ropes in a fight with Eclair before winning by unleashing a torrent of different skills. When that happened, I did recall him saying something about beating the top player from a different game in Brave Star Online. It sounded like he was still carrying that victory with him—the fact he had beaten this player, but not on their home turf.

“When I think about it now, I’m sure they took it easy on me in Brave Star Online. Even if it’s just an illusion, I want to try and match them . . . if I can,” Ren explained.

“This player was that strong?” I asked. Ren nodded without hesitation.

“Back on their home turf, even now I couldn’t stand a chance. I’m sure of it. They would be stronger than me in this world, for sure, because of the existence of floating weapons,” he declared. That was impressive. Stronger than Ren right now meant they had to be quite the foe.

“I sure hope they don’t show up among the revived at some point,” I commented snidely. This was all starting to sound like foreshadowing for something.

“I’d certainly hope not. They seemed pretty solid, personality-wise,” Ren replied. We were probably talking about the strongest person Ren knew—which made me unsure how to react, being compared to them. I could get angry at his rudeness at overlapping me with someone else—or feel pride that he would place me alongside someone he respected as such a powerful rival.

It seemed most like me to just not really be that bothered.

“We’re talking about someone similar to Brother? In personality too?” Fohl asked.

“Cut that out, okay?” I said. That seemed to calm him down, but there was definitely something there we should get into. I glared at him and he shook his head, begging for leniency with his eyes.

“They were involved with the operation of a large guild inside Brave Star Online, so they didn’t have any glaring personal flaws. I never heard of any trouble surrounding them either. I guess those are other reasons I compared them to Naofumi,” Ren explained. I wasn’t sure about his response there—it didn’t exactly sound like he was protecting me. Still, I guessed he was trying to say we were similar due to things like me managing the village. “If I got summoned as a hero, I wonder if they weren’t chosen too,” Ren admitted.

“Enough talk like that. It sounds like self-abasement, and if people hear a hero talking like that, it will affect morale. Anything else you have to say like that, keep it to yourself,” I warned him. Ren had been like this—a real downer—ever since he had come to the village. He’d been tying himself up in such knots while we were away in Kizuna’s world that he’d actually collapsed! Talk about being weak under pressure. That was clearly why he didn’t want to take on too much responsibility. He didn’t want to take it on and get hurt through his failure.

“I just want to become strong . . . as strong as they were,” Ren finished.

“And this is how they fought,” I replied. Close combat with a mixture of floating weapons—it was like fighting someone armed with multiple weapons.

“If we wanted to get even closer, I think we’d need to put you on a filolial with higher stats than me too. Of course, you’d keep the float weapons coming from every direction,” Ren mused.

“My god, what kind of monster are we talking about?” I exclaimed, only half joking. I had to accredit some of this to Ren simply building this individual up in his own mind—into some kind of god of war wielding floating weapons. I was having trouble picturing them now. “Ren, I think you should stop talking about this person completely. You’re starting to sound like how Motoyasu talks about Filo,” I warned him. The illusory Filo who existed in Motoyasu’s head had ballooned into an angel of mercy—while the reality was a greedy feather brain who didn’t think past her next meal.

“Do you think so?” Ren asked.

“Yes. You know how these things can get built up in your mind. If you actually met and fought them again, you might find them a lot weaker than before,” I told him. The more I thought about the relationship between Motoyasu and Filo, the more conviction I held in my words. “In any case, if this kind of routine can help you improve, I’ll help out whenever I have time. Just keep on training,” I told him.

“Okay!” he replied.

“The most important thing for you to work on is being able to respond flexibly in battle. Being focused isn’t a bad thing, but you need to stay aware of your surroundings,” I told him.

“That’s not easy for me,” he admitted.

“You need to put aside your belief that you can’t use float skills and continue to practice with them as often as possible. These things aren’t just going to come naturally to you. Like with power-up methods, your preconceptions might be holding you back,” I warned him. This rival that Ren was so fixated on used floating weapons. That might have given him a bit of a complex relating to them. It would definitely open up more attack options than using two swords at once, so getting the hang of them would provide a big advantage going forward.

“Yes, you’re right, Naofumi. I’ll keep on training,” Ren replied.

“If you still can’t get the hang of it, at least try and protect your back. Keep your swords out behind you at all times—imagining you have a tail or wings might help,” I advised him. The float weapons moved around when you thought about them, so it shouldn’t be that hard. It all came down to your mental strength.

“You know what? They said the same thing to me,” Ren said, his eyes glazing over.

“Stop reminiscing!” I replied. It was time to put a pin in this meaningless conversation.

“Hmmm. Watching you two fight made me want to spar with you too, Hero Iwatani. A shame that Hengen Muso Style doesn’t offer techniques of that type,” Eclair said.

“You might be able to come up with something similar—perhaps by applying some magic,” I suggested to her. Maybe some wind magic—Shildina already used that to fly around.

“Hmmm. I don’t think I have suitable magic capacity, but I’ll see if I can make things float by focusing my life force,” Eclair pondered. Now we were getting into the realm of psychic abilities. I wondered for a moment if life force was really so versatile—but then I recalled the Wall technique that formed a barrier for an instant, or the Gather technique that could change the trajectory of incoming missiles, and decided it was quite possible. The old lady might have some ideas on creating a new technique of that kind, but there was no asking her right then because she wasn’t even in the same time zone.

“Don’t you think Itsuki would be the most dangerous, if he attacked with floating weapons like this?” I suggested.

“Oh . . . the Bow Hero using floating weapons?” Raphtalia said.

“Yeah, think about it. He can use bows and guns. He wouldn’t even need to move them around a lot—just lock on from a distance and open fire,” I said.

“When you put it like that . . . yes, that would be quite a frightening tactic,” Raphtalia agreed.

“Not to mention he could also bring out loads of different instruments and create his own orchestra—but that might be harder to pull off,” I continued. We had determined that if we were at the same level, Itsuki had the strongest attack power among all of the heroes, but also the weakest defense. From one perspective, it was like Itsuki and I were opposites of each other when it came to attack and defense. Of course, unlike my complete lack of attack power, Itsuki still had some defensive power, so it wasn’t completely the same thing. Taken in that light, my Shield Hero predecessor, Mamoru Shirono, was likely closer to being the opposite of Itsuki.

That brought me back to facing our current situation. This wasn’t an easy one to explain, but right at that moment we were living in the past of the world to which we had been summoned. A mysterious attack, likely launched by the enemy forces to which S’yne’s sister and Bitch belonged, had blasted us back into the past along with my entire village. We now had no way to contact anyone left behind in the future, which included Filo, Motoyasu, Itsuki, and Rishia. Here in the past, we had entered into an alliance with Mamoru Shirono, my predecessor as Shield Hero, and the nation he was affiliated with, Siltran. As for Mamoru himself, he was blessed with stats that made me just a little jealous. He was a Shield Hero, but he was also able to attack. He had a good handle on Float Shield too, now that I thought about it. Maybe I should ask him to come train with us next time. From the perspective of Ren’s future growth, that would definitely prove useful.

As I was pondering these things, something else hit me—float weapons were actually a lot like the remote-controlled ranged weapons that often appeared in mecha anime. I thought weapons like that looked so cool up on the screen and would have loved to have gotten my hands on them at the time, but once I actually did get my hands on them . . . they weren’t that great, really. It made me sad to experience all this geeky stuff and not be as moved by it as I had once hoped.

It was like when you saw someone using gear you really wanted in an online game, and then when you actually got it . . . it just didn’t feel as strong.

“You’ve got a really sad look on your face, Mr. Naofumi. In any case, I think training by using your floating shields like enemy blades is very useful. It’s like training to avoid a barrage of incoming attacks,” Raphtalia said. I voiced my agreement. I also didn’t want to imagine the chaos of everyone in our party all attacking with a horde of floating weapons though, so maybe things were better off without too many changes. Ren, Raphtalia, and S’yne could get away with it, but once you got to people like Fohl, it would just look like some kind of joke—the Gauntlets Hero making gloves float in the air to attack with them. I was just thinking about mecha anime, and now I’m onto rocket punches! Everyone who knew me could tell when I was having one of my strange ideas, so I decided to stop that line of thinking at once.

“One thing we could try to make them more effective would be to find or create an accessory that makes them automatically attack your current target,” I mused. Accessories allowed additional effects to be added over those already contained inside a weapon. One example was an accessory that allowed Glass to cause slashes through the air when she swung her fan. Something like that sounded like a practical way to make Ren’s float weapons more effective.

Accessories could also enhance specific skills, and there was a wide range of them to find . . . but they weren’t without their issues too. First and foremost, you could only find out what effects they offered by putting them on and trying them out. Some effects—such as extra sharpness—could be hard to determine even when you tested them. Another issue was the resilience of the accessories themselves. In some cases, using them in quick succession could break them completely. So you needed to search for the effect and handle them with care in order not to break them . . . There was a lot of additional work involved.

But since we were stuck here until we could find a way home, I actually had the time. Luckily, I’d learned how to make accessories, and Imiya—another student of the art—was here with us too. We could use the resources here in the village and the new materials we had discovered here and see if we couldn’t create some fabulous new accessories.

“An interesting idea . . .” Ren said.

“It will be total luck whether we can find one or not, so don’t count on me too much!” I warned him.

“That’s fine. If you’re going to make some accessories, I can work the forge and make weapons for everyone,” Ren replied. He had apprenticed with the old guy, I recalled. “I’m not quite as skilled as my master or the other students, but I’ve got some blacksmith techniques that can help fill in the gap.” It sounded like he’d been a quick study. Maybe it was a bit like accessory making in that half the battle was just learning the patterns to bring out the appeal of the materials. He could use life force too, meaning he could probably make some pretty powerful stuff. The forge we had added when expanding the village would get some use too. “Making weapons is pretty interesting,” Ren continued. “Especially for someone like me, who has always had to rely on rare weapon drops in the past. Now I’m hoping one day to be able to make weapons that start with rare additional effects, like master does.” From among the current villagers, Ren was probably one of the better ones at forging, so it certainly couldn’t hurt to have him make some stuff. “Okay. Show me what you can do,” I told him.

“Mr. Naofumi, I think it’s time to go over to Keel and the others at the stall in Siltran. Then we need to go and meet up with Ruft and Melty at the castle, correct?” Raphtalia said.

“Huh? Yeah, it’s that time already. Let’s call it a day for training. Everyone back to whatever you need to be doing,” I said.

Thanks to the mysterious attacks from the forces of S’yne’s sister, our entire village had been moved to the past of this other world—to the corner of a country called Siltran, which in the future would become Siltvelt. That was the situation we were still trying to deal with.