Chapter 1: [A Suspicious Icon].

" Finally... I'm done for the day."

I had gone to therapy that day, since having been on treatment for the last 2 years, has helped me a lot with integrating myself into society without repercussions. Getting a job wasn't that easy but is not something it was on my immediate care at the moment.

My job consisted of being a regular worker on some side business made out of odd works. The pay was good, not that the same could be said about the working hours. They handled on cutting costs by cutting off their units when some new blood was about to be added. This month it was my turn to be cut-off, since a lot of my treatment sessions were interfering with working hours, and the big wigs decided it was better to let me go.

It had been quite a slow week. While I'm still keeping my treatment going on, not having a job at the moment also meant that free time was on the table. I used the last week to get up to date on my favorite shows and play some games that were left abandoned. While I wouldn't proclaim myself an otaku, mainly because I prefer to avoid going so far, I still quite enjoy it a lot, having watched and read quite a lot during my lifetime. My room remains the same boring appearance, with nothing much adorning the walls aside a whiteboard, and a map of the city. The only otaku things my room has would be the anime character figurines my friends gave me for my birthdays over the years.

"Now all that's left, is to go pick up my medicine for the month, and then, I'll be all set to go back home and read some more."

I was really looking forward to the trip back home, to catch up on the latest series and games I was playing since the last week, and a new show about a girl dying and reincarnating as the main antagonist in a novel was about to start, and I had been waiting for it for quite a while.

While heading for the pharmacy, I decided to read one of my favorite novels on my phone, "The rising of the shield hero". I had read the books for this story so many times, having lost completely the count of how many rereads I've done up to now.

It's always nice to pick from the beginning, sometimes remembering or discovering some minor detail that would often lead to something further down the story.

After picking up my medicine, all that was left was heading home. As I reached the train station, boarding up a train and sitting down with my backpack on my lap, I noted that there was quite some time before reaching my destination, so that decided to resume my reading.

What surprised me, was a strange application on my phone. It appeared out of nowhere because I didn't even remember having downloaded it at all. Once I had checked the configurations on the phone, the application didn't even appear on the list of installed ones. Nothing made much sense out of it. What really caught my attention though, was that the application didn't have a name and the icon displayed the image of a rather familiar "icon".

"Should I click on it?" was the thought on my head. It's a completely unknown application, with no name, unlisted, and the icon looked like something I'd seen before, yet felt unknown. The more I looked at the icon, the more my curiosity kept growing. "What's the worst that could happen anyway, besides getting this phone all bricked up?." I thought to myself while starting up the app icon.

The phone screen faded to black for a moment. I was about to click on the home button when suddenly, the screen went fully white, and my head started feeling very light. A really strange sensation enveloped me as if my entire body was thrown through the air, floating. Suddenly, as quickly as it came, the floating feeling went away, before I fell flat on my back with the backpack on my legs.

My head still felt light, voices feeling rather muffled and distant for a moment before they slowly became more and more clear. The echoing voices traversed the room, resounding on my ears. I wouldn't have ever guessed that this would have happened, even in my wildest dreams, so that only left me with a single question...

"Am I dreaming?"

I looked around, trying to recognize the room. The first thing noted was the people, still letting their voices of surprise and marvel sound, followed by three other men standing next to me, all holding weapons in hand. These three men, no, these three kids I was able to recognize. After touching my arm and feeling a metal plate firmly attached to it, it was when my suspicions were confirmed.

Suddenly one of the people who were marveling at us broke my train of thought.

"Oh, Heroes! Please save our world!"

"What?"

The three guys shouted at unison.

This moment, this place and all these people, I already know well. I know very well where I am. I am in the world of "The Rising of the Shield Hero". If I ever wanted to be summoned to this world, I would have never expected it to actually happen, much less to be summoned as the shield hero.

Patting my face, hair, and body, not only confirmed that I was still in my own body but also wasn't missing anything. Much like in the original story, the other three complained about being summoned out of nowhere, about being taken forcefully away from their homes, but soon that would resolve itself. If any time was ideal to put my thoughts and memory in order, it was when we were taken towards the throne room.

I was filling in the position for Naofumi Iwatani, the titular shield hero of "The Rising of the Shield Hero". Walking next to me were the other three heroes of the story, but calling them heroes at that time in the story would be an overstatement.

The blonde kid with the bow was called Itsuki Kawasumi and for what I remembered, he was a good-natured child with some sort of bad past.

The other kid, the one with the sword, his name was Ren Amaki. If I'm recalling it right, he was the most normal of the three, but just a bit on the anxious side.

The last one of the heroes was the long-haired blondie with the spear, his name was Motoyasu Kitamura, and most of my doubts came from him up until we reached the throne room.

"Hey mister, are you okay?"

"Eh?"

"You've been looking at us rather intensely"

"O-Oh! No, don't worry about it. It's just that you guys look like some other guys I know." I said to them, trying to deviate from the topic. Luckily we reached the throne room soon enough to keep me off any suspicions.

"So, three kids and an old man are our heroes?" That was not the best compliment I received, but definitely not the worst. That was the moment I had a better chance to look well at the man sitting on the big ornate chair.

An aged man sitting on a throne. wearing clothes and a crown befitting the image of a king, not having made a really good first impression with his comments.

"My name is Aultcray XXXII, and I rule these lands."

At the time I knew better than to believe this old man was the True ruler, but I had to put my best act as to not leave a bad impression of myself either. I was still remembering how the story was threading. The king would explain the situation of the world, as the wave had come and would devastate the lands if the heroes didn't do something, almost as obligating us to do the heavy lifting for them. I remember the three beside me not liking it, that they got summoned, much less that they were getting put to work without consent, but the king knew how to spin his words, by offering prizes or compensation.

The king would later ask for our names one by one, but because of his own grudges, he would deliberately leave the shield out of the introductions. "This is it!." Were my thoughts at that time. Since there were a few key moments to establish the character the other would see as "The Shield Hero". At that time I decided to not use my real name.

"My name is Hitoshi Tadano, Age 29, recently unemployed"

As expected, the king decided to play it as if only Ren, Itsuki, and Motoyasu were important while excluding me. It was then that I could either let his attitude ride off or simply remark who I was at the moment.

"So Ren, Itsuki and Motoyasu, correct?."

"And Hitoshi, your majesty." I said with a sly grin visible on my face as if to settle that I was aware of the king's attitude from beforehand. A glint of anger was visible in the eyes of the king, while everyone panicked quite a bit after such interruption.

"Hey, mister! What are you doing!? He is the king!"

Itsuki said to me, whispering in a nervous tone. Motoyasu and Ren agreed at that moment.

"I know, yet he clearly was about to skip me. Ain't that weird?"

"Well…"

"Look, king or not, it's still bad manners, and if he is the king, he more than anyone should be aware of that."

As the assistants and servants observed our small bantering, slowly breaking into talks themselves, the king managed to regain his composure.

"Y-yes, I shouldn't forget the shield hero, excuse me for my lack of tact. Moving to our next topic now, heroes, please confirm your status".

The three started bantering once more, as only Ren was accustomed to virtual reality visuals. As he explained how to open the status screen, I worked around my eyes looking for the button. I managed to see the small mark on the corner of my eye. Once I focused, the status screen appeared in my sight.

"H-huh…this is...interesting."

Hitoshi Tadano

Class: Shield hero Lv 1

Equipment:

+ Small Shield (Legendary Weapon)

+ Otherworld Clothes

+ Otherworld Backpack

Skills: None

Magic: None

I had accidentally let out a confused voice as I checked on my status. While my stats weren't all great, it was to be expected for us being at level 1, but what surprised me was the plethora of extra information. Surprisingly, while inspecting the help screen, I noted the long list of enhancement methods that was already unlocked, not only from the cardinal weapons but from the vassal weapons as well.

"...er… hey, mister. Come on, keep up with everyone".

"Ah? Oh right, right. I'm sorry, I didn't know we were on schedule."

"Yes, but there's no need to keep everyone waiting either."

It seemed that I already had struck a sour note with Itsuki, but thanks to that, I got to remember how hard it was actually to get along with him, having the most stubborn and self-centered personality of the three heroes summoned along the Naofumi, he was the kind of person that would seem nice at first, but as soon as you show to be a bit better than him on anything, he would get mad.

"Hahaha, now, calm down Itsuki, we are supposed to be heroes, right? You can have a bit of patience with mister here."

Right. Motoyasu was always the one with the most approachable personality. Having a more friendly aura, he was on the quick lane to make good impressions of himself to others. Now if it were not for his faulty naivety, he wouldn't have been so easy to manipulate by the women he considered so close to him. At least his speech did make me notice that it's not his "broken self", otherwise I would have to worry heavily.

"So long as he doesn't hold us back, I'm okay with whatever."

There he goes. I had almost forgotten that Ren initially had this "Cool and aloof" persona, mostly to hide his own real personality, but even so, I still remember him being a well-intentioned boy overall.

"Well then, you could care a bit more, maybe this MISTER might surprise you"

I wasn't particularly hurt at Ren's comment, but neither I could leave that comment hanging up with no back sass. After a few more explanations and with more memories refreshed, we discussed the heroes forming a party and how we were restricted due to the weapons causing interference for our EXP gains. Then it was decided that the king would gather people to form parties for us since we as heroes couldn't form a party ourselves.

"The day is almost done and there is much to be done tomorrow, so for now the heroes should rest."

The king urged us to rest, as they took us all to our room for the night. I tried to look outside and it seemed like there was still some time before dusk.

Upon reaching our room, everyone else just jumped straight into investigating their weapons. As the silence took over, I only saw faces of excitement and curiosity, which I needed to break if I wanted my plan to succeed.

As I clapped my hands loudly, startling the other three, I began talking to break the ice.

"Given that we are gonna be working together to save this world, wouldn't it be a good idea that we know each other better?"

Everyone looked at me with startled eyes, hesitant at first. The first to board the chat was Motoyasu, followed by Ren.

"Well, I don't see the danger that we know with whom I'm gonna be working with. After all, we are gonna be fellow heroes after all."

"I'm fine with it. It's better to know you a bit better, so I can know if any of you would hold me back."

Itsuki remained silent for a few moments, as the three of us stared at him with expectation until he couldn't with the peer pressure.

"Ok fine, I'll also join this talk. This way I can get a better grasp into whatever you three can do."

"Great! So with that, we could call this the first Four Heroes Conference, right?"

"Hahaha! sounds interesting."

"Whatever."

"Let's begin then."

We sat down on the edges of our beds to talk a bit about ourselves, what we used to do back on earth.

"It's really like we are in a video game here. Man, I really wanted this sort of thing. I mean, I already knew a game much like this back home." Motoyasu was saying with a certain air of confidence. While he was about to continue, Ren interjected.

"Of course we are in a game. We are in a VRMMORPG called Brave Star Online."

"Ren, what are you talking about?. This isn't virtual reality, we clearly are inside the popular MMORPG Emerald Online."

"You are both mistaken. We are in a home console game. The name is Dimension Wave."

"For all that matters, we could be in any of the three games or even in a light novel. Can we at least make a consensus that we are currently in another world?."

And there it was, the reason why Naofumi originally had such a hard time initially here. If only these three could collaborate and not take this so far into the discussion, almost fighting for who is the protagonist, a lot of things would have gone a lot smoother. It was only about five minutes into this talk and I was already feeling all worn out. After some more seconds of awkward silence, Motoyasu brought attention to something.

"Ren, you talk about VR as if everyone had access to it."

"Wait. You mean to say that none of you have VR games?."

"I'll be honest, the way you put it about VR, it sounds as if it was the most common thing in the world."

"That makes me think. Doesn't maybe mean that we all come from different places?."

Itsuki commented lastly, putting everyone into deep thinking. Everyone fell into silence for a moment, then we all agreed to compare points by giving names for the current PM, what other events were slightly distinct from each other until everyone was convinced that each one came from different planet earth. Ren came from a futuristic setting, with a very sci-fi feel to it. Itsuki commented about his home a bit but didn't really go into detail. Motoyasu shares a world that is certainly most similar to my own homeworld. Itsuki then brought up the next point of curiosity.

"That means that, for all or any reasons, we've been brought here to save this world, but at the same time, we ourselves, all come from different versions of Earth. Does that mean that we also came via different ways maybe?."

At that moment I had realized we'd reached another important point at the initial story, being "how did we get here". I had recalled that Naofumi being the only one alienated from them due to him not being transported here after dying, was one of the many reasons for them to be so conceited later. This and a later moment were crucial for me to not be seen as the lesser hero. I preferred to open up the topic.

"So, assuming this was a light novel or story of the typical transported to another world genre. I'm not saying that it is, but if it was, did you guys get transported, or did you die?."

The first to talk was Ren, as he took on airs of "Too cool for school".

"The last thing I remember before being brought to this world was something about a serial killer on the loose. I was walking home with a close friend, we sorta got involved, I saved my friend while the killer got arrested and then, everything felt cold before slowly fading to black."

As Ren talked, he was unconsciously touching his side. If I recall correctly, Ren was stabbed on the side when saving his friend.

"And before I knew it, I got here when I woke up"

"I see. That's kinda cool. Being a hero to your friend, saving them and all, I guess that would be a good reason to be chosen as a hero here."

I answered with a smile on my face, but despite my complement, Ren decided to respond with aloofness. "Right, Cool & Aloof persona". He was probably content inside with my answer, so I let him be.

"I guess I'll go next then"

said Motoyasu as he pointed to himself. As he took a rest on the edge of his bed, he began explaining.

"Basically, I have quite a few girlfriends"

"Don't you say…"

Right. Motoyasu was a natural playboy back in his own world. He had the habit of picking up cute girls if he could every time. This mostly stemmed from his fear of

commitment.

"And well…"

"Did one or two of them get in a kerfuffle over you and ended up stabbing you or something?."

Ren said in a more joking manner, but Motoyasu almost fell off his bed at Ren's remark. As he nodded to him he answered.

"Well...Women can be really scary, you know?."

With that, it makes two that died and got transported here. As I looked towards Itsuki, I saw him put his hand over his chest. I wasn't sure if he was trying to act solemn or something.

"It's my turn then. I was on my way home from prep. school. As I turned the corner, a dump truck came at full speed ahead and then...well…"

We went into silence. Even if I knew that he had died by getting hit by a truck ahead of time, that is still rather hard to hear first hand.

"Huh, so that leaves me for last on the sharing circle, doesn't it?."

"Well, we all said how we came here, and you were pretty much the one who asked about it."

"Fair enough."

I removed myself from my bed, walking towards the balcony, trying to put on my best "confused act".

"Frankly speaking...I have literally no idea. For what I remember, the same day I was just laid off from work and was really bummed about it. On top of that, it all happened the same day they worked me to Death."

I said so more as a joke, comically remarking the word death, getting a silent chuckle here and there.

"But honestly, that day, I just got home, too dead tired to change my clothes or even take my backpack off and just fell on my bed and drifted to sleep...and with that, here we are. For all I know, things considered, it could have been that I just died in my sleep. You know, a death march."

While that certainly wasn't the truth, it wasn't any more away from the reality of Japanese work ethics. People dying at work or during their sleep due to overwork is relatively common in Japan, so this should keep me steered from being marked as the "alien" out of the four simply because I didn't die.

"I can see that happening"

"It could've happened to anyone in your situation."

"You should've taken better care of yourself then, Mr. Nakano."

"You are the last person I would like to hear that from, Motoyasu. And just drop the Mr. Nakano... calling me Hitoshi is fine."

Motoyasu let out a hearty laugh, while the other two relaxed a bit at least, knowing that we at least have one point in common, having all died and been brought here...or so I had led them to believe.

"Something does catch my attention, though."

"And what that may be, may I ask?."

"I don't mean to insult or anything, but...does every Japanese in your world look like you?".Motoyasu continued talking and posed that question to me. At that moment, that crucial detail was really important. That, while posing with a fake name, my own appearance was most certainly not fitting of a Japanese man. If that detail was indeed something so eye-catching, I might as well roll with it.

"Well, we already established that all four of us come from parallel worlds. I am indeed a born Japanese, but at this point, taking issue with the appearance is kind of a moot detail."

"Mr. Hitoshi does raise a good point."Itsuki gave a supporting comment to my answer, while my face showed some "complicated feelings" at Motoyasu's proposed question. His immediate reaction at both our words was more or less trying to evade the topic from turning into conflict.

"W-well...with that said, we can move on, right? We all agree that we are more or less knowledgeable about the world."

As all of them agreed on that note, I merely pulled a "who knows" shrug at them with a smirk.

"This leaves one more topic to talk about, though."

"Ah, you are right."

Itsuki and Ren talked while looking at me with pity-eyes.

"You see, Mr. Hitoshi, your class is the shielder, right."

"Mhm, that is true."

"So that means that you are the one with the most disadvantageous situation."

"What do you mean by that?"

"Let this Motoyasu explain it easier for you, mister." Motoyasu moved from the bed and walked towards me, to pose an arm around my shoulder. I knew what was gonna come at that moment.

"You see, the shielder class starts with really high defense, but as it progresses, it's attack power starts falling behind really quickly, and with that, pretty much every other class is entirely better than the shielder." As Motoyasu said this, both Itsuki and Ren nodded in agreement. This was the third most important moment of the talk since if I let them put me down the bus like that, it will let them act on their worst personality traits.

"So you mean to say that because I have the shield, I am the worst choice, the drop-out of the four."

"Exactly! The shielder class is a garbage, too hard to level up class, especially because it depends so much on others, you can't even solo."

"Your damage scales so badly that you are better off with starting classes."

"Not to mention that the skills of the shield-wielder are incredibly limited and one way oriented."

My face contorted, showing how I felt about those comments. In the past, I remember playing games where the shield-wielder class is pushed back into support and then would end up forgotten by the developers. As other classes would just get more and more support or updates. That had been a really sad reality in several games I used to play, just making the shield-wielder a one-trick pony.

"Look, I understand if any of you came to that conclusion because you either were dissatisfied by the class or simply never really learned to properly use it. Hell, for all I know about your games, which is nothing, I wouldn't be surprised if it's a case of the class being abandoned by the developers or left in an underwhelming state on purpose."As they looked at me with ponderous faces, as if remembering cases like the ones I mentioned. I still continued with my rant.

"All I'll say is that you shouldn't underestimate a class simply because you don't fully understand how it works or simply dismiss it, because it was not your thing."

They stayed silent for a moment. While they were looking at me with serious eyes, I hoped what I said was at least a bit convincing.

"Now, Mr. Hitoshi, there's no need to get so worked up, ok? I'd prefer that we get along. After all, aren't we the heroes?." Motoyasu moved to difuse the argument, trying to appeal to my kinder side.

"Hmm. Fine, at least I can go along with that."

I remembered that Motoyasu was as much evasive to conflict as myself. He always preferred to make friends and get along with everyone, rather than let the turmoil go on. My memory recalled that one of his more problematic traits was the result of this aversion of conflict. Since he was always pretty popular with girls during his school days, he would spend more time surrounded by them, so it wasn't strange if they would turn aggressive at any time Motoyasu would give more attention to a singular female.

In the end, Motoyasu kept making sure he paid attention to all of his female friends just so they wouldn't just descend into violent catfights. That would develop his own fear of commitment and his own womanizer tendencies in the long run, and the main reason he was stabbed multiple times before being summoned.

With that, the three returned to check their manuals meanwhile I used a few minutes to cool down my head. After some minutes of silence, I decided to move with my next plan, and once more interrupted everyone's concentration.

"I've got an idea. How you three feel about a Teamwork Building Exercise?." As the words came out, they looked at me with a bit of confusion.

"But aren't heroes unable to form a party?."

"Yeah, but that doesn't count for the times when the waves hit, and we have to be together regardless, right?."

"I get what you're getting at." Motoyasu jumped in the conversation. "We could polish a bit of our own teamwork for whenever the time of the waves hit, so we can coordinate better with each other's parties."

"Y-yeah. Exactly that!" I had forgotten that Motoyasu was also one of the most perceptive among the 4 heroes. While at the start of the story, he came across as inept, if not outright stupid; he was actually clever, when not blinded by a beautiful girl leading him by the nose. His reaction had actually caught me by surprise.

"My idea is this. We sneak out the castle and into the tavern in town."

A moment of silence accompanied the dumbfounded looks in both Ren and Itsuki's face.

"What else could I say? I'm in!" Motoyasu chimed in, while his face was but full of excitement.

Ren followed with an answer while trying to recover his "cool & aloof" act.

"You can do whatever you guys, please. Just don't get in my way". Everyone went silent at Ren's words. Motoyasu and I looked at each other as if trying to communicate mentally. He probably thought the same thing, since he joined on the next interaction.

"I see. So would it be problematic if the children were to join the adults now, ain't it, Motoyasu?."

"I think so. I guess only us adults will have to go out since the children can't go out in the middle of the night. Isn't that right, Hitoshi?"

"I suppose that children are still scared of the dark, even on other worlds."

Itsuki showed some dismissal on his face, but Ren showed almost an instantaneous reaction at our words.

"What's that supposed to mean!?."

"Oh. It means absolutely nothing. Since only Motoyasu and I are the only adults in here, we are just gonna go out, and leave the Young Little Children, here at the castle." The red built onto Ren's face, who quickly losing his composure, started shouting.

"You take that back! I'm not a child, nor I'll take that treatment from two guys that I barely even know!"

"Very Well... I'll take all I said back..."

"Good!... That's what I wanted to hear."

"Let me finish. As I was saying, I'll take back what I said, If you prove me wrong."

Honestly, the whole act wasn't sitting well with me. I knew that Ren, even if he was a good kid at heart, was still filled with his own problems, particularly his Social Anxiety issues over the image others have of him. It was a really scummy move to take advantage of that, on top of abusing his competitive streak, but if I didn't, then this whole plan to get along with these three would not work at all.

Ren stood there, flustered. He blurted out before any more "convincing words" were needed from either me or Motoyasu.

"You are on, Old Man!"

I looked back at Motoyasu and merely smirked at him. He gave a thumbs-up while containing his laughter. At least I got on point with one of the three from the get-go.

"You are welcome to try, Kid. No take-backs."

And with that, the third of the four also joined. The only element missing was Itsuki, who was just observing us at that point.

"Before you say or try anything funny, I'll be joining the sneak-out group. At least somebody has to be the responsible person here."

Itsuki adopted a more "I'll be the adult in the room" attitude when talking, making sure that neither Motoyasu nor me had a chance to put pressure on or trick him. He had always that attitude to him, trying to act as he was the good guy on any argument.
Then again, I couldn't blame him for it, ever less after that stunt that we had pulled on Ren to get him to join us.

"Sure there, fella."

Itsuki already seems to have made a more solid idea of what I was doing. Then again, you couldn't blame him on it, with the kind of life he had back on his own world. Being told since young that he was so special, because of the "unique ability" he got as a child. Only to grow up and discover that not only his ability is not unique, but it's almost at the bottom of its kind. Followed with more mistreatment from his peers, getting fully disheartened about the school, getting bad grades, it's a no wonder that he turned to videogames to escape from reality.

"So it's settled then."

"Yep."

"Hmph.."

"So long as you three don't cause trouble."

Itsuki's comment aside, we finally agreed to a plan to sneak-out after the dinner. With a bit of hope, I was preparing myself for a better start with this plan.