I was reminded for a moment of another pair of sisters, one older and hard to get a handle on and one younger who loved card games and was a bit ditzy. All you had to do was keep them liquored up and things never got too bad. That did give me an idea. I could drink these two under the table and take them off the board for a while.
“Mamoru, why don’t we teach these two the joys of drinking (until they pass out)?” I suggested.
“Did I hear some extra words on the end there?” Raphtalia cut in, always the spoilsport. We understood each other so well now that it was like she could read my mind just by meeting my eyes.
“You two need to rein it in a little or you’re going to make Mamoru collapse. Have a little more awareness of what you’re doing. Otherwise, you’ll pass out like Ren did! Like Ren did!” I said.
“No need to emphasize that part,” Ren said forlornly.
“Oh my. Did your poor sword go all floppy?” R’yne jibed. “I’m the big sister, so I’ll be the adult. For Mamoru’s sake, I’ll leave you to get on with things.”
“Now you play the responsible adult card!” Filolia raged. “I’ll never forgive you for giving Mamoru permission to have his way with me!” There was literal fire coming off her wings as she shouted this. It sounded like R’yne had always been hard to deal with. I could see why her younger sister might hate her. When I thought about S’yne putting up with all of this, it really made me appreciate how incredible she was. Incredibly tolerant, maybe. R’yne was a lot like her own sister, however, so I hoped S’yne was keeping her guard up a little.
“Whatever. See you later!” R’yne handed over the items Mamoru had asked for and then left again.
“These are your strange shields?” I asked Mamoru. I lifted one of the items, which was wrapped up, and started to check it out. As soon as I touched it, I knew it was a shield, just from the shape. But one side of it was larger than the other. It had a silhouette almost like a surfboard.
“Yes. Take a look inside,” Mamoru prompted me.
“Thinking about it now,” I said wryly after sitting through all that banter, “it might have been better for you to just change to the shield and show it to me.”
“I considered it, but I think getting your hands on the actual thing is best,” Mamoru replied. He obviously wanted to try and surprise me with whatever this was. I wondered what kind of crazy shield I was going to be looking at, either made for or by Mamoru. I took off the wrapping to answer that question and found a round shield with a hole in the center . . . and a gun attached. This was what they called a “shield pistol,” if I recalled correctly. The shield could be taken on and off like a kind of attachment. Maybe a crossbow could be attached too.
“This is definitely a strange weapon,” I said. Mamoru seemed to be conducting some serious research into all sorts of potential shields. I relied entirely on the weapons old guy, meaning I’d never had a chance to use something like this. “What happens when you use this?” I asked him.
“Exactly what you’d expect. I can attack by pulling the trigger. I made it as an experiment, so it only fires one shot,” Mamoru explained.
“Okay. You didn’t try using a more powerful gun, like a rifle, or try to increase the rate of fire?” I asked him.
“If you take things too far, it won’t recognize it as a shield anymore. The gun becomes the main part of it. I switched the gun for a crossbow and I couldn’t copy that either.” With heroes being summoned here from various other worlds, weapons such as guns did exist. However, even firearms were affected by the status of the user, meaning at a low level they were far weaker than one would expect. I would have liked to make a shield machine gun and give it to Itsuki to copy. Most likely it would register as either a gun or shield, and neither of us would be able to copy it. I gave the shield pistol a try.
Weapon copied!
Conditions for the Iron Shield Pistol have been unlocked.
Iron Shield Pistol
<abilities locked> equip bonus: accuracy + 2
equip effects: magic bullet, shield transparency
Stats-wise, it was really crappy from my current position. But I had been able to copy it. I switched to the Iron Shield Pistol to try it out.
“You managed to copy it, Naofumi,” Mamoru said.
“Barely,” I replied. Mamoru changed to the Iron Shield Pistol as well. He pointed over at a nearby rock, then took aim and pulled the trigger. There was a light-sounding pop and a shot was fired from the shield, flying over and hitting the rock dead-on.
“There you go. The main issue is that it’s not even as strong as Shield Boomerang or Shield Bash,” Mamoru revealed. He had the advantage over me in that he was a Shield Hero who could actually fight back. This might be a useful means of attack. I hoped the bullet damage was fixed; that would mean I’d be able to injure assailants regardless of my own status. While mulling these things over, I pulled the trigger myself to hear a far less exciting sound than when Mamoru did it. My shot hit the rock at a lethargic speed.
I had nothing to say. The rock didn’t move at all. No one else had anything to say either. My lack of attack power was being reflected after all, just as I’d expected. The awkward expressions of the others only made me feel worse. This was why I had wanted to run away!
“What was . . . Hey, try not to feel too bad, okay?” Filolia gave up her normal chuunibyou act and tried to console me. That only made it worse! I didn’t want their pity! I didn’t need salt in my wounds!
“That’s all I can do? Even with the ‘magic bullet’ equip effect?” I bemoaned.