Sounds Like Even Shield-Users are Weak

After a while, we arrived in Fiasta. My plan was to go to Seicent, but somehow I’m back. Well I accomplished more than I expected so no complaints from me.

「Alright, go ahead.」

The moment we arrived in town, I handed the Raging Ape materials to Mylia.

「What? You’re not gonna sell it yourself? You won’t get promoted if you’re a Novice, but this will still count as an achievement and will go in your records.」

「Things will just get complicated.」

There was a lot of fuss when I brought in materials from a C-ranked monster. The Raging Ape is rank A. I’m quite sure me selling will be more trouble than it’s worth.

…Speaking of ranks, Myna said she could help me get promoted. I’ll pay her a visit when I feel the need to. I’m still low-levelled though. But I’m now a Sage so ranking up a bit shouldn’t pose much problems.

Maybe she’ll employ sketchy means to give me a different job class. I don’t want to be under some strange debt so I’ll ask her only when I really need it.

「I don’t need the achievements. Just tell them you took it down alone.」

「All right. If you change your mind, just tell me.」

Mylia entered the guild. I wanted to know how much an A-rank monster would sell so I followed her inside.

「I got some extraordinary materials here. Can I sell them?」

「Materials that the Flame Spear call extraordinary?」

「Yeah. Here.」

Mylia showed the materials from the Raging Ape. The receptionist cocked her head the moment she saw it.

「I’ve never seen that before. What is it?」

「It’s a Raging Ape.」

Apparently the receptionist hasn’t seen a Raging Ape before.

「Raging… Are you saying you killed a rank A monster?!」

「That’s right.」

「A-ranked monsters are way above my pay grade! …I’ll call the branch manager!」

The receptionist scurried away. After a while, the branch manager showed up.

「Is it true you killed an A-ranked monster?」

「Yes, a Raging Ape. How much will you buy it for?」

「A Raging Ape?! You killed that monster alone?!」

Mylia turned to look at me. She wanted one last confirmation from me whether to tell them of my involvement.

Taking down an A-ranked monster will indeed be quite an achievement. And if Mylia will attest to it, they’ll most likely believe that I was part of it.

But I’m a Novice that can never get promoted so racking up achievements is pointless for me. If anything, it’ll only cause trouble. So I nodded to Mylia. She nodded back and faced the branch manager again.

「Eld right there helped me. Actually he did most of the work.」

「Wait, what happened to our agreement?」

「Wait, I thought that nod just now meant it was okay to tell them.」

「No, I meant the opposite! …Whatever, it’s too late. They’ll only get suspicious if you take it back now.」

So much for staying out of trouble. What a mess. But it’s too late to fix it. There’s no taking it back now that she’s told the branch manager.

「That adventurer? I haven’t seen him before. Did he recently get his alias or something?」

「His name is Eld, an F-ranked Novice.」

「A hundred F-ranked Novices won’t even stand a chance against an A-ranked monster.」

「That’s what I thought at first too. Until I found out that he’s an F-ranked Novice. The rules don’t allow Novices to rank up, but can you do something about that?」Mylia said, eyeing me.

「I’m not sure… That depends. Is he strong enough to fight an A-ranked monster?」

「He sure is, and more. He completely stopped the Raging Ape’s attacks which allowed me to strike at the monster freely. I just stood behind it and kept thrusting it with my spear.」

She recounted the battle to the manager while leaving out the part about the Combo Attack and the other Skills I used. She’s keeping her promise not to tell anyone about them.

「Stopped the Raging Ape’s attacks on his own? Even a skilled shield-user can’t do that.」

A Shielder is a job class that specializes in using a shield to block an enemy’s attacks and create an opening for his allies to strike. They have high endurance and plenty of taunting Skills.

There were plenty of monsters that a Sage with a tank role can deal with, but when exploring the most perilous dungeons, at least one Shielder in the party was necessary. But not a lot of players wanted to be a Shielder. Despite BBO’s well-featured playing environment and decent Skill repertoire, it was difficult for them to go hunting on their own which in turn made it hard to level up. So when new difficult dungeons were implemented, they would actually just drag a party down.

But the branch manager made it sound like the Shielders of this world can’t even keep one Raging Ape in check.