Legendary Shield

The Legendary Shield (伝説の盾) is one of the Four Legendary Weapons. The person who possesses this weapon is titled the Shield Hero (盾の勇者). It retains a green gem at its center while undergoing transformations.

The hero is chosen by the Legendary Shield, notable for having the highest defense among the heroes by far, easily able to endure attacks from the other weapon users, even when at a noticeably inferior level. The Shield Hero's exact Enhancement Method is unknown, but Naofumi himself relied on unlocking the passive abilities of all of his weapons, thus carrying their benefits over to the other forms, and also on the Growth Corrections of various series, which perfectly suits its user's role as a supporter in battle. The current Shield Hero is Naofumi Iwatani.

History
The Shield Hero, alongside the other three Legendary Heroes, has been summoned repeatedly through history to defend against the Waves of Calamity. It is not known how many Heroes of the Shield there have been, with some indications that there has only been one, and some indications that there were in fact many. There have at least been two confirmed Heroes, the first one and his eventual successor Naofumi.

Legends about the previous Heroes of the Shield became obscure from the records of Melromarc, potentially out of negligence or omittance. According to Melromarc's queen, previous exploits of the heroes (or perhaps just one hero) include:


 * One previous Shield Hero sought for good relations between the Demi-Humans and humans. Melromarc has a bias of human supremacy against such compromise, and so stained the relationship of this Hero and his successors towards the other heroes. Because of his actions, Demi-Human countries, like Siltvelt, worship the Shield Hero and have a religion entirely devoted to them over the other three heroes, Melromarc, in response, gained a religion worshiping the other three heroes and denouncing the Shield as a devil.
 * A previous Shield Hero, which may or may not be the previously mentioned, lived luxuriously in the Demi-Human kingdoms before he was mysteriously murdered, likely by the very people who worship him, making Naofumi convinced that Siltvelt is a fanatical country.
 * A previous Shield Hero, alongside his fellow heroes, fought with the Spirit Tortoise and sealed it away by binding its heart with a spell. They left instructions on how to slay the beast, yet caveat the importance of not killing it. It's likely they chose to seal it in fear of the consequences of its death.

After Naofumi's generation, new Heroes of the Legendary Holy Weapons continued to be summoned for the other 3 original Holy weapons, except for the Shield that he still possesses long into the future as he travels to other worlds to protect them from invading gods. As a result of the world is a fusion of 8 different worlds, there is a total of 8 Legendary Weapons and 16 Vassal Weapons.

Power

 * See also: Legendary Weapons

The Legendary Shield grants its user great defensive power, most notably a firm pain tolerance and defensive posture due to high defense stat. In the Web Novel, Naofumi describes that his base defense stat is effectively three times an average person, but in turn, his attack stat is 1/10th the normal caliber.

As a legendary weapon, the shield's variety of transformations focuses on resistances and trade skills; allowing Naofumi to sometimes improvise his ability usage. Like the other weapons, the order in which transformations are unlocked affect the bonuses of future branching shields, originally the "Anti Poison Shield" should have received the Equipment bonus "Poison Resistance (Intermediate)" however it changed to "Defense +5" because Naofumi had acquired the "Chimera Viper Shield" first.