Biggest thanks for Ace-Triad helping me with SPAG edit. Also thanks to Angel Wraith for reading my rough draft and provide important feedbacks.

More author note at the end for people who are interested to see me blabber some more.

The same empty dinner table, in the same empty house where the air seems to smell stale. Day after day, month after month and year after year till it's become the norm. It's been like this, since Father got his big promotion from Grandfather.

He drops his book bag on a chair, and prepares to heat up another TV dinner bought from the convenience store.

Someone kicks open the front door behind him. "Come with me! You are NOT going to eat TV dinner on your birthday, Moto!"

He looks down at the package in his hand and back up at his next door neighbor. "It's not a big deal, just another day."

"Just another day, you say." Ikuyo stomps her way through the room, snaps the TV dinner from his arm and shoves it right back into the fridge. She twists on her heels and grabs his hand, pulling him behind her out of the front door. "Come with me."

"Where are we going?"

"To get some real food, you idiot." His friend tosses away his hand and spins around to stare at him in the eyes. "Mother and I didn't cook all that food for nothing, you know!"

"There's no point for you to go through the trouble - wow!" He barely finishes his line when he's dragged away by Ikuyo again.

"Stop spouting nonsense and just follow me!" His neighbor rips her front door open, all but pushes him into the hallway. "Birthday boy's here!"

"Ikuyo!" His skating body is abruptly stopped when he runs right into a pair of thin yet firm arms. A warm hand runs through his short hair. He looks up and sees the disapproving face of Ms. Naru looking down at her daughter. "I taught you better manners than this!"

"I wouldn't be rude if Moto wasn't acting as an idiot..." Ikuyo's muttering is silenced with a glare from her mother. She wipes her head around, kicks off her shoes and walks into the hall. "Let's just enjoy the party."

"Party, huh...?" He slowly backs himself away from Ms. Naru's embrace, head cocked sideways and pounding the word. The word feels as foreign to him as the faces of his parents, or the idea of sharing a dinner with them.

Interlude 8: The Melancholy of Motoyasu Kitamura

"Surprise!" The confetti gently falls on his hair with a loud boom.

He jumps back into Ikuyo's pushing hands, acting shocked for everyone who went through the trouble to make his birthday special, even if he already expected the party. It's the tenth time now since Ikuyo first pulled him from his empty home to join Ms. Naru and herself with a home cooked birthday dinner. "Oh, mine. You shouldn't have!"

He looks around the table. In addition to his childhood friend Ikuyo Yajima and her mother Ms. Naru. There is the tan skinned, short haired Aya Kubota from the track team. Saori Kanase -senpai one year senior with her long hair tied into a braid behind her back, who still looks as pale as the first day he saw her... and Momiji Jahara too?

As a Jahara, he thought something like a dinner party thrown by a common household was beneath her. Then again, he can't really figure out why she went to the same public school as Ikuyo and himself instead of a fancy girls only school... or even taken an interest in himself, for that matter.

His father works for Jahara Group as one of the branch managers, but he's still nowhere near the position one could be considered a social elite. Yet, the girl from the Jahara family seems to be a constant in his life as much as his childhood friend Ikuyo since that encounter in the park from ten years ago, after they shared their story on how neither of their parents are around in their respective lives.

"Happy birthday, Motoyasu." Ms. Naru walks into the dining room holding a cake, her long hair turned behind into a ponytail. She sets the cake down onto the table, and runs her hand through his hair like when he was still a six year-old child. "Have fun, you only turn sixteen once."

"Tsk, I don't know why we are still doing the house party with homemade meal - thing. Motoyasu-dono is sixteen, not six." Momiji Jahara hides her chuckle behind the back of her palm. "We should hold Motoyasu-dono's surprise birthday party in one of my family's restaurants."

"Nobody invited you, Jahara." Ikuyo glares daggers at the rich girl from across the room. "Moto loves Mother's cooking more anyway. Why, I bet your mother never cooked for you."

"I - I don't need Mother cooking for me! We have professional chefs for that..." Momiji glares right back. She's obviously biting her inner lips, and there seems to be tears running around the edge of her eyes.

"Ikuyo! Didn't I teach you better!?" Ms. Naru puts her arms onto her waist and lowers her head at her daughter. "Apologize to Miss Momiji now!"

"I wouldn't have if she didn't insult you... yes, Mother." His childhood friend quickly shrinks under her mother's intense gaze. She turns her head halfway to the Jahara. "Sorry, Jahara. I shouldn't have bad mouthed your family."

"I, I didn't care anyway... but apology accepted." Momiji wipes her head to the other side.

"Well, I think it's a good idea to have a homemade dinner party. If we take Motoyasu-kun to one of those fancy restaurants owned by the Jahara Group, he would figure out it's a special party for him." Saori Yanase pushes her glasses up her nose and takes a wrapped present out of her bag and sets it down on the table. "Hope you enjoy my present, Motoyasu-kun."

"Thanks, Yanase-senpai." He slowly unties the ribbon, and unfolds the wrapping around the box, and takes the content out. "A notebook?"

"A journal for you, silly." Yanase-senpai giggles at him. "You can be a bit scatterbrained. I think writing important things down helps you remember them."

"That's useful..." His eyes fixed on the notebook sitting in his hands for a few seconds before looking back up at Yanase-senpai and nodding his thanks. There aren't a lot of things in his life he truly wishes to commit to memory, which is probably why Yanase-senpai got the impression of him being scatterbrained. But as Ms. Naru taught him, it's always good manners to show appreciation. Especially when a girl goes out of her way to do something nice for him. "Thank you, Yanase-senpai."

"Oh, mine next, Moto-chan!" Kubota hands her present over to him. Compared to the box with Yanase-senpai, it is clearly less meticulously tied up to look nice. The butterfly shaped ribbon is tied much loosely, and he can even spot a few transparent tapes over torn wrapping papers. "Bet you'll like it more than some dumb notebook."

"Keeping a journal isn't dumb..." The faint smile on Yanase-senpai's face goes dull, but there's no real anger behind her weak protest.

He takes the ribbon and wrapping paper off the box, and fishes out a pair of shoes out onto the table. "Nike?"

"Yeah! You are a pretty tall and fit guy, you should be more active and do sports. Join a club." Kubota elbows his chest a couple of times. "So people don't mistake you for some useless pretty boy."

It's not like he doesn't like doing sports, or hanging out with the other guys for that matter. Everything just feels pointless when he thinks about competing in an event, or tournament by himself.

"Motoyasu-dono doesn't need to be a musclehead like you." Momiji pushes a box wrapped with silky purple paper, and tied with golden ribbon into his hand. "This is more than a bit below my class... but I know you wanted this since the first glance. You'd better be grateful for me going through the trouble of getting it."

Momiji's words pique his interest, and he slowly unwraps her present with anticipation. A plastic figure stands inside a glass box. "Is that... the limited edition Myne Sophia figurine for Emerald Online's promotion?"

"Yes, as I said, such an accessory is obviously beneath my class and station. But I saw you been eyeing for a long time. That's why I went ahead and secured it for you, Motoyasu-dono. You'd better be grateful for me." Momiji puffs her chest forward as her posture leans slightly back, he can almost see her nose grow a bit longer. "Well, now that you have your beautiful figure, your eyes better not wander to other girls."

It seems like Momiji thinks he looks at the tour guide character of Emerald Online because she looks pretty, which to be fair, she is. But he likes her because she's always there for the players like a constant. Although he suppose that's her job, being the tutorial and announcement character and all.

Then again, shouldn't parents be there for their son? Wasn't it the job of being parents?

"Well, his eyes shouldn't look all over without this figurine. Isn't that right, Moto?" He feels something strangles around his neck, pulling him over to Ikuyo. It takes a few moments to realize it's a hand knitted scarf wrapped around her. Her voice becomes gentler as she gives the scarf a tug. "It's getting cold, you could use a new scarf. Think of me, when you wear it."

"Yajima, you sly dog! You want to have Moto-chan wrapped around your fingers, doesn't you?" Kubota digs her fist into the side of his head and grinds at his temple. Although he doesn't mind it, or Ikuyo's apparent attempt to 'wrap him around her fingers'. It's good to have something constant in his life.

"Is it my fault?" Ms. Naru looks up from her half knitted sweater to look at him. His own tailoring project lying on the couch besides him.

"Where did this come from, Motoyasu?" Ms. Naru carefully sets her unfinished sweater down and looks him right in the eyes.

"My parents. They barely return home from work, and are gone by the next day." His eyes wander away from the mother of his childhood friend, not wanting Ms. Naru to realize how much like a child he still feels deep down. She has enough things on her mind already ... like how to take care of Ikuyo. "I must have done something wrong, if they aren't around."

"Oh." His peripherals catch the realization slowly dawning in her eyes. Ms. Naru stands up from her seat, walks over and sits beside him. "No, you didn't do anything wrong, Motoyasu. It's bad form to speak ill of others behind their back... but Kei-chan, no, you father. He really isn't the most responsible guy around."

"Is that so...?" He looks down and pounders on Ms. Naru's words. From the rare few occasions he spoke with or overheard his father, he knew the two knew each other way back. They may even be childhood friends, like Ikuyo and he himself. But if there was friendship at one point, it has now dwindled into nothing. The lack of nice words from father when he talks about Ms. Naru, or her attempt to avoid mentioning his father when he asks is enough clue for him. "I still feel I could have done something."

He still remembers the night where he shuts himself in his own bedroom while father throwing and smashing things downstairs, when father comes home and find out he's been spending time with Ms. Naru learning how to knit. He comes home even less after that episode.

"Maybe. But sometimes things turn out bad even with our best effort." Ms. Naru's hands rest on both sides of his face. She moves his head to look at her face to face again. "And other times, you could have done everything right, but still have other people mess it up. It's important to learn to accept it... and make the best of the situation. But most importantly..."

He focuses his gaze on Ms. Naru, thinking she must be parting some important wisdom to him. Her hands release his head, fingers pinching his face and start pulling his face wide as if playing with a baby, or a dog.

"...smile in the end. Being angry, or sad won't magically make anything better. It's best to find the bright spot." The mother of his childhood friend giggles at him. "Smiles make everything better, and Motoyasu has a beautiful smile. That's why you should treat everything with your smile."

"Yeah... smile is much better." The skin on his face still feels a bit tight, but they are loosened by Ms. Naru's fingers.

He tries not to think too hard about the past, or what happened right before he's summoned into the world of Emerald Online. He wonders if Ms. Naru was still right in saying he did nothing wrong, but that would suggest the fault lies in his friends Ikuyo and Momiji. That can't be right either, since the two of them have been one of the few constants in his life for almost as long as he can remember.

It's unthinkable that his two closest, and longest friends. Someone who cared him much more than his parents ever did, and only short of Ms. Naru, would attempt to stab and kill him out of a pointless and silly argument about who he likes better.

Maybe he's truly in the wrong this time. He was too passive all this time, when he should have been more active and mind the well being of his friends. Now he has a chance to do better, and now he's ended in the world of Emerald Online. Because he's no longer just Motoyasu Kitamura the unremarkable university student. He's one of the heroes wielding a legendary weapon that grows with him.

He would carry on with a smile on his face, like Ms. Naru told him all those years ago. Dwelling on what has already happened won't do anything good now.

The first attempt to do better ended in miserable failure, much like most of the things he tried to do in the past. Keeping his companions from fighting monsters to protect him is evidently not the correct action when they left him within a month.

That's why he's grateful to Iris, and her friends who are willing to give him another chance. Iris is very sophisticated and smart, so he listens to her advice. Katarina is full of energy and fights with him on the frontline, so he pays extra attention to not let her get hit by the monsters. And Bertia - she seems to be both surprised and very happy for small things like him talking to her.

Does she truly think so little of him, that she believes he'll treat her differently just because she's a bit on the overweight side? The fact she's willing to still trust in him after him failed his first party speaks enough of her character.

Regardless, things are definitely starting to look up for the better with Iris and her friend supporting him. He even upstaged his rival Shield Hero when retrieving the miracle seed. But that's when everything took a sharp dive for the worse.

The ashes of the dead Life Root falls on everyone like some of the heaviest snow he experienced back home. A monster spawned from the seed he brought up, which he didn't even play a very important role in destroying.

He's faintly aware of how Naofumi Iwatani, his rival the Shield Hero, throws himself towards Mein's falling form.

"Sister!" The young man who arrived with the soldiers bumps past him, almost slams into Katarina but settles for giving her a tight hug. "You made me sick! And do you want to make Mother faint again!? "

Sister...? Right, Katarina did mention her father adopted someone from her extended family as his own son. That makes them adopted siblings.

"Hey, relax, Keith. You aren't a boy anymore." Katarina giggles and gives a squeeze back to her brother. She pushes herself away from the young man. "I can't spoil you all the time like when we are children."

"S, spoil me! It has nothing to do with this." The young man stammers for a moment before quickly schooling his face. "Don't you know the danger you were in!? What were you thinking charging that plant monstrosity! You could get yourself seriously hurt... or worse!"

"I'm fine here, aren't I? I have the Spear Hero watching my back." Katarina laughs again. She flips hair off the front of her forehead and rests a finger on her smooth skin. "Got a scar much worse here playing with my friend when we were young, remember?"

"That's not the point!" Keith looks like he wants to elaborate, but he's interrupted by a very angry looking demi-human with bunny ears. What was her name again...? Something very similar to Iris.

"Well, I hope you heroes are happy with what you did." Her already somewhat dark tanned face is now near the color of a pot's burnt bottom. Her words hit like a hammer in his mind. "Instead of destroying an Outsider God's artifact, you used it. And now the spawned monster destroyed the village of Balafon, killing almost half of my men. Who knows what other bad things will happen later?"

He looks to the side again, and sees Iwatani's head drop even lower. The short man who was following him quickly gave some instruction. "She's suffering from severe mana deprivation here. Someone feed her another mana potion! Quickly!"

Naofumi immediately takes a vial out of his shield, pops it open and tries to feed it down Mein's throat. He ends up spilling the potion on everyone. The little girl in his party takes and holds a full vial of blue mana potion in her mouth, and presses into Mein's mouth. Trials of faintly glowing blue liquid run down the side of Mein's cheek and seep into the ash covered ground.

"And you! As an Amelia, you should have known better!" The bunny woman spins around and points her finger at Iris, who is still half crouched on the ground in her personal maid Tanya's arms. He can hear some quiet sobbing sound from their direction. "The heroes don't know better because they are from another world. What's your excuse?! You should be well aware how dangerous anything related to an Outsider God is. But you encouraged them to keep the seed!"

"My lady did nothing wrong! She would not have planted the seed this carelessly if you sold it to her like she wanted!" Tanya whips around and glares right back at the bunny woman. "And she did more than anyone here, aside from the Shield Hero's companion to end this threat!"

Tanya's word cuts into his mind again, reminding him how little he contributed in the fight. He's supposed to be the one of the heroes to save people, but he created a monster with his suggestion instead. Even worse, he can't even fix his own mistake and everyone was saved by Mein, who is still unconscious on the ground.

"She didn't do anything to protest planting the seed in my Jarl's land either. So what, she knows the seed is too dangerous to plant in Daddy's backyard, but the land overseen by my Jarl is fair game?" Somehow, the bunny woman's face became even darker. "She's in the wrong, no matter what you say, maid."

I'm the one in the wrong, I was the one who brought the seed up.

That's what he wants to say, to take the responsibility for this gigantic mess up. But he found no voice coming out when he opened his mouth. Why can't he say anything?

Tanya tightens her fist, her back grows tense. It looks like she's about to spring up and hit the bunny woman across her face if Iris isn't holding onto her. That's when Keith steps into view holding both of his arms up. "Please! Everyone calm down for now. What's done is done and blaming people won't solve everything. Let us take a step back, survey all the damages and return to the issue with a level head."

"And pray tell, how do you intend to rectify the damage done to my Jarl and his people?" The bunny woman takes a long, deep breath and crosses her arms in front of her chest. She glares at Keith now, but her look is less pointed, her tone less sharp. "Because high lords of Melromarc or not, I won't allow your houses to harm my lord and simply walk free."

"I don't know how my sister is involved, and House Claes isn't as wealthy as House Amelia." Keith gives Katarina another glance before stare right back at the bunny woman again. "But House Claes always pays back our debts. I have no coins with me, but my men and I will help you rebuild the destroyed village. Our men are trained builders as well as fighters, as for myself."

The young man gives a twirl of his sword, and two featureless mud dolls a head taller than most adult men sprout out from the ash covered ground.

"I trained hard with my earth magic to master golemancy. My earth golems aren't as dexterous as a real man, but they are much better at heavy lifting." As if demonstrating his words, his golems walk off and each one of them lifts one of the knight's dragons off their feet. The raptor-like creature squeaked in protest.

"Offering to help us rebuild is good. But we still have the problem of the food shortages." The bunny woman turns to glare dagger at Tanya and Iris again. "Something House Amelia should rectify in good faith, if you want a future relationship with my Jarl."

"If my lady sees it fit to help your people, it'll be out of the kindness of her heart. She will not be bullied by you, demi-human." Tanya spits back at the bunny woman.

"Wait, Irileth. Look at that!" Naofumi's words make everyone turn to him. The Shield Hero is currently looking at something on the ground with his back towards the sky.

Everyone moves closer to the Shield Hero and tries to see what he suddenly finds very interesting on the ash-covered ground. For a first glance nothing seems to be out of the ordinary aside from the grey ash covering the cracked earth. Then, he noticed a blade of verdant around Naofumi's hand. "Is it grass?"

"Yes, grass seems to be sprouting out of the ash." Naofumi's hand points to the ground further down. Everyone looks around their own feet, and starts to see the small spot of grass slowly but visibly poking out of the dirt, and ash. "Is this normal, Zylden?"

"If by normal, you meant grass sprouting out of dried and cracked earth, no. But I have seen something like this during my travel in Siltvelt's Midland." Zylden scratches his chin as he narrows his eyes. "There are patches of land which the Midland beastman call 'fuu'dee' in their tongue, roughly translated into fortune ground. Land that has a strong natural concentration of mana. And sometimes trees growing on fortune ground would absorb enough mana to turn into spirit wood. When a spirit wood matures, the beastman would cut the tree down. Burn them into ash and bury the ash into normal ground, spreading the area a fortune ground would cover in the process. Accelerated growth of plants is another feature of this so-called fortune ground."

"What are you saying, imp?" The bunny woman turns to look at the short man. "Are you saying the heroes unknowingly turned the land around Balafon into this... fortune ground after they destroyed that damn plant monstrosity?"

"The Life Root is at its core, a kind of spirit wood with much, much higher concentration of mana. And a lot of its roots are obviously buried deep in the earth if it spread all the way to the village without any of us noticing, so it did something to the surrounding area. But the transformation isn't permanent. A true fortune ground has some kind of strong magical artifact, or ancient plant with strong mana concentration serving as the anchor to gather mana. The added fertility, and growth boost effect will fade with the plant destroyed." The short man scoops up a handful of ash, and watches at the grass slowly bursting out of earth.

He doesn't understand what the short man is talking about, but it feels rude to interrupt.

"So, you are saying the ash from the Life Root is kind of like super charged volcanic ash, acting like magical fertilizer for plant life?" Naofumi scoops up a handful of ash and adds it into his shield.

"Pretty much." The short man stands up from his crouch and pats his hands together. "Still, the boosted growing effect is stronger than some of those Midland Siltvelt fortune ground I have been to. It should carry you guys through the Wave at the least, as long as the villagers doesn't do something dumb to destroy their land again. And even with its magic gone, the land will only return to its normal fertility, not become barren like when we first arrived."

"I see, I suppose that means there is strategic value in keeping a hold on this village, if the land around suddenly becomes very fertile again." The bunny woman nods her head along. She suddenly becomes still and wipes her around to look at the short man Zylden once more. "Won't the crops also mutate with the amount of mana in the soil, like that Life Root?"

"To tell the truth without more in depth research. I don't know. Maybe? I won't know for sure till a Hickwaal and Sweed caravan bring along all my heavier equipment and I start to do some real research." Zylden shrugs his shoulders at the much taller (than him, anyway) bunny woman. "But, plant based monsters like loomush first become self-sentient because they absorbed enough mana from the environment."

"Eh... you mean the bouncing mushroom with a really long tongue, right?" Naofumi also stands up and raises a finger on his hand. "Because I want to point out, technically fungi aren't plants. They are a unique type of life from animal and plant, but they are actually more like animals."

"Is that so... a hero's knowledge from your world?" Zylden gives Naofumi a side glance before turning to the bunny woman again. "Anyways, mutated monsters all awaken their sentience first from absorbing large amounts of mana. But they won't be anywhere near as strong as the big fucker we just put down. The special magic contained in the seed was what made it powerful, not the mana in the air or in the ground. In fact, they shouldn't be stronger than a slightly higher leveled loomush, your men can easily take care of. You'll probably have bigger problems from some crops storing too much mana, and give your people temporary mana dependency than any mutated monster. Anyways, I'll stay around a while and research the effect the ash has on the land, and whatever we can still salvage from the laboratory."

"Then thank the Chief God for the small mercy we are getting." The bunny woman shuts her eyes and lets out a deep breath. He gets the distinct impression she's gritting her teeth. "I'll hold you to your promise in rebuilding Balafon, Lord Keith."

"One I will keep. And from what I heard about Lady Iris, I'm sure she'll be willing to help the people of Whiterun County as much as she can... once she recovers from her wound." Katarina's brother turns around to look at the slowly standing Amelia heiress, and his face grimaces. "I'll start on it and bring some lumber from the nearby forest with my men."

"I'm coming with you, Keith. I'm not tired yet." Katarina waves the axe in her hand. "An axe is a better weapon to fell trees than lances, or swords."

The young man stares at Katarina, his face looking like he just swallowed a fly. "Why do you always run head first into danger, Sister? There are gutter beaks around. Stay with the Spear Hero."

"Ah, no need to worry about your big sister. You are the better mage, but I'm the better fighter." Katarina waves her free hand at her younger brother before turning to him, ignoring the muffled 'debatable' Keith mumbled out under his breath. "Isn't that right, Master Motoyasu? I'm always fighting on the front lines with you."

"Well, yes." He discovers he finally found his voice again, even if it sounds more hoarse than usual. "But, maybe I should go with you..."

Katarina looks at Iris again, who still has her face buried in Tanya's shoulder. "I think you better stay with Iris. Don't worry about me, Keith is really strong. He's much stronger than me, before I joined your party and started getting all these levels."

"You are right..." He nods his head along Katarina's suggestion, although he doesn't know what he can do for Iris now. He hasn't learned any healing magic yet despite having an aptitude for it, and he can't make any healing potion like his rival...

Wait, that's it! He can buy some healing potion from his rival and help Iris.

He quickly looks around for the Shield Hero and finds Naofumi walking towards that mixed feathered garden breed filorial, Mein resting in arms.

Picking up his own pace, he walks towards Naofumi and calls out behind the Shield Hero's back. "Hey, Naofumi. You still have healing potions on you, right?"

Naofumi slowly turns around to look at him, the Shield Hero's eyelids drooping down with obvious fatigue. "...Yes?"

"I want to buy some of your potions for Iris. I have money..." He looks down at the item menu for his storage. A lot of money he has comes from Iris, it feels wrong to buy Naofumi's potion with it. But there is some money he saved up from doing the guild's quest. He takes the pouch, it feels very tiny in his hand. "...I got from completing a guild quest."

Naofumi's head cocks sideways as he looks at the tiny money pouch. The Shield Hero slowly crouches down to rest Mein on the ground again and takes some vials out of his shield. "Nevermind about money. You never got your share of potions from me. Just take them... and go treat your companion."

"Thank you!" He quickly snatches the vials from Naofumi's hand and looks for Iris and her maid. They are no longer around, and neither is her steed Yuki. And he knows where they disappeared to - Iris' private carriage resting back in the village. He quickly whistles at Kuro, the trusty black filorial trots over to him and nuzzles at his head.

"Hey, Motoyasu." Naofumi calls out from behind, and he turns to look at his rival again. "Take care of your companions."

"You bet." He jumps onto Black Lightning, and they run all the way back to the village. He flies down Kuro's back when he sees the correct carriage still resting where they left it from a night ago. Taking two steps as one, he dashes in front and starts hammering on the door.

Tanya opens the door after a short while, her normally well kept hair frazzled. "What do you want?"

He can hear some muffled scream inside the carriage, it sounds like something along the line of 'don't let him in'. Since meeting her, this is the first time he's seen or heard Iris being this distressed.

"Healing potions. I got it from the Shield Hero, it's very strong." He waves the vial in front of Tanya's face, the vibrant color seems to glitter within the glass container. He pushes the vials towards Iris' personal maid.

"Are you trying to mock my lady...? No wait, you probably don't know better." Tanya wipes the back of her hand across her eyes and then pinches the bridge of her nose. She moves closer and speaks in a hushed whisper. "My lady Iris was bleeding blue, she just got a cursed wound from that damn plant monster. Only holy water from the church or high level Miracle can help, and it'll leave scars."

"Oh." He blinks his eyes and tries to think through what Tanya just revealed to him. Didn't the same thing happen to Mein before the first Wave they fought in? "It doesn't look like Mein's wound."

"Different curse. One's from Wavespawn. This is from the foul magic of an Outsider God." Tanya squeezes her eyes shut for a few beats before opening them again. She takes the offered potion into her hand. "I'll take these... it'll be useful alongside holy water. But I think you'd better leave, Master Motoyasu. What happened isn't your fault... for I too have failed my lady. But she doesn't want to let any more people, especially you around her when she's this vulnerable."

"Right, I'll just..." The door to Iris' caravan promptly shuts in his face before he can finish. "...leave."

He turns around and starts to wander out of the village again, Kuro the Black Lightning trailing behind him from a distance. Now he's no longer focused on delivering the potion to Iris, he has a chance to witness all the destruction caused by the monster mutated from his 'miracle seed'.

Every building in Balafon is damaged. Some have massive holes in its walls or roof, others are already leaning sideways, or entirely collapsed. Large manholes that'll sink an adult elephant litters the street, or inside damaged shacks. Large sheets are covered over bodies, no doubt the lives of the men the bunny woman lost.

All of this is because of the seed he brought up. Iris wouldn't have talked about buying it from the bunny woman, and they wouldn't have anything to plant near the village. He can no longer go on with his own life, trying to deny his own involvement and pretend nothing was wrong.

Ms. Naru was trying to comfort him, but it has always been his own fault, wasn't it? He neglected Ikuyo and Momiji's feelings, he messed up with his first group of companions, and now even Iris is hurt with a cursed wound because of him getting the seed and wasn't there to protect her.

Almost exactly like what happened to Mein back before the first Wave. He doesn't even have the excuse of being the user of a useless weapon like Naofumi did.

Maybe he should leave before he hurts Katarina, or Bertia too. Fight by himself like what happened after his party left him and before he met Iris. He can at least do that with his spear.

The more he thinks about it, the more it feels like a good idea. Tanya obviously takes care of Iris much better than he himself. Katarina's brother Keith is definitely more dependable than he himself, judging how he handled the situation with the angry bunny woman. As for Bertia... well, she has Katarina looking after her, all he ever does is make Bertia worry for him anyway.

"Hey, where are you going?" He turns around and sees Naofumi riding back to Balafon with most of the knight dragon riding soldiers. His rival looks to the side at the women wearing a black pot shaped helmet. "Can you take Mein back to our wagon, Ecla- Eclea. Motoyasu looks like he needs someone watching him."

"Yes, Sir Shield Hero." The woman in the pot helmet jumps down away from a soldier she's riding together. She runs over to Naofumi, takes Mein's unconscious form away from the Shield Hero and carries her towards their wagon.

Likewise, Naofumi also slips down from his bird and walks towards him. He can't help but scoff at his rival. "Coming to gloat? I failed to protect Iris and she's now with a cursed wound like Mein."

"Huh, I didn't think about that." Naofumi's feet freezes in the air for a brief moment before resting on the ground. His rival walks over and slaps him on the shoulder. "Come and take a walk with me, you look like you need it."

He doesn't say anything more, merely nods his head and follows after his rival the Shield Hero. He was thinking about leaving anyway, and it's not like there's much an useless shield user can do to stop him... that shield prison skill thing he used back in their duel notwithstanding.

The two of them slowly walk around the ground outside the wooden wall of Balafon. Their armored boots crunching on the soft ash as grass slowly sprout and grow all around their feet. "You were thinking about leaving, weren't you?"

"All I ever do is mess up, hurt other people, and then pretend it's not my fault. Iris, Katarina and Bertia are too good for me, it's better I'm not around them." He falls down on his behind, looking at one of the sinkholes not too far away, thinking about what it's like if he simply jumps into one of them.

Naofumi stops a short distance ahead and turns around. His rival walks back and slowly sits down beside him. "Not exactly leave, per se. But before I was summoned, I had a good friend, my only real friend in high school. We tried to get into Tokyo University together. When we didn't make the cut, my friend wanted me to go to an agriculture school in Hokkaido with him. I wasn't brave enough to leave the big city... and now I keep wondering how my life would have turned out if I went with Yugo."

He doesn't say anything back to his rival, but simply listens to his rival recounting a part of his previous life.

"You messed up big time and hurt a lot of people and the one person you really cared about. Same as me. I also supported planting that damn seed, and I got Mein hurt before the first Wave." Naofumi picks up a rock and throws it into the sinkhole. "Not even Superman can be everywhere at once, and save everyone, you know?"

"Why would a super villain save people?" He turns around to look at his rival, what Naofumi just said makes no sense at all. Then, he remembered that Owlman and Batman discussion they had back on their third night in this world. "Wait, you meant Ultraman right? Cause he's the hero in my world."

"Right... Does that mean the two of us are from the mirror universes?" He shares a long look with his rival before Naofumi shakes his head. "Well, not important. I think the important thing about being a hero is not giving up, trying your best in helping everyone around you while learning from your mistakes. If you give up from the start, you'll never know the good things you might do."

"That's, That's Not TRUE!" A scream coming from the side makes both of them look towards the source. Bertia is standing a short distance away from them, panting and sweating heavily. The slightly pudgy girl's feet shuffle on the ash covered ground, looking like she wants to run into him and give him a hug. But she simply wipes at her neck with her hand, and then shakes her sweat covered hand. "You have already done plenty of good things, at least for us, Master Motoyasu. So don't talk about leaving us behind!"

"Thank you for your kind words, Bertia." He stands up on his feet, walks over to Bertia despite her effort to backpedal away from him and wraps his arms around her. She tries to flail away a couple of times before going limp in his arms. "You don't have to be nice to me. I really don't deserve it."

"But I'm not lying to you, Master Motoyasu. You don't mind me being ugly and encourage him to be confident with Lady Katarina. You do your best to take care of Lady Katarina, even if she doesn't act like a proper 'Melromarc Lady'. And you let Iris run her family business even when she's in your party, not forcing her to be a 'proper wife' like some of the heroes I read about. And you saved the life of Iris, and Master Shield Hero's companions when you hold up that large whipping vine together with Master Shield Hero!" He can feel Bertia's arm wrapping around him. "So don't ever talk about leaving us behind! You'll hurt all of us, more than any cursed wound does."

"Sounds to me like you have nothing to be envious about Mein being in my party now." He can hear the ruffling and patting sound, indicating his rival also got up from where he was sitting. "Take care of your companions."

Why did he ever think Naofumi was a bad person before? Because of that one mistake when he got Mein scarred? If Naofumi wasn't here to stop him, he would have made things worse and leave Iris, Katarina, and Bertia.

Naofumi is clearly a saint, if the man is willing to ignore all the times he's been mean, and repay it by pointing out the right actions for him. He should be someone to aspire and live up to.

"Hey, Naofumi." He rises up his head and looks at the slowly retreating back of his rival, the Shield Hero stops in his tracks and looks back at him. "You are the better hero."

Naofumi doesn't say anything. He simply stares back for a moment before nodding his head.

"But don't dare to slack off, you hear me? Because we are still rivals. And if you take it too easy... I'll overtake you and be the better hero." He balls up his fist and plants his spear into the ground. "I owe it to my companions who still believe in me after everything."

"I wouldn't have it any other way." Naofumi chuckles at him before turning around and resumes his walk back towards the village.

"We still need to do something nice for Iris to cheer her up, don't we?"

"I think I have an idea, Master Motoyasu."

End Note:

So, this more or less concludes the last hero crossover arc. Now, all three weapon heroes more or less opened their eyes to just how serious the situation they found themselves in, and they all trust Naofumi to some degree without being turned into his glorified henchmen. The summoned heroes can work together and do some actual good to this world now.

Hope it ended with a ban, and not a whimper as Motoyasu is definitely my favorite character from extended RotSH canon. I try not to have my favoritism being too blatant for my favorite character, but as everyone can see he's already much better than his canon self thanks to better companions and chaperone I stick in his party.

:P

Jokes aside, I think I already brought it up before, how I think the denial spawn from incompetence and stupidity of the three weapon heroes in canon is so ridiculously exaggerated, it comes off more as they are already psychologically traumatized than they are flat out dumb. I mean, meta-narratively it's obviously a plot contrivance for the author to make Naofumi look smarter and more heroic by comparison, which in my opinion doesn't really work. Because when everyone else are quite literally walking mental cases, all it makes me think is the main character is only smarter than blithering idiot... and he's guilty of hate crime against mentally handicapped people.

I been thinking over for a while, and I finally decided to airbrush the [plant modification] skill out of Naofumi's arsenal, same as the stats growth boost he gives to slaves and monsters. Because both skill are flat bonus with no draw back, which doesn't create any interesting story scenarios and are basically cheat abilities the author showered their husbando other people have no access of. And it really goes against the initial premise of Naofumi's advantage has equal drawback that forces him to be creative to compete with other hero which draw me into the fandom to begin with. The skill will still come into play much later in this story in a different form, but it won't be Naofumi's skill because he's not going to be the sole lord and savior of the world in this story.

The Shield Hero's strength is the ability to depends on other people, I want this idea to mean something for my story.

Guest review time.

To Longing:

Sorry about the cliffhanger.

:P

Well, Malty definitely will earn a lot of street credit from both the common people with her almost sacrificed herself to defend them, and nobility by proving she's strong enough to kill a new born demi-god.

Hope this chapter explained the literal blue blood Iris was bleeding.

To Geography Nerd:

Wow, I didn't expect an essay on the actual engineer side of industry. While I took some course in economy, and a history course with Industrial Revolution period back in university, I certainly wasn't taught the operation side of factories. So thank you very much for the information!

Although I would like to point out what I have a bit of slightly diverged opinion. Particularly this part:

Now, can you tell me, what it was, from the very beginning of industrialization and capitalism, the main goal? If you said money, well, you're right.

Obviously, this is a bit of a no brainer for us living in a world without status magic and the upper hard cap for a single person's strength is quite limited. But if we think a bit deeper, 'money' itself is nothing more than a concept us human invented to make exchange of goods easier, rather than a natural force. And I think ultimately, the purpose of exchange of goods is for either a single person, or an organization to acute power. So obviously, in our world the ability to accumulate and hold onto wealth/resources is the way to measure a person or an organization's power.

Which isn't entirely true for the world of RotSH, where a single person can basically mop the floor with an entire platoon if not an entire army if their level difference is large enough. So I would argue while wealth and resources is obviously still important in this world especially for a large organization (aka a nation) because of logistic reason, the main method to acute power would not be through money, but the actual power an individual can gain through leveling up and buffing their stats, acquiring stronger skills...etc. Obviously, money and resources is still important to actually sustain a high level combatant, since they would basically be starved or bleed to death if the logistic part of a nation's operation fails.

I think this might be a reason why the world in RotSH isn't having a race in progressing their technology level as a whole. Because too much of the population is focused more on self betterment, rather than building towards a stronger society. And yes, I agree with you that it makes more sense the overall Industrial Revolution in this world is at early stage. So thank you very much for helping me make up my mind!

To HeshGerlan:

Ah, the Total War series... or as I call them the Total Whore series with how much content are curved out of the main into DLC for each title. Seriously, the wood elf faction exist in Total War Warhammer, but Creative Assembly has to charge you money to play as the faction yourself.

:P

My distaste towards awful monetization aside, it's definitely a pretty fun game series.

Actually, I would like to point out 'Technomancy' is not invented by myself, not even on this site. As I took the name from fellow author oniforever's story [Come Together]. I actually included a little detail that's a nod to her story. Definitely recommend it, if you are interested in reading a good Voldemort story set in a Harry Potter/MCU AU setting.

:)

The idea of the Life Root AKA Super BioPlant in my story essentially animate corpse into zombie like creatures with its vine roots is actually inspired by Thorian Creeper from Mass Effect. And yeah, someone definitely has to explain to Naofumi later on why Malty can't just use her [Mana Burn] aka Thanos snap on everything else, now she essentially killed a newborn demi-god with it.