Shield Hero RPG

Appearance Naofumi has short black hair that spikes in all directions and sharp green eyes. He often wears a scowl on his face because of his cynical outlook towards the world, but he does express gratitude from time to time. The armor he primarily wears is Barbarian Armor +3, which has gone through numerous upgrades and transformations. Depending on the situation, he may switch to different sets of armor or clothing. The weapon in his possession is the Legendary Shield, which was granted to him when he was summoned to another world. Personality Naofumi was initially an exceedingly trusting and positive person - excited about being summoned as a hero. However, his mentality abruptly changed after Malty S Melromarc, the princess of Melromarc, betrayed and framed him. Being left near-penniless, falsely accused as a criminal, and hated by nearly everyone, Naofumi became extremely distrustful towards everyone and cynical about life. He could not trust anyone and started to assume that others were trying to get something from him. The result of the Princess's betrayal has left him in an almost permanent state of anger and hostility, which he masks behind a calm and level-headed personality. This mentality bites him back as he unknowingly pushes away genuine supporters of the Shield Hero and Siltvelt envoys.

Unfortunately, being a Shield Hero meant that Naofumi was essentially useless by himself, which forced him to eventually seek help. He was convinced to get a slave - someone who could not betray him - so he eventually finds Raphtalia. Naofumi treats her deadly illness and teaches her to fight. After spending time with Raphtalia, and eventually Filo, Naofumi starts to heal mentally and trust his close companions. However, this is a long process and Naofumi is still unable to fully trust or be intimate with others. Unlocking the curse series weapon Shield of Wrath also placed a block on his psyche which prevented him from empathizing with others. After losing nearly everything, Naofumi deeply values what he has built up since being summoned, especially his relationships. Therefore, he is protective of people like Raphtalia. It is also shown several times that Naofumi is at his most vulnerable when he loses someone close to him. This can be seen when Naofumi thought he had lost Raphtalia after losing the Duel with Motoyasu, and when he was separated from Raphtalia and the rest of his party he traveled to Glass' World. He was even willing to sacrifice his life to save his friends such as when they were battling against the Phoenix or Takt.

Naofumi is a pragmatist and is willing to take some unconventional measures to meet his goals. For example, after saving Rishia and Keel, he offers both of them to be his slave since the shield helps improves a persons growth and stats. Once becoming governor of the territory which includes Raphtalia's destroyed village, Lurolona Village, Naofumi purchases slaves to be villagers. He justifies this saying that this will give them a better life and that it will help them gain independence. Due to their good treatment and their respect of Naofumi, the children end up adoring him. At one point, Rishia wonders if Naofumi's commitment to the villagers make him their slave instead of the other way around. Subconsciously, Naofumi often feels unworthy of what he has and tries to deny certain things. This can be seen in his constant ignoring of Raphtalia's romantic feelings due to feeling unworthy of her. This also shows in his addiction to Raph-chan which - in his own words - he only likes so much due to its resemblance to Raphtalia herself. He often feels vulnerable about certain actions he takes which can be seen often when Raphtalia points out the absurdity of some of them. He has feelings for Raphtalia for many reasons, including her being the light that brought him out of the darkness of his life. He considers her a hero for being the one person to stay by his side even after everyone despised him.

One of the biggest differences that Naofumi has from the other heroes is that he thinks of the consequences of his actions. Despite having the most villainous attitude, Naofumi is ironically the most effective of the heroes at getting things done. He even corrects the problems that the other three heroes either start or make worse. Another aspect of Naofumi that sets him apart is that he is generally reasonable and willing to listen to others. He was convinced to stay in Melromarc after listening to the arguments of the queen. He also attempted to amend his relationship with the other heroes at Fitoria's request despite their mutual hatred. When Naofumi became loved and adored by the public while the three other Heroes became hated by the same people that use to admire them, he decided to take them under his wing. Naofumi has a habit of giving people he meets nicknames. His reasons tend to be because they didn't tell him their name or because he hates them. In the latter case, he will give them extremely degrading nicknames such as referring to Malty as Bitch. For most people, he tends to nickname them based off of who or what they remind him of, sometimes add a number if he feels they act a lot like someone he knows. After Naofumi became the Mirror Vassal Hero of Glass' world, his friends note it suited him given how he always 'reflects' other people's treatment of him right back at them, insulting those whom insulted him first and helping those whom helped him.

Background From an early age, animals have naturally been drawn towards him. He was well-liked by any animal he encountered and they would act friendlier towards him than most other people. When he was a kid, he was offered a ride by a dog in his local area even though the dog had never once given a ride to anyone. During his time in elementary school, he was never once pecked by the chickens who were notoriously known by his classmates to peck. As Naofumi grew up, he worked multiple jobs at once, including at an izakaya and food-court.[1] Naofumi also stated the reason he stopped drinking alcohol was because he never got drunk, and seeing his friends getting drunk made him feel left out. At the age of twenty, he was a sophomore in college and had a passion for video games, light novels, anime, and other otaku-like activities. He would often put his hobbies in front of his actual studies, which caused his parents to believe he was a lost cause and focused all their attention on his younger brother. This lead to them sending the younger brother to a famous prep-school in the hope to secure his future. However, their parents intense pressure on his success led to them having a lack of freedom and free time. This ended up being to much stress for Naofumi's younger brother.

This eventually led to Naofumi's brother becoming jealous of Naofumi's own freedom. He eventually become a trouble maker from the stress caused from his excessive studying. Naofumi's younger brother started dying his hair and swearing around the house. Naofumi himself was aware of the fact that the reason behind this change in his trouble maker was due to his stress. Eventually Naofumi took it upon himself to help his younger repair their relationship with the rest of the family. He did this by introduce him to a dating simulator game which his brother was initially hesitant playing at first. Eventually his brother got hooked into the game and Naofumi helped introduce him further into otaku culture. This helped reduce his younger brothers stress and began to rededicate himself to their studies. Naofumi's help eventually allowed his brother to become the top of its class and make it into a prestigious high school. This helped the family become more cohesive with less tension between the younger child their parents. This course of events eventually left Naofumi to have a budget and didn't need to work as he was in collage. This allowed him to further indulge his Otaku tendencies and do what he wanted. One day, Naofumi went to the library to read some books as he had used his monthly budget. In this library he found a book called The Record of the Four Holy Weapons. When he started reading it he found a blank page where the shield hero was supposed to be. He immediately lost consciousness when reading that book and found himself summoned in another world.

Appearance Motoyasu has long blond hair that is held back in a ponytail with bangs hanging on the left side of his forehead and bright orange eyes. The clothing he primarily wears is a sleeveless tunic over his dark clothing. Additionally, he wears leather gloves, leather boots, and a hood-like cape decor with Filolial feathers. In the past, he wore chainmail underneath his sleeveless tunic and silver armor on various parts of his body but later discards them after learning the true nature of Malty S Melromarc (Motoyasu's ex-companion). The weapon in his possession is the Legendary Spear which was granted to him when he was summoned to another world. Personality Motoyasu is likely the friendliest of the four Legendary Heroes. It's mentioned that he is loyal to his allies. However, he is incredibly naïve and gullible. He is generally a nice person, but is easily fooled, especially by women.

Motoyasu has a rather distorted view of women; he thinks they are perfect angels incapable of doing anything bad or evil. As such, he believes everything a woman tells him without thinking twice about whether or not it's true, which made him a perfect target for Malty's manipulations. When she framed Naofumi Iwatani for attempted rape, even though she had stolen his money and clothes (both of which she gave to Motoyasu), he believed her claims and became openly hostile towards Naofumi in her defense; completely ignoring the argument that a real rape victim would only run away, not take the belongings of her "aggressor". He later acts tries to save Raphtalia and Filo, without their consent, to free them from being Naofumi's slaves. Raphtalia is quick to point out the flaw of his actions here. He is also a flirt and a skirt chaser who asks Raphtalia and Filo to leave Naofumi and join his party the instant he meets each of them, but is quick to admit Raphtalia was right to scold him for flirting with her when they were doing a party exchange. He demonstrates high levels of self-delusion and willful ignorance, if not plain idiocy. He only hears what he wants to hear and ignores whatever might upset him. Examples of this include his duel with Naofumi for Raphtalia's freedom, when he received a slap instead of a hug after he freed her from slavery and was called out for his hypocrisy, he defended himself desperately claiming that Naofumi must have brainwashed her. He also refused to believe that Malty framed Naofumi, even after seeing all the evidence. He continued to believe in Malty and denied all of the reality. However, after the Queen exposed Malty as a pathological liar with a temporary slave crest zapping her at every lie, Motoyasu stopped trusting her words blindly.

He doesn't accept a fight unless he is utterly confident of victory. His cocky challenges to Naofumi show this twice. His personality does a complete 180 after he unlocks his Curse Series, developing an obsessive crush for Filo and starting to regard Naofumi with the utmost respect as his "father-in-law" (since he starts to see both Filo and Raphtalia as Naofumi's "daughters"). At the same time, he changes from a skirt chaser to a Filolial lover. He becomes unable to see women as anything but pigs and finds their "reek" disgusting, and enjoys spending his time surrounded by filolials. Additionally, his psyche is greatly warped to the point that he develops a fearless and bloodthirsty style of battle, without feeling any concern about killing or being covered in blood. Background Before being summoned to another world, Motoyasu was a University Student who he was dating too many girls at a time. When his two-timing was discovered, the situation got violent and he was stabbed to death. Because of this past trauma, he developed a phobia of violent women (yandere's). The full story was later revealed in the Spin-off Series where it wasn't the case of Motoyasu dating too many girls but him not being able to decide between two of them. Motoyasu had two female friends; a shy and quiet girl named Momiji and a bossy girl named Ikuyo who was also one of Motoyasu's classmates, both of whom held feelings for him and ended up confessing their love towards him. When Ikuyo finally demanded Motoyasu choose one or the other, the latter chose to run away from the situation and derail the topic.

Running out of patience and letting her temper get the better of her, Ikuyo grabbed a knife from the kitchen and pointed it toward Momiji, proclaiming if she was out of the picture, Motoyasu would be able to finally date her. Shocked by Ikuyo's sudden violent nature, Motoyasu ran over to stand between the two but ended up getting stabbed on the side of the chest not by Ikuyo, but by Momiji, who also had a knife in her hands. Momiji, who was usually shy and quiet, started displaying yandere-like traits, stabbing Motoyasu out of fear that he was secretly visiting other girls besides herself and Ikuyo. She had developed the idea of dying with Motoyasu and being with him in the afterlife. Ikuyo, in a fit of jealousy, stabbed Motoyasu as well, declaring that if anyone was going to be with him in the afterlife, it was going be her. Motoyasu was repeatedly stabbed by both Momiji and Ikuyo, possibly dying from profuse blood loss. He later found himself summoned to another world where the world reminded him of the game he played in his previous world, Emerald Online.

Appearance Itsuki has short light brown curly hair and dull golden eyes due to the effects of his curse series. He appears to primarily wear a sleeveless tunic with light clothing underneath. Additionally, he wears thin leather gloves, leather boots, and a green hood-like cape attached around his neck and right shoulder. The weapon in his possession is the Legendary Bow which was granted to him when he was summoned to another world.

Personality Itsuki feels in his own mind that he's the strongest of the Heroes and undergoes stealthy missions to kill corrupt nobles and save villages, almost always just for the praise. Being a bullied child has left Itsuki with a desire to be special and superior. His sense of justice and need for praise both stem from this as does his inability to deal with the meek Rishia Ivyred, who reminds him of his weakness. Like the other heroes, Naofumi Iwatani excluded, Itsuki believed that the world they had come into was identical to that of a video game, but he goes further than they do and believes Naofumi has met God, i.e. the game master, and received powers from him to explain his superiority. Even after becoming a yes man and having everything shattered, he still feels that the fact that Rishia is stronger than him has to be a cheat. He also thought he was immortal since the "game" wouldn't let him die. He called himself an ally of justice and tried to act on it, at least at the beginning. But, he lost the true essence of justice and instead just acted on his own selfish desires of getting praised, under the guise of justice. His sense of justice was so overpowering that he refused to listen to what anyone had to say and believed his own to be the only true justice. Although he goes on about justice on a regular basis, his view of it is incredibly self-indulgent and one-sided. He was willing to put everyone he believed to be evildoers to death just because he believed they were evil and was willing to kill them. This got worse when he was affected by the Curse Series.

He can also be quite gullible and unobservant, though not to Motoyasu Kitamura's extent, as all of his teammates excluding Rishia are in fact extremely untrustworthy people who just praise him all the time. They just fed his desire to be praised and every time they did, he felt satisfied by their praise. Then again, he can be easily fooled like he was by the Church of the Three Heroes when they lied about Naofumi's misdeeds and that Naofumi had an item that supposedly had the power to raise his EXP intake. After awakening his curse series, he believed Naofumi was evil for having slaves and turning away people who he could supposedly revive from the dead because Malty S Melromarc tricked him into thinking the latter was possible. He believed those who praise him and not others who tried to reason with him. He has a hero complex which means he will wait until people are in a crisis before acting so he can "save" them in a heroic fashion, going far enough to lie about his abilities to cover up his inaction before people fall into critical situations. He's extremely petty, and not very smart, believing Naofumi is guilty of both the false attempt of rape charge and later of trying to take credit for things he had done, which wouldn't be hard for anyone to do because Itsuki tries to be a robin-hood-esque hero who conceals his own activities often. His pettiness was once again exposed when Rishia was praised over him for her efforts against L'Arc Berg. To get back at her, he framed Rishia for breaking an item and kicked her out of his party.

In short, he's stuck up, gullible and wants to be praised by others. The one thing Naofumi ever said to him that genuinely enraged Itsuki was simply "I thought you were better than this, my evaluation of you has dropped," for which he was willing to go so far as to shoot the Shield Hero in the back of the head. After going through the events with the Pride Series and experiencing Malty's manipulation, Itsuki's prideful personality destabilizes and he becomes completely despondent. He now follows Naofumi's orders without argument. Background Before being summoned into the world where the story takes place, Itsuki lived in an alternate world to our own, where some individuals were born with various supernatural-like abilities. Itsuki was born with the supernatural ability "Accuracy", meaning any ranged shot of a weapon or device he fired would - if not blocked - hit its target. As such, he was admitted to a high school designed for children with abilities. Due to his experiences in middle school, which he spent in a regular class with people without abilities, he had developed an impression that he was particularly special due to his ability. However, his ego plummeted upon entry to the high school as he found he was classed among the weakest of those with abilities. Due to his supposed weak ability, he was bullied throughout his school years and turned to console games to escape reality. On his way home from prep school, he was suddenly hit by a speeding truck with no warning. He later found himself summoned to another world as one of the 4 Legendary Heroes, The Bow Hero.

Appearance Ren has short black hair that falls flat on his head and kind blue eyes previously looking cold and distant. He was described to suit the role of the protagonist of dimensional-cross stories from bishounen manga and anime. He primarily wears simple clothing consisting of light clothing underneath and darker clothing on his exterior. When traveling he seems to bring a simple breastplate attached with a blue cape. In the past, he wore a dark overcoat with dark armor plating placed on his chest, right shoulder, and lower areas of his legs. Additionally, he wears dark leather gloves, boots, and a dark blue scarf draped around his neck The weapon in his possession is the Legendary Sword, which was granted to him when he was summoned to another world.

Personality Ren is a person who acts cool and tries very hard to portray a loner's image. He runs his party like a guild, only working with the other members when the prey he seeks to kill is too strong for him to hunt alone. His attitude towards his comrades is that weaker members should work to individually increase their powers to catch up to the stronger ones. Like the other heroes, Naofumi Iwatani excluded, he is initially under the impression that the world they've come into is a game, and he stubbornly refuses to think otherwise. Unlike Motoyasu Kitamura and Itsuki Kawasumi, Ren seems to actually recognize to some extent the consequences of his actions as he understood it was his fault that the Zombie Dragon caused a plague. He is also more reasonable than Itsuki or Motoyasu as he believed in the possibility that Naofumi was telling the truth when he claimed that Melty Q Melromarc was under his protection and not his hostage and tried to propose an idea that would help resolve the situation peacefully. He, alongside Itsuki, also stood up for Naofumi after Malty S Melromarc and Motoyasu tried to take Raphtalia from him via cheating, and called Motoyasu out for believing Raphtalia was brainwashed even when they saw her comforting an obviously deeply upset Naofumi.

However, like Motoyasu and Itsuki, Ren started becoming more arrogant about his ability where he would refuse to acknowledge his defeats or admit the reason for them was because he wasn't as strong as he claimed he was. Instead, he would fault others around him while trying to act superior, ironically making himself look weaker as a result. This grew more noticeable when he and the other heroes were told they needed to start training seriously as he tried to dismiss the training as pointless and a waste of their time, believing they were better off getting stronger by leveling up, missing the whole point of why they need to get stronger. Even when Eclair Seaetto overwhelmingly defeated him during their sword match to prove him wrong, he resorted to using a skill out of desperation and still tried to deny the fact that he was clearing losing, ironically proving her right. Ren grew increasingly more unstable following his defeat and the death of his companions by the Spirit Tortoise. He refused to admit that it was his recklessness and arrogance that got his companions killed by saying they were weaker than he expected, as well as the sudden change of the people's treatment of him only further this. This made it easier for Bitch to trick him into believing her while making Ren think Naofumi, the Queen and Motoyasu were the evil ones. This proved to be a huge mistake that cost him everything he had when Bitch betrayed him by the next morning, which triggered Ren's Curse Series.

Following being possessed by the Greed Series, Ren began stealing from others like how people stole from him. But at the same time, he didn't want to reveal his identity, so he began wearing a mask and working from behind the scene, forming his own band of bandits to attack people. He also grew more contradictory; he acted more prideful and boastful than before but would usually attack his targets when they were alone. He grew even worse after succumbing to Gluttony, becoming more violent and obsessed with increasing his power by killing people and stealing their EXP points. After being freed from the cursed weapon's influence, he officially joins Naofumi as a friend and ally. He manages to mellow out and accept his faults; taking responsibility for his past mistakes while also striving to become stronger the right way by becoming Eclair's student. Because of this, he gave up on his cool guy persona and has become much more genial. Background Ren comes from an alternate Japan. In the world he lives in, everything is much more advanced and futuristic. In his world, every game in the modern era is run on VRMMO.