Author's Note: So I've been working on a idea for a new fic the past couple of days, if you want some idea of what it's going to be like I recommend you all go check out the excellently well written A Practical Guide to Evil. In the mean time Read, Review, Favourite and Enjoy!


Chapter 32: Framed, Again

The Bleichroder territory was well known for it's long standing relationship with the Three Heroes church, Setsuna noticed that it was one of their biggest sources of donations three years in a row. It was one of a half dozen places that the pope could go to hide, at least among the ones that they kept records of. Setsuna firstly surveyed the farm lands that had been gathered before her, two three headed pups following her around and growling at people in a manner they thought was intimidating. The black plants didn't look like anything she's ever seen before in her world, though she did admit that didn't mean much considering this was another world after all. Still the suspicion was there so she ripped one of the plants out of the ground and dropped it into her Spear.

'Conditions Met. Deadly Black Leaf Spear Unlocked. Equip Bonus Attack +10 8Hours 5Minutes. Main Ability 30 Poison Damage.'

Why the hell is this being grown in mass? Trying to find out this answer Setsuna went into the monster book.

'Deadly Black Leaf. An extremely toxic plant, in low doses it causes wild hallucinations while ruining the body's internal organs.'

Setsuna decided to put the topic aside for the moment as she noted that a pair of soldiers were rapidly approaching her.

"A demi-human?" Of course there were demi-humans here, even K-9 Demi-humans out working the fields they were a especially common sight among the slave markets, the issue here was this Demi-human who based on how she dressed was clearly not a slave.

"Take me to your lord." Setsuna ordered in clear, simple and uncompromising tones.

"We don't take orders from your ki-!" The Soldier was silenced in a single stroke, his body pulverised with a single swing of Setsuna's spear leaving only his arms and legs somewhat intact. The other soldier, still covered in the blood and gore of his companion, slowly turned his gaze to face Setsuna. "Take me to your lord." Setsuna repeated making sure that he understood that she was aggravated that she had to repeat herself.

The soldier complied, no one else moved to stop them the sight of the soldier walking along covered in blood with a wide eyed look of terror on his features was enough to stop them from doing anything stupidly suicidal. The lord was skinnier then Setsuna imagined he was going to be, Rabier at least was intimidating in that fat sort of way, effective against children which might have been the idea. This one on the other hand looked like he might blow over if Setsuna blew on him hard enough.

"I do not appreciate some random animal storming into my home and killing my guards." The duke stated glaring down at Setsuna. There wasn't any of the lust that Setsuna had been seeing from these bigoted fools as of late, racism has it's advantages she assumed, either way she knew she was being insulted.

"I've come seeking the Pope. Where is he?" Setsuna asked cocking a suspicious brow at the skinny man before her.

"At the church I heard, or did one of the three of you hang him in a kangaroo court already?" Setsuna wasn't even going to touch upon the irony of someone from this country's government accusing her of participating in a kangaroo court. With one swing of her spear Setsuna took the poor bastard's feet out from under him, slammed her foot into his gullet, and then hung the business end of her spear over his neck. "Maybe I wasn't clear when I asked earlier. WHERE IS HE!?"

"Grah! I don't know! I swear!" Setsuna took one look outside at the field of poison outside and removed her foot.

"You have a hour. Begone from this place with all of your people." By the time Setsuna had exited the manor the members of her party along with a few of Naofumi's had evacuated the slaves of the territory onto Filo's wagons. Some of them didn't look too well, by the looks of things that stuff can make you sick just by being near it let alone picking it, processing it, and chances are somewhat decent of using it too. Setsuna didn't really care if the Lord of the Territory had succeeded in evacuating the people from the area that night, her concern was the pope and the legendary weapon replica. As far as she was concerned people who made their living peddling poison and calling it medicine didn't really deserve the benefit of the doubt.

"Is there no other way to shut down their operation?" Rifana asked looking concerned at the territory, remembering what it was like to have her home burnt down.

"Lots of ways. We could call the Kingdom on them and have them show up to shut this operation down. I could cast Decay and have all the plants rot harmlessly into the ground. There's probably a hundred skills inside of this thing that could probably do the job if I felt like looking through them all." But she wasn't here for any of that. "I the Hero of the Spear Call upon the origin of Power." The air around Setsuna was growing hotter and hotter, like she would catch fire any moment now. "Draw into my spear all the might of fire and loose my wrath upon the heads of my foolish enemies! All Driefach Hellfire!" Several huge fire balls were spread out from Setsuna and blasted each of the fields of Deadly Black Leaf causing ominous toxic smoke to rise out of the fields, into the air, and over the village. If Setsuna was the stick, then inevitably someone showed up with the carrot.


"What the hell were they growing in that territory?" Naofumi stated witnessing the site of ruin that was the people who had escaped from the blaze Setsuna had set. The fire had it's fair share of victims, third degree burns, smoke inhalation, heat exhaustion. And those were the nice injuries, bits of skin pulled off, cuts and gashes from people digging into their skin, bruises from running around in a blind panic and attacking each other. Naofumi only ever saw this kind of injuries in that one seminar back in high school on the dangers of drug abuse. "Frig it. Mass treatment procedure."

On that note Naofumi's party members began stacking the people around Naofumi who was pulling potions out of his shield. Widen effect was a skill that increase the effective area of potions to multiple people, mix that with widen effect small and medium and Naofumi could treat an entire village with the right positioning.

"First the antidote." The first potion was one designed to eliminate poisons in the body, such as this Black Leaf. The second potion was a potent healing concoction that Naofumi had put together. After a few moments the people stacked around Naofumi started to stir back to life. "There they're healed, now pay me!"

Just because it was Setsuna's mess to clean up doesn't mean that Naofumi wouldn't charge these people a fair amount for his business. Technically speaking Naofumi was charging slightly under the market average for his services which was theoretically putting him in a financial bind. However Naofumi was a Legendary Hero, at the cost of making just two potions he could treat dozens of people. Even only charging ninety percent of the price for ten people he was still making back nine times the amount other non-legendary alchemists would make in this situation.

"Thank you sir!" The Headman of the village stated handing Naofumi his payment.

One of the few things the King had done to make up to Naofumi for the way he was treated was a merchant's pass that would allow him to operate as one throughout his kingdom, he couldn't give him a proper payment mind you, still too much of a bad reputation. For that Naofumi would have to make it up on his own if he wanted to prove the king's earlier accusations wrong. Gods he hated that guy, actually at this point he was pretty sure he hated the gods of this world too, that one guy kept going on about how they all wanted him dead and at this point in time he felt inclined to agree with his conclusion.

"We move out to the next village, where hopefully Setsuna hasn't carved out another path of destruction."


It wasn't hard for Setsuna to return to the Castle, after all she was attached at the hip to a button that would instantly send her there when she pressed it. The only real inconvenience was having to walk back to the throne room, funny just when Setsuna finally got a spear that would let her keep her human form she suddenly found her self unable to give a flying fuck about it.

"I see that your tiny little pea brained skulls have stopped functioning, so I will explain. The church prophesied that a demon would be summoned among the Three Heroes to bring destruction down on this world. But the part that they were mistaken about was that any of the weapons could summon the demon, or none of them it's honestly not worth building any sort of religion around." Setsuna walked up to the nearest noble man, got into his face, and managed to terrify him to the point that he passed out. "Allow me to be the one to identify the elephant in the room. I am a Demon! My ancestors were born of the toxic sludge that people like you have created in the process of making war. Oh and there is another thing that they got right, I am going to rain down destruction on this world." Setsuna produced one of the Black Leaf plants from her spear and threw it on the floor. "Any time that something offends me as badly as this has I am going to subject to it a slow, painful, and fiery death! I will leave a monument of ruin in tribute to every one of you fools that I have to put down like the wild dogs that you are! I have one enemy when I came here: The Waves. Help me deal with them and we will get along fine: stand on the barriers in my way and I will have the most elaborate of ends ready for you."

The King Clapped together his hands, not applauding Setsuna but getting their attention.

"The Hero, no the Demon has spoken. I am not fond of the idea of my country being reduced to a pile of smouldering craters because someone has earned her wrath, as a start let us begin by wiping out these offences." The King indicated the plants before him. "As King I declare that anyone who has any of these plants growing on their property will be receiving a visit from the Demon of the Spear." The king stated making the implications clear. The court cleared out, the King signaled for the Shadows to follow them, leaving him alone with Setsuna. "Was burning the field really necessary?" The King had a clear look of exhaustion on his face.

"Yes. If my message was subtle it wouldn't be very effective." Setsuna stated looking at the King with blatant displeasure.

"No matter, the shield will be enough to deal with the damage that you have caused." The King stated with a air of dismissal.

"If people don't want my help then they shouldn't have asked for it." Setsuna has been wanting to say that line to him since the day that she got here.


Among the services that Naofumi offered was the use of Filo's legs. The Bird's stats were insane, and the luxury camper had such innovations and some very impressive Faubrian shocks and a gyroscope frame that made it possible to zip through the landscape while only suffering the lightest of Filo's motion sickness. Having to be buckled down and being mildly sick were comparatively small prices to pay, and there were other benefits at play as well. After feeding a book to his shield Naofumi had unlocked a shield that took the form of a book, which he could then carry around like it was just a regular book so no one immediately understood that it was a shield, and if possible he would keep it that way. One of the benefits he was talking about was a built in hammer space, one that so long as no one questioned him on where he was putting it all he could use to carry vast quantities of cargo across the distance Filo could travel. And they wouldn't question him about it, they couldn't afford to, ignorance was a small price to pay in times of strife such as these. The waves were dumping monsters into the wilderness, not just the cities, and the villages were under attack because aside from the occasional adventurer or what forces the King could spare no one was dealing with them. The upside to this was that every time Naofumi or his people dropped supplies off they could get some extra shields out of fighting the wave monsters. The king finally let his companions class up, Filo's crown feather proved invaluable in this regard, using it during the ceremony doubled all of the stats that the person using it had. That said, it wasn't suitable for everyone, or to be more accurate there were other class ups that were far more suitable than the one Filo could offer.

"Is this the place the flier mentioned?" Naofumi asked as he climbed out of the camper and looking at the village suspiciously, it certainly didn't look like the victim of a dragon attack, least not any dragon he heard of. "We're the adventurers that took your request. We understand that there's a dragon that needs to be removed from the area?"

For the hybrids who suffered from painful deformities hampering their growth stemming from their dual natures there was but one solution. Special class upgrades using the bits and pieces of monsters that had some compatibility with them to purge unwanted blood from their bodies and splice them with higher stats. For Zenberu who was half Aotatsu and half lizard man, the stronger of the two was the draconic Aotatsu, and for best results it had to be a strong dragon too, according to the adventurers billboard this one had been terrorising this village for weeks so it fit the bill to him.

"The dragon lives out in the mountains. It emerges from the mountains every several days to feed on our cattle. Please sir we're desperate!" Naofumi raised his brow suspiciously before having another look at the village. No scorch marks. No craters from magic attacks. No torn up buildings. No large depressions in the grass to indicate a huge monster had been here. What exactly had been attacking these people?

"Half of the payment now." Naofumi stated prompting a look of surprise on the villagers faces. "I understand that the dragon's body holds considerable value but you weren't planning on paying us for our services using that were you?" The glare on Naofumi's face was clear. "Half the payment now, half when I get back, and I get whatever I want from the dragon's body. That is the deal. You're desperate right? Why are you standing here making a big fuss out of this?"

The more he thought about this the less that he liked it. They eventually relented allowing Naofumi to proceed with what he was doing after getting the money he was asking for. That said after travelling up the mountain for a bit a thought occurred to Naofumi.

"Hey Zenberu. Do you speak dragon?" Naofumi asked though realising it might have been stupid to ask, monsters of this world were little more than animals near as he could tell.

"When dragons speak at all I know what they are saying. They do not take kindly to uninvited visitors." Which meant he could have a language, and Naofumi had his suspicions.

"See if you can find where this thing leaves his leftovers." Naofumi had taken a small group with him that day, only enough to fit in the camper, it was a long trip after all. Credit where it was do Zenberu knew how to track like the best of em.

"Oh... my god!" Raphtalia summarised the opinions of everyone who was looking over the massive pile of, to put it into loose terms, shit and bones, a mass grave formed of bone and buried in dung inside of what use to be a fissure in the mountain range.

"...What could have even...?" Some how Naofumi doubted that this could be formed from hunting cows. Pulling out one of the bones from the pile Naofumi fed it to his shield.

'Conditions met. Interdimensional Mountain Goat Bone Shield unlocked...' Naofumi didn't even bother reading the equip bonus at this point in time.

"It's a wave monster." Naofumi stated as he bent down to keep rummaging.

"All of this...?" Raphtalia asked looking at the mass grave before her. "Was done in by the dragon?"

"Or the dragon and his subordinates." Naofumi commented dryly. "Monsters have parties too."

Naofumi looked down at the pile of bones before him and quickly got to work, wading through actual shit wasn't a good way to spend his time to him, but he felt a opportunity for payback. He never forgot the reason why he was stuck in this world in the first place, barely able to defend himself a weapon he never asked for grafted onto his person like a festering tumour. Naofumi shoved the shield into the nearest pile of crap and watched with glee as the shield hesitated to suck it in and make new weapons out of it. But it wasn't getting away with just this much, not even close, until the sun went down Naofumi spent the entire evening shovelling dragon crap into the shield until every last pile in the foul smelling gorge was gone. The conclusion? There was a Inter-dimensional Mountain goat bone shield, inter-dimensional Mountain lion bone Shield, Aries bone Shield, and a Nine Tailed Fox bone shield.

"Nine tailed fox? Hey Kyubi can we use this for your class upgrade?" Naofumi asked the look on his face implying that he just picked up a bonus.

"...My class upgrade is coming from a pile of shit. Clearly my life is destined to include a vast number of humiliating sequences tied together in rapid succession." Kyubi stated making his exhaustion known.

"You don't want it?" Naofumi asked looking mighty suspicious.

"...I'll take it. But let us never speak of where it came from." Kyubi stated as he levelled a glare in Naofumi's general direction.

"...So the dragon is actually protecting people from the waves?" Raphtalia asked having figured out what was going on after getting over the initial shock of the mistreatment of the shield to put the evidence together.

"Or it's taking advantage of the all you can eat buffet dropping out of the sky on his head. Either way it's all the more proof that we should be tracking him down and getting some answers on what precisely is going on." Naofumi was keeping an open mind about all of this, on the one hand remembering that this was a very powerful creature able to wipe out at least two entire waves all by itself if the number of boss level skeletons his shield just ate were any indication, on the other hand it had wiped out two entire waves by himself, that can only be a asset.

"The dragon flew off into that direction master." While Naofumi was spending the day shovelling shit Zenberu was watching the sky and saw the dragon return to it's layer after one of it's hunting trips was over. The group began making their way into the dragon's territory, the cave was relatively easy to find too, it was the big huge one with the excessive number of giant gashes in the form of claw marks outside of it.

"Come on." Naofumi swapped out to his Chimera Viper Shield. "Let's go introduce ourselves." Naofumi stated as he walked towards the cave. With a dull thud the Dragon emerged claws first, a huge black monster that could be the twin of Tatsuya's dragon, already letting off warning growls to go away. Naofumi picked up a skill from one of the countless random shields that he had unlocked that allowed him to look at his enemies level, and yet all he got was 'Dragon Emperor Gaelion' and '?' because that's all he needed today.

"I have come on behalf of the village next to the mountains to parley Dragon Emperor Gaelion." The dragon narrowed a glare at the mention of the village, apparently something about it filled him with a indescribable rage.

"Here is my answer!" The dragon loosed a stream of fire aimed directly at Naofumi.

"Air Strike Shield. Change shield Water Shield!" The familiar water barrier appeared in front of Naofumi blocking the stream of fire. "Shield prison!" The familiar ball of Shields appeared around the dragon's snout like a muzzle stopping the flow of flames and rooting the dragon in place. "Now what are you hiding back there?" Naofumi stated to walk forward. Claws came down hard, but Naofumi bounced back harder. "Meteor Barrier!" The translucent barrier sprung up and stopped the blow with a bounce, though there were several notable cracks that had formed. As Naofumi walked towards the cave the dragon followed up with a kick, and then a tail swipe this time smashing the barrier to pieces and deflecting off of the Chimera Viper Shield. The Barrier pieces flew off and smashed into the dragon while Serpents were sprouted from the shield and bit down on the tail. That was a mistake. The violently swinging tailed jerked Naofumi around and threw him by his shield and slammed him into the rock wall before the skill wore off. The good news was he was out of range of the dragon, until the skill ran out that is. In the mean time he was starting to understand why the villagers wanted this guy dead, it had vastly less to do with any lost cattle and infinitely more do with the piles of gold stockpiled in this cave. Not just gold though, precious gemstones, large monster eggs...

"You leave my dad alone!"

...and a little dog eared girl pelting him with various different trinkets.

"I'm going to burn that village to a crisp when I get off this mountain." So this is how they repay the guy whose been wiping out the monsters of the waves for them? Hire a murder hobo to run out to his home, slit his throat then peel off the bits of his body to sell on the open market and clean out his home? Oh that was rich, that was so rich in fact that Naofumi felt like he'd be laughing all the way to their funerals.

"GET OUT OF OUR HOME!"

"Nothing would give me more pleasure. Believe me." Naofumi saw that the dragon had finally gotten free of his shield prison and turned around to face the intruding shield hero, jaws opened in another ball of fiery death. "Air strike shield. Change shield Dynamite Shield." Only for a wad of explosives to appear in his mouth instead. "I know you can break that, but I wouldn't recommend it." Naofumi walked away from the cave, much to the confusion of the people whose whom he had inadvertently invaded. "I'm going to go tell them I dealt with you. Expect to see some humans in a couple of days to loot the place. Also I'll tell the Kingdom to ban hunting in these mountains, explain to him that there's someone here who actually gives a damn about the bloody waves."


Author's Note:

RonaldM40196867: They will, soon as they can find him. No I don't plan to, at least not his year.

Jebest4781: Thank you for saying so, Hope I don't disappoint.

FendarianT: It appeared in the web novel actually, during the story's final arc to be more specific, I highly recommend reading it for yourself.

edboy4926: Thank you for saying so.

Marauder Prime12: I thought so.