The Rising of the Shield Hero Volume 01 Read Free Page B

filled with rows of weapon icons. It appeared as though none of them were currently available for upgrades. Huh, would you believe it? It looked like certain weapons could be set and improved upon, growing more powerful with time.
    Got it. It was just like the way that skills and weapons are leveled up in online games. It said that in order to learn skills, the powers hidden in our weapons would have to be set loose. It really did seem exactly like a game of some sort.
    “Hey, this is just like a game, don’t you think?”
    It looked like the other guys were reading over the help menus too. One of them responded to my question.
    “Like a game? I think it actually might be a game. I know games that are just like this,” said Motoyasu, bristling with an air of conceit.
    “Huh?”
    “Yeah, it’s a pretty famous online game. Haven’t you heard of it?”
    “Uh, no? And I’m a pretty hardcore Otaku .”
    “You’ve never heard of it, Naofumi? It’s called Emerald Online .”
    “Never heard of it. What is it?”
    “Naofumi, have you even played an online game before? It’s famous!”
    “Nah, I’ve only played stuff like Odin Online , or Fantasy Moon Online . Those are pretty famous too.”
    “I’ve never heard of them before. Must be minor titles or something.”
    “Huh?”
    “Huh?”
    “I don’t know what any of you are referring to. This is nothing like an online game. It’s more like a console game.”
    “Motoyasu, Itsuki, you’re both wrong on this one. If anything, it’s a VRMMO.”
    “No way. Even if we suppose, for the moment, that we are in an online game, it still must be the sort that you control by a mouse, or with a controller.”
    Ren looked confused by Motoyasu’s theory, and he jumped into the conversation. “A mouse? A controller? What kind of antique games are you guys talking about? These days, aren’t all online games VRMMO?”
    “VRMMO? I guess you mean a Virtual Reality MMO? Cut the sci-fi crap. You know the tech isn’t ready for stuff like that yet.”
    “Huh?!” Ren nearly shouted in surprise.
    Thinking back on it, he was the first of us to figure out how to use the Status Magic. It kind of seemed like he knew what he was doing. He might have known more than he was letting on.
    “Um, excuse me? You all seem to think this is like a game you know. Can I ask what the names of those games are?”
    Itsuki raised his hand and answered quickly: Brave Star Online .
    Emerald Online .
    I spoke up next. “I dunno. I mean, are we even in a game world?” I also thought it seemed a bit like a game, but could we really have arrived in a game that I had never even heard of?
    “I see. As for my opinion, this reminds me of a console game called Dimension Wave.”
    And so we all seemed to think the world represented a different game.
    “Wait a second. Let’s try to collect what we know for sure.” Motoyasu rested his head on his hands and tried to calm us down. “Ren, This VRMMO you speak of means exactly what we said, correct?”
    “Yeah.”
    “Itsuki, Naofumi, you guys understand what he means, right?”
    “I think it sounds like a game from science fiction, but yes.”
    “I think I read about something like it in a light novel once.”
    “Fair enough. That’s about all I can think of too. Okay then, Ren. The game you mentioned, Brave Star Online . Is that a VRMMO too?”
    “Ah, right. The VRMMO I played was called Brave Star Online . The world felt very, very similar to this one.”
    Considering the way Ren spoke of it, it seemed like this VRMMO thing was ordinary technology for him. It sounded like computers could read the user’s brain waves, and allow the user to dive into the computer world directly.
    “Ok fine. Well, if that’s true, Ren, in the world you come from, do they have any games similar to the things we have mentioned? Like maybe in the past?”
    Ren shook his head. “And just so you know, I consider myself pretty well-versed in the history of games where