A The Rising of the Shield Hero Fanfic by Seeker1629 
on spacebattles.
Can be read on FF.net, while the more up to date SB thread can be found here.
Summary: Traveling to a different world is a normal fantasy. Being overpowered in a different world is another common one. Adrian is living both of these fantasies, however, reality is rarely so kind as to be simple. Follow Adrian as he desperately seeks to survive in this new world and the devastation he leaves in his wake.
This Fanfiction contains examples of:
- Big Eater: The Filolials in general and Raphtalia and Rifana during their rapid growth phases.
- Child Prodigy: Isis. The young Filolial manages to cast a huge variety of magics with no instructions and manages to cast powerful combo techniques with Adrian.
- The Chosen Many: There are Four Legendary and Eight Vassal Heroes in the world which has Melromarc with other worlds having their own sets of Heroes.
- The Church: There are several, with the Church of Three Heroes being especially prominent in the story. The Church worships the Bow, Sword, and Spear as gods while demonizing the Shield. Other Churches worship all Heroes equally, while the Shield is worshipped in Demi-Human countries.
- Combination Attack: Skills and Magic can be combined to form a more powerful attack. Isis and Adrian have a very powerful combination that fires thousands of swords which are covered in Fire or Lightning. They use it to suppress a large portion of a Wave.
- Corrupt Church: The Church of 3 Heroes, who decide to kill off Naofumi once his presence is a problem for them and were part of the conspiracy to summon all four heroes which causes immense chaos all around the world.
- Crapsack World: A world that is consistently on the brink of calamity and is dependent on summoning people from other worlds to protect them...people who are often incompetent...and this only considers the Waves. Racism, constant wars, the eternal presence of monsters and a poor economy all ensure that the average person tends to have a short, often brutal, life.
- Curb-Stomp Battle: We see several examples of this due to the nature of the Legendary Weapons and Adrian's advantages like knowing several power-up methods from the start.
- Fitoria also demonstrates a fraction of her power by casually crushing Isis and Trystan.
- Adrian and his party suppress a Wave on their own with almost absurd ease. The Sword Hero extends the Wave just to gain a little more experience out of it.
- Adrian during his encounter with Motoyasu: He kills their means of escape in seconds, annihilates a massive area as proof of his power and once frustrated with Motoyasu captures him within seconds. Motoyasu didn't stand a chance.
- This is deconstructed during Adrian’s battle with Kyo. Adrian realizes that he’s gotten so used to handing these out that he’s unprepared to fight an opponent who can actually stand up to him.
- De-power: The Hourglass of the Dragon's Era can be used to reset a person's level to 1. Adrian gains a Sword that allows him to accomplish this. He uses it as part of his strategy to imprison people, as of the fifth Arc he has used this on some church members he had captured to ensure that they have no chance of escape.
- The Empath: Andrea, one of Adrian's initial party members, and the adopted daughter of Edgar, head of Melromarc's adventurers guild can sense emotions from the people around her.
- Evolving Weapon: The Legendary Weapons which unlock new skills, stat boosts and abilities as new material is fed to the gem.
- Experience Booster: The Legendary Weapons allow for a 900% boost to exp. This is shown in how rapidly Adrian levels up both himself and his party. Taking them all to level 50+ in less than three weeks.
- Fantastic Racism: There are many case of this, both human and demi-human has it's share of of racism against each other, even a completely nice character can have a share of racism.
- Level Cap: The first cap is level 40 which can be overcome by visiting the Hourglass of the Dragon's Era.
- Level-Locked Loot: Most weapon forms are level-locked. The Portal Sword, which has the teleportation skill, and only unlocks at level 50 is particularly important given that the entire plot would have changed had the Heroes had access to it earlier.
- "Number of Objects" Title
- Oh, Crap!:
- Edgar and Andrea have this reaction as they realize that the Bow Hero has been kidnapped, the Sword Hero is gone and that the Queen's attempts at diplomacy have fallen flat thanks to this news.
- Bellamy's team which is looking for the Sword Hero find the site of his battle in Dragon Territory...the leader Matthew is stunned to see the damage and the implications of said damage.
- Original Character: Several are introduced.
- Andrea: A young human woman who was one of Adrian's original party members assigned to him by Melromarc. He abandons her and the rest of his original party very quickly. Since then she is used to provide a glimpse into some of the factions in Melromarc.
- Bellamy: A loyal follower of the church who was one of Adrian's original party members.
- Isis and Trystan: Two Filolials who are raised by Adrian.
- Point of Divergence: There are deviations from canon almost immediately, starting with Malty joining Adrian's party due to his display of anger and frustration convincing her that he is vulnerable. This prevents the rape accusation against Naofumi from coming into play which in turn allows Edgar, the leader of the Adventurers Guild to support Naofumi altering the whole plot.
- Unfortunately this caused Malty to accuse Adrian of rape after he leaves the party, angering him like this is bad because unlike Naofumi, Adrian is strong enough and ruthless enough to make his displeasure known personally, likely by killing Malty or Aultcray.
- Rapid Aging: A Demihuman's apparent age depends on their Level and not just their actual age. This is especially noticeable when they are in a Cardinal Hero's party due to their Experience Booster skills and blessings.
- Super-Empowering: All the Legendary Weapons can enhance their allies, companions, monsters, slaves and more. This allows for stat boosts and faster skill learning in most cases and in the case of Filolials allows them to gain enhanced intelligence, the ability to transform into a human form and using the Filolial series even gain incredible boosts to abilities.
- Talking Is a Free Action: Adrian himself usually averts this, but he has exploited his enemy tendencies for it. Adrian never talks during battle and usually immediately goes for the kill without letting his enemy speak but he has let his enemy monologue to recover from a battle with potions and immediately attack his enemy after.
- Unreliable Narrator: The story is from multiple points of view, so this crops up every now and then, crossing over with Unreliable Expositor. For example, Andrea, one of Adrian's original party members is an empath but Adrian assumes that she has some form of mind reading or mind control due to his paranoia and fear.
