Dragon of the Shield 1

Chapter 1: Arrival

In hindsight, I really should have seen it coming. Etrig had a reputation, so the explosives having a much bigger blast radius should have been expected. But I didn't, so I instead had to deal with the fact that I'm bleeding out after having been blown three streets from a destroyed Fafnyr Industries lab, a sheet of glass as long as my leg buried in my stomach.

Boots crunching glass pulled my gaze from my impalement, to the smirking face of a woman twice as broad as me and half again as tall. Snorting like an angry bull, she sneered down at me as she pulled her gun from it's holster.

“Looks like you ran outta time Siggy. I'm going to enjoy this,” she said as she leveled her pistol at my head.

I didn't have the strength to say anything witty, but I could still spit in her eye. The last thing I heard was the bark of her pistol, and her screaming in agony.

[hr][/hr]

My eyes snapped open and my hands flew to my stomach, where the glass… wasn't? Glancing around, I saw that I wasn't alone. There were three other guys, each with what looked like ceremonial weapons (a bow, sword, and spear), with me inside of what looked to be an elaborate ritual circle. Outside the circle were a bunch of men in robes.

“Fantastic!” The head caster exclaimed.

“What in Bahamut's Blood are you expecting to do to us?” I snarled as I pulled at the wyrmblüt within me.

“The summoning was a success! O, brave heroes! Won’t you please save our world from evil?”

I blinked in surprise. A summoning? That didn't… my wyrmblüt was far too weak for even the most powerful of conjurations to do more than tug at me.

“Is this for real?” the blonde with a spear asked incredulously.

“What do you mean it's in need of saving?” the brunette with the bow asked.

“The story behind it all is long and complicated, but suffice to say that you are the Four Cardinal Heroes, and you were summoned here using an ancient ritual.

“Our world is in a most fragile state, and teeters on the brink of destruction. So we beg you, o brave heroes, please lend us your aid,” the head caster said, clasping his hands together and bowing.

“Forget it.”

“I also refuse.”

“You can send us back home, right? Do that and maybe we'll talk.”

“Can you get me something to eat first?” my question caused everyone in the room to stare at me. “What? I was on a job for the last six hours before this, it works up an appetite.”

Shaking his head, the sword guy took a step forward, blade pointing at the group of magi, “You brought the four of us here without our consent! Don’t you feel the least bit guilty?”

It took everything I had to hold back my flinch. First rule of dealing with a group of magi: don't get uppity! That leads to you ending up in the arctic circle while stark naked.

Then the bow guy had to pile onto the stupidity pile, “Not to mention, if you throw us out as soon as we restore peace, we’ll have done all that work for nothing.”

Well at least the spear… “How willing are you to accommodate our requests? Depending on your answer, we may end up as your enemies instead of your allies.”

Oh come on! Am I seriously the only one who's met with a Dealer before?

“Good sirs, before I say anymore I’d like you to have an audience with the King of Melromarc. You can negotiate your rewards with him directly,” the head caster said, thankfully not taking offense.

“Alright, fine.”

“I suppose we'll consider their offer.”

“Sure, it doesn't matter who we talk to since our demands won't change.”

I swear, if these three don't shape up and shut up I'm killing them myself.

~*~

All of the buildings were made from wood or stone, something that boggled my mind. The only people back home to use stone in buildings was Mictlech, and that was just permacrete made to look like stone.

I didn't know what to expect, but seeing the city line was a pretty damn good indicator that I wasn't in Kansas anymore. I admit, my shock made me stop and stare for a bit, before the sword guy nudged me and I shook it off.

“You okay?” he asked.

“Yeah, just saw the skyline and can't imagine a place back home that would look like it, y'know?” I answered as we continued our trek to the castle.

The rest of the walk was quiet, which I was grateful for. My thoughts were running a mile a minute. I'd been a Runner for a few years, and you don't last that long without developing a sense for when the Harvest was bad.

Something about this whole mess was off. I couldn't say what it was or why I was feeling paranoid, but my blood simmered as we were led to a big fancy throne room. An old man sat in the throne on a raised dais, the empty seat next to him being larger painted an interesting picture of the nation's politics. Especially since everything was positioned in just the right way that my eyes wanted to slide past the empty throne.

Ah, a power play by someone who isn’t the highest authority in the region. Not the first time I’d seen it, probably won’t be the last either.

“So you young men are the Four Cardinal Heroes of ancient legend. This is the land of Melromarc and I am her king, Aultcray Melromarc the Thirty Second. Welcome, brave heroes. Please identify yourselves,” the king ordered. A bit pompous, but no more so than some of the corpos I’ve worked for, much as it made my wyrmblüt  boil.

Sword guy stepped up first, “I’m Ren Amaki, I’m a high school student and I’m sixteen years old.”

Next up was spear guy, “I’m Motoyasu Kitamura, college student twenty one.”

“I suppose I’m up next,” bow guy said as he stepped forward, “Itsuki Kawasumi. Still in high school and I’m seventeen.”

I spoke up, “Callsign’s Sigurd. Runner, somewhere around twenty.”

“Good. Ren, Motoyasu, and Itsuki,” the king said, noticeably leaving me out. I cocked an eyebrow, but didn’t say anything. “I suppose I need to explain why we brought you here.”

Much as being ignored irritated me, I paid attention to listen to the job details. Periodic invasions, four heroes summoned from another world, magic involving status and levels, whole Taku level stuff.

There were vague promises of rewards, which the other three took at face value, but my bad feeling was coming back. I’d heard enough stories about corpos offering such vague promises to know that Runners who took such jobs rarely walked away alive after. Corpo Grim Guards had to come from somewhere after all.

By and large I remained quiet, letting the other three ask questions while I listened and examined what the status screen showed me.

[quote]Name: Naofumi “Sigurd”

Class: Level 1 Shield Hero

Equipment:

[list]Small Shield (Legendary Weapon)[/list]

Attack: 2

Magic: 15

Physical Defense: 70

Magical Defense: 39

Dexterity: 19

HP: 213/213

SP: 60/60
MP: 57/57

Skills:

[list]Wyrmbüt (Poison)

Wyrm Breath (Cost: 2 SP/sec.)[/list]

Spells: None[/quote]

Attack was basically nonexistent, which was surprising since I’d never had problems killing shitstains before. Maybe this shield did something?

“Hey, Sigurd!”

I looked up from the screen to the spear guy whose name I’m not going to bother trying to pronounce, “What?”

“You were awfully quiet earlier, did the king snubbing you really bother you that much?”

“Maybe the king wouldn’t have snubbed him if he actually gave his name,” Bow guy snarked.

I quirked an eyebrow, surprised they thought that’s why I was quiet, “First rule of being a Runner: Pick a callsign and use that when on the job. Second rule of being a Runner: Corpos love to hear themselves talk.”

The other three stared at me with befuddled looks. From the way they were acting, I figured they were from upper middle corpo families, the kind with enough money to not see the reality on the streets, but not so much that the utter ruthlessness needed to maintain it killed naivete.

“Moving on, you can tell this is clearly Brave Star Online, right?” Ren, the only one with a pronounceable name, asked.

“Wrong, it’s clearly Emerald Online.”

“You’re both wrong, it’s Dimension Wave.”

I blinked. That’s what they were arguing about? “Never heard of any of them.”

All three then said some variation of ‘how have you not heard of insert-game-here’ to which I shrugged, “Up until last year every last dace went to paying for food or clearing the debt I took when I got my harvest mods. I’m just lucky there was some wyrmblüt the Ripper managed to get from a Dealer.”

“What’s a dace?”

“What are harvest mods?”

“Dealer, you’re a druggie?”

The three questions had me look at them oddly, before it dawned on me, “Hang on, what year was it before you showed up here?”

“Wha? What’s that got to do with anything?” Bow guy asked.

“Humor me.”

“2017/2021/2019/2071”

Again, the three stared at me as I said twenty seventy one. The trend continued, comparing bits of general knowledge. It quickly became apparent that I was an outlier in more ways than one. For starters, I was the only one that wasn’t from Japan. For all I know my parents might have been, since I had the looks, but I’d been living in Icebay, Alaska since well before my earliest memories. Next major difference was the complete lack of Harvesting in any of their worlds.

I spent nearly an hour explaining what I knew about it, but I wasn’t a Harvester or involved in the manufacture of goods from it. Groups of magi would utilize a summoning circle to call forth a magically powerful creature that would then be killed and its remains harvested to be used in enhancing both items and people (if they had the money for it). The more I explained about my world, the more the other three were convinced I lived in what they called a “fantasy cyberpunk Earth.”

“It’s a shame you’re stuck with the Shield,” bow guy said after we finished comparing notes.

“Eh?” I asked.

“You thought it too?” spear guy asked.

“Well, obviously,” Ren continued.

“Will one of you just say it?” I asked, growling lightly.

“To put it bluntly: Shielders suck.”

“No kidding, they’re great at the early game, but once you get to midlevel their lack of damage really starts to make them less effective. Come endgame even the basic enemies can punch through their defense.”

“Since we can’t work in close proximity it means we won’t be able to carry you.”

Okay, I had a pretty good grasp on my wyrmblüt, especially since it was from a poison drake, but there were only so many insults I could take before the blood started taking over. Forcing it back as much as I could, I stood with forced calmness.

“Talk to you tomorrow,” I growled out through gritted teeth as I made my way to the room I was provided.

[hr][/hr]

“Was it just me, or were his eyes glowing?”

“No it wasn’t just you, but did you notice his teeth? They looked like a mouthful of fangs.”

“Forget his teeth, the way he talked right then, it was like a dinosaur from Jurassic Land.”

“You mean Jurassic Park?”

“Fuck, that’s different too?”