At the behest of her friend Risa Shiramine, Kaede Honjō begins playing the virtual reality MMORPG NewWorld Online. Not wanting to get hurt, Kaede creates a shield-wielding avatar named Maple and puts all of her skill points towards defense. Although this leaves her with low speed and weak attack, her high defense allows her to earn new abilities and extra skill points for defense simply by letting enemies attack her. After meeting Kuromu the shielder and Iz the crafter, Maple decides to go to a dungeon to face against the powerful Poison Dragon...