The Rising of the Shield Hero Volume 05 by Aneko Yusagi Page B

items that cost a lot of money at shops that get dropped pretty frequently. I have a bunch of rare stuff now, it really makes me feel like I’m in a whole new world.”
    “It does, doesn’t it?”
    “You’re right. Sometimes the monsters leave really useful items behind.”
    They just kept on coming out with more and more important information. And on top of that, it seemed like they all already knew all of it.
    They’d made me feel this way the first day I'd met them, but now I felt it again—that searing feeling that I was at a disadvantage.
    “What else? Oh yeah, you can make tools.”
    “Tech skills, right? Yeah, we’ve had those from the very start.”
    “Keep going, I’m listening.”
    The information that they took for granted might all be new to me. I needed to prepare myself to hear them out.
    “If you have the tech skill and the recipe, then you can give the necessary materials to your weapon. It will absorb them, and after a certain amount of time the weapon will make what you want.”
    The weapons could systematize item production?! Were they joking? I couldn’t bear to think back on all the time I’d spent crafting medicines.
    Apparently the effectiveness of the item was the same whether the weapon made it automatically or if you stayed up all night working on it yourself—but if you had a recipe, and the weapon could do all the work for you, why go through all the trouble?
    That must explain why Motoyasu had a stock of magic water—he wouldn’t have gone through all the effort to make that on his own.
    Maybe the materials needed to make it were easy to obtain from monsters?
    “The only bad part is that you can’t really use items aside from the drops you picked up or the ones you made yourself.”
    “That’s right. You can’t use them easily.”
    Apparently there were some issues with the item system. Not that I was concerned with that.
    I couldn’t believe there were so many empowering techniques I hadn’t known about.
    “As for efficient leveling areas, well, I don’t think we can sum that up in a sentence or two.”
    “Right. We could make up a chart or something, listing good places and monsters depending on your level range. That way if you just stuck to the list appropriate for your level you wouldn’t really run into any major problems.”
    “We have to make sure not to overlap though.”
    “Good point.”
    “Is there anything else you want to tell me about?”
    I took mental notes of all the points they’d brought up and tried to keep the conversation moving.
    “It seems like there is one major technique for getting stronger quickly that Naofumi doesn’t know yet. I suppose I should tell him.”
    Itsuki stuck his chest out and spoke with an important air about him.
    “In this world, the rarity of a weapon is very important. The abilities it comes with are just an afterthought. If the weapon itself isn’t strong and rare, then it won’t be worth very much.”
    “You mean unique weapons or legendary equipment?”
    “Yes, something like that.”
    “Stop lying!”
    “It’s not right to start off telling the truth and then switch to lies halfway through.”
    Ren and Motoyasu both snapped and spat at Itsuki. Here come more lies.
    “What? What are you saying? I’m telling the truth!”
    “Nope. That was a lie.”
    “Yeah, you’re a liar.”
    “I am not! I’m not lying!!”
    What was going on? Itsuki had lost his cool. He really seemed to be angered by the other two.
    Something strange was going on.
    “Let’s hear him out.”
    I waved off their little argument and signaled for Itsuki to continue.
    “Right, well . . . . It depends on the type of weapon you’re working with, obviously, but normally you can use ores to make them stronger.”
    It sounded like he was talking about some kind of refining system. I’d seen things like that in games before.
    “Iron plates have the most amount of ore slots.”
    “I’m sure there’s a risk of failure. You