The air was filled with the sound of thousands of insect wings and the monstrous wasp-like bugs, each one the size of a large cat swarmed around their nest. According to the people in the nearby village, the nest was damaged during the Wave, and because if it the monsters had started to rampage.

The people were used to having to deal with two or three of the bugs venturing into their lands from time to time, but they were powerless against the hundreds that came and went day after day. This had to stop, and it had to stop now.

The creatures grew even more adjugated as they noticed Shirou's approach. They gathered together more densely as they prepared to attack the intruder.

Regardless their numbers, Shirou wasn't worried. "Alright let's try this again." Shirou said, lifting Jian up high and taking a deep breath. "I am the Bone of my Sword. Steel is my Body and Fire is my Blood." Shirou spoke out the opening lines of his mantra as he opened up his magic circuits, pouring out his Od and mixing it with his SP. "[One Hundred Swords]." With Shirou's words, a hundred swords, each identical to Jian's base form appeared in the air around him, each poised to attack.

While it was an impressive sight, there were only one hundred swords. Not nearly enough considering the number of targets. Shirou needed more.

"[One Thousand Swords]." The skill was advanced to the next level. The weapons glowed bright, before each spilt into ten copies. Increasing the fire power tenfold. Still, Shirou was not satisfied. Jian's base form was not strong enough to insure a kill. "[Sword Change]."

The summoned blades shimmered as the standard form of the Legendary Holy Sword was replaced with various other blades that Jian had copied. Increasing the power of each individual sword. The bug army had finished gathering and begun flying straight towards Shirou, prepared to defend their hive to the last man.

"Fire." Shirou said in an almost casual manner.

The thousand blades flew into the swarm of bugs, ripping through them by the dozens, causing bits and pieces to fly out in all directions. The wave of bugs was shredded in an instant, however, it wasn't over yet. The blades continued on into the monster nest, damaging it even further.

Out of the nest came a screech of rage, followed by a loud tearing sounds as something pushed itself out of the middle of the hive. The Queen Bee was roughly the size of a school bus. While it did have wings, its massive body made it impossible for the thing to actually fly. Instead it sort-of bounced along the ground as it tried to rush towards Shirou, perhaps in a mad attempt to avenge its fallen.

Shirou gathered still more of his Od and SP mixture and prepared another attack. "[Air Strike Slash]." The energy solidified into a sharpened blade of air which Shirou then used to slice the giant creature in two.

The battle, if one could call it that, was over in just thirty seconds.

Shirou breathed deeply as he glanced at his status page and saw that he had just depleted 90% of his SP. "Well, at least I am still capable of standing up." He said as he looked around at the mess he made. "I guess I should get to work on cleaning all this up. Leaving corpses lying around might just attract even more trouble."

"Gueee!" Firo chimed in as she started to eat the nearest bug.

"Hey! Stop that! Those might be poisonous! I'll give you cooked food if you need it!"Shirou shouted at Firo, pulling more meat out of Jian's subspace and giving it to the bird. "Honestly, how much are you planning on eating?"

"Gueee?" Firo only tilted her head at Shirou's question before grabbing the meat from him. She had already eaten all the seed paste he had bought for her and all the rations he had bought in town for himself within 2 hours of having hatched, and she was still constantly hungry. She was now working through a fair chunk of the food that Shirou made with Jian's autocook functions.

In her twelve hours of life, she had eaten nearly 1800 pounds of food and grown over six and a half feet. Her original red feathers had turned a mixture of soft pink and white, and her neck had stretched outwards like the older members of her breed. Shirou had heard that monsters grew as their level increased, but he wasn't prepared for just how fast Firo was growing, or how much food it would take to support such a rate of growth.

With that last fight, Firo was now a level 18. Just a few more and a little bit of time for her growth to catch up, and she would be fully matured… It hadn't even been a single day yet.

"That tastes better, now doesn't it?" Shirou said getting a nodded of agreement from the still young Filolial. "Well, if you help me gather the monster bodies together, I can turn them into more meat like that. So, what do you say, you want to help?"

"Guee!" Firo called out before rushing towards the bodies, quickly throwing them together into a pile. Smiling, Shirou got to work himself, absorbing everything he could into Jian's crystal, all the while admiring his work.

As he leveled up, his quantity of Od was steadily increasing. However, he had nothing he could actually use it on. He only was really good with three spells and none of them were of much use to him now.

There wasn't anything that he needed to use Structural Analysis on, because Jian would just tell him the name and properties of any object he looked at without him having to cast a spell himself. He couldn't reinforce a Divine Construct like Jian. The weaknesses in her forms weren't caused by any holes in their existence, but by the nature of the seals. Also, even as he grew levels, his physical body didn't seem to change. However the power of these stats worked, it didn't have any effect on Shirou's muscles at all, and as such it worked entirely separately from Shirou's reinforcements. This meant that the amount Shirou could increase his strength with reinforcement magecraft wasn't increasing as he grew more levels. Then there was Jian constantly shocking him into submission if he tried to make use of his traces.

He realized that while his total magical energy was increasing, he had nothing he could spend that power on. That was when he had the idea to try to use his increased Od to supplement the cost of his [skills].

The abilities offered by mastering Jian's various forms were useful and could take the place of even some of the skills that Shirou had lost because of their partnership, however they were costly. Using [One Hundred Swords] and [Sword Change] in conjunction already nearly cost more SP than Shirou had at the moment. But by mixing his Od in with the SP, he managed to make his limited supply go farther than before, though it was the case that his Od recharged at a much slower rate than his SP did.

What Shirou hadn't expected was that mixing in his Od seemed to have made some of the skills more powerful than before. He couldn't explain why, it just did. His Air Strike Slash became much larger and sharper than before. Where it hardly had any bite to it at all and could best be described as a stunning blow like skill before, after mixing in his Od, it could cut down most of the monsters he had seen with relative ease.

The [One Hundred Swords] series of attacks seemed to be earned by gaining a large number of forms for the Legendary Weapon to use. Unlocking [One Thousand Swords] was probably supposed to be something that took a considerable amount of time. However, Shirou had already copied 3217 different swords from his Unlimited Blade Works into Jian's own archive, and there was another 79 forms from just random junk he found with monsters or from plants or rocks on the side of the road.

It was an effective way to kill a large number of weak enemies in an instant, but it wasn't any use at all against stronger targets. Each blade produced by [One Hundred Swords] only had around a tenth of the power of the original, and just bounced harmlessly off of higher-level monsters. It also cost a high amount of SP, making it not viable for prolonged battles when Shirou might be required to use it more than once.

As Shirou continued to absorb his kills, he heard a large crash behind him and saw [+122 EXP] in the corner of his vision. He turned his head to see Firo effortlessly tossing the remains of one of those large black dog creatures that was as big as she was onto the growing mound of bodies waiting to be absorbed. The thing had basically been snapped in two and there was a large imprint of the Filolial's foot in the monster's side. It had been killed in a single blow.

Shirou could only chuckle nervously at the reminder of Firo's incredible physical strength. Without his reinforcements, she would easily over power him. All of her stats had passed him by, even if he was still 5 levels over her.

These black dog creatures were everywhere throughout area. Shirou had been told by one of the villagers that they came from the Wave. It took a long time for the knights to kill the 'Wave Boss' and apparently, until the Wave Boss is killed, the monsters just keep pouring out. Things probably wouldn't have been as bad as they were if it wasn't for racism causing people to make bad decisions.

You see, when the Wave happened, it opened up over land mainly occupied by Demihumans, and rather than rushing in and dealing with the problem as quickly as possible, the knights decided to sit back and watch for a bit as the Demihuman towns and villages were destroyed. By the time the army actually got involved, things had already grown completely out of hand, and this got worse once night fell. It took twenty whole hours to subjugate the Wave Boss. By that time, tens of thousands of these black dogs had escaped from the distortion and spread throughout the surrounding lands. The Adventurer's Guild was apparently expending all of its personal trying to keep up with the subjugation jobs for them all.

Saber would have been furious with these so-called Defenders of the Kingdom, not just for willing letting their own citizens die, but for actually waiting and letting the enemy get a foot hold before they engaged. One does not wait for the enemy in a war. To do so is the pinnacle of stupidity. Every last one of the knights would have been stripped of their rank and title, forced to help pay for the damages the kingdom sustained because of their foolishness, and publicly whipped, at the very least, if Saber had been in charge. But for some reason, no punishment was dealt out. The Kingdom failed its people, and Shirou's opinion of the country plummeted.

Shirou was glad that the Hourglass would be teleporting him to the danger zone during every Wave. It would mean he could handle things quickly and prevent a repeat of this from ever happening again.

"I've taken care of the monsters' hive and killed all the ones I found. You shouldn't be seeing them around anymore." Shirou reported to the village head when he returned from purging the monster nest.

"You actually managed to do it?" The man said in awe. "When you left… I mean… we had hoped but there were so many that… Thank you. Thank you." He was starting to break down from relief. He reached into his jacket and pulled out a sack of coins. "The other villages and I were trying to gather money in order to commission help from the Adventurers' Guild. Please, take it."

He pushed the noticeably light leather bag into Shirou's hand before he could say anything. Jian informed him that the bag contained exactly 13 silver and 20 copper coins. About the cost of a week's stay at an inn in the capital for a single person. They were planning to commission a group of adventurers with this? "Is this all the money your village could manage to pull together?" Shirou asked the man.

The village head shifted around a bit nervously. "If it is for you, I'm sure I could manage to find something more…"

"That isn't what I meant." Shirou shook his head and held the bag out for the man to take. "Your homes and crops have all been damaged, so you are heading into rough times. You all need this money more than I do. In times like these, a mercenary can find work just about anywhere. I won't starve after doing just one free job."

The village head just dumbly stared at Shirou as the 'mercenary' turned down their money. Shirou ended up having to push the bag back into the man's hands rather forcefully. "You've given us food, medicine, and warm skins, and you risked your life to save us from the monsters. Do you truly want nothing in return?"

"If you want to repay me, do it by helping to get these people get back onto their feet. Maybe I'll comeback a few years down the line after you have had a chance to recover and then you can thank me." Shirou said with a kind smile. He was likely never to return to this village.

"…Thank you, Shirou-sama. You truly are a Saint." The man said, bowing his head to Shirou. Shirou smiled, but he also felt guilty. The materials and help that the man was thanking him for had cost him nothing at all, and he had the resources to do much more for them. The problem was that with the amount he had done, there would already almost certainly be rumors about what he had done. They were already surprised by just how much stuff Shirou had managed to pull out of his backpack. If he did anymore, he would break the suspension of disbelief for them. He had already come back to the village with a full pack after emptying it once, claiming he had filled it with thing he had gathered from the monsters. Perhaps he could just leave some money with them as he left. There was no way they would accept it, but they couldn't return it if he was already gone. "Are you sure there is nothing that we can give you?"

"I suppose a roof for the night would be appreciated. Roads been dangerous at night recently." Shirou said.

"Ah… a room. With the refugees who lost their homes during the Wave, we are rather packed. Most of the beds are taken by the recovering sick and injured, and those that aren't are four or five to a bed, but I am sure we can find someone who would give their room for you." The man said awkwardly. The difficulties of kind men in bad times. They want to help everyone and spread themselves too thin until they had nothing left to give. He didn't openly say so, but Shirou guessed that he had already given up his room to those who needed it more.

"That's not necessary. Just a spot in the barn will do." Shirou assured the man.

"Are… are you sure?" The village head asked him.

"Yes, I'm sure." Shirou said as he reached up and patted Firo on her long neck. Firo cooed affectionately at the attention. That very sketchy man from the capital had been right about Filolial's becoming attached to whoever hatched them. "My friend here had been going through a bit of a growth spurt and needs to eat at all kinds of strange hours. I'll need to be close to her tonight to make sure she doesn't get into trouble during midnight hunts."

"Is that so? I'll admit, she does look a lot bigger than she did when you first came in this morning." The village head said, looking Firo up and down. "You are free to use the barn if that is what you really want, but is there really nothing else you need?"

"Well… can I borrow your kitchen?"

"So Delicious!" The group of twelve individuals who had been squeezed around the village head's dining room table.

Five of these individuals consisted of the village head himself, his wife, and three kids, the rest appeared to be orphans from the neighing villages who had lost their homes due to the Wave. Of these there were three human children, two boys and a girl, as well as four Demihuman children. A boy who had wings instead of arms and the legs of a bird, and three girls, one with cat ears and a tail, one with gorilla like features, and the last having the ears and tail of a fox. Of these children, the fox girl appeared to be the oldest, at around fifteen. Though Shirou had no way of knowing if this was from natural aging or leveling.

It seems that the villages in the area had all had an agreement before the Wave even happened that if something happened to one of the villages, the others would take in any of the survivors. It was only meant for things like bandit raids or small monster attacks. Things that would only take out one or two villages, afterwards the population of that one village would be absorbed by the other fifteen that were part of the agreement. However, rather than just one or two villages being destroyed, eight of them were, and one backed out of helping its neighbors out of fear of being too overburdened to survive. As a result, the number of refugees in the village was nearly half the size of the village's original population. They couldn't support this many people for long, but they didn't have the heart to turn anyone away. Not yet anyways.

Once starvation comes, the good will might dry up. Shirou could only hope it wouldn't turn to violence and that the governing body of the area will have found a way for the survivors to rebuild.

All twelve of the villagers were digging into the food that Shirou had prepared, quite literally, as there hadn't been enough kitchen wear to go around. Not that the Demihumans seemed to mind doing things a little primal. According to them it was a cultural thing. Since some of the Demihuman subraces lacked dexterous fingers or any fingers at all, there wasn't a negative stigma surrounding eating by shoving their faces in it inside of their own communities.

"This is the best thing I've ever tasted in my whole life!" The cat girl said, her tail wagging happily as her eyes seemed to water with tears of joy.

"You're overreacting. It's just grilled meat with a few wild herbs. Nothing special."Shirou chuckled as he cut a piece of his own portion to eat, hoping no one would notice the jewel in the knife he had to use. Perhaps he should have just used his bare hands like this Demihuman children had.

As he brought the food towards his mouth, he saw a small window open up.

[Grilled Monster Meat with Herbs – Quality: Extraordinarily High Quality]

Shirou only rolled his eyes in response. Honestly, it wasn't that good. Not compared to some of the things he, Sakura and Rin had made back in his home world.

Memories of the three of them playfully fighting over the kitchen came to Shirou along with a sense of longing. The mechanical actions of eating slowed down to a halt, as a deep sense of loneliness pressed down on him. It was going to be months, if not years before he saw them again, the people who meant more to him than the world. He was in a room so full of people that it was cramped, yet he felt so completely isolated.

"Shirou-sama, is something the matter? You aren't eating." The fox girl asked Shirou.

"It's nothing. I used to cook like this all the time. Guess it made me feel a little homesick." Shirou said. He lacked the energy to even attempt to fake a smile. He had lost his appetite and just stared blankly down at the food. It all seemed so pointless.

He was just play acting the part of the hero. He hadn't saved these people. The moment he step out of their lives the troubles with food and monsters would return. Sooner or later, food would become scarce, and they villagers and refugees would turn on one and other. He had accomplished nothing.

"Home…" One of the orphan children said sadly, the cheerful expression they had while eating dissolving away in an instant. Hearing it, the other orphans also shifted uncomfortably.

Shirou winced, realizing his mistake. "Sorry. That was insensitive of me. I shouldn't have said anything." Shirou said, the feeling of loneliness being replaced by a feeling of shame, not only about what he had said, but why he had said it.

He had let his guard down and the Sword of Sloth took the opportunity to dig into him. He couldn't allow himself to fall to despair. The only way for him to get home was to keep moving.

The fox girl shook her head. "It's alright. You didn't mean to." She said, trying to force a smile. "If you don't mind me asking, where is Shirou-sama from?"

"I'm from Q'ten Lo in the far East." Shirou lied easily. It had been the story he had decided on. "I grew up in a rice farming village with my father. The man was a retired mercenary, and after he died, I picked up the lifestyle. I'm sure he would be rolling over in his grave if he knew."

"Why's that?" The child asked him confused.

"…Take my advice. No matter what you think of me, never try to become a mercenary. It isn't a good life. My father died with a lot of regrets. And now, I can only hope that I don't end up the same way." Shirou said, glancing around the table. "As a kid, I thought my father was a hero. I only found out later in life just how wrong I was."Shirou got up from the table, though his food was still not yet finished. "I'm going to go and try to get some rest. I need to regain my strength from today's fighting. Please, excuse me."

He took what was left of his meal and left, heading towards barn where Firo was already starting to cry for attention. The bird was more than happy to gulp down all of Shirou's left overs, and cried actual tears of joy while doing so. "I hope you don't expect to eat like this all the time. With the amount you eat I wouldn't have time to be constantly cooking for you." Shirou teased as he lay down in the straw. Firo whined a little, but quickly laid down next to Shirou, pushing herself up against him. He felt like he was being backed in her body heat. "Well, guess I won't be needing any blankets." Shirou said as he pat the Filolial's neck.

He was just about to fall asleep when an increasingly familiar message popped up.

Weapon Copy

The Legendary Weapons can copy weapons of the same category for the hero's use, so long as they meet level requirements.

"Great, I'm living with two bottomless pits."

Some people have stated that they want to see what Shirou will do when he sees the slaves. The answer is simply die of guilt.

He isn't the same naive guy he was at the beginning of the war. He knows that you can't just try to blindly save people without thinking because you might end up causing more harm than good. Freed slaves still have nothing to their names and are at the bottom of society, likely to just end up becoming slaves again.

Same goes for Naofumi's situations. As much as Shirou might feel for the guy and want to help him, openly calling out the King and the Church could end up causing a lot of problems. Problems that they don't have time to deal with and that might spill over into dealing with the Wave, or might even cause a war.

While he is willing to take risks and endanger himself, he won't act quickly out of fear of endangering others.