Chapter 2: Chapter 2
"Oh!" "Wow!" "Success!"
Excited and awed voices woke me up. I opened my eyes and got up dizzily.
I looked around and saw people in the robes usually worn by magicians in fantasy stories. They looked tired, and some even collapsed on the floor.
I was confused. It seems I was no longer in my bedroom.
Looking at my surroundings, I saw some tall pillars as well as walls made of stone bricks. Looking up, I saw that the ceiling was far overhead.
Finally, I looked down and found an altar with a glowing magic circle. I wasn't alone standing on this altar.
There were three… young men beside me. They were slowly getting up too.
The man on my left had long blond hair in a ponytail, a handsome face, and red irises. He had an ornate spear with a red gem in the guard.
To the left of the blonde haired man was a handsome boy with black hair and blue eyes. This boy held an ornate sword with a blue gem in the guard.
The last guy, to the left of the boy with a sword, was a young man with wavy light brown hair that. He had an ornate bow with a yellow gem.
The weapons in their possession seemed familiar. These guys' characteristics were familiar, too.
"What's this?" "Where are we?" "What's going on?"
Those three guys asked in unison, but I didn't know who spoke what. My focus was elsewhere.
After seeing their characteristics and unique weapons that made me suspicious, I'd finally noticed the extra weight on my arm.
'The Legendary Shield?' was my thought as I saw a familiar shield glued with a green gem on my left forearm.
"O Heroes! Please save our world!"
My attention was taken by a loud plea of someone who I assumed to be the leader of the robbed man. He bowed ninety degree in your direction, and the other robed men who could stand quickly followed his
"What?!" shouted the guys beside me in unison.
I just blinked in bewilderment.
"What is that supposed to mean?" asked the boy with a sword.
"There are many complications in this situation, but to offer a simple answer to your question, we have just completed an ancient ceremony and summoned you four Heroes," the leader told us.
He bowed very deeply to us again. "Our world teeters on the brink of destruction. Heroes, please lend us your strength!" he pleaded to us.
"I don't think so." "Yeah, me neither." "We can go back to our world, right? We'll talk about your problems after that."
The people beside me replied in unison. I, on the other hand, tried to make sense of what was going on.
'There's no way I'm the Shield Hero just because of an online ad, right?' I inwardly asked myself after recalling the ad that offered me to be a replacement of the original candidate for the Shield Hero.
I put my suspicion aside for a moment to examine my body and found that I had no problem. Even though the lighting was low, I could still see my reflection on the surface of my shield, and my appearance was still the same.
'Same blond hair, same green eyes, same pale skin, and same thin figure. Yup, nothing changed.' I was relieved.
After that, I continued to reflect on the credibility of my absurd situation. And immediately, I came to a conclusion.
'I really became the Shield Hero because of an online ad!' I inwardly concluded.
I had to accept that I got involved in this mess because of that online advertisement!
After accepting my situation, I immediately thought of the problem I would face.
'Let me see, there are monsters, religious zealots, delusional reincarnators, literal apocalypse, and other crazy things!' I inwardly listed off the problem that would come to me in the future.
No matter how you look at it, it was ridiculous!
This world wasn't like those light hearted Isekai novels in which the protagonist could have a leisure adventure and get a harem easily. This world was quite dark, full of discrimination, schemes, bloodshed, and other atrocities.
Moreover, I was summoned to a kingdom where I was seen as a demon because of the shield on my arm. My future was bleak!
I stopped my contemplation when I heard the leader say, "Yes, well, we would very much like you to speak with the king. He will discuss future compensation with you in the throne room."
He, the mage leader, went to a heavy looking door and leaned against it until it opened. Right after that, he pointed in the direction we were to go.
"Whatever." "Fine." "I don't think it really matters who we talk to, but whatever."
The… idiot trio - Yeah! I will call them that from now on! - complained as they left the room in the direction indicated. I quietly followed them out.
We walked out of the dark room and up the stone staircase. I immediately felt the fresh air like in a low-pollution countryside when I stepped out of the summoning room.
As we climbed the stone steps, we crossed the window and were able to steal a glance at the scenery outside. It was breathtaking.
The blue sky with white clouds spread out as far as you could see with a medieval town underneath. Alas, we were unable to enjoy the breathtaking scenery because we were hurried past the window.
On the way, I found the icon in my peripheral vision to access the Status Magic. After focusing my mind on it for a few seconds, the user interface like the one in anime spread out in my field of vision.
I just glanced at the user interface before accessing my status. I found my status, which was very low because I was only level 1.
My HP was slightly below 150, but my MP and SP were slightly below 50. My physical attack was only 1 while my magic was 10, my physical defense was the highest at 45 while my magic defense was 25, and finally, my agility was only in the dozen.
I expected the low physical attack value, but it was still a depressing number. I could only hope that I had the wish I wrote in that ad, or else, I would be beyond fucked!
After closing the status panel, I checked my skill panel. I had to stop myself from shouting out in excitement.
'It's there, my cheat!' I was excited.
[ Skill Creation: The user can create any skill without energy consumption and cooldown time. ]
'Oh, yeah, this skill will help me so much,' was my thought after reading the description.
Wasting no time, I decided to create my first skill. It would be a perfect skill to cover my flaw due to my dismal physical attack value as the Shield Hero.
[ Death Bestowal: The user can kill anything, no matter how immortal, and even abstract concepts. Require direct contact with the user. No cooldown. SP Consumption: varies. ]
'Wait a moment! It consumes SP? Why does it consume SP?!' I was surprised that the skill required energy.
I'd hoped that it would be a skill with no energy consumption, but alas, only the creation of the skill consumed no energy. I felt cheated!
Anyways, SP stood for Spirit Points, which was the unit of spiritual power of the heroes, or rather, the Users of the Weapons/Tools, both Legendaries and Vassals. They could possess and use SP because the spirits in the weapons/tools they bonded helped harness their dormant spiritual energy.
In general, ordinary people couldn't harness their spiritual energy easily. They had to dedicate themselves through special harsh training to be able to use it.
In this universe, the example of ordinary people who could harness their spiritual energy were Hengen Mushou practitioners. Even so, they were unable to use pure spiritual energy because what they used was a mixture of spiritual energy and life-force.
I theorized that Hengen Mushou practitioners used their spiritual energy to tap and guide their life-force for offense, defense, and support.
By the way, the mixture of spiritual energy and life force was simply called Energy. It was shown as an EP in the interface of the heroes who unlocked this power-up method called Energy Boost, which originally belonged to the Legendary Shield.
After remembering about that power-up method, the gauge for EP appeared below SP gauge in my interface. I checked the help interface to get more information about Energy Boost.
[ Energy Boost: Heroes are capable of accessing and using the mixed energy of life-force/stamina and spiritual/mental energy for boosting the effect of magic or skill as well as casting Heroes exclusive Liberation spells. ]
I closed the help interface as I finally arrived at my destination. We, the heroes, had to wait before a pair of ornate doors until the knights announced our arrival.
We entered the room after the doors opened. And soon, we stood in the center of the throne room, facing the king.
The king was an elderly looking man wearing fancy purple and golden garbs and a golden crown with a purple gem embedded in the center. Overall, he had the same characteristics as in the anime, manga, and novel illustration.
"So, these are to be our Heroes… well, then. I am Melromarc Aultcray the thirty second, the king of this land! Heroes, introduce yourselves!" said the king.
The sword hero stepped forward and introduced himself, "My name is Ren Amaki. I'm 16 years old and a high school student."
"I'm next," said the spear hero as he stepped forward after Ren returned to his original position. "My name is Motoyasu Kitamura. I'm 21 years old and a college student."
"I guess it's my turn," said the bow hero as he stepped forward after Motoyasu was done introducing himself. "My name is Itsuki Kawasumi. I'm 17 years old and a high school student."
When it was my turn, the king cut in and deliberately ignored my presence, "Sir Motoyasu, Sir Ren, and Sir Itsuki, correct?"
I was annoyed… No, I was angry!
Although I knew that the king would discriminate against me because of my status as the Shield Hero, knowing and living through it were two different things!
'And here I thought I could give him the benefit of doubt, but he's this hostile to me who's never wronged him…' I thought bitterly. 'You know what, if he wants to screw me, I'm gonna screw him back. Fuck playing nice!'
"King," I called out to the king without any respect. "You skipped me!"
"Oh yes, the Shield Hero. Go on," said the king with a dismissive tone. He barely concealed his contempt for me in his eyes.
I inwardly raged at him, 'Well, fuck you! No, wait! I'm gonna cuck you! Let's see if you can show that attitude when I fuck that MILF Queen in front of you!'
Weekly Power Status
-- Power
Ranking 
-- Power
stone