Tate no Yuusha no Nariagari (LN) - Volume 8 - Chapter Pr

Prologue: The Never-Ending Labyrinth 

“—Fumi-san! Naofumi-san!” 
Someone shook me awake. I could hear them shouting my name over the persistent dripping of water. 
“Ugh . . .” 
I was dizzy and shook my head to try to steady my senses as I slowly sat up to get my bearings. 
“Oh thank goodness. Naofumi-san . . .” 
Rishia looked at me, her eyes filled with worry. She sat with her legs splayed out like a duck. 
“Where are we?” 
“I . . . I don’t really know.” 
I looked around the room. It was a small dark room, with walls built of stone—very dank and depressing. Behind me was a pile of damp straw on the ground. A crude bed lay in the other corner and iron grating formed the far wall. 
“It looks like . . . a prison.” 
“Feh . . .” 
What the hell was going on? 
I climbed to my feet and analyzed the situation further. 
The iron grate made it clear that we were in a prison cell of some kind. 
But jeez . . . How did we end up here? My memory was still fuzzy with sleep. I better go over everything I can remember and try to clear my head. 
 
My name is Naofumi Iwatani. 
I was a normal university student with otaku tendencies back in Japan, but that all changed on the day I went to the library and found a book called The Records of the Four Holy Weapons. I started to read it, only to find myself summoned to another world and treated as if I were one of the characters from the book—the Shield Hero. 
The people that summoned me said they needed me to save the word from a great calamity called “the waves.” 
At first I was thrilled to find myself in a new dream-like world, but things didn’t end up going so smoothly. Despite the fact that the people in charge of the country—Melromarc—had summoned me to their world of their own accord, they didn’t waste any time framing me for a rape I never committed so that they could throw me out into the streets, penniless and alone. 
Eventually, after going through all sorts of hardships and trials, I was able to get rid of the people who were behind a conspiracy to destroy me, the Shield Hero. I was finally cleared of all charges, and the people that had framed me were punished. 
Finally cleared of the charges against me, it was time to fight against the waves as a true hero—or so I thought. As it turned out, there was still plenty of trouble waiting for me. 
The first problem was the most fundamental. I was summoned to serve as the Shield Hero, but the Shield Hero was specialized for defense and was completely unable to attack enemies on his own. 
 
I was one of four holy heroes, and the other three were heroes of the sword, spear, and bow. All of them had been summoned from Japan, just like I had been. But there were many different Japans in different dimensions, and none of them came from the same one that I had. 
What’s that? Why do I remember all this stuff about them? 
The important thing about the other heroes is that, back in their own worlds, all three of them had played games that were remarkably similar to the new world that we had all been summoned to. 
The world we found ourselves in really did have a lot in common with video games. People had levels and stats, we earned experience points by defeating monsters, and those points could be used to raise your abilities. 
Naturally there was magic, and the world was stalked by creatures I’d never seen in Japan. Because you could grow stronger by battling your way through the world, obviously any information you had ahead of time would be useful. 
But the other three heroes liked to keep secrets. They didn’t care at all about the conspiracies that had been plotted against me. And they certainly didn’t care enough to tell me any of the things they knew about this new world. 
After I’d been cleared of all the charges leveled against me, I was able to convince the other heroes to sit down together so we could discuss what we knew about how to power up our weapons. Over the course of our meeting it became increasingly clear that they were having the time of their lives using their own secret knowledge to play the role of the world’s heroic saviors. They were so pleased with themselves that none of them had stopped to realize that they each only knew a single part of the full method. 
 
After they had heard of the other power-up methods each of the other heroes were using, each one of them still only understood the method they previously knew about from the games they’d played. So they continued to battle against the waves with underpowered weapons. The stupidity was nearly too much for me to bear. In the end, I tried using all of the methods that we discussed during the meeting, and I quickly became much more powerful than any of them. It was a good thing I did, too. Soon after that we ran into all kinds of dangerous situations that I never would have survived had I not powered up the way I had. 
A bunch of things happened, but the most notable was probably the battle with the Spirit Tortoise, an enormous monster that could save the world but could only do so by sacrificing a large portion of the world’s human population. 
The Spirit Tortoise was a protective beast that existed to save the world, albeit in a very different way than we heroes were supposed to. The other three heroes all went to attack the beast on their own, were defeated, and then went missing. As usual, their failure became my responsibility. I faced the Spirit Tortoise in battle and was eventually able to stop it in its tracks. 
With the immediate danger put to rest, my friends and I searched for the missing heroes, hoping to find and rescue them from whatever dire fate they’d encountered. It wasn’t long before we discovered that we weren’t out of trouble yet. 
 
At around the same time that the Spirit Tortoise first appeared, a mysterious woman in a robe came to me and insisted that I should kill her. Her name was Ost Horai, and she was a Spirit Tortoise familiar (human type), a soldier of the enemy. Worse, she carried the burden of the Spirit Tortoise’s will within her. 
I didn’t understand what was happening when she first appeared, and she vanished before I could ask anything further. That’s why I was a little slow in responding to the threat. The next time I saw her, she appeared to tell me that the Spirit Tortoise was still alive, despite the fact that we had already blasted its head off. When she appeared before me again, she begged me to finish the job. 
She told me the Spirit Tortoise was being controlled by someone. This prevented it from carrying out its true purpose: using the souls of living things to form a magic barrier to protect the world from the waves. She said that if the Spirit Tortoise couldn’t carry out its true intentions then it would have to be defeated. 
After that there was a long series of battles. 
My friends and I joined forces with Ost to fight the Spirit Tortoise, and we were able to sneak inside of its body. We tried to defeat it in different ways, like attacking both its heart and head at the same time (a method we’d researched beforehand) and using a sealing spell on its heart. 
Nothing worked. But then Ost helped us find the Spirit Tortoise’s core, and it seemed like we might be able to defeat the Spirit Tortoise there. That was where we ran into the strange scientist-like madman that had taken over control of the Spirit Tortoise’s body: Kyo Ethnina. 
 
He wasn’t the only person we found in the core chamber. The three missing heroes were there, too. After their pathetic loss to the Spirit Tortoise, Kyo had taken them prisoner. 
Kyo manipulated the core and used it to produce powerful Spirit Tortoise familiars to cause us grief. In the middle of the fight, Glass and her friends appeared and joined forces with us in the battle against Kyo. 
Speaking of Glass, she was a human enemy that came out of the dimensional rifts during the second wave we fought against . . . or at least that’s what I’d thought. We found out that Kyo came from the same world that she did, and he possessed something called the book of the vassal weapon. According to Glass he had crossed over to our world to use our protective beasts in order to cause destruction and chaos—and that was something that could not be permitted. We shared a common goal. So we teamed up to defeat Kyo. 
But Kyo had the power of the core behind him, and his attacks were extremely powerful. He used the energy the Spirit Tortoise had gathered to make himself even more powerful, and for a while we weren’t able to hold our own against the strength of his attacks. 

His defenses were formidable too, and just when I thought we didn’t have a chance, something snapped in Rishia, and she and let loose a fury of attacks that, luckily enough, broke through his defenses just in time for me to use the special power that Ost had imbued my shield with: The Spirit Tortoise Heart Shield.
 
It had a special effect called Energy Blast—which was exactly like the killer attack the Spirit Tortoise itself had used against us when we’d fought its head. 
I did as Ost asked and directed Energy Blast at the Spirit Tortoise’s core and was able to destroy it—breaking Kyo’s connection to the Spirit Tortoise in the process. Realizing he’d lost his advantage, Kyo opened a portal back to Glass’s world and escaped through it. 
And so, finally, the curtain closed on the Spirit Tortoise’s rampage affair. 
We were victorious, but the victory came at a heavy cost. 
Ost asked me to destroy the Spirit Tortoise’s core, knowing all the while that if I did she would die. I knew it, too, but I did as she asked. 
When the Spirit Tortoise was defeated, the energy it had gathered would awaken the next protective beast, and no waves were supposed to occur until that time. But the energy had been stolen, and Ost had interfered, so the next beast didn’t awaken, and the waves threatened the world as they always had. 
We joined up with Glass and her friends and followed them back to their world to hunt down Kyo, the man responsible for all the destruction in the first place. The other three heroes were just as useless as ever, so we left them in back Melromarc. 
So . . . how did we end up in a jail cell? 
“Where are Raphtalia and the others?” 
“I do not know. When I woke up, I was lying here with you in this room.” 
 
I decided we’d better start by figuring out what was going on. 
“Huh? 
I decided to start by checking out the shield I was equipped with, because something clearly wasn’t right. I’d had the Spirit Tortoise Heart Shield equipped before I lost consciousness, but now I was equipped with something else—a feeble looking thing I’d never seen before. If it reminded me of anything, it was the Small Shield from a long time ago. 
Beginner’s Small Shield abilities locked; equip bonus: defense 3 

What was this thing? When did I get stuck with this? I decided to change to my strongest shield, but an icon popped into my field of view when I tried. 

Change conditions not met 
Um . . . What the hell? 
I called up my weapon book and quickly scanned the list of shields. There was a long list there, but it was nearly all greyed out. 
“What the hell is going on here?!” 
I couldn’t use any of my shields! 
“Um . . . I . . .” Rishia hesitantly raised her hand. I had a really bad feeling about what she was going to say, so I didn’t even want to ask. Then again, avoiding the truth wasn’t going to make it go away. Besides, I had a pretty good idea what she was going to tell me. 
 
“I’m afraid to ask, but what is it?” 
“I just checked my status, and it says that I’m only level 1 . . .” 
That’s what I was afraid of. Before we’d gone through the portal, Rishia had been at level 68. How could she be at level 1 all of a sudden? 
Maybe the dragon hourglass had somehow returned her to level 1 while we were unconscious. I didn’t know what happened, but I knew what I had to do next. I didn’t want to do it, but I slowly, hesitantly, opened my own status menu. 
Naofumi Iwatani job class: other world Shield Hero Level 1 equipment: beginner’s Small Shield (legendary weapon) ○▼◆x type 2 
“Nooooo!!!” 
“Fehhhhh?!” 
I screamed, and Rishia was so startled she screamed with me. 
I was level 1, too? All that work—it had all been for nothing?! 
Not good at all! This might have been the worst thing that has ever happened to me! 
 
 
Shit! 
I checked the party functions menu, only to discover that there weren’t any party functions available. Raphtalia and Filo’s names were nowhere to be seen. Rishia’s was the only name listed. Everyone else was gone. 
Even the slave- and monster-controlling spells . . . 
The slave spell, by the way, was a special spell that could be applied to someone, and then that person would have to follow orders or they would be punished instantly—and Raphtalia was my slave. Actually, at one point the slave spell was taken off of her, but she knew that I wouldn’t be able to trust anyone that wasn’t forced to obey me, so she volunteered to become my slave again so she could earn my trust. 
I bought her from a slave trader shortly after I was framed and persecuted, back when I had completely lost the ability to trust anyone at all. 
She was a young demi-human, which was a race of humans in the new world that had animal-like characteristics—she had ears and a puffy tail that looked like they were from a tanuki, or a raccoon. That made sense, because she’d said she was a “raccoon-type” demi-human. 
She looked like she was about eighteen years old. She was actually younger than that, but demi-humans matured physically to match their current level, not age. She had long chestnut hair, a pretty face, and very fine, clear skin. Even Motoyasu, the Spear Hero, who was the most voracious consumer of female beauty I could think of, counted her high on his list of beauties. 
 
I’d always been an otaku, so it’s natural for me to describe her as one of those beautiful young women you see in video games and anime. She was at least as beautiful as they were. 
The first weapon I gave her was a sword, and she quickly grew proficient with it. I was useless when it came to offense, so she cut down enemies on my behalf. Personality-wise she was very serious, and she was always quick to correct me whenever I said something improper. 
When the first wave of destruction washed over the world, it took her village and family with it, so she had a lot of heavy emotions connected to the waves. Her family was gone, and in the aftermath she was captured by slave traders and sold to the highest bidder. It was a dark time in her life. 
In the end, I bought her from another slave trader, and we began to fight together. Now she’s my most trusted, dependable companion. 
I normally never had to use it, but the slave spell was capable of telling me where she was at any time. 
If I was ever going to use it, this was the time. 

Out of slave spell observation range. 
Well I guess that was that. What about Filo? 
I received some funds from the crown after distinguishing myself in the first wave of destruction, and I used some of them to play a monster egg lottery-like game back at the slave trader’s shop. Filo hatched out of the egg I got. She was a young monster girl called a filolial—and she loved to pull carriages. Filolials were . . . Okay, it’s a little hard to explain. They are large bird monsters and looked like beefed-up ostriches. But Filo wasn’t just any old filolial. She was a higher-ranking monster—a queen? A mutant? 
 
She was a filolial queen—a sort of boss filolial. She looked different from the others too. She was much fluffier and built like a mix between an owl and a penguin. Her coloring was mostly white, but streaks of pink ran over her feather tips. 
Oh—she could transform into something resembling a human whenever she wanted. 
When she was in human form, she looked like a little angel. She had long, wavy blonde hair and innocent blue eyes. She was as innocent and mischievous as she looked. She was a bubbly, bumbling ten-year-old girl with wings on her back. 
Her hair was bright and smooth. Her skin was just as taut and clear as Raphtalia’s. And her face was pretty, too. She really looked exactly like a typical blonde-haired, blue-eyed, angelic little girl. She mostly wore a white one-piece dress with blue accents. 
Her favorite weapons were her iron claws. When she was in human form she equipped them on her hands, and when she was a monster she wore them on her feet. She switched up her fighting style to suit whatever the situation called for. About her fighting abilities—well, she was even stronger than Raphtalia. She’d gotten us out of more tough spots than I could count. 
I tried to use the monster spell to figure out where she was, but just like the slave spell, it didn’t work. For whatever reason, the spells wouldn’t even specify what direction they’d disappeared to. 
 
Rishia was the only party member left. 
Rishia used to be a member of the Bow Hero’s team, but Itsuki framed her for a petty crime as an excuse to kick her out of his party . . . You see, you couldn’t really depend on her for much. 
She wore her hair in a French braid, and she came off as a bit of a sheltered, bookish girl. And truthfully, ever since she joined my party, she’d only proved herself useful outside of battle, with her knowledge and research. But that’s not how she saw herself—she kept saying that she wanted to be a stronger fighter. 
After Itsuki saved her from a perilous situation, she fell head over heels for his commitment to justice and asked to join his party. It all fell apart pretty quickly after that. She went through the same thing that I did. Her teammates framed her for a crime and kicked her out of the party. In the end, it turned out that Itsuki himself had planned it. 
My theory was that he didn’t like the fact that she had been more useful than he was in the battle with the waves. 
She was very pretty, just as pretty as Raphtalia. Motoyasu, the Spear Hero, certainly spent a lot of time appraising the beauty of women—and Rishia was near the top of his list, too. 
She, too, looked younger than she really was. I guess most people in my party don’t look their age. If you took a glance at Rishia, you’d probably think she was fourteen or so, but she insists that she’s actually seventeen. To sum it up, she looked really young, and I never really got the sense that I could depend on her for very much. 
 
That reminds me. Lately she’d taken to dressing in a very strange way. She’d been wearing a kigurumi that looks just like Filo. She says she wears it because no one can tell if she’s crying or not when she’s in a kigurumi. 
She had more surprises in store than just that, though. When we asked the queen for a battle specialist to help us improve our fighting skills, the old lady that showed up (who was a master of the Hengen Muso style) declared that Rishia had the sort of innate talent that only came around once every hundred years. And to be fair, she did pull off a good hit every once and a while. Actually, it was thanks to one of those lucky hits that we managed to make it out of the last battle alive. But most of the time she wasn’t so great. 
But damn it! What were we doing in jail?! How were we supposed to get out? 
It could only mean one thing: we’d been captured by Kyo. But how? 
How could this have happened to us?! Damn it! 
“Let us out!” I shouted, rattling the door of the cage. I had never been thrown in jail before. I wasn’t about to start crying about it, but I certainly didn’t want to be there. Since I’d come to the new world, I’d done plenty of things that could have gotten me thrown in jail. But I’d never actually ended up in one! 
I was innocent! I’d been proven innocent! 
Or . . . Maybe someone had just found me passed out and put me in a jail cell because they didn’t know what to do with me. I might be level 1, but I’d still find a way to fight back! A long time ago, an accessory dealer had taught me a lot about working with metals and jewels. Maybe I could fashion a key to get us out of there. 
 
As I shook the door, I wracked my brain for a solution. I was thinking so hard about it that I barely noticed when the door just suddenly swung open. 
“What the . . . ?” 
“Feh?” 
The door wasn’t locked. What was the point of jail cell if you didn’t lock the door? Whatever—it was better than being locked in. 
“Um . . . okay. Well, let’s figure out where we are. Raphtalia, Glass, and the others might be somewhere nearby.” 
“Alright.” 
We quickly slipped out of the jail cell and looked around the stone¬walled prison. The next room over was furnished pretty nicely. It looked like someone was living there. There was a thick bed, a sofa, and a bag that appeared to be full of food. 
One of the jail cells had been renovated into a proper room. Raphtalia and the others were nowhere to be seen. 
“Raphtalia! Filo! Where are you!? Answer me!” I shouted. There was no answer, so at the very least they couldn’t have been within earshot. 
“Alright, I’ll lead the way. You follow me and keep an eye out. I’m depending on you.” 
“Um, okay! I’ll do my besties!” 
Oh jeez. Now I was even more worried than I had been. 
“Hm . . .” 
 
The prison must have been empty, because we didn’t run into anyone at all. The further we walked, the more confusing it got. Walking around an unfamiliar building made me feel like I was in a labyrinth. 
Something wasn’t right. If we were in a labyrinth, I’d expect to run into monsters or something. Luckily enough, we hadn’t come across anything dangerous . . . yet. 
We went along lazily following the path until we came to a dead end. There was a mysterious door set in the wall, and it was glowing with colorful, rainbow-like light. It was built under a strange arch, and the colors all swirled in strange patterns over its surface—like the surface of a bubble in the sun. 
“What . . . What is this?” 
“I don’t know.” 
If I’d learned anything from my years of playing video games, it was that strange objects like this normally teleported the player to a new location. But I’d never seen anything like it since I came to this new world. 
“Nothing’s going to happen if we stand here being scared of it. Let’s go through.” 
“Feh . . .” 
“What are you so scared of? Let’s go.” 
Rishia stood there hesitating, so I grabbed her hand and pulled through the doorway with me. But what I saw on the other side left me speechless. 
“What the . . . ?” 
We were standing on a white sand beach. The sun blazed overhead in a clear blue sky, while waves rolled on in the distance. I turned back to where we came from and saw the doorway standing behind us in the sand. 
 
“Feh! What’s going on here?!” 
“How should I know?” 
I didn’t know what was happening, but I knew that whatever this doorway was, it was capable of teleporting us through space. 
“Get it together. We need to figure this out.” 
I turned away from the ocean and looked the opposite way. There was a grassy field that was bordered by the beach and a close thicket. We didn’t have any other leads at the moment, so I decided to head for the field. 
I hadn’t heard from Raphtalia or the others yet, so there was no time to waste standing around. We were running out of time. We had to find Kyo and make him pay for what he’d done. 
“I know all this seems a little crazy, but we have to keep going. Would you rather wait here for help? Who knows if anyone will come?” 
“Feh . . .” 
I didn’t want to wait. I didn’t want to sit around hoping for something that might never happen. When I was framed and thrown out into the streets, there wasn’t anyone who could help me. Even if I found someone who believed me, they didn’t give me any way to prove my innocence. That’s when I learned not to depend on others. It’s true what they say—if you want something done, you had to do it yourself. 
“I’m coming with you. I’m coming, so please don’t leave me behind.” 
We headed for the field. 
 
It wasn’t long before a creature I’d never seen before approached us, looking pretty angry the closer it got. I still didn’t know where we were, but the world seemed to function the same way the last one did—which is to say there was status magic that you could use in battle. 
Maybe it was because I was down to level 1, but now that I couldn’t use any of my other shields, I was stuck with the one I had, and I wasn’t sure if it could actually protect us from anything. 
Luckily all the status boosts and special functions I’d earned by unlocking all my previous shields were still in effect, which meant that I was more powerful than my lowly level 1 would imply. Furthermore, the power-up method that I learned from Itsuki, the one where you use the materials from defeated monsters to raise your stats, tied those boosts to all my shields at the same time. So all those boosts and abilities were still accessible. 
Taken all together, I figured I could probably hold my own against a mid-level monster if I had to. 
There was a monster in the bushes, something kind of white and angular. I looked at it closely, and its name appeared in my field of view. 

White Box 
I’d never seen the monster before. It turned in my direction and came flying straight at me. I immediately shoved my hand forward and snatched it out of the air The monster was about the same size as my head. It was white and . . . 
 
square and . . . Wait . . . Was it a cardboard box? 
It must not have appreciated being grabbed, because it opened its mouth —or whatever it was—and bit me. 
It wasn’t strong enough to deal any damage. I’d never seen one of them before, but I had memories of something similar. 
“This thing is like a balloon. Rishia, have you ever seen one of these things?” 
“Feh? No, this is the first time I’ve seen one. I’ve never even seen one referenced in a book.” 
Hm. If Rishia—by far the most bookish person I knew—had never heard of these things, then we must have been in a very strange place indeed. If you could depend on her for one thing, it was her knowledge. 
“It’s just a weakling. Here, I’ll hold it. You stab it.” 
“Okay!” she said, and then stabbed the white box with her sword. 
The box let out a crushed sound, folded up flat, and X’s appeared where its eyes had been. It stopped moving. 
What a weird little monster. 
It acted just like the weak little monsters you’d find in a field of any online RPG. Oh well. I guess the balloons back in Melromarc were sort of the same thing. 
Received 15 EXP 

The monster was really weak, but it gave quite a bit more experience than the balloons had. 

“It was pretty tough.” 
“You’re just not very strong.” 
Even if she leveled up, she didn’t have any abilities. I checked her stats, though, and they were actually pretty high, considering her low level. So maybe these boxes actually were a bit tougher than the balloons. 
I absorbed the fallen white box into my shield. 
Just as I suspected, the monster was like the balloons in another way. It unlocked some status-boosting shields when I absorbed it. 

Beginner’s Small White Shield conditions met! 
Beginner’s Small White Shield abilities locked; equip bonus: defense 2 

Well, that settled it. It unlocked a shield with the exact same stat boost that the first balloon I killed had. It was basically just a small boost on top of what my shield was already giving me. I’d seen it all before. 
“Here’s the plan. I’ll hold the monsters down while you kill them.” 
“Alright! Tee-hee!” 
Oh jeez. More giggling. 
Rishia was such a klutz. Now we were out leveling together, just the two of us. It reminded me of when Raphtalia and I had started leveling up. I wondered if I had been safer back then. Oh well, no point in dwelling on it. 
 
We kept on walking over the field. As we wandered around leveling and searching for our friends, I also found a lot of plants that looked like they were medicinal herbs. I figured they must have been, because they looked a lot like the plants we used to make medicine back in the last world. 
And just like in the last world, the plants unlocked a shield like my Leaf Shield. 
This time it was called a Tree Leaf Shield, which was weird because the leaf that unlocked it didn’t come from a tree—though the plant did seem to have the same status effects as the medicinal herbs I was used to. 
As we came across a variety of monsters, I noticed another strange thing. Almost none of the monster’s names were written in katakana. Creatures resembling the rabbit-like usapils I’d come across in the last world were replaced with similar monsters, but this time they were indicated with the kanji for “rabbit.” 
And like I’d noticed when we defeated the white box, the monsters seemed to give more experience points than I was accustomed to. In the few hours we spent wandering the field, I had already reached level 9, and Rishia had reached level 16! 
I was careful to thoroughly break down any monsters we defeated for materials and drop items. We spent a few hours leveling up. 
After I’d gained a few levels, a few of my shields became available again. I couldn’t help but notice that certain shields were still unavailable. I didn’t have any idea what the problem could be. What if I could never use the Soul Eater Shield, or the Chimera Viper Shield, again? 
 
“Huff . . . Huff . . . I’m getting tired,” Rishia sighed as she followed close behind me. She was clearly out of breath. 
“Let’s take a break.” 
I was a bit surprised that there were so many monsters in such a place. Maybe it was because of the strange way we got here. Where were we? 
I sat down to rest for a bit. I was starting to get really thirsty. 
We didn’t bring a bottle or canteen or anything like that, so we were going to have to find some way to access fresh water. I habitually picked medicinal herbs when I walked, so my bag was starting to get full of them. Of course I hadn’t brought my pestle and mortar, or any of my other compounding or crafting materials, so I’d have to use my shield to make things. I put some materials into the shield and had it start compounding from a recipe I’d memorized. It seems the recipe was flexible enough to work with these new plants, so it appeared to be working. 
Maybe if I were a chemist by trade I’d have been more excited about experimenting with a whole new array of plants—but I wasn’t, and it kind of annoyed me that I’d have to study all these new things. 
“We’re doing pretty well for ourselves, don’t you think Naofumi?” 
I was deep in thought for a little while, and Rishia wasn’t able to tolerate the silence any longer. 
“Yeah, I guess you’re right. Good thing the monsters aren’t too strong around here.” 
“I’ve gotten a little stronger, haven’t I?” 
“ . . .” 
 
Should I have told her that even though she’d gained fifteen levels her stats had hardly changed at all? Any change was so minimal it could have been attributed to a margin of error. I sat there worrying about how to best respond to her, when I noticed the sound of bubbling water nearby. There must have been a river. 
I should have known! We were by the ocean, so of course there’d be a good chance of a river being nearby. I was thirsty, too, so I decided to go check it out. I pointed in the direction of the sound, and Rishia nodded, understanding exactly what I meant. She must have been thirsty, too. 
We followed the sound and came across a riverbank. 
There was a bridge made of fallen trees a little further down the bank from where we stood. 
I had no idea where we were. I had no idea if the water was safe to drink. I took a long hard look at the water—it seemed clear and fine. 
I scooped some up and drank it. 
“Whew . . .” Rishia sighed. She relaxed after taking a deep drink. 
We had come quite a long way from the shoreline. 
Sitting there, drinking at the river, I was reminded of the day that we all camped out by the riverside in Melromarc. 
At the very least, we were still capable of surviving here. We might have not been very strong yet, but we could survive. When I saw that I was at level 1, and that I couldn’t use any of my shields, I’d been really worried. But we still didn’t know where we were or what was going to happen next. It was no time to let our guard down. Whatever was going on, I knew one thing: I had to unlock more shields and get them powered up. 
 
Maybe it was because of our low levels, or maybe there was something else going on, but I wasn’t sure when I should start thinking about powering up the shields. If I found a better shield right after I powered one up, it would be a waste. On the other hand, if I didn’t power up what I had, I might run into a monster that I’d be unable to overpower. 
I was running the various options through my mind when I noticed a strange monster splashing through the river nearby. 
“Is that a kappa?” 
Sure enough, it was. The monster was green and frog-like, its back was covered with a tortoise shell, and it had a little water-filled saucer balanced on its head. It looked almost human, and it walked upright on two legs, just like how my childhood yokai picture books had depicted them. 
“Gwah,” the kappa barked at me. It seemed angry. 
Looking at the strange monster, I wondered what it would be called in the world I’d been summoned to. Was it a monster? A demi-human? A beast-man? 
My shield was capable of translating the speech of people, so I wondered if it could translate what the kappa was saying. Unfortunately there was no time to find out. The kappa’s throat puffed up wide, and it was clearly about to attack us. 
“Air Strike Shield!” 
The kappa barked and sent a high-pressure stream of water shooting at us, so I quickly used Air Strike Shield to block it. The shield appeared in mid-air between the kappa and us, just in time to intercept the beam of water. But the attack was too powerful, and the shield shattered in an instant. 
 
It must have been because my level was still so low. I hadn’t powered up my shield, either, and . . . this kappa monster was surprisingly powerful. If it thought we were enemies, then it didn’t really matter if it was a monster or a human. 
It opened its mouth and started to charge up for another water beam attack, but we sprinted over to it before it got a chance to use it. 
“Gwah!” it barked, swiping at me with its claws. I blocked with my shield, and it swiped at me with its other arm. 
“Second Shield!” 
Another shield appeared in the air and stopped the monster’s claws. That was my chance! I slipped behind him and grabbed his shoulders so he couldn’t move. 
“Rishia!” 
“Feh?!” 
Jeez . . . Rishia! Did she have to be confused about everything? 
“Hurry up!” 
“O . . . Okay!” 
“Gwah!” the kappa croaked, preparing to shoot a beam of water straight at Rishia. Like I’d let that happen! 
I tightened my grip on its shoulders and forced the monster to the right, causing the water beam to miss. The kappa was kicking and writhing in my arms, but it couldn’t slip out of my grip. 
 
“What are you waiting for?! Hurry up, Rishia!” 
“Fehhh!” she shouted and stabbed at the kappa’s stomach, but the little thing was tougher than I’d expected, and it didn’t show any signs of going down yet. 
“I am the Shield Hero, the source of all power. Hear my words and heed them. Give her everything!” 
“Zweite Aura!” 
I cast support magic on Rishia, and a big chunk of my magic power vanished. I would have preferred to end the fight without resorting to magic, but Rishia looked like she was at her limit. 
A piercing pain shot through my back. 
“Ugh . . .” 
Was there another kappa? I turned to look, and sure enough, another kappa had snuck up behind us and plunged its claws into my back. 
It really hurt. These things were pretty damn tough! 
“Rishia, hurry it up already!” 
“I . . . I know! But it’s too tough! I can’t get the sword through!” she shouted. She was stabbing at the kappa with all of her might, but the blade kept ricocheting off of the monster’s belly. I had already cast support magic on her. Had we already run into a monster we couldn’t defeat? 
Damn! The second kappa sliced at my back again, and I felt a trickle of blood dribble down my back. 

Things weren’t looking good. I wasn’t sure how much longer I could keep my grip on it. 

“Hurry up! I can’t hold on! If you can’t kill it, then we’ll have to make a run for it!” 
If they were as strong as they seemed, we didn’t stand a chance. Our levels clearly weren’t high enough to take on these monsters. But I also wasn’t sure that we’d be able to escape. 
The water beams looked like they packed a serious punch, and we’d be wide open for attack from behind if we tried to run. 
We were really stuck in a tough spot now, and things looked like they were getting worse by the second. Was I really going to die in a place like this? I wasn’t going to give up, but I was also fresh out of ideas. 
A third kappa appeared a little ways down the river and started running toward us. We were about to be surrounded. 
“Fe . . . Feh!” 
Damn it. Was this the end? Now I didn’t see how we’d be able to escape. 
But then . . . 
The kappa that had been running at Rishia suddenly stopped in place. Then its head went flying from its neck. 
“What the . . . ?” 
“Blood Flower Strike!” 
There was a flash of light along with an unfamiliar voice, and then the kappa that was attacking me from behind, and the kappa I was restraining in my arms, collapsed in a bloody pile. 
 
What was going on? 
I felt like I’d just witnessed a new, mysterious art form. Was it a skill? 
Skills were special powers and techniques that only heroes like myself could use, like Air Strike Shield. But Glass and her friends could use them, too, and they weren’t heroes. Sometimes we call magic “spells” and techniques “skills,” which made it a little confusing. I wasn’t sure if what I’d just seen was actually a skill or not. 
“Are you okay?” 
I noticed her ferocious eyes first. They were deep brown eyes. Her skin was . . . the same color as my skin. I don’t mean that she had masculine skin, only that she was clearly human. It looked very healthy, a bright white tinged with pink here and there. It was tight and clean. 
She was about as tall as a sixth grader, or maybe a seventh grader, but she carried herself with a confidence and dignity that made me think she might have been older than she looked. 
Her hair was long, and pulled up into two pigtails on either side of her head, and she wore very feminine clothes that seemed to contradict her powerful and confident carriage. She wore a gothic dress and covered it with a threadbare haori. As for her chest . . . Even accounting for the extra frills and folds of her dress, there didn’t seem to be anything there. 
For a moment, I wondered if she might be a he . . . but I decided against it. It would be creepy for a man to wear his hair in pigtails. Besides, her face sure looked like a girl’s. She had a soft aura about her as well, and I couldn’t picture her as a man. 
 
A pole—or no, a fishing rod—hung at her waist. 
Her face was really pretty. She seemed strong, but still feminine. I might even go so far as to call her a tomboy. It was hard to tell how old she was. 
And there was something . . . undeniably Japanese about her. Was I just imagining it? 
“I only looked away for a second. I’m surprised they made it this far. If I hadn’t shown up, that would have been it for you.” 
She clearly wasn’t our enemy, but that didn’t mean she was our ally, either. It was easy to imagine someone pretending to be our ally just so they could stab us in the back later. 
I didn’t have enough magic power left, so I used the medicine I had to heal my wounds. I spread the ointment on the surface of the kappa’s ragged claw marks, and they healed before my eyes. I had to admit, that was one of the things I liked about being summoned to a new world. Back in Japan, wounds took a lot longer to heal. 
“I’ve been watching out for you since you two fell out of the sky.” 
“Who are you?” 

Of course I was grateful that she’d saved us from the monsters, but I still had to figure out whom we were dealing with. You could never be too careful. It was good to have people owe you a favor, and who knew what she was really after? 
 
 
“You don’t trust me?” 
“Of course not. We get out of a prison, only to end up in a fight we can’t win just in time for you to show up and save the day like a hero. It’s hard to attribute it all to coincidence.” 
“Oh, right. I guess that makes sense. I guess,” she sighed, annoyed, and scratched her head. 
What was with this girl? Was she the one who’d returned us to level 1? 
I decided to err on the side of caution and slowly slipped into a defensive position. 
“We might as well get acquainted, considering we were lucky enough to meet out here. Let’s chat.” 
“Maybe you should offer your name before you ask for someone else’s.” 
“I guess you’re right. Okay, I’ll go first. I’m Kizuna Kazayama, and I’m one of the four holy heroes—the Hunting Hero, to be exact.” 
“ . . . What?” 
What the hell was she talking about? She was a holy hero? The Hunting Hero? 
As far as I knew, the four holy heroes were the Sword, Spear, Bow, and Shield Heroes. 
“I gave you my name. Now give me yours,” she said, irritated to see me standing there speechless. I decided it was best to tell the truth and see how she reacted. 

“My name is Naofumi Iwatani. I’m also one of the four holy heroes— I’m the Shield Hero.” 

“ . . . What?” 
Kizuna looked just as confused as I was. She even said the same thing I had. 
“Is there a problem?” 
“No. I’ve just never heard of a ‘Shield Hero.’ Are you sure you’re one of the four holy heroes?” 
“Oh yeah, well, I’ve never heard of a ‘Hunting Hero.’” 
Kizuna crossed her arms and pondered. “Hm . . .” If she was curious, she didn’t show it for long. She immediately looked at Rishia and clipped, “You’re next.” 
“Feh?!” 
“Rishia, introduce yourself. I don’t think she’s our enemy.” At least not for the moment. 
“Oh, um . . . Okay. My name is Rishia Ivyred.” 
“Oh, so you’re not calling yourself a hero?” 
“No, she’s just my friend.” 
Kizuna looked Rishia up and down and then nodded to herself. 
“Okay, so, Naofumi—Can I call you Naofumi?” 
“Sure. I’ll call you Kizuna. What is it?” 
I could tell from the way she spoke. Her name had been a dead giveaway. The holy heroes were all summoned from somewhere else, so . . . 
“I guess it’s safe to assume that you were summoned from Japan, right?” 
“ . . . Yeah, whatever that’s worth.” 
 
“I don’t know what you mean by that, but I’ve never heard of a ‘Shield Hero,’ which makes me think you must have been summoned to a different world to serve in a different set of holy heroes.” 
“ . . . It does sound that way, doesn’t it?” 
We had followed Glass and her friends, so we must be in their world. Which meant that this girl Kizuna must have been one of the four holy heroes in this world. 
“I don’t know how a hero from another world ended up here . . . but things don’t look so good for you.” 
“Why do you say that?” 
“You’re right that there’s a prison here, but it’s not a good one—it’s one of the worst.” 
“Elaborate.” 
“This place is a never-ending labyrinth. To make it simple, there aren’t any guards, but it’s impossible to get out. It’s a special kind of space.” 
An inescapable, special kind of space? Ha! 
“What’s so funny?” Kizuna seemed irritated again. 
But how was I supposed to keep from laughing? 
“It’s nothing. They summoned me to the previous world, and I’d been looking for a way out ever since. I’m pretty accustomed to these ‘inescapable spaces’ by now. I’ve been in one for months!” 
Isn’t that basically what Melromarc had been the whole time? They summoned me to serve as the Shield Hero, but they wouldn’t let me leave. The way I saw things, the whole world was a prison. Now Kizuna says I’m in a special space. It was all the same to me. Another trap I could only escape by breaking through a dimensional wall. 
 
Anyway, the first thing I had to do was confirm that we were in the right place—Glass’s world. If Glass was from another world, then there was no guarantee that that we’d come to the right one. Maybe there were more. 
“That sounds like a very broad interpretation.” 
“I guess you’re one of those people that just can’t get enough of life in these crazy worlds. Is that it?” 
If she was a holy hero, she might have been just like the other three heroes from my world. But she didn’t confirm or deny it. 
“I . . . I wouldn’t say that, exactly.” She turned her eyes away, which only made me more curious—the heroes I knew wouldn’t act that way. No way. All three of them were over the moon to be where they were. Kizuna’s ambiguous reaction made me suspect that there was more going on. But it wasn’t the time to dig into all of that. I had to find Raphtalia and the others and make sure that they were okay. That was my highest priority. 
The next priority was Kyo. I had to make him pay for what he’d done. 
A long, thin blade hung from Kizuna’s waist. It looked like a tuna knife. I’d never used one, but I’d seen them before. 
The Hunting Hero must have used hunting tools for weapons, but was that sort of knife considered a hunting tool? What was a Hunting Hero, anyway? Could she use anything related to hunting? 

That seemed like a very broad category. Compared to the Shield Hero, who was stuck with shields and shields alone, it seemed like a much better title to have. 

“What is it?” 
“Nothing.” 
Kizuna inspected the kappa corpses. She seemed confused. 
“That’s odd. I killed the monsters, but I didn’t get any experience points for it.” 
“Probably because there’s another hero nearby, don’t you think?” 
“Is that how it works?” 
Didn’t she know about the interference phenomenon that kept the heroes from fighting together? Whenever a hero fought a battle near another hero, neither of them received experience points. That was why the heroes always had to split up and go on adventures on their own. 
When the waves came we had more important things to do—and hordes of monsters to defeat—so there was no reason to worry about experience. I explained what I knew about it to Kizuna. 
“Interesting . . . I’d never heard of it.” 
“You haven’t met any of the other heroes in this world?” 
“No, I haven’t.” 
I was so jealous! I couldn’t stand it! 
But weren’t all four heroes summoned together at the same time? I was thinking it over when I noticed that Kizuna was giggling to herself. 
“What is it now?” 

“It’s nothing. I just haven’t talked to anyone in years—it’s so much fun!” 
 
“What?” 
What did she just say? She hadn’t spoken to anyone in years? Was she some kind of antisocial maniac—someone that could never figure out how to enter conversation, so they just didn’t ever say anything? She didn’t seem like the soft-spoken type to me, though . . . 
“Of course I haven’t. I don’t even know how long it’s been since I was thrown in here—at least a few years, though, I’m sure. When I tried to count the time, it just made me sad, so I stopped.” 
“What about when the waves come? Don’t they teleport you out of here?” 
That’s right, I forgot to mention it: whenever the waves came, the dragon hourglasses automatically teleported the heroes to the site of the wave’s occurrence. I hated it. It meant that you had to fight even if you didn’t want to. 
“Waves? You mean the legends about the stuff that happens in the outside world? Are they real?” 
“You’ve never fought in the waves?” 
“I already told you, this space is separated from the outside world. I don’t know what’s going on out there,” Kizuna said. She looked depressed. 
I slowly opened a menu and called up the hourglass counter that had been moving, back before I came through the portal, and . . . 

—:— 
 
It was blank. It wasn’t counting down to anything. 
Huh? Did that mean that I wasn’t going to be summoned to fight in the waves as long as I was in this place? The space was so inescapable that the hourglasses couldn’t even summon me to fight in the waves? Just how isolated was this place? 
“Anyway, what do you want to do with these things?” Kizuna asked, pointing to the dead kappas. 
“Turn them into materials? Break them down?” 
Kizuna nodded. 
“I got all the materials I needed from these things ages ago. The drops are boring now, too.” 
“Then I’ll take it.” 
I absorbed the kappa body into my shield. 
A sound indicated that I’d unlocked a shield, but my level wasn’t high enough to access it yet. The drop item wasn’t very good, either, but it was better than nothing. 
“Um . . .” 
I turned to look at Rishia, who looked ashamed. She wasn’t a hero, so she should have gotten some experience from the battle—that is, as long as this world functioned the same as the last one. 
“Can you still form parties here? Some stuff seems to be different from the world I came from, so I wonder . . .” 
“As far as I know, heroes won’t be able to get experience when they fight together. But Rishia isn’t a hero, so can you try giving her your points?” 
 
“Huh? Oh, sure. Even if it doesn’t work, I don’t mind. Which one of you is the leader? Send me an invite.” 
I raised my hand. Kizuna clearly understood what I meant, so I went ahead and sent her an invite. At least party formation appeared to function the same way in this world. 
She joined my party, and the experience from the battle naturally went to Rishia. 
“This isn’t the best place to sit and talk. Let’s go somewhere safe.” 
“Sure.” 
Kizuna led us back down the path we’d come by, all the way back to where we’d first appeared on the beach. 
“This is one of the safest spots around. If you put on equipment that lets you breathe underwater, then you can go into the ocean and walk on the ocean floor, but you’ll soon discover that it’s a maze down there, too. This is an island, so if you walk inland it’ll soon turn into thick forest, and that’s a maze, too. Once you get to the other side of that field, you’ll be in the woods.” 
She explained the situation like it was the most obvious thing in the world. I guess it was safe to assume that we’d been dropped into a place that functioned similar to a roguelike game. 
“It’s pretty weird, isn’t it?” 
“Yeah.” 
“It’s a tough place. I hear it’s made so that you can’t get out.” 
“And how do you know that?” 
 
“I heard about it before I ended up here. They say that once you enter, you can never leave. The labyrinth is basically a world in and of itself. I’ve spent a long time exploring it, and I’ve gotten pretty far.” She sighed and then spat. She looked stressed out. “As far as I can tell, they were right. There’s no way out.” 
So even though we were supposed to have followed Glass back to her world, I ended up with Rishia, stuck in some mysterious labyrinth instead. 
“It’s best to go back to the jail cell if you want to sleep. But it’s safe enough to talk here.” Kizuna pointed to a house built near the beach and started walking in its direction. 
“Ah . . .” 
She was right. It was probably best to take a break. I had no idea how long I’d been unconscious, but I was definitely approaching exhaustion after all those battles in the field. We could all use a rest. 
“Feh!” Rishia gasped, still surprised by every little thing. When was she going to come to terms with what was going on? 
“I have to say . . . You both certainly have an interesting way of dressing.” Kizuna took a seat in a sooty chair at the beach house and looked us over. 
I couldn’t disagree with that, either. The Barbarian Armor +1? was really beat up after the fighting with the Spirit Tortoise. I tried to look into the state of the armor using the status magic system, but all the letters were garbled and illegible. 

It was so banged up that it probably didn’t even count as armor anymore. I slowly slipped it off and...Yup, my stats didn’t change at all. The armor had become completely ineffective. The old guy at the weapon shop had made it especially for me, but there was no point it wearing it if it wasn’t doing anything. 

“Rishia, how’s your kigurumi holding up?” 
“Feh?!” 
She looked through her equipment menu and squealed in surprised. 
“Feh?! It says something strange!” 
I suppose that meant that at the very least her equipment wasn’t so beat up that it was ineffective. 
Something odd must happen to equipment when it crosses the barrier between worlds. That would explain why Glass and her friends were dressed so strangely when we ran into them inside of the Spirit Tortoise. 
“Take it off. There’s no point in wearing it if it isn’t helping.” 
“O . . . Okay.” 
Rishia obeyed my order and slipped out of the kigurumi. Finally, she was wearing normal clothes for once. 
“So? Kizuna, how did you end up in this place?” 
“I’ll tell you, but I’d rather you explained how you got here first. It wouldn’t be fair if I was the only one answering questions around here.” 
She had a point. Besides, she was probably only answering my questions because she wanted to find out more about us. 
“Where should I start?” 
“Tell me how you got here. I’m curious what brought you to a place like this.” 
 
She was one of the four holy heroes, so there was probably nothing to lose by cooperating with her...right? Then again, I didn’t really want to cooperate with the other three heroes I knew. They didn’t listen to anything I said. But my level was so low here that I didn’t see what choice I had. I needed her help. If she decided to turn on us, we wouldn’t stand a chance. 
I decided to carefully watch to see how she reacted to my story. 
“First things first . . .” 
I started with how I was summoned to the world, how I was framed, and how I was exonerated, and I went on to tell her the main points about the other three heroes. 
“Uh-huh. And then? What brings you to this place? To my world? I thought the four heroes weren’t allowed to cross between the worlds.” 
“Ah, so you know about that?” 
When Kyo escaped after our battle, I tried to follow him through the portal—only to discover that I couldn’t get through it. A warning appeared, saying that the four holy heroes were not permitted to cross over to other worlds. 
Ost, just on the verge of death, intervened on our behalf, which is how we were able to get through the portal. Kizuna seemed to know all about the difficulties that crossing over entailed. 
“There was this giant monster called the Spirit Tortoise that collected the souls of people killed in the waves and used them to make a barrier to protect the world from the waves. Anyway, someone took control of the monster and used it to go on a rampage.” 
 
“Heh . . . A protective beast? We’ve got something like that over here, too. We’ve got the Black Turtle and the White Tiger, but I don’t know much about those legends. You say someone took control of this thing?” 
“That’s right. He was crazy. His name was Kyo Ethnina. We chased him through the portal he made back to this world.” 
“Hm . . . Maybe you played right into his hands. Maybe this was a trap.” 
“ . . . I’m starting to think the same thing.” 
Kizuna rocked in her chair and nodded. “I see. Sounds like a real disaster.” 
“It was terrible. Still, Kyo was obviously violating all sorts of rules, so a few people, who were our enemies, ended up helping us out.” 
“I don’t really understand it all yet, but you say they were your enemies?” 
“Yeah. Glass and L’Arc Berg.” 
I remembered everything about Glass and her friends and what had happened before we woke up in this place. 
As things stood, we had put aside our differences to focus on fighting our common enemy, Kyo. Still, I wouldn’t call them allies. 
I’ll start with Glass. 
She was a beautiful woman with long black hair, and she wore a kimono, which made her look very Japanese. When we fought with her, she used folding fans for weapons, and her fighting style looked like dancing. 
 
Even after implementing all of the other heroes’ power-up methods, she was still so powerful that I wasn’t able to defeat her. 
I don’t think she was human, because she seemed to turn a little transparent from time to time. I still didn’t know very much about her—she was a mystery. 
L’Arc is next. His real name was L’Arc Berg. When I first met him, he seemed like a dependable, nice older-brother kind of character. He was laid back and easy to talk to. 
After I was exonerated of my crimes, I met him on a boat we took to the Cal Mira Islands. There was a special event happening on the islands that would give us more experience points than usual for our battles with monsters. 
I didn’t know we were enemies at the time. I just thought that he was a tough fighter and a nice guy. In fact, we even fought together for a little while. But then a wave occurred close to the islands. We were in the middle of fighting against it when he turned on us. According to him, he had to kill me for the sake of his world. Glass said the same thing. 
He had spiked red hair, and he was very muscular. He clearly knew his way around the battlefield. He was handsome, too, but unlike Motoyasu (the other handsome guy around here), nothing about him was irritating or obnoxious. I actually liked him. If we weren’t enemies, I would have wanted him to join my party. 
He fought with a giant scythe. Just like Glass, it was a special sort of weapon. 
 
It was as powerful as you’d expect, but apparently he only had as much power as he had during our fight because we happened to be fighting at the same time as a wave. Still, he held his own just fine in the battle with Kyo, so it’s safe to say that he was a pretty powerful fighter. 

At the very least, he was certainly stronger than the other three heroes in the previous world. 
He had another person with him: a woman named Therese. 
I hadn’t spoken with her very much, but she was clearly his partner. 
She wore her glossy, blueish hair pulled back in a French braid. The color of her hair seemed to change a little depending on the angle you viewed it from. And when she used a magic spell, her hair turned red, which is something I’d never seen happen to a human—at least not humans in the world I was from. 
She was calm, and warm, the sort of woman you’d go to for help. Both her and L’Arc seemed to be kind and dependable people. 
She was a magic user in battle, and she normally used magic to cast support effects on L’Arc and Glass. The magic she used was strange, though. It seemed to depend on the accessories she wore in battle. When she cast spells, her accessories would flash and create a magic effect. I assumed it was a special form of magic from their world. 
I can’t speak authoritatively on her personality, but from what I’d seen, she was very emotive and sensitive. I made her a bangle once, and she was very appreciative. 
I think she was probably L’Arc’s . . . girlfriend. Maybe. 
 
Anyway, those three were helping us chase down Kyo. 
We had to find a way to punish him for what he’d done in Raphtalia’s world—for all the chaos he’d sown. That was why we followed him through the portal. We had to make him pay. 
After we jumped into the portal, I found myself in some kind of fast, ferocious current, bathed in light. I thought that if we let the current carry us along, it would take us to Glass’s world. 
That’s it—I remember now. 
The direction the current carried us started to change, darkness swallowed the light, and suddenly we were being carried along by the current in dark space. 
And that was when I heard it, the voice of the enemy. I heard Kyo speaking to us. 
“Heh heh . . . You didn’t think there would be a trap? How stupid are you?!” He laughed, and lightning crackled in the space around us. 
I held up my shield and prepared to blast through whatever trap he’d prepared for us. 
But it didn’t work. A crashing sound filled my ears and pale lightning crackled in the darkness. 
“Ahhhh!” 
“Ugh, damn it!” 
“Mr . . . Mr. Naofumi!” 
“Ugh . . .” 

The current that carried us along suddenly split, branching off in different directions and carrying us away from each other. It was like one of those tubular waterslides that split into different paths. 

“Raphtalia!” 
I reached out to her, desperate to keep us together, but it was too late. I couldn’t reach her, and she slipped away. 
Damn it. I wondered . . . Could I save her with a skill? 
“Air Strike . . .” 
Before I could finish calling for the skill, Raphtalia and the others had already slipped far, far away. 
“Mr. Naofuuuuumiiiiiiiii!” 
“Raphtaliaaaa!” 
I lost consciousness. 
And according to Kizuna, I woke up in the middle of an inescapable labyrinth. 
When I finished telling my story, Kizuna stopped rocking her chair and jumped to her feet. 
“Glass! Where did you meet Glass?!” 
“Do you know her?” 
“She’s a close friend. She’s the person who gave me this haori.” 
I’d wondered about her outfit, a haori paired with a western, gothic dress. It made sense if it had been a present. Still, she wore it naturally enough that I’d assumed it was some kind of fashion I didn’t know about. 
So she knew Glass well enough to have received a present from her— what did it mean? 
 
“If Glass has teamed up with you to take that guy down, he must really be a bad guy. No doubt about it,” Kizuna nodded, more energetic than she had been. 
If she knew Glass, then that settled it: Kizuna must have been one of the four holy heroes from Glass’s world. 
“And L’Arc nii-chan was with her, too? How’s he doing with Therese?” 
“How should I know?” Seriously. I had barely even held a conversation with Therese. How should I know about their private lives? 
“Is Glass here, too?” 
“I don’t know. We fell into a trap of some kind while we were moving between worlds, and I ended up here.” 
“Right . . . right. I probably would have known if she was here, anyway . . .” Kizuna muttered, nodding. I guess it’s my turn now.” 
“Yeah. Start with how you ended up being summoned to another world in the first place.” 
“You want me to start way back then? Well, I guess you told me your story . . .” she said, and began to speak.