The Rising of the Shield Hero Volume 01 Read Online Free

I’m from. I’ve never heard of anything like what you are all talking about. But the games you guys are talking about… You all consider them relatively well-known titles, right?”
    Motoyasu and I nodded in agreement.
    If we knew anything about online games, which we all thought we did, it seemed impossible that we wouldn’t know anything about the games we were all mentioning. Even if, for the time being, we grant that we were not as well versed in online games as we all assumed ourselves to be… We all thought we were mentioning famous games. How could we be so wrong?
    “Ok then, let’s start with some common-sense questions. You can all name the current prime minister, right?”
    “Sure.”
    “Ok, let’s all say it at the same time.”
    Gulp.
    “Masato Yuda.”
    “Gotaro Yawahara”
    “Enichi Kodaka.”
    “Shigeno Ichifuji.”
    We all fell silent.
    I had never heard of the other names. Not even in the history books.
    We went on to compare our knowledge of Internet terms, famous Internet sites, and famous games. None of our examples matched up. In the end, we didn’t seem to share any references at all.
    “It kind of seems like we all came from different Japans.”
    “It does seem that way. I certainly can’t imagine how we could be from the same place.”
    “I guess that means that there is a Japan in all our parallel worlds?”
    “I thought at first that we could just be from different time periods. But none of our experiences match up, so that can’t be it.”
    Even at that, we all had one thing in common: We were Otaku. That had to mean something .
    “If that’s the case, it seems like we were all brought here for different reasons, and in different ways.”
    “I’m not really into having useless conversations. Do we really need to have these things in common anyway?”
    Ren spoke up as if he was the coolest person in the room, and he wanted everyone to know it.
    “I was on my way home from school when I hit a spot of bad luck and got caught up in a murder case. It was the talk of the town at the time.”
    “Uh huh.”
    “I was with a good friend. I remember saving him, and I remember the criminal getting arrested…”
    …Ren was rubbing his side, softly, as he spoke.
    I wanted to poke fun at him. What kind of hero did he think he was with all this talk of saving his best friend and all that? I managed to keep my thoughts to myself.
    I suppose he was saying that he caught the bad guy but then was stabbed in the side during the struggle.
    He looked like the kind of guy to boast about things that never happened. I instantly wanted to file him away as untrustworthy… and yet, he was one of the heroes summed here. The least I could do was hear him out.
    “Anyway, so then, before I knew it, I woke up here.”
    “Makes sense. Pretty cool of you though, isn’t it? Saving your best friend and all?”
    He responded to my compliment with even more aloofness. Fine then.
    “Ok, I guess I’m next,” said Motoyasu, lightly pointing at himself.
    “I have… Well, to put it simply… I have quite a few girlfriends.”
    “I’m sure you do.”
    Something about him seemed like a thoughtful older brother. He also gave off the impression of being popular with girls.
    “And well…”
    “You had too many at once, and they stabbed you or something?” Ren said, laughing to himself.
    Motoyasu snapped his eyes open in surprise then nodded.
    “Yeah well… Women are terrifying.”
    “Goddam it!” I took no time to disguise my anger and found myself flicking him off. He could die for all I cared… or wait, I suppose he already had. Is that how they got here?
    But wait… Itsuki placed his hand over his heart and began to speak.
    “Now it’s my turn. I was on my way home from prep school. I went to cross the road, but a dump truck came screaming around the corner at full speed. And then…”
    Again, we all fell to silence.
    So he was almost certainly hit by a truck… What a sad way to go…
    But