Chapter 14: Big changes in Siltvelt
It had only been a few hours since the end of Siltvelts wave. Bakugou's team had been helping around, cleaning up and repairing anything at the nearby towns that were affected by the wave. After the sun fell, the town of the large quarry celebrate with Bakugou's team, though unlike other people, this wasn't over blind religous worship but for genuine thankfulness and respect for the shield hero, which Bakugou could get behind.
The rest of his team was also enjoying themselves with the food and games, but Daven still thought something felt off, not with the party or townspeople, but some force watching them. It made him uneasy and he kept himself cautious. Bakugou could see it in his eyes as well and he kept his eyes open as well despite not knowing what Daven sees or feels.
Eventually, the party ended near midnight and the town was ready to head to their beds for the night. The town's lord said his final goodbyes to the shield hero with his dragon on his shoulder before he headed back to his estate to sleep, "Thank you again for everything you have done for us Lord Bakugou. We will continue our prayers and hope the best for you and your team in the future."
"Whatever just keep your heads cool and treat each other well. Including the humans." Bakugou responds in his own typical Bakugou way.
The Lord nods back and heads for his house.
Bakugou goes to look for his team, he remembers them being near the outskirts of the town by the woods where they played games and whatnot with some of the children. He first encounters Daven after he appears next to him from his magic, "Mr. Bakugou, I recommend we head out soon, I can't say for sure what it is but I have a feeling that something bad is going to happen soon."
It seemed weird to say when everything seemed fine in this normal town after a big celebration, but Bakugou wasn't going to go against his new scout and nods, "I'm having similar thoughts, where is the rest of the team?"
"I told them of a meeting spot to wait at for you. I recommend we head our way to there now, and once we're together let's just fly out as soon as possible."
"Agreed"
After walking toward an open field near the woods Bakugou soon enough sees Melty, Rino, and Neia standing by at some trees waiting for them.
"Oh, there is sir Bakugou," Neia points out as the three girls run off toward Bakugou as soon as they see him and Daven.
Bakugou himself continues his walk toward them, but Daven finally paused as soon as he finally picked up something through his dark magic, and senses a hostile force just away in some trees. He felt this energy before. It was one of a snake, a very large snake, and it wasn't a stray gorgon, it was something of this world.
And just a second after that, he sense's that it was about to attack.
"To your right!" he finally shouted.
Bakugou heard that and immediately as he looks right, a large green arrow was shot out toward him.
Bakugou quickly in time blocks it with his shield. As the arrow bounces off to the ground, he quickly noticed the arrowhead had venom on it, as it drips and kills all the grass it touches.
Everyone looked confused as to what did that was, and when they turn toward the direction of the venom arrow, they saw a large Snake Cobra demi-human who was lacking legs but he had arms holding onto a bow with numerous arrows on his back that were coated in his venom.
Bakugou was ready to attack the assassin, but then the earth started to shake, and suddenly a giant rock wall forms in between the groups splitting them off.
Bakugou and Daven looked toward the right to see a large Badger demi-human with his hands in the ground using his earth magic to control the earth as the powerful digger grins toward the two.
Bakugou, Daven, and Kirishima ready themselves to attack, "So who the fuck are you!?" Bakugou demands.
The Badger man just grinned greater, "We're your guide to the afterlife, hero. And someone was generous enough to pay for your toll.."
"KIRISHIMA SICK ON HIM!" Bakugou shouts to his dragon and he quickly jumps off and instantly transforms into his adult form to attack.
But the Badger man showed no fear as he used his magic to sink into the ground just before Kirishima could take a bite out of him.
The ground began to shake again and the earth begins to move around like crazy, with pillars and rock formations rising all over dividing the area more as rock walls surround the cardinal hero and his scout.
Kirishima looks around himself to find and eat his target, but not far he noticed a gathering of giant boulders clumping together, he then heard laughing from the rising clump, "Hahahaha, your little master will be dead soon. But I'll be glad to do the same for you."
The mass of boulders eventually formed up into resembling a body and head, the Badger man created himself a giant rock monster with him as its central power source as it came to life.
But the young dragon showed no fear of the thing and pounced on it. The giant rock golem and Kirishima began their fight to the death. Despite Kirishima's strength the assassin's rock body was resilient and kept repairing itself anytime Kirishima rips an arm off or blasts its chest with fire. The dragon was forced to focus and fight this Badger man's golems body which was exactly what he wanted.
While that was going on, Neia, Melty, and Rino from the other side of the rock wall was hearing all the commotion knowing Bakugou, Kirishima, and Daven were in trouble. Rino had one hand on the wall attempting to move it with her earth magic but it was doing no good.
"Come on Rino, we have to help them!" Melty shouts toward her.
"I'm trying! But I only have a minor skill in earth magic and whoever is controlling the earth is far stronger in it than me." Rino shouts at them as she tries her best to at least let them get through or destroy the rock wall.
But as Rino continues to struggle, Neia saw a ball of fire heading their way, "Everyone look out!"
The three girls quickly jump out the way as the ball of fire blows a large explosion mark on the large rock wall.
The three wondered what that was, but that got quickly answered when they look up to see two female Shusaku demi-humans up on the trees behind them, along with their bird-like clawed feet, one of the half bird-woman had Red hair and orange feathers on her wings, and the other had dark blue hair and light white-feathers, and despite the opposing colors, the two girls looked alike like they were twins.
The two bird demi-human women look downward to laugh at the three, "Well well Snow, looks like the foxes vixens are trying to interfere in the hunt." Says the red one.
"I agree Blaze, why don't we torch them and afterward freeze their remains for dinner tomorrow. It's been a while since I had frozen monkey." says the blue one, with the red one smiling in agreement.
The three girls got themselves back up and were in battle-ready positions, "Who are you people and what have you done with Sir Bakugou and the others!?" Neia demands from the twin bird demi-human assassins who continued to laugh.
"The names are Blaze and Snow, and we are here to help guide the shield hero to the afterlife. So why don't you three stay out of the way and we won't have to kill you as well." Snow answers and threatens the sidekicks.
The three were unsure who these assassins or who they even were but they weren't going to stand there, the three were ready to attack the elemental bird sisters.
Blaze then looks toward her sister, "Sister it looks like these pests aren't going anywhere."
Snow responds with, "I can see sister. Looks like we are going to have to kill the pests then."
The twin bird demi-human assassins then jump up in the air and the two started attacking the three sidekicks.
Blaze was creating fire cyclones and balls across the area to contain the three. Then she focused her attention at Rino as the mage girl throws her share of magic energy attacks back at her flying target.
Snow rained down icicle attacks as she also creates blizzard-like winds to freeze her opponents as she focused on Neia and Melty as the princess used her water magic to counter her ice and Neia allowed her to get on her back as she uses her agility to dodge both the ice and fire.
Back with Bakugou and Daven, the ground continued to shake and transform the landscape as the two attempt to stay up as they jump and dodge all over from rock spike pillars attempting to smash the heroes.
The ensuing chaos forced the two to separate, as Bakugou is isolated from any help.
Eventually, the earth started to stabilize as Bakugou looks around to see that he was surrounded on all sides by the earth walls. Bakugou didn't have a clue what this was about, but he had enough of this and was ready to kill the assassins.
But as Bakugou attempts to blast himself out of the giant hole, he was forced to block a barrage of venom arrows. Forcing him back to the ground.
Bakugou looks back up toward the top of the hole and saw that Cobra archer again and right next to him was what looked like a large muscular hedgehog demi-human, but his spike quills were all covered in sharp metal along with his razor-sharp claws.
The Cobra while grinning finally spoke, "Hello shield hero, I hoped you enjoyed Sir Hincks little display before you move on to the afterlife."
"Like I'm scared of you assholes!? Why don't you come fight me like a man!" Bakugou taunts but the Cobra man just laughed.
"No thank you, we're not men and I'm fine where I'm at, but Sir Verciess would like to play." The Cobra man responds as he nods toward the bladed hedgehog beastman who nods back grinning.
He quickly curled himself into a ball and spins like a wheel in place from his wind magic until he launches himself into the hole with high speed.
The hedgehog spins his way toward Bakugou forcing the hero to jump out of the way of the razor-sharp ball going at high speeds like a car on a highway. The razor ball continued to jump and dash all over the hole as Bakugou attempts to blast it.
The razor ball then jumped right at Bakugou, forcing the hero to raise his shield up to block the spinning hedgehog as heat sparks fly all around from the metal quills as Bakugou struggles to hold the assassin back, forcing him to use both arms on the shield to hold it out.
The hedgehog assassin finally stops himself as his metal quills start to get red hot and jumped out of the way. But as he uncurls his ball form the assassin throws some metal blades from his arms.
Bakugou blocks most of them, but a single blade barely scrapes by his arm, passing right through his defense stats, "OW! DAMN IT! You assholes got armor-piercing abilities to!?" he yells at his opponent as he stands tall above a rock and looks down to grin at his target.
The hedgehog demi-human Verciess finally taunts back saying, "Of course, did you think we scythes would be unprepared on how to kill our targets? But money is a secondary factor to me, I just want the glory of murdering a cardinal hero as I tear you limb from limb with your blood coating my hands, then stuff what's left of you as my trophy!"
"Try me edgy the hegy! You and your furry friends can shove that ferry ticket up your asses on your way to hell!" Bakugou taunts back as he readies himself.
Verciess just licks his teeth as he grows more hungry for blood. And without another word he forms into a ball again and two duke it out with each other as Bakugou and the hedgehog assassin try their best to kill one another.
And while this battle goes on the Cobra assassin looks down below the battle smiling. He takes out his bow and aims right for Bakugou's back as he was distracted by his fast-moving opponent. He was about to release his venom arrow until...
"AAAHHH!" The cobra demi-human got stabbed on the side making him miss. He turns to see an energy dagger dissolving away, and in a flash of purple he saw his bow getting cut into two. And as he turns he sees Daven sliding on the ground right next to him in a battle-ready pose gripping his sai's.
The cobra man smiles as he recognized the cat teen, "Well well well, if it isn't little black death. Its been years since we have seen each other. How goes the spy life?" he asked him calmly.
"Been mostly shitty Stan, but why are you and the Scythes doing here?" Daven asked in a less friendly tone not in the mood to be friendly with an old colleague.
Stan smiles as he slides around Daven "Somebody is paying good money for the Shield heroes head. We are merely doing what the head reaper asked of us to do. How about for old times sake, you get out of our way and maybe I can give a good word for you with the head reaper, and maybe you can join back in."
"I told you and that evil bastard already, I want to liberate this country and its people from greed and racism, not to profit as a murderer," Daven responds getting angrier with the Cobra man as he continues to move around the cat teen.
"You confuse me sometimes Daven, you act so cynical and yet so naively idealistic at the same time, thinking you can actually change things. That Siltvelts hierarchy will ever give a shit about you, your mother, or sister again. Things have been the same for over a thousand years and it will remain the same for another thousand. Face it, life is unfair for you and many of us of the low castes, we just do what we can to be above others. I'll ask you again to get out of our way and let us kill this little God already and you might be back in a job that will make you some real money?" Stan asked again sliding up high toward Daven.
But Daven just answers, "Bakugou is not a God, he's a man, a man with spirit and resolve. He's not like the rest. He doesn't give a shit about the hierarchy or what they have to say. He's above all of the councils and churches bullshit. Unlike anyone else I was forced to listen and take orders from in my life. I'm actually willing to fight for him. And I believe he can change things as a natural leader, so I will do my duty to help as his what he calls a sidekick.".
Stan was still surprised to see that was Daven's answer after allthe time he worked with him. But Stan just grins as most of his body is around Daven's, "Very well then, just to let you know, we were also tasked to take care of anyone else who tries to help him. And it looks like YOUR NEXT!" Stan quickly wraps his body around the cat teen and goes for the kill with his fangs.
Stan bites his head intending to inject as much venom through his body as possible.
But...
"Ahhh!" Stan shouts as he nearly loses an eye from a slash of a sai above his head leaving a bleeding mark next to it. He turns up to see Daven jumping and teleporting away and noticed the Daven wrapped in his coils just dissolves away into dark smoke, "Shadow clone huh? Clever of you. But you can't ever escape from my sense of SMELL!" Stan strikes again from his side barely missing Daven as he dodges out of the way as the cobra man contiunes to smash through a bunch of large rocks.
After that Daven and Stan went on to fight each other in a game of cat and mouse, as Stan was far more stronger physically, while Daven fights with his agility and stealth avoiding direct hits as much as possible.
And with that, an intense battle went on with the shield squad as they fight off the powerful assassins.
Bakugou continued to slog it out on the razor-sharp hedgehog as he tries to kill the hero through his speed and armor-piercing blades as the earth continued to move and shake around them.
Kirishima did his best to fight the rock golem as the badger earth mage inside it continued to shape the environment.
Daven kept his old acquaintances busy as he tries to kill him ignoring Bakugou as the cat scout contiunes to avoid the snake's attacks.
And back with Neia, Rino, and Melty, the three continue their fight with Blaze and Snow.
So far this fight went nowhere as the bird twins start to grow more impatient with the girls, "Dear sister this is getting tiring. How about we stop playing around and just get to killing them already." Blaze suggested
"I agree sister, we should be on our way to help kill the shield hero anyway." Snow agrees.
And with the window of a break opened up, the 3 sidekicks quickly set out a plan, "Rino if you can handle it, distract the Blaze girl and kept her on you while Melty gets away out of sight, and I'll try to take on Snow." Neia suggested with both Rino and Melty agreeing on it.
Rino then fires a magic energy attack at Blaze with the firebird easily dodging it, "I see the monkey wants to play again sister. Shall we go back and play?" Blaze commented.
"Enough playing with them sister, let's just kill them already." Snow finished and the two sisters finally attacked again.
And just as planned the sidekicks were able to get the respective bird girls to focus on just them and away from each other. Blaze goes after Rino and Snow attacks Neia while ignoring Melty after she ran away for now with Snow not caring seeing her as unimportant.
Rino continued her assualt as her energy attacks continued to hit Blazes fireballs canceling and blowing each other up. It was starting to annoy the fire assassin and she began a fire spell that creates a large cyclone around Rino heating up the area.
It was getting almost unbearable for Rino, but she held out as she continues firing back at the bird.
Blaze finally had enough and she heats her arms and quickly her back wings begin to flame up until her body was consumed with fire that wasn't burning herself. Blaze throws down a flame-throwing spell at Rino like Myne once did before with Bakugou only more powerful, but she counters back with her own stream of light energy magic. The two were now neck to neck at a magic beam struggle as they attempt to overwhelm the other.
It was painful for Rino, but this was exactly the plan, as while Blaze focused on her. Melty and Neia we're taking care of her sister.
And back with the two, Neia continued to fight off the ice birds' magic as she does something similar to Blaze but with snow and ice. She begins to power herself up and kept on throwing icicles after icicles as Neia tries to dodge or slice up the sharp ice with her swords.
"You are no match for the scythes, we will all send you to your deaths and reap the rewards." Snow mocks them as it seemed like the two were ready to give up as it appeared Neia was breathing heavily seemingly exhausted from the constant ice blocking.
Neia finally gave in and kneeled herself down looking defeated. Snow smiles as she continued to make her snow cyclone bigger and colder as she forms one more giant large icicle next to the ice assassin to kill her opponent with. But all Neia did was smile and made a small wink.
"Now time for your icey grave. As you pass on to... AHH!" Snow gloats then screams as she gets a splash of water in her face from the side, by none other than Melty as Neia signaled her and attacked while Snow didn't notice.
And the splash of water quickly froze on her from how cold she made the area as the water on her face turned into ice making it painful on her skin.
And while in pain Neia stands up and runs and quickly throws her weaker blade up toward a distracted Snow as she tries to get the ice out of her eyes. The blade goes flying until it stabbed her in the wing, finally stopping her ability to fly and Snow falls to the ground. It seemed the twins had high attack and magic power but had low defense and vitality making them glass cannons.
Despite the stab Snow attempts to get back up again and was too prideful to call for her sister for aid and while on the ground she attempts to attack Neia again as she runs toward the assassin with her Dragon tooth sword with Snow sending dozens of icicles at her. But her eyesight was still poor for Melty's attack as the icicles missed or were easily slice away.
Neia was now dangerously close to Snow, the assassin attempts to fly up again despite the pain in her wing, but before she was high enough Neia power jumps up, and with a quick slice of her dragon tooth blade she cuts through the assassin's exposed neck clean.
And just like that Snow's head falls off, with her lifeless body falling back flat on the icy ground.
While continuing her struggle with Rino, Blaze quickly sensed something wrong and she quickly looks away from Rino as she saw her sister's cold headless corpse dead on the ground, "NO! SNOW!" She screams in despair.
But while looking away Rino finally enacts her full power as she purposely held herself back in the magic beam struggle, and by going full power she overwhelms the distracted Blaze, and the magic beam blast sent her flying away into the forest as most of her feathers incinerate away.
After that, the three sidekicks knew they won't have to worry about Blaze again after taking an attack like that. This battle was now won,
After a quick exchange of health potions and a minute to rest from that, the three focus back on the rock wall, "So how are we going to do this again?" Melty asked out loud.
Rino shakes her head, "I'm not sure? My earth magic wasn't strong enough to counter this, and it's too thick for me to just blast it away." she admits.
Neia quickly looks around to see if there was anything that could help until she saw a large boulder not too far from Snow's corpse, and it gave her an idea, "Rino how about we get on that boulder and you can use your earth magic to lift us up the wall?" she suggested.
Rino saw what she was talking about and it gave her a quick smile on her face, "Yes yes that can work. Come on let's get on it quick before we are too late!" she shouts out as she, Neia, and Melty run toward it.
Once all 3 were on it Rino immediately uses her earth magic to move the boulder as they are lifted up the rock wall.
It was getting harder and harder for Rino to lift the large boulder up but thankfully they make it up the rock wall.
As they jump off the sidekicks looked around, first they see Kirishima fighting against a giant rock golem and was starting to have trouble with it, then they saw Daven constantly dodging the Cobra assassin as he tries to kill his former acquaintance, and lastly they can saw and hear explosions coming out from a large hole. They knew full well that had to be Bakugou fighting down it.
The sidekicks knew they had to act fast, "Neia Melty, help out Daven and Bakugou and I'll help Kirishima." Rino tells the two who both nod in agreement as they split up to help them out.
Back with Kirishima, he continued his fight with the Badger-demi earth mage as a giant stone golem, despite his strength Kirishima was starting to struggle and tire out from blasting apart the giant rock golem over and over as the mage inside it continued to quickly repair any damage done.
Kirishima decided to make a giant leap on top of the rock monster and intend to bite open its head up, but the rock monster quickly dodged his mouth and just as fast grabs hold of Kirishima's side as the rock arms wrap around the dragon's neck and head.
Kirishima struggled, trying all he could to get out of the stranglehold as he squirmed all over but to no avail, its grip even prevented him from properly breathing out fire.
The badger-man inside the rock monster went on to mock him, "Ha! Not so tough now are you?! Let me break this jaw, then after that, I'll snap your neck and collect your teeth from your corpse!"
While still having a tight grip on the dragon, the rock golem finally grabbed hold of both ends of Kirishima's mouth. The dragon continued to squirm trying to stop him, but it was doing no good as the rock monster starts to force apart his jaw to break it. Kirishima was starting to feel the pain as the badger-man inside continued to laugh as he was about to take down a pure-blood dragon.
But out of nowhere a large magic energy ball blasted at one of the golem's arms and destroy's it. With the one arm gone, Kirishima uses his strength to break himself out of the other arm and out of the death grip.
The golem looks around confused as its creator looks around to try to find the interferer as he repairs the arms quickly. He soon sees Rino with her spear staff out after she just saved Kirishima's life as the dragon moved way for a second and was ready to attack the rock monster again with his adoptive sister.
The badger man inside was not happy about this, "You damn bitch ruined it! I'll crush you next!", the golem then quickly raised its repaired arm up into a fist and was about to use it to smash Rino.
But Kirishima jumped in just in time as he bites into the arm. The two tugged at each other over the arm until Kirishima rips half of it off. The golem uses its other fist to punch the dragon but that gets blown to pieces by another attack from Rino.
"Stop fucking interfering!" the badger yelled from inside again, and rather than use the golem itself he uses his earth magic to manipulate the environment again around Rino forcing the earth to shift all over again with rocks and pillars appearing around her to either kill her or distract her as the rock monster focused back on the dragon. But despite the transforming environment Rino kept her footing and dodges any rocks attempting to crush her as she continued to fire her magic at the monster while Kirishima starts to bash apart the weakening rock monster.
The badger-man expels more magic on the rock monsters with its healing becoming slower and slower now struggling to keep itself up.
After she jumped away from another moving rock pillar Rino shouts to Kirishima after she noticed how much less covering was left on the head, "Kiri! Jump on the rock monster and wrap your tail around one of his arms, I'll keep destroying the right, and then rip his head off and let out all your fire in him!" she ordered.
Kirishima understood that and quickly enacted it as he jumps at the rock golem and wrapped his tail on the left arm as he was told to with the weakened Golem unable to overpower and remove it.
The tired badger man inside lets out his anger at Rino again, "You think I don't know what your doing! I'll smash you like the big shit flinger you are!", he attempts to use the last of his power to smash Rino with the freed right arm or crush her with the shifting environment.
But Rino dodges all of it and lets out more magic blasts that kept blowing away the right arm, making him powerless to stop Kirishima.
Kirishima then uses both his winged arms to rip off the weakened head with the inside of the golem completely exposed.
"No! No! No! NOOOO!" The badger man yells out inside as Kirishima breaths down fire at the interior of the rock monster as the whole thing burns from the inside out.
Quickly enough the rock golems magic disappears and collapses in of itself. They didn't see a body, but by the looks of things, the badger-man was no longer in control of the environment as the earth stopped shaking all around the battlefield.
Rino sighed in relief again as Kirishima stomps up to her to let Rino pet him, "You did good Kiri. Now let's help out Bakugou and the others." she explains to him with the dragon understanding and she and Kirishima run their way to Bakugou and the others.
A few minutes prior, while Rino and Kirishima had their fight Daven continued his struggle with Stan. He knew he was no match physically to the Cobra man, but he was at least distracting him away from Bakugou as he continued his fight with the hedgehog man.
Stan caught him off guard and strikes him in the back with his tail. Daven was hurt badly from the attack, but he still had his reflexes and dodged and teleported away from more attacks.
"Face it! This is pointless! I'm over thirty levels higher than you and have greater health." Stan taunts him, but Daven wasn't swayed by petty words as he throws more energy daggers near his head as Stan dodges them as he spits out some of his deadly venom that dissolves away some rocks.
Stan then got more aggressive again and started smashing through boulders to get to the teleporting cat.
But the aggressiveness finally paid off as Stan finally bashed his head threw a boulder into Davens chest stunning the cat-teen. The Cobra man grabs him by the throat and throws him down on the ground as he wraped his tail on Daven's neck. He now finally had Daven where he wanted him, he immediately mocks rogue "Haha Now with this nonsense done, how about I send you off to the ferry toward hel... AHHH!" But Stan gets blasted with a stream of electricity from the back giving him great pain.
It was Neia and Melty now on their way to help.
Stan was annoyed by this and began to spit his venom at the elf and princess.
He still had Daven in his coils, he thought the rogue was no trouble and wasn't paying attention to him. But unlucky for Stan, he didn't take Daven's tail into account, and with it he wraps one of his Sai's around the weapon and quickly stabs Stan on his side.
"AAAHHH!" the snake screamed and let's go of his grip on the cat-teen.
Neia was finally up to the snake man and let's out more electrical energy streams from her sword and blast them at Stan.
The Cobra man tries to resist the pain but that no longer became an option as Daven pops out from behind and stabs both his sai's in at his exposed back.
Unlike many of his team, Stan knew when he was outmatched and overwhelmed. And rather than continue on he throws off Daven from his back and slides himself away from him, Neia, and Melty.
The three pursued him until Stan slides in through a smalls narrow hole that only he could fit in.
The sidekicks were disappointed he got away, but were at least happy he was out of their hair, "Stan likes to think he is invincible, but as soon as things start to go bad for him, he always cowared's away." Daven commented as he can feel his old acquaintance mana energy disappearing away from here.
The three then hear explosions coming out from the hole again remembering Bakugou, "Quick we must help him!" Melty yells as the three runs toward Bakugou.
Down in the hole Bakugou fights off the bloodthirsty hedgehog as he spins around in his ball form and throwing many armor and defense piercing blades at the shield hero.
Bakugou tries his best to blow him up but his enemy's speed was hard to keep up with. Though he did get a few hits on him with the hedgehog having burned marks around his stomach and shoulders, in return he had given a few cuts back to Bakugou, nothing serious but it still annoyed the shield hero to no end, "How about you fight face to face like a man you coward!" Bakugou then starts to fight aggressively as opposed to defensively as the hedgehog man dodges his large blasts.
Verciess then attempts to attack from behind as he eyes the shield heroes back.
"Airstrike shield!" Bakugou shouts as an energy shield appears from behind himself stopping the assassin's attack.
Bakugou then turns to let out a double explosion breaking the energy shield and sent Verciess flying.
The hedgehog assassin was hurt, but was fast to get himself back up and leaps away as soon as Bakugou jumps at him and attempts to blow him up.
While evading, Verciess throws more knives back at him and continued to taunt Bakugou as he blocks them with his shield, "I thirst for your blood shield, open up so I can bathe in it."
"You're a sick fuck! But don't worry I'll make you bathe in your own blood!" Bakugou yells back as the two fight on and as Verciess charges himself up again in his ball form ready to make a final push into the shield heroes defenses and tear his soft flesh apart.
He launches himself out again and dashes into the hero over and over again in rapid succession.
This time though Bakugou wasn't attacking, he was saving up his sweat for something that his opponent won't expect.
After repeatedly bashing over and over again Verciess can sense that his opponent was tiring out from the repeated hits.
He dashes backward and begins to quickly accelerate in place ready to hit through the shield hero's defense and rip him to shreds.
The assassin launches himself off again like a speeding baseball.
But Bakugou smirked and shouted, "Explosion shield!", His shield transformed and Bakugou lets it take in most of the sweat he had been holding inside his gauntlets.
And once the hedgehog made contact,
Boom!
The impact blasted the assassin away smashing himself into the large rock wall. The hedgehog was now hurt badly, unlike the other attacks this one pierced through some of his back quills. Now a part of his sharped razor bladed armored back was now exposed showing his soft flesh.
Verciess was now completely pissed off from that trick with Bakugou still smirking at him. His eyes were now glowing red in blood rage. He quickly forms into a ball again despite the exposed spot he accelerated even faster than before and launches at the shield hero
But then the hedgehog gets an energy knife throw at him while in his ball form on the shoulder forcing him out of it and allowed Bakugou to blast at him again injuring him ever greater.
Bakugou turned to where the knife came from, and saw it was Neia, Melty, and Daven dropping down to help him.
Usually, he prefers to fight opponents like these solo, but he actually felt happy to see his sidekicks helping, as he grins to them. In fact, they were just what he needed to finish the bastard off.
Once they were all at the bottom, Verciess launches out even more blades at them.
"Airstrike shield!" Bakugou shouts toward them to create an energy shield to take on the blades.
Neia and Melty quickly fire their electricity and water magic at him.
The assassin then curls in a ball again and decided to kill them for interfering.
But Bakugou wasn't going to allow him to do so, as he blasts himself at the speeding killer ball and forced the assassin in place as sparks go everywhere from the blades.
"Blue use your attack on me now!" Bakugou ordered, while sounding counterintuitive it was a part of his strategy.
Neia let out an electric charge on the ground, "Electric surge!" and through the ground and guided by her magic the electricity surged toward Bakugou who hardly felt any pain from his electric resistances, however not to the hedgehog assassin who received the electricity through Bakugou and his shield.
It forced him out of his ball form again, and with the opportunity, Bakugou blasted the hedgehog once again.
The stunned fighter despite in pain tried to shake it off as his anger grew greater. He was about to attack again but,
"AHHH!" Verciess got doubled stabbed in the back on his exposed spot by Daven's double sai's after teleporting behind him.
The cat teen smirks making the assassin pissed off even more, "YOU LITTLE BASTARD!" Verciess attempted to slice and slash him but then the cat rogue teleports away again.
The assassin had about enough and his blood lust became blood rage as he activates a mode of his to make him even faster and more damage resistant than ever, "I'LL GUT ALL OF YOU!" He screams and goes into ball form again as he engages Bakugou once more intending it to be the last one. As he bashes into the shield over and over again ignoring more of the explosion, water, and electricity attacks as he tries to kill his target as he uncurls and slashes over and over like a mad tiger as Bakugou continued to hold out his defense.
He slashed and slashed over and over as it seemed endless as the blood rage continued to fuel his body as it was starting to overwhelm even the shield hero.
But despite the endless slashing Bakugou just smirks himself yet again without the mad hedgehog caring.
"DIE! DIE! DIE! DIE! DI...AAAAHHH!" Verciess screamed as a long sword pops out of his lower chest, by none other than Neia, his rage was so focused on the shield hero he forgot about her and the rest of Bakugou's team allowing the elf to take the chance to attack his exposed spot, already weakened from Daven's attack.
Neia lets all of her electric power finally subduing the mad blood rage assassin as his adrenaline dissipates from the attack, and his metal blade's were only making it worse.
With the massively injured Hedgehog exhausted and now barely able to stand up, the young sidekick removes her blade from the chest opening the window for Bakugou to end this fight once and for all.
Bakugou with great force punches his fist inside the chest hole of the stunned assassin's body making him spit out blood.
Verciess made his best effort to attempt to kill Bakugou one last time to stab Bakugou through his arms with his blade fingers, but the fingers were all cut off by another energy blade Daven threw. He tries the same thing with his other arm only for his other hand to be covered in magic water preventing it from reaching Bakugou thanks to Melty.
And with him restrained Verciess gets one last look at life, as he stares toward Bakugou in fear as he makes the shield hero smirk at him, "You want to bathe blood right you metal bastard!? Well here's some right now!".
And with his gauntlet inside his would-be assassins stomach, Bakugou twists his hand upward inside it, and with one last word from Verciess.., "noOOOOOOOOO!"
Boooom!
The top half of Verciess's entire body including his head is obliterated in a giant stream of fire and smoke.
And right after the smoke and fire cleared what was left of Verciess is just a pair of legs that fall down backward from Bakugou's bloody gauntlet. And with that done, Bakugou makes his gauntlet into a fist and raises it up in the air, "Hell yeah! Nobody messes with the number one hero and his sidekicks! Not from wave monsters and not from shitty assassins!" Bakugou boasts.
Despite the struggle, team Bakugou had defeated all the assassins.
Neia and Melty cheered for victory as they hug once again, until the two realized who they were hugging with and stopped as they looked away from one another awkwardly.
Daven just smiles at the whole thing, it's hard even for him not to feel good from this victory.
After that Bakugou looks up above the hole, "Alright you three enough celebrating tonight, let's find brown hair and Kirishima and get out of here already. I like to rest after this, especially if I have to hear more bullshit from stripes and the oligarchs."
Neia and Melty understood, as well as Daven, but then suddenly his dark magic sense was going off again. He quickly looks around to see what that was, but could not find it from his eyes or any other senses.
Until he felt something through the rock walls right by Bakugou. Daven immediately knew what that was and shouted, "Sir Bakugou watch out!"
Bakugou paused in surprise and wonder what he meant, but before he could think and react, a snake man busts through the wall next to his side. It was Stan and with a quick flash, he bites into Bakugou's right arm, unlike Arcat before he pierces right through the shield hero's defense and injects venom into his veins.
"OW! FUCK! YOU SLIPPERY BASTARD!" Bakugou shouts in pain and attempts to blow up Stan. But the snake man barely avoided his attack and retreats toward another hole.
Neia, Melty, and Daven still in shock by this event, attempt to stop Stan, but the coward had managed to get in through another hole again as he laughed to himself, "Enjoy the parting gift, heroes! Hahaha." he was now deep within the hole and out of there reach.
They didn't know where Stan disappeared off to, but they would have to think of that later as they turn back to Bakugou as he was now on his knees in deep pain as he grips his right arm.
And through their status menu's they quickly see what was happening, the venom was now in effect and was rapidly decreasing Bakugou's health.
The crew runs up toward him as Bakugou groans in pain, "Fuck goddamn it, this hurts!" he shouts through the pain was the least of his worries. Neia immediately starts using her healing magic to raise his health back up but it was barely doing much and didn't do anything against the venom's effects.
Bakugou then quickly activates his healing shield and started to pop out health, anti-venom, and anti-decay potions out of his shield, thankfully the church had literally provided thousands to him. Daven, Melty, and Bakugou himself were quick to apply them whether through drinking it or applying them on the arm itself.
They along with Neia's healing kept him alive, but they knew this wasn't enough, "Sir Bakugou we need to get you to a doctor right away and find an antidote or get the venom out of you!" Neia shouted with fear in her tone, she had never been in a situation like this where her master was in such a vulnerable position.
But despite the life-threatening venom in his veins, Bakugou continued to look strong and even though he didn't want to admit to it, even he knew she was right as the venom effects were not dissipating and he was going through health potions (and of the highest grade) fast.
Though the crew wasn't sure how they were going to do it. As the status effect will prevent Bakugou from using his fast travel ability and the nearby towns just recovered from the wave and wouldn't have the equipment or skill to handle this situation.
They weren't sure what to do now, "Sir Bakugou are you alright!?" But that fear died down when they heard a voice up on the surface of the hole and saw Rino and Kirishima in his adult form starring down from top, both disturb to be seeing Bakugou on the ground in deep pain next to a pile of empty potion bottles.
The crew was quick to act as Daven goes under Bakugou's shield shoulder and with his teleportation magic began to scale the hole from the extended wall rocks. With Neia holding on to Melty using her super jump ability to do the same until the two pairs were up the cliff.
Once on top, Kirishima without hesitation grabbed hold of his father and put him on his back.
The rest of the crew did the same and jumped on.
Kirishima quickly ran then jumped and flies off away from this area, his first instinct is to head toward Siltvelts capital figuring it to be the best place to go for anything around here.
Neia and Melty continued to heal and apply potions on him as Bakugou continued to shout in pain from the venom. With Rino being the one to hold onto Kirishima's reins to guide him. Bakugou made sure to teach both his main sidekicks on how to properly fly a dragon in case they get into situations like this where he can't do it himself, "What the hell happened here!?" Rino shouts wondering how the hell it got to this.
"Bakugou got bitten by the snake demi-human assassin, and the venom is not going away anytime soon," Neia answers as she continues to do her healing on Bakugou as she also drinks some mana potions so she can continue to use her healing magic.
Melty as she applied potions was starting to worry about this a lot more than the others, "Oh how can this be happening didn't you once say you have like a bunch of anti-poison stats from your travels Sir Bakugou!?" she expressed in fear not wanting to witness someone she knows to die in front of her.
But despite the pain and tense situation Bakugou was still active, just pissed off more than usual, "I got a lot of poison abilities blue hair princess, but not too much aganist venom. AH! GODDAMN MY ARM!" he screams from the pain again no matter how many potions are thrown at him.
"What's the difference!?" Melty loudly asked.
Daven was quick to answer knowing a bit on the subject, "Poison is something you consume and goes through your digestive system, venom is something that goes through your veins and arteries directly into your cardioarary system to kill you. As long as you don't have something exposing to your bloodstream like a sore throat you can drink pure snake venom and not die from it. Though some poisons could.."
"OH WOULD YOU FORGET THE DAMN CLASSROOM LESSON AND FIGURE OUT WHAT TO DO ABOUT THIS FUCKING VENOM IN ME!?" Bakugou yells at the two.
Daven though did have an idea, "I know of a place you can go, it's not far from the capital so we'll stay in this direction. I'll point the way and get you to help Sir Bakugou." he answered, he admittedly had other reasons of wanting to take the Shield there but he knew that it was one of the best places to save him.
Bakugou wasn't sure where he wants them to go, but he didn't care as long as they can get this venom out of him.
The pain was starting to get at him and decided to take out one potion that was unlike the others were rapidly using. It was a special sleeping potion that Bakugou was gifted a couple of them from some devoted nobleman with insomnia problems, both low grade and high grade. Bakugou quickly activates his shield to have its inventory be opened up for his sidekicks to use as he intends to get out of the pain. As he opens the bottle he informs his sidekicks, "Make sure my health doesn't get too low and don't let me die ok!? And force me to wake me if there's a serious emergency got it!?" he orders his sidekicks trusting them to keep him alive with them nodding in agreement.
Though Neia was confused on the last part, "Wake you!? how?!" she asked.
"With your damn electricity idiot! Just give me some shock therapy and I'll be up again!" he responds.
Bakugou then chugs down the sleeping potion. And just in a few seconds, Bakugou fell into a deep sleep as his sidekicks continue to do their best to make sure he'll get up again.
Down below on the ground though Stan the assassin looks up to see the dragon flying away into the distance.
Despite his fair share of injuries, Stan was still satisfied that he got the final laugh, even though he technically failed the mission and knew most likely the shield hero will recover from this, it still gave him pride that he had an encounter with a cardinal hero and survived.
Right behind him were the survivors of his group. First the badge earth-mage Hincks with half of his fur burned off with medical patches all over his 2nd and 3rd-degree burns, and Blaze who was also injured and lost a lot of feathers on her wings that were damaged from her battle with Rino as she held on to the severed head of her dead sister.
"Well so much for our big payday," Stan says out loud to his unamused comrades.
"It was a damn disaster! We 3 are lucky to be alive after that shit show!" Hincks yelled at Stan who just continued to smile as he picks something out of his pocket from his armor.
"We all knew the risks when taking on this job. We should've known succeeding was going to be a long shot with the five of us against a cardinal hero and his five lackeys." Stan informs which didn't help the badger's mood.
Blaze was especially silent still morning for her dead sister's head. After sadness all she could think about was deep hatred to the one who killed her, "Money or not! I'll kill that damn aquatic blue bitch!" she shouts and was about to fly up to attack until Stan stopped her.
"Don't waste your life when you are beaten to shit and can't even fly right now. You'll one day get your revenge, I'm sure we'll get another job to kill the hero before this wave crap ends. At least for us, we will still get paid for this job." Stan tells her as she backs down still filled with anger but went back to mourn her sister.
Though Hinck's was confused by that, "Get paid for what, nobody was killed but Snow and Verciess's, not even one of the shield lackey's died?" he questioned not in the mood for humor.
Stan finally got what he was looking for and threw it out into the field they fought at, "Thankfully according to the head reaper, the client gave us a secondary task to do when we were done or didn't succeed. Only 5% of what we were paid to kill the cardinal hero, but still pay nevertheless." he informs his comrades.
But neither Blaze nor Hincks was that excited about it, "5% of the original payment was not fucking worth this! Let's just get out of here before the Siltvelt army arrives." Hinck's finally shouts as he and the group of injured assassins move away to get back to a town to heal than to their headquarters afterward.
And the item that Stan threw at the ground was none other than a three heroes church rosary.
Far away from Siltvelt in the ruins of the capital of a long-dead civilization was the Filolial Queens sanctuary where her flock can live in peace under her protection. And with the Queen was the Cardinal Sword Hero Ren Amaki where he and his own filolial queen Scarlet had gotten there over a few hours ago.
Ren originally wanted to start asking questions but his filolial's stomach got the better of her and she wanted food immediately as was Fitoria.
Knowing he can't get much out of hungry stomachs he forced himself to make a meal for the magical bird girls.
He may not be as bad as Motoyasu but Ren wasn't a master chef either never bothering with skills that wouldn't be useful in fighting monsters. He quickly cooked something up to satisfy the girls, thankfully for Ren, the birds will eat just about anything so he dumps a bunch of ingredients in a large bowl with some spices he had in his inventory and called it a meal.
Thankfully it was enough to satisfy the two as well as a bunch of other filolials there.
After the little cookout, Scarlet fell dead asleep being tired from all the crazy stuff that has happened in the last few days.
After putting a blanket over her, Ren looks back at Fitoria who was still wide awake, and looked seriously at the sword hero.
After walking away in a more private area. The two were finally able to talk, with Ren starting the conversation first, "Ok as promised your going to answer some of my questions. First of all why are you even interested in me and Scarlet?" he asked.
Fitoria then responds as promised, "I have multiple reasons why the most important being that I'm interested in Scarlet herself. She could eventually become someone of importance to me one day."
Ren wasn't too surprised by the answer and can see what the Filolial queen was coming from though he wasn't completely satisfied yet, "Ok I can see that, but what exactly do you do as Queen? And how exactly did you get... Like this?
"I rule over all wild filolials and by a promise made long ago I protect this world. And if your referring to my human form, just like miss Scarlet I was raised by a hero allowing me to evolve and take on different forms."
Ren then asks about one of her answers, "You said you protect the world. Protect it from what?"
"The waves obviously. But while we are now on that subject let me ask you another question. Namely, why are you and the other heroes not protecting the world from the waves?"
The question however just confused Ren, "What are you talking about? That is exactly what we are doing, it was why we were summoned in the first place?"
"And yet you, the bow, and the spear hero have failed to stop a single wave since coming here." she retorted
Ren of course was quick to defend himself, "We fought two waves already and ended them, haven't you or your flock seen that?"
"From what my flock has seen, they told me you and the 2 other heroes just stumbled about while the shield hero was responsible for ending both waves."
As much he hated to admit it Ren knew she had a point, "Ok so Bakugou was the one to kill the bosses and ended both waves, but I and the others were still fighting them."
"Fighting is not the same thing as defeating them and you shouldn't depend on one hero to do all the important work for you. Even now the shield hero had just recently fought and defeated another wave in Siltvelt a few hours ago."
Ren was surprised to hear that, "Wait a minute, another wave happened recently? My menu still states another won't happen in over a month?" he confirms with a glimpse of his menu.
Fitoria just sighs in annoyance, "Sir Ren you are aware that many waves happen in many different locations? Melromarc is not the only location one happens, nor does ending one there end the others in the world? I personally and the other vassal heroes had to take care of the other waves while the 3 of you can barely handle one at a time."
Ren scratches his head to all of this, now this talk was starting to make him sound very stupid as he thought about this whole thing, "Well ok, I guess not. I just well... I just... What point are you trying to make here?"
"Why are you 4 cardinal heroes not helping and coordinating with one another. To work together and stop the waves across the world as a united force as quickly and efficiently as possible? Again from my flock during the last wave, you wasted time arguing with each other than trying to end it as fast as possible."
Ren sighs to himself, "Ok look it's a long story, but none of us are exactly on the best of terms with each other, we all hate each other as of now." Ren explains.
But that just confuses the filolial queen, "What do you mean 'not in the best of terms'? What does that even entail?" she asks.
After a few minutes, Ren explained the whole situation to how he and Scarlet got in where they are now. With Bakugou leaving to Siltvelt along with Princess Melty, resulting in King Aultcray wanting to start a major war with Ren himself refusing to get involved, then Motoyasu and Itsuki attempted to arrest and enslave him, and his plan now was to get to Melromarc's queen to somehow fix this mess.
Fitoria just sighs in annoyance to that whole thing, "I'm absolutely appalled, you cardinal heroes should all be ashamed of yourselves. Squabbling while the waves continue on their attacks. The heroes should not be fighting amongst themselves. You need to end it for the sake of the world."
Ren was shocked by the response but was also aggravated by it, "Are you serious?! Motoyasu and Itsuki tried to enslave me and Scarlet! You're expecting me to just forgive them like that?!"
"Yes. Whatever petty grievances and problems you have with each other do not matter in the grand scheme of things when the world your protecting is in grave danger."
"Look even if I wanted to make up with those two idiots, they are not going to listen to what I have to say, even when I tried to be diplomatic they remain stubborn. And I can't force them to stop and listen, they nearly killed me with their companions and an army helping them out."
"Then what about the shield hero? Surely with the two of you working together you could easily stop them and force them to listen as you knock some sense into them?"
Ren awkwardly scratches the back of his head not wanting to open old wounds from his biggest mistake, but still answers with, "That's also a long story, we're not exactly on the best terms either for completely different reasons."
"Please tell." the filolial queen requested.
Ren sighs not wanting to talk about it, but still gave in, he told Fitoria the whole story of Bakugou's sexual assault accusation and the fact that during his trial he just stood there and did nothing to help Bakugou when he understood his points and saw how unfair the trial was to him, all so he wouldn't receive the same punishments as he did.
After Ren finished explaining Fitoria lets out another sigh, "Sword hero will you please come close to me?" she requested.
Ren wasn't sure why but he wasn't going to question it, he moves up to Fitoria and lowers his body down to the child-like queen's level to hear what she had to say.
But she didn't say anything and instead she smacks Ren so hard across the face he flew away into an old stone pillar at his back causing it to crumble on him into pieces.
"OW! What the hell was that for!?" Ren yells at the queen.
"You should be ashamed of yourself. You four heroes should be sticking together and work in support of one another. The shield hero has always been ostracized and treated poorly by anti-demi-human nations. But when said fellow hero needed your help by those human supremacists, you did nothing but watch. The others I can see them being ignorant and stupid for anything, but you were aware of everything and yet you cared more about your own reputation than him or the whole world. No wonder he left you and the others behind." She scolds Ren.
As much as Ren wanted to yell at her more for the smack, he knew she was right on everything as he looks down in shame, "Yes I know. I was a piece of shit and was only thinking of my own stupid ego then what was right. If you want to you can hit me again go right ahead, I deserve it."
But Fitoria just walks up to him to say, "Hitting you again isn't going to fix anything. What needs to be done is you making up with your fellow heroes and work together again to fight the waves. And you can start with the hero you wronged the most."
"I know, but Bakugou is not the kind of guy that will take apologies. He's not going to listen to me to make up with Motoyasu and Itsuki after all the crap they've done to him and they hate Bakugou more than they hate me."
"I still don't care. Makeup with him to make up with the other two afterward or at least work together with the shield to beat the other two down into submission to force them to listen." she lectured him as Fitoria walks up closer to the kneeling hero, "I must warn you Sword Hero, if you're not going to choose to stop you and the three other heroes from fighting amongst yourselves. Then you will leave me no choice. For new heroes to be summoned into this world to fight the waves cooperatively, ... the four of you must die." Fitoria finished as she walked away.
Now Ren felt even worse than before. She was right about so many things, of the waves, the world, and how stupid he and the others were acting. But now he has to think of the nasty prospect that the four of them will be killed just so new replacement would take their places to pick up the slack.
The big question for him now is, will he be able to get the other 3 to cooperate?
Back in Siltvelt Bakugou finally wakes up from a long slumber, the last thing he remembered was him being in deep pain and laying on his dragon. Now he was on some bed in what looks to be some old hospital, with some bandages covering his right arm and his sleeping dragon in his toddler form on his lap.
As he continued to look around himself, his bed area was surrounded by drapes on his sides and in front of him were a group of individuals reading through some books. He quickly recognized those familiar faces as soon as they look back at him, "Sir Bakugou!" shouted Neia and she, Rino, and Melty all ran up to Bakugou when they see him finally awake. They quickly gave the hero a group hug.
Which of course annoyed the hero, "What the hell is with you guys and the stupid hugging?! Get off!" he yells at them.
But the three girls just laughed knowing the yelling just meant Bakugou was fine and well, which just annoyed the shield hero even more.
Bakugou then changed the subject, "So where the hell are we at? This doesn't look like the castle's hospital?" he asked his crew.
"You're in Siltvelts hospital of lost souls, Shield hero." said an unfamiliar voice.
Bakugou wondered who it was and quickly got his answer as an individual comes inside the area after pushing over the drapes to the right side of the bed.
"I see you are doing fine now Mr. Bakugou." The individual smiled, who turned out to be a female cat demi-human looking to be around her early forties wearing nursing clothing like a medical apron, gloves, a face mask, and on her left cheek was some sort of branding tattoo that was this worlds languages equivalent of the word "Heretic"."
The hospital's name raised Bakugou's eyebrow, "Hospital of lost souls huh? I hope this isn't some crazy cult group that wants to indoctrinate me." he responds.
"No this is just a charity hospital outside of the capital in the slums." said another voice that turned out to be Daven who was sitting himself on a chair next to the hospital bed.
Bakugou wasn't sure why he took him here of all places, but he didn't really care either, "Whatever as long as that damn venom is out of my system. But you don't happen to still have a sample of it do you?" he responds and asks.
After hearing that a small little girl came in from the left, she was also a cat demi-human like Daven and the nurse looking to be no more than 6 years old. She then reached into her pocket to take out a small vial that had a dark green liquid in it, "This is some of it Mr. shield hero, me and mommy got it out of your blood, your friend in the weird hat asked to keep some for herself for some weird reason, she also wanted to give some back to you too.", the tiny girl says to the shield hero with a cute little voice, but Bakugou just shrugs as he takes the vial for himself.
He takes off the cork and pours the venom into the shield which quickly unlocked: *Cobra venom shield, grants users 50% immunity to venom.*, "This will definitely be useful in the future if that cowardly bastard tries to bite me again." Bakugou says out loud as he continued to look around the building.
It was one big building with dozens of beds and sick people throughout it. Bakugou is not surprised that this was in the slums, but despite that, these people managed to cure him of the venom so he wasn't going to complain. Though it was still curious that they picked this place out of all the hospitals in Siltvelt, and he knew Daven had something to do with it.
He immediately looks back at the cat rogue, "Ok cat boy, now how about you tell me why you dragged my barely sticking together body at the time into this place. I know you have some sort of agenda around here, so you might as well tell what it is." he asked his sidekick intern.
Daven wasn't surprised that his hero leader would ask that and responds to it, "Other than getting you help from the best health professionals around, I wanted to show you what can happen to those of even high nobility, those that get screwed over by the crown and church of Siltvelt can end up as."
The answer raised Bakugou's eyebrow as well as confusing Neia, Rino, and Melty, "What are you talking about Sir Daven?" Melty asked.
The adult cat nurse walked up first wanting to address that question, "Allow me to properly introduce myself my name is Loria Serita, the curator of this hospital, its head doctor, and also the mother to this little helper of mine little Katherine, and this handsome young man right over." She points to Daven who looked somewhat embarrassed.
"Mom please not now." Daven groans with the girls giggling to themselves including his mom and little sister.
Bakugou though wasn't in the mood for that, "Ok catboy what point is your mom trying to make?"
Daven just points to his mom who nods knowing what he wants her to tell the shield hero, "Lord Shield hero, you're looking at someone who used to be a lord of a fairly large domain and town, to now being the excommunicated curator to a run-down building."
The rest of the crew especially Melty was now more curious about Daven's mom, "Excommunicated? That was something I heard the Patriarch was discussing about before. What does that entail?" Melty asked.
"If you want to know what it means, I will have to tell you my story. Though it might be a long one." Loria responds.
"Well I'm stuck in a hospital bed with a sore arm so I have nothing better to do but to stare at the ceiling, so might as well." Bakugou snarks but he was still interested in how someone who was once so politically up, had ended up near the bottom.
Daven got himself out of his chair and gave it to his mother to sit on to explain her story, "I was once a part of a small but ancient noble family. We were always a line of minor nobles compare to those ruled by the council, but my family continued to rule over a large territory and still had some influence in Siltvelt politics. Unlike the rest of Siltvelt, we had a choice of who we wanted to be, not by some outdated caste system. My early life was mostly uneventful but peaceful mostly learning the ways of governance and healing of the physical body with my magic, until eventually my father passed away and I took in the reigns to run the territory as its lord. The first few years of my new title were pretty uneventful as well, I mostly stayed out of the way of Siltvelts politics of Trinock, the council, and the church. I ruled my domain and had been lax on all things related to the caste system, the treatment of humans, and not taking everything the Patriarch says as gospel. Then things changed when one day I meet with someone at my town's church, he was a new disciple of the shield church who was also a cat demi-human like me with the name of Allen. He was handsome and a man of charisma which I hate to admit, but had bewitched me with his charms. I continued to meet up with him every week at church and went out on a few romantic nights together, until one day Allen had finally proposed to me to be his wife. And without question I accepted it. "
"Sounds like you were being stupid that day." Bakugou deciding to blurt out his mind.
"Sir Bakugou!" Neia raised her voice to her master for the rude remark.
"No no, he is right, in hindsight, I shouldn't have trusted him like that, That I allowed Allen's crazy stories as a priest's apprentice and a few fun nights together to seduce me like that to marry him. I was stupid and naive, but to tell you the truth I don't regret it, as our marriage did bless me with two beautiful kids who I would never imagine erasing them in my life." Loria continued as she went on to hug little Katherine. Even Daven decided to hug the two as well, showing they were still a happy family for the three of them.
Most of the crew thought it was cute, but Bakugou just wanted things to continue and just rolls his eyes
Melty then asked, "But what happened? Was your husband abusive or something to you?"
Daven then sat himself back down on another chair with his sister on his lap, now looking more serious and irritated to now be thinking of his father.
Loria made a big sigh and continued on with her story, "No he wasn't that kind of guy when we were still married, after a few years in our marriage his romantic charm and magic just faded away. He started to feel less happy with himself and became more entitled to have more than what he had now. As if being married to a minor lord wasn't enough for him, that his social standing was no different than it was before as a minor church disciple, he grew to be more bitter and annoyed of other people especially toward the regular and lower caste people. But despite that he never yelled nor did any truly bad to me or little Daven. The love of our marriage had mostly faded away, but things were still good for me and my son. That was until she got involved."
"Who is she?" Neia asked.
Daven quickly answered her, "She be lady Mellia, a Shusaku noblewoman, my current Step-mother."
"Step-mother? What happened?" Melty asked wanting to know what happened.
Loria started to look more saddened by the memories, but she knew the story had to be told and continued, "Mellia came to our domain one day and was there to negotiate a trade partnership with her family and Allen offered to be the negotiator, and for a few months he would spend large amounts of time with her. As the "negotiations" went on and on, I feared what was really going on but I kept myself in denial and didn't think Allen was cheating on me for a Hawk."
"Hawk? Is that some derogatory term for the bird people?" Rino asked herself.
"No Hawks refer to those of the 4 main tribes that manipulate minor lords throughout Siltvelt to steal away their lands and titles by means of seduction. Mellia herself was the fourth child to her big named Shusaku family, but due to being the fourth she wasn't going to be an inheritor of any land. So she resorted to stealing land off of a minor lord's territory for herself which father took the bait, that and the prospect of getting a higher on the social ladder to be with one of the 4 main dominate tribes." Daven answered her.
"So basically a predatory gold digger," Bakugou comments now seeing where this story was going.
Loria finally continued as she starts to look teary-eyed, "Things took a turn for the worst when one day Daven came with me visited my town's doctor after I was starting to suffer from morning sickness. And then the doctor confirmed that I was now pregnant with my second child. Me and Daven were as happy as can be to have another little miracle in our family. We rushed back to our manor to bring the good news to Allen, but when I got home there were soldiers all around the manor and when I asked what was going on, one handed me over a scroll and as I read the scroll I nearly collapsed in shocked when it basically said, "Loria, I divorce you." By Allen."
The girls were shocked to hear this, especially Neia getting upset by this, "That's horrible, on the day his second child was on its way."
"It gets worse than that." Daven chimes in as his mother continued.
"I was still in shock by the whole thing and cried my eyes out for hours with only Daven to comfort me. After that, we went to where Allen headed off to and find out why he would do such a thing and also deal with the nasty complications of divorces in nobility. I got word he was at the capital inside the shield hero cathedral. And when we made it there and barged inside the church, we found out they were in the middle of celebrating a wedding, a wedding between Allen and Mellia."
The girls gasp to themselves at the relavation.
"I was shocked and confused by the whole thing, I screamed at Allen for why he would do this to me and his family and wanted to just kill that harpy whore for setting it up. She knew full well she would get at least half of my domain from the divorce with her tribes connections and Allen's churches connections guaranteeing it. She was acting so smug about it and called me and my baby boy trash scavengers. I'm usually calm and would never do such actions normally, but my mind was so broken by the whole thing I attacked the two wanting to just kill them both. Until the guards had me arrested. Then they... then they... excommunicated me."
"Excommunicated for what?" Melty asked
"They considered me assaulting someone on hollow grounds as pure blasphemy and that I was trying to "break a marriage bond by God.", but in reality, Mellia's family just bribed the Patriarch to do it for their own gain. I was forced on the ground and without hesitation, they marked me with the heretic mark on my cheek burning it into my skin. And with me excommunicated, my word pretty much didn't matter anymore, and in the day after in the divorce proceedings the two newlyweds literally took everything I had, my titles, my manor, my domain, my money, and even my own boy, my precious little boy, all because of the mark on my face making me be seen as an abomination to all who follow the Shield hero's church. I was left with nothing, no home, no family to go back to, and no help from anybody. Just me with my lone pregnant stomach on the street set to rot away." Loria then started to cry as she forces herself to remember all of those bad memories and what they did to her family. Daven comforts her as did Neia, Rino, and Melty. Bakugou wasn't the type to comfort people but even he couldn't say anything after hearing that terrible story.
Bakugou wasn't the type to cry or look upset, but the fact such things were allowed to happen by people claiming they are doing gods work makes him sick, "So what happened after that?" he asked
"That's where I come in." Daven says as he moves forward to tell his story, "After mom's excommunication and divorce my bastard father took me away from her, acting like she was a sick animal now. One that I shouldn't be anywhere near and should forget about. But I never forgot, I will never forget how that bastard screwed her over and left her like that! And I made sure he never forget, as since then I acted as terrible of a son to him and his mistress as possible for a 10 year old and did whatever I could to piss him off. Pranks, embarrassing him in public or with officials and destroying any major possession the two held so dearly. He even started to physically discipline me for my behavior, but he can hit me in the face as much as he wanted, if he makes mom go through hell, I was determined to make his life hell as well."
"I doubt he was that tolerant of it though in the long run." Bakugou added in.
Daven signed again, "He didn't, after giving him enough hell for a few months he and that bitch Mellia had enough of me, and my father forced me off to Siltvelt's military academy where I was sent toward the spy shadow corps where all cat demi-humans are assigned to. And from there I was trained in hell, beaten and forced through nearly impossible trials just to be an adequate spy for a bunch of greedy, arrogant, and self-centered councilors, king, and Prime Minister. I began to hate them as I did my father, and Mellia, as they are nothing more than the by-product of the system those bastards set up to benefit their tribes and the corrupt church that supports them. Though a year before my graduation from my spy training, I had met up with a group that helped me to get stronger than before. The Scythe's."
The name immediately made Bakugou raised his eyebrows remembering it, "Hang on! Don't tell me that was the same group of assholes we fought last night?!
"Yes, I was once a part of them, but I quited them long ago," Daven answered without hesitation which surprised the girls hoping Daven didn't have something to do with the assassination attempt tonight, but they remained quiet allowing Daven to tell his side of the story first before jumping into conclusions.
Daven then continued, "My first confrontation with them was from one of their agents spying on me. They were after a target that my teachers knew about and were trying to get answers out of the spy trainees. They were surprised I spilled the beans on everything on their target, who was nothing more than a Genmu lord who was also a pedophile that councilor Larq was trying to cover up to protect his tribe's reputation. But the agent was impressed enough with me and my skill to recommend and recruit me. Though I think it was mostly more for the fact as a spy I would have useful information or blackmail fodder to give to the Scythes."
"And you just accepted it?" Neia interrupts and asks.
Daven contiunes, "Of course, I had no love for the damn council or the spoiled king, so I take any opportunity to skip on their damn shadow corps when I had a chance, and killing more bastard noblemen was a bonus. And after going through some of there own training and passing there painful trials I was allowed in. So for about a year after I graduated as a Siltvelt shadow corps, while I did spy work for those fat shit heads, I was also a Scythe killing off fat rich shit heads for other fat shit heads wanting them dead."
Melty then interrupted, "But didn't you say you quited? Did you have a reason why?"
"Yes, for a while I love the job getting to killing corrupt nobles, it was all fun for me. That was until I was assigned to one target. And that target made me realize I was not fighting for a group that cares about killing the corrupt, but are nothing more than paid murderers." Daven answers her.
"And who was the target?" Rino asked.
"My mother," Dave responds with everyone looking back at miss Loria.
She then spoke again, "After getting excommunicated and was left on the streets with my little girl growing inside me, I had to scavenge across the outskirts of the capital just to survive. But after some time I encountered others with a tattoo brand similar to my on the cheek. And I found out these people were just like me, a few were former nobles who got screwed over by the church, usually for criticizing or causing trouble with them, the king, or council in any way."
"I knew it," Bakugou says to himself calling the fact they use this excommunication power to silence their critics.
"We eventually found more and more like us, and we banded together as a group and took up an old abandoned military storage building and created this haven for those who were lost by the system or won't get any help. Not only for us to survive together, but to help others." Loria explains with the crew looking around and notice themselves that some of the nurses and doctors were also bearing the same tattoo on their cheeks, "Thankfully the church and council didn't do much of anything as we were branded nobody's in an old building, so as long as we were in the slums were allow to do as we please." Loria continued.
Daven then spoke up again, "This was the case, until one noble didn't like this, as he feared my mother would cause an uprising of the excommunicated and poor peasants. And when the council refused to do anything for him and knew directly killing her would make the people of the slums rebel, he decided to hire the scythe's to do it for him."
"And I'm guessing you told them to fuck off after that?" Bakugou added in.
"I didn't find out who our target was until we a 3 others were near the hospital. I finally realized my mother was the target after all this time and demanded my colleagues to just leave. But they were more focused on the money and tried to murder her."
"So what happened?" Neia asked.
"I killed them first, and after that, I hugged and cried with my mom for the first time in years. I've also meet my baby sister for the first time who was barely taking her first steps." Daven answers as he looks toward his mom and little sister who smiles back. But after turning back toward the crew he continues, "After that, I went off to kill the bastard Noble who hired us to kill her. Then when I got back to our headquarters where I was scolded by the Reaper, the head of our organization for betraying the mission and making them lose a customer. I didn't care anymore and just wanted out, and his response was to throw five members at me to kill. It was a tough as hell fight, but I eventually won out and killed all five. The reaper was impressed by the display and out of honor, he allowed me to leave with no strings attached. And after that, I spent full time working in the spy corps, where I can still kill some bastard nobles who get too ambitious for the council's sake. For years my father still gave no more damns about me, until word that shield hero had finally come to Siltvelt, and I was forced to go to castle to be a canadiate team member for a guy I never met before that is worshiped by the corrupt church And that leads us here today, the once esteemed Serita family now ostracized and forced on the streets by a corrupt church, under ruled by a corrupt Prime Minister and council, who continue to oppress the people of Siltvelt while the King just parties and drinks all day every day. And that little tale showed you that even those of highest rankings in this nation are not immune to it." Daven finished.
Everyone felt sick to their stomachs by the whole thing, how someone could be so cruel to their own family, and for the government to be so unempathic and corrupt to not only do nothing but to encourage such behavior by there own tribes made everyone feel mad inside, especially Bakugou and he knew full well it was the truth and not something Daven and his family made up, there was to much genuine hate and emotion for it all to be a lie.
Melty was the first to speak up after that, "This is unbelievable, there must be something we can do about this injustice?"
But both Daven and Loria just shake their heads down, with Loria speaking up again, "I'm afraid there is nothing we can do about it, other then to survive and live on to help others. This has been the way things worked for hundreds of years and unfortunately, it won't be changing anytime soon."
"Screw that Bullshit!" shouted a voice that shocked everyone, and it was none other than Bakugou who finally decided to force himself out of his bed, "I'm not going to let these asswipe furry oligarchs continue this garbage! I don't care what stupid stuff they give me or what stupid suck-up remarks they throw at me! I'm done tolerating their crappy rule and I'm going to kick them and their follower's asses!" he shouts loudly with the group shocked by such remarks that could get anyone else in huge trouble by saying it out loud.
"But how can you? When you are just one man? No, one human in Siltvelt?" Loria questions this craziness.
"Hey don't forget, to most of them I'm not a man at all! I'm their damn god! And as their god, I'll be punishing them for their sins!" Bakugou continues boasting with everyone wondering where Bakugou is going with this.
"Sir Bakugou are you suggesting we kill lord Trinock and the council?" Neia asked thinking that was what Bakugou was getting at.
But Bakugou shakes his head dismissing it, "That's not going to change a damn thing Blue. Bow bitch thought that was all he had to do in Tervein and remember who he almost allowed to take over." he responds with Neia remembering Qine and his group the red hand, and can't bear to think what those people would've done when they took over. Bakugou then continued, "All that is going to happen is another group of assholes from the four tribes and church replacing them and probably won't be much better, and worst-case scenario a giant ass civil war will break out which is the last thing this country needs with the damn waves happening. I'm sure catboy already knows this, since I'm sure he had plenty of opportunities to kill the bastards off."
Everyone looks back at Daven who wasn't reacting too much, but was still somewhat surprised by Bakugou's spirit, "Yes, but what are you suggesting then? Ask politely to not be bastards?" Daven remarks with Bakugou grinning.
"No they're just going to use every bullshit excuse in the book or just try to change the subject. No, I've got a better plan, an idea I was thinking of a while since I've learned enough of this country. But it won't be just me, I'm going to need all of your help, every single one of you. Together under my leadership, we're going to screw over all of those bastards including catboys father and his mistress, and force them to change this corrupt system while they're kicking and screaming. So what do all of you say!? Who's with me to change this dump of a country to something decent!?" Bakugou boasts out as he looks toward the group.
They were all shocked at first by this speech, but after taking it all in and thinking about it. Most of Bakugou's team other then Daven all collectively stood up and walk up to him, "I'm in sir Bakugou." Neia responds.
"As am I." Rino went next.
Then Melty, "This may not be my country and I might be interfering in another countries politics. But as a decent person, I can't let such injustice continue. If you can change Siltvelt for the better Shield hero Bakugou, I'll also help you."
The three girls smile as Bakugou smiles back at them as he also looks toward the Serita family.
They didn't say anything at first, but then quickly all three smiled as well. They got up with from there seats as Loria picks up her daughter then looks toward her son, "I have to say Davy, you were definitely right about the shield hero with how unorthodox he is."
Daven lightly smiles and says, "I told you he was different than the rest. He is going to actually change things mother." he then looks back toward Bakugou, "The Serita's are all in to." Daven agrees. Bakugou arrogantly smirks knowing everything is going into place for the hero.
The Serita's joined in with the group as Bakugou huddles them up for his big plan, "Ok Bakusquad, here's what we're going to do.".
After about an hour later the entire hospital came into silence as everyone looks near the front entrance to see none other than the Prime Minister himself Trinock with a group of large rhino bodyguards as he looks around very unamused. Most people moved away to the wall or hid away as the massive Tigerman stomps his way through the large hospital, "This place disgusts me, nothing here but a bunch of dirty scavengers. Polluting our country with their filth. If they were humans I would have just purged them off and then cremate their ugly corpses." he complains quietly to himself, he was only there for one purpose and he was going to find it quick to get it over with.
A doctor of the hospital finally decided to get in the way and walked in front of Trinock, "May I help you my lord?" he responds with a stern attitude not happy for the Prime Minister just coming in here like this scaring everyone.
But this began to piss off Trinock, "Get out of my way you blasphemous heretic, you are holding our God hostage in this dump heap of a slum. When he should be in the care of our best doctors." Trinock grumbles as starts to grow madder at the rabbitman.
But the excommunicated doctor wasn't backing down, "The shield hero is fine and under our care, you can't just barge in this place and scare everyone you.."
but before he could finish Trinock grabs him by the neck and lifts the doctor at his pissed off face, "I swear if you street vermin don't hand him over I'll...!"
"HEY YOU STRIPED ASS PIECE OF SHIT!" shouted a voice that Trinock immediately recognizes, and it indeed Bakugou as the shield hero stood up next to a hospital bed staring angrily at Trinock.
The Prime Minister immediately lets go of the doctor, and changes his face of anger to a more polite one as he moves his way toward the hero, "My deepest apology's lord Bakugou. We had heard what happened after the wave, and you should've been at our castle's hospital to be properly treated at, not this disgrace of a healthcare facility."
"I don't give a shit about that Stripes, right now I'm fine and well and that was all that mattered! What the hell do you even want from me?!" Bakugou shouts and demands.
Trinock quickly responds, "Well first lord Bakugou I just wanted to see how you are doing from your assassin attack after the wave. But I also wanted to show you something that might interest you." Trinock then went into his pocket to pick out something. Trinock eventually found what he needed. And out of his pocket was some sort necklace of with a symbol that looked like a sword piercing through a bow with a circle of spears around the two items.
"What the hell is that supposed to be? Bakugou asked now finding the object familiar.
Trinock quickly answers, "This is a three heroes church rosary my lord, those that are headquartered in Melromarc. Those assassins that attacked you were either part of that damned church or were paid by them to kill you. But either way, it is clear that they were attempting to claim your life."
Bakugou wasn't sure if this was another lie Trinock was making up or that it was the truth. Either way, Bakugou was ready to start his little plan, "So what are you getting at Stripes?" he asked.
Trinock was quick to give his answer, "My lord it is quite obvious that the nation of Melromarc is still trying to murder you outside of the country as mad zealots they are, those who are under the support of King Aultcray. Reports have been coming from our spies that they might be plotting a full-scale war soon. Lord Bakugou I request we act now and declare war on Melromarc with you on our side. Such injustice like this should not go unanswered."
"Sure fine I'm all for it," Bakugou responds casually.
"But my lord those demon-worshipping bastards need... Wait you're all for it?" Trinock asked genuinely surprised that the stubborn shield hero just goes with it that easily.
"Hell yes, those bastards think they can just send those assassins and get away with it. I want to burn that consort and pope along with those three other cardinal idiots. I'll also consider this confederation thing, more bodies to throw at them the better." Bakugou continued.
Trinock was still a little surprised by all of this, but at the same time was very happy that now he and the council will get exactly what they wanted. The subjugation of the demi-human world as well as War and revenge on Melromarc, "Excellent, I'm glad your onboard. We shall go to war with Melromarc for this disgrace. Though it will require some planning, especially if we want to also start the demi-human confederation. Lord Bakugou if you are up to shape in a few hours, I would like you to meet up with me and the council at fort Titan. It should already be on your shield map, where we will plot our war strategy and discuss many other things related to the war. 'Including what to do with the spoils'.
Bakugou then grins even wider, "Hell yeah, sounds perfect, I'll meet all of you there this evening." he responds
Though Trinock wanted to say one more thing as he got himself closer to Bakugou to say something quietly, "Though there is the issue with the princess in your group. She is the heir to the Melromarc throne after all, so if war starts things will get... complicated with her." Trinock spoke softly intentionally bringing that subject up to get his powerful war hostage.
"Don't worry about Princess Blue hair Stripes. She is as naive as a baby, I'll drag her along completely oblivious on our war plans, and when we get started I'll have her enslaved and we can do anything we want with her." Bakugou whispers back with Trinock loving this idea. Now the Shield hero was being someone he wants him to be, a symbol of conquest for his people and a resource to exploit.
Trinock now very happy and finally moves away from the hero as he turns toward the way out, "Perfect idea Lord Bakugou, I'll be getting the council ready and when you are ready yourself like I said before meet us at fort Titan." he finished as Trinock and his rhino guards head there way out of the building.
Once out of sight Bakugou lightly laughs to himself as his crew comes out of hiding, "Hahaha, I can't believe that idiot is falling for it. But at least step one of the plan has gone through." he then turns toward his team, "Ok you guys know what to do in step two. You guys stick together, and make sure you none of you lose this." through his shield Bakugou takes out two small potion bottles and gave one to Daven and one to Rino, "You guys can hold out on your own right? Kirishima will be with me until I deal with Stripes and the oligarchs?"
Despite the warning, the group was not going to stop now, "Don't worry Sir Bakugou we can handle ourselves." Neia reinsures.
"You better handle it, cause I won't be off saving your asses again if you do," Bakugou jokes with the crew nodding.
With the crew agreeing Miss Loria came up to Bakugou where he turns his to "Catboys mom, make sure you write down that list with as many names as you can who bear the same mark on your cheek." Bakugou asks of her.
Loria nods in agreement, "I will, but all of you need to be very careful of this. There will be grave consequences for all of you if any of them find out what you're trying to do." she warns with great concern.
But it didn't change Bakugou's confidence, "Just stick to the plans and we will get through this. In a few hours, these evil bastards will be taking a long well-deserved nap."
A few hours later, it was near the evening with the sun starting to set as Bakugou rides his flying dragon a few miles away from Siltvelts capital to fort Titan. It was a large military structure complex with many buildings inside the tall concrete walls with the largest of them in the middle. The fort is basically Siltvelts military headquarters where the entire military force command is organized and maintained, as well as where most of the big names in the military discuss and formulate plans of war. This place would be Siltvelts equivalent of the Pentagon in the U.S.A.
Kirishima lands near the large building at the center of the fort with Bakugou getting off and his dragon transforming to his toddler form again. The guards allowed him in as Bakugou walks into the building, he is immediately greeted by a Shusaku general wearing golden plated armor as he kneels to Bakugou, "Lord Shield hero it is of great honor to be seeing you in person. My name is lord Tarn at your service." he greets him.
But Bakugou just huffs, "Whatever, where is the damn Prime Minister and his council at?" he immediately demands.
The general stands back up and points down the hallway, "Trinock and the council are in the war room, discussing and strategizing on the upcoming war. Let me escort you to them".
"Just take me to the near the entrance of the room and you can screw off to whatever, I prefer to make my own entrances." Bakugou specifically requested.
"Very well, Lord Bakugou, I'll show you to the hallway of the War room, and once there you can make your appearance with them." General Tarn responds not questioning Bakugou's request.
The two walk through the large for a few minutes going past through many doors and rooms until they were at a hallway that leads to a pair of large double doors, "That way is to the war room. If you or the council require anything just come find me and we will do whatever you need help with." Tarn finishes as he left Bakugou to himself.
Bakugou walks down the hallway right next to the double doors, but before he decided to go in, he figures he should hear what Trinock and the council were discussing when he is not in their presence.
Bakugou transforms his shield into the Voice Gengar shield and listens in through the doors.
He can now hear Trinock and the council talking about their war plans, "We'll set 3 legions at the eastern border once the shield hero blows the bordering wall away with his fire magic, then once we overwhelm any resistance, we send our troops through the major cities. Before Melromarc can respond we'll already capture many resource important cities crippling their war effort."
"We'll then send two legions through the Scarvia mountains where they won't expect us coming and flak their forces."
"Then the northern legions will invade from the coastlines and cut their sea trade off."
"Once we take the cities though we'll need to start applying the slave crests on the monkeys and ship as many out as possible, the eastern provinces are in desperate need of more laborers."
"If I have to suggest something, we should make all the soldiers who were once from the nations we take over with the confederation into the front line soldiers so when they all die off there won't be anymore who will try to rebel and start a little revolution in whatever backward state they were originally part of. All that will be left after our war will be the loyal soldiers of Siltvelt."
"Ha, brilliant idea Trinock. Though my biggest concern now is the other cardinal heroes screwing anything up."
"We have nothing to worry about. The sword hero has gone missing and the shield hero had already kicked the asses of both the bow hero and the spear hero before. You saw it yourself from that crystal ball of the shields and spears fight and what happened in that backward state Tervein.
"Good point, haha, and to think that human brat will be the one bring down that human pigsty of a country. Once we destroy them and burn Mirella and Aultcray on the stakes, there won't be anyone else to stop us from becoming the world's dominant power, and after these waves stop we can look at our sights toward Zeltoble and any other minor human nation after that.
"And if we don't end up doing anything with that Princess Brat we can send her off to her uncle to his new Queen. And Faubrey will be off our backs."
"Sounds brilliant, now let's look into how we're going to get our supplies into Melromarc once we start occupying some of the cities, supply lines were a big issue during the last great war especially as it dragged on."
Bakugou finally decided he heard enough and was a lot angrier than before, he wasn't sure who said what, but he didn't care, Trinock and the council are nothing more than racist greedy exploitive warmongers. He was more determined than ever to make them watch their corrupt world crash and burn.
Bakugou then takes out the bottle he had stashed away, he opens it as Kirishima opens his mouth, "Remember, don't swallow! And make sure they are not looking when you do it!" he orders Kirishima, which the dragon understood clear enough as Bakugou pours the potion on the bottom half of Kirishima's mouth.
Once Bakugou stopped Kirishima kept his mouth shut and did his best not to swallow the liquid.
After taking a deep breath Bakugou finally just busts into the room. Trinock and the council were surprised at first until they saw who it was and they all collectively grin toward their golden egg laying goose, "Lord Bakugou, you came in at the perfect time, we were just discussing war strategy, as well as our plans of creating the confederation." Trinock announces to the shield hero.
"Yes! Yes, of course! Glad none of you oligarchs wasted time. So what do you have in mind with this military alliance thing?" Bakugou kisses up to the group as he observes the room to find what he was looking for, he saw that there were wine glasses near the maps and war plan table, but all he needs was to see where the wine itself was at.
Trinock then approaches him, "Yes the process of forming the confederacy will begin in about two days after we send out our treaty invitations and when they join in, Siltvelt will take direct control over each nation's populations and resources. Let us explain about each nation and what we require you to do in each of them if they deny our invitations." Trinock goes on as he and Bakugou approach the war plan table.
Trinock and the council continued to explain the nations and what they intend Bakugou to do if they don't play ball. Mostly just encouraging the people to overthrow their governments and then have the usurpers blindly join forces with Siltvelt.
Though Bakugou was barely listening knowing he wasn't going to do any of this crap anyway, he and Kirishima continued to look around to find what they needed. But after just another minute of looking Bakugou finally spots a wine bottle. He nods to Kirishima with him nodding back knowing what he has to do.
Kirishima jumps off of Bakugou's shoulder and crawls around the ground while Trinock transits away discussing about the confederation for now, "Now with that out of the way, let's explain our exact war plan." as he went on he and the council were too distracted to care where Bakugou's dragon went and were more focused in there plans to destroy Melromarc.
And as they went on and on about battle strategies and troop movements with Bakugou they never saw Kirishima jumping on the table with the wine.
Knowing this Bakugou starts up a conversation, "Say oligarch's I know you guys are planning on getting a lot of slaves out of this war. My world has quite the history of slavery as well, why don't I give some advice on what you can do with them and how to get them to work more efficiently." This immediately sparked all of their interests and ignored everything else as they listen to what ideas he has from another world.
Kirishima was able to open up the wine bottle and he quickly spits out the liquid from his mouth into the wine itself. And just as quickly Kirishima puts the top back on then jumps and runs back to Bakugou with the rest of the people in the room none the wiser.
After a few more minutes of discussing war plans and what the spoils will be afterward, Trinock and the council were about done talking about it for the day. Trinock goes for the wine and pours the bottle into his and the councilor's glasses, as well as one for Bakugou, "Here you go my lord, let us hold a toast."
Bakugou takes up the wine glass with him and everyone else holding up their glasses high.
Trinock finally shouts, "To victory for Siltvelt, and long live the shield hero!"
And with that, they all collectively tap their glasses together and they all drink down their wines. All but Bakugou who intentionally spilled his glass of wine behind his back while making it look like he drunk it.
Trinock and the councilors quickly finish up their glass and in just a few seconds after they all start to feel strange, "Trinock was this aged properly? This.. This tastes a little.. Little strange.." Lord Larq slurring as he loses a lot of his energy.
Lady Shellina herself could barely stand up as she could barely keep her eyes open, "No I think we are just working too hard. I feel... I feel exhausted right now."
"Yeah, I feel a little... Raaaaahhhhh... Feel a little out of it myself. Maybe some shut-eye for all of us is deserved." Trinock yawns loudly.
"Yawwwww... I agree, maybe we should rest for a bit." Valnar agrees as he and Larq slouch on their chairs and just like that were all snoring asleep.
Lady Shellian does the same as she just jumps on the wine table and went on to dreamland.
Trinock just lays himself on the war plans table, not caring he is knocking things over and falls dead asleep himself.
Last of them was lord Rehu who tried his best to keep his eyes open wanting to stay up, but he gradually loses more and more will to do it, "I shouldn't... I... I Can... I.. I.. I."
*slam*
Rehu finally just falls forward on the floor snoring just as loudly as the rest.
And with that Siltvelts Prime Minister and Council were all in a deep slumber. And all the while Bakugou smugly grins at the whole thing, "Nighty night you evil bastards!" he shouts at them knowing they won't be able to get up even from the loud noise.
Just as he planned they were all now deep asleep from his high-powered sleeping potion that Kirishima spitted into the wine, with the effects being greatly accelerated by the sleeping shield that Bakugou transformed into without them noticing. Unlike the one he used last night, the effect of this potion will last just short of a week enough time to enact the rest of his plan.
After that Bakugou quickly informed some guards about this and they hauled the sleeping politicians off to their sleeping quarters.
General Tarn from earlier approached Bakugou again, "It looks like Trinock and the council were overworked. They had been busy since they got here, I'm sorry for this inconvenience lord Bakugou." he responds to Bakugou with him grinning knowing he and the rest of the building were unaware that he was responsible for this.
"Whatever let them have their beauty naps, but listen wing guy I actually do have a few things I want you to do." he request from the general who was listening.
"What would it be lord Bakugou? You may ask whatever you want?" Tarn asked
"I need a lot of guys, as many as possible, preferably ones who can fly. I'm planning on doing something big with Melromarc in the upcoming war, so get me as many guys as you can that can fly or travel fast and are not bigoted and racist against humans. Get them all and meet me at the shield cathedral around 9:00 pm to give them their instructions." Bakugou requests.
Tarn didn't have a clue what Bakugou was planning or if this was also something Trinock and the council planned. But he can't say no to his god and nods his head in agreement, "Very well then, I'll get as many troops as possible without any bias against humans and send them your way." the general responds to Bakugou making him smile even more.
And after that, the general and Bakugou split ways as he approached the way out, "Now I just need the rest of my sidekicks to do their part and my plan can go forward."
"Wait a second? Do you really want to convert to the grand shield church?" Patriarch Ozsan asked as the holy Oxman looked down from his desk to princess Melty with Daven beside her as she talks to the Patriarch.
"Of course, I want to abandon my old faith and become a follower of the shield heroes church and learn its teachings," Melty responds acting excited to make it look like she was being serious about this.
The Patriarch was still surprised by this and wanted to get a little deeper on the subject, "Not that I have anything against you joining our faith miss Melromarc, but is there a particular reason why you would abandon your old faith and join a new one?" he asks her.
"Unfortunately my old church has become corrupt, caring more for themselves than to hold up their virtues and teach the populace to do what is right. And the other three heroes have been major disappointments, compared to lord Bakugou they are nothing. Being with the shield hero has shown me the light to greatness and I want to embrace that light. So will you allow me to achieve salvation for my sins Sir Ozsan?" Melty explains trying her best to put up a fake smile. Unlike her sister, she isn't a fan of lying to people, so this was hard for her. But even she knows that sometimes leaders have to lie in certain circumstances for the greater good and she has to continue the act until Daven does his job.
Ozsan was scratching his long snout to this. He wasn't sure if he should still bother with her. As from what Trinock told him earlier, Bakugou had finally agreed to go to war with Melromarc, so he has to get everything in order to start declaring this a holy war to motivate the troops more and he has to get the paperwork to that done, rather then wasting time to some tiny monkey. But on the other hand, this was the future head of state to Melromarc, if she completely converts to his church, it would mean that he would have an entire nation under his thumb with no one higher up to worry about if something goes wrong in this war like what happened last time with Melromarc still standing, or if Melromarc wasn't completely destroyed. She can help convert whats left of her kingdom for him which means more donation profits to be made and he would basically have his own puppet with an army of her own. Having an army at his beck and call will be useful if Trinock or the council tries anything against him.
As he thought about it Ozsan started to love the idea and eventually he smiles at the princess, "Of course my child, you may join our church at any time. The Great Holy shield church is proud to take in anyone who desires to embrace the true way." he proudly informs Melty.
"Really!? That is amazing. Thank you so much Sir Ozsan, I want to make you so proud and help the church in any way. But I do wonder how the process works to become officially a part of your church?" Melty asks trying to get the Patriarch distracted while Daven silently sneaks around to the side of the Patriarch's desk as he observes a chalice containing the religious heads drink. From behind with his dark magic he develops a shadow clone of himself with the Patriarch none the wiser.
Thankfully for Melty, the bait worked as Ozsan slouched himself forward to explain the process to Melty, "Well you see it involves a large ceremony with many of our brothers and sisters watching as you dip into the tub of cleansing as you wash away your old sins to start anew. And as your scrubbing you then.."
As the Patriarch went on about the baptizing process Daven made his move with quick timing as his shadow clone using his stealth skill was able to grab the chalice with his tail while the Patriarch wasn't looking, and behind his back, the clone quickly pours in the potion. Then just as quickly placed it back on the table with the Patriarch completely unaware and the clone vanishing away.
By then Ozsan finally finishes explaining the process, "And once all of that is done, you'll be remade as a new disciple of the Great holy shield hero church. We can start that ceromony tomorrow morning, how does that sound young Miss Melromarc?" the Patriach asks Melty as he picks up his chalice.
Melty then bows before him, "It will be of great pleasure, my lord."
Ozsan liked the sound of that and to celebrate his future puppet he takes a big sip from his wine, "Excellent! It has been a great joy to be seeing you today, I would love that we can... can... can... Yawwwww! Wow, I feel so tired. I don't know why I suddenly feel like this, but I.. But.. But, if you don't mind, I'm just going to..." but before he could finish the Patriarch falls forward asleep on his desk.
Melty signed in relief, "Wow I'm glad that worked Daven, I didn't think I would've continued on like that without me sweating."
Daven then points toward the way out, "Let's just leave before the church gets suspicious of us." he tells her with Melty nodding in agreement as they head their way out.
"I just hope Neia and Rino are doing fine without us in their job." Melty mentions feeling genuinely worried.
But Daven just says, "I have a feeling they have the easiest job out of all of us."
"You got to be joking." Rino cynically says out loud as she and Neia look toward King Janio on his throne room who was drunk off his ass, he can barely stand up before he ever even drank any sort of sleeping potion with only two servant girls remaining beside him to keep their king on his feet, the others were sleeping drunk on the floor.
The drunk king notices the two and tried to say something with some coherency, "Well well, look who decided to... tooooo.. to come in. The shield guys wenches. Have you... You come to se-grah see my cardinal weapon down here?" Janio could barely say as he points to his crotch.
Rino and Neia stared at each other not looking forward to this at all, "So who's talking and who's doing you know what?" Neia asked Rino with neither of them liking this.
"Rock, paper, scissors, and the loser has to be the one to talk," Rino suggested with Neia nodding.
The two throw their hands on a count of three, and Rino threw rock and Neia threw scissors. Rino smiles with Neia looking annoyed, but she knew the deal and agreed to it, so the young elf approaches the drunk king.
As the king was finished puking on himself Neia finally talks to him, "So uh your majesty, I'm just wondering how you are... Uh doing right now?" Neia tries to start a conversation but one she hoped wouldn't last long, while Rino sneaks around the group with the two servant girls paying attention to Neia and ignoring the human.
After placing his beer jug on his throne he got himself up and approached the pretty blue elf girl, "Yes... Things are going great for me... for-rrraggh! for me. I'm the ruler of this nation and all of those stupid peasants have to do whatever I say, while Trinock does all the boring stuff. I-blah, I... I can do whatever I want and no one can say otherwise."
Neia was completely disgusted by this, but she had to continue while Rino gets close to the jug while Janio and the servant girls weren't looking. She continued to talk with him, "Yeah, though don't you get bored? Doing nothing all day?"
"Oh I'm never bored, I get to look at a beautiful woman like you, playing games, get to sit and rest all day long, and watching those monkeys get tortured."
That last part shocked both Neia and Rino as she quickly grabs the jug, "Ta-torture?" Neia startled? Making sure he heard that clearly and not just more drunk mumblings.
Unfortunately, Janio cleared it up for her, "Yeah down in the dungeons we have a bunch of humans slaves we bought and I get to watch as they squirm and scream as they cry in pain and get bloodied up. It's so-gugh so God damn funny, maybe tomorrow morning after I sober up I can take you down there to watch the show, and hopefully this time they don't lose their voice before their heads get smashed in. hahaha."
Neia now looked very mad at this bastard of a king, not only was he lazy but he was just an evil sadist. She wanted so badly to just punch him, but Bakugou taught her better to not jump into such rash actions while doing something important and held back. She quickly glances back at the throne chair with Rino gone, knowing she finished her task.
Neia then makes a fake smile toward Janio, "Uh yeah sure, we go to the dungeon and watch the fun."
Janio smiles again as he grabs his beer jug, "Ha! Perfect! I knew I will always the hot girls to fall for me if I bring up a few monkeys misery!" he then starts gulping down his drink as he finished it up and throws it on the ground, "Now then miss blue, how about we.. we go.. go to my bed and... and... and... Geipberjsfozezzis." *slam* Jaino finally just falls backward, out cold and in a deep sleep while gurgling in the mouth.
The two female servants then lifted him up and head their way to the bedroom for him to sleep properly at.
After all of that is done, Neia and Rino quickly head their way out of the castle, "I can't believe that evil pig is even worse than we thought. Him not doing his duty as King is one thing, but the fact he watches innocent people be tortured for fun loses any bit of sympathy from me." Neia says out loud to Rino.
"Well, at least the sick freak is out cold for a few days now. We did our job, now let's meet with Sir Bakugou and the others. And let's make sure we tell him about the humans down there and we can end that lazy bastard's fun for good." Rino cheers up her friend which did make Neia feel a bit better as she nods back as they head past the throne doors. She'll make sure Bakugou knows about this.
It was now night in Siltvelt with the 3 groups of the shield hero's team now back together near the entrance of the holy shield hero cathedral along with Loria. Bakugou jumps off his dragon as he transforms back into his toddler form, "Ok, have all of you done what you were suppose to do?" Bakugou demands from his team.
"The old Ox is taking his beauty nap now," Daven responds with Melty nodding.
"As is Janio, though I hardly call his sleeping beautiful," Rino responds and snarks with Neia nodding as well.
Bakugou then grins, "Perfect now we are on our way to phase three of the plan. Catboys mom you have what I requested right?" he turns and asks Loria who hands him a large paper with numerous names of it.
"This should be about everyone I know off, I'll contact you if I find any more I missed. Though while I'm not against this I still should warn you that going along with this plan is going to piss a lot of people off." Loria warns him.
But Bakugou just brushes it off, "Those inbred blue bloods can bitch to me all they want. Once the plan goes through, their word won't mean shit in the end."
Loria just smiles after hearing that, knowing there was now one who was truly standing up against this corrupt system that had screwed over so many people including her family.
After that no more than an hour later of them waiting and Neia informing Bakugou of Janio's dark secret, General Tarn had admass a large number of soldiers well over a few hundred, many of who were flyers as they all stood before the church's courtyard.
Bakugou stood up on a tall platform to inform the troops of his plans for them, "Ok listen up! I'm planning something big for our war with Melromarc soon, something that is going to make them completely change their view on me, but the plan requires as many human slaves as possible. I'll pass out more detailed instructions on certain scenarios, but the gist of it is that I want all of you to go around the entire country and get me as many slaves as you can either from the slave merchants or anybody who owns any amount of slaves whether field workers or as private servants. And I want them all to be amassed at the Hielta valley not far from the border to Melromarc. AND ABSOLUTELY NO KILLING OR HARMING ANY OF THEM! OR IT'S OFF WITH YOUR HEADS! GOT IT!"
"Sir Yes Sir!" the soldiers shouted in response then saluting together.
Bakugou then continued as he holds out a random crystal ball, "And while all of you go from town to town, I also want you to give out these to any major resource gathering or production operations thoughout Siltvelt like with mining, farming, manufacturing, etc. And give them to the supervisors, team leaders, or whatever of the lower demi-human caste groups and inform them to not turn it on until after six days had past from now. AM I CLEAR!"
"Sir yes Sir!" the soldiers shouted again.
Bakugou then turns toward his sidekicks, "You four will be the ones spearheading the operation, showing these fools what they need to do."
"Yes Sir!" the group shouts including Daven who was the most excited of this operation.
"Ok, Catboy you can go out on your own, Brown hair Kirishima will be with you, Blue you're with the princess," Bakugou announces grouping up his sidekicks.
Both Melty and Neia looked shocked as the two look awkwardly at each other, with Neia asking, "Sir Bakugou are you sure about-" But Neia stops herself as Bakugou looks at her with an angry face. Neia knew she wasn't going to convince Bakugou of anything at this state and just says, "Oh never mind about it." she knew Bakugou was doing this on purpose and also knew why.
Bakugou turns back to the troops and yells, "Ok you get the general idea of things! By the next hour, I want all of you to start in the capital then outward when you're done, and I want it all done within 5 days, got it!"
"Sir yes Sir!" the soldiers shouted again as Bakugou finally dismissed the soldiers as a bunch of church servants went out with papers with instructions on what to do.
Bakugou then turns toward his team one more time before he'll see them again in a few days, "Ok you five take care and don't get your asses killed out there."
"What if we encounter those Scythe guys again though?" Rino asked.
Daven then answered for her, "Don't worry the scythes won't attack us like that again after such a bunched assassination plot. Besides I'm sure whatever client that had a hit on the shield hero had already backed out to cover their tracks, so the Scythes won't get paid anymore so there is no point in killing him or us. So we're safe as of now."
Rino wasn't 100% sure about it, but she trusted Daven enough to believe him, and Bakugou wasn't saying anything against it so she took it as Bakugou believing it as well.
And with that, the entire team nods in agreement toward Bakugou as they split off to their soldier groups ready for the big job they had to do.
Before Bakugou went back inside the church he encountered general Tarn one more time, "I hope you are satisfied my lord. These men should be able to do their tasks well and quickly." the general says to the hero.
Though Bakugou just wanted to get to a point, "Yeah whatever, I have one more thing to ask of you. I need a huge supply of large covered wagons with horses or those bird filolial things and in each need to have a large supply of a few week's worth of food and a bunch of other survival items as well as a chest of 1000 silvers in each. I'm going to need a couple thousand of them at Hielta valley, and if your worried about the cost of it, I'll pay for the whole thing (or more accurately the church is going to pay for the whole thing)." he demands from the general.
The General didn't know what he was going with this, but he wasn't going to question his own god, "Very well, It will be done my lord. Though I am curious to what you are planning to do with all of these slaves?" he asks.
But Bakugou was mostly dismissive of it and as he was walking toward his church, "You'll find out later, just make the soldiers are doing their jobs right and get those wagons with their supplies." he finally orders to the general as he goes inside the church with Tarn nodding as he flys off to get the wagon thing sorted out.
And after that the Bakusquad and all the soldiers all head out to begin the mass slave exodus.
Bakugou continues to casually walk inside the church acting like he owns the place. And for all intents and purposes, he pretty much does while the Patriarch is out for the next 6 days.
He gets into the Patriarch's office and sits himself down at the desk with his feet laying on top of it.
He calls for a group of high-profile members of the church to give them instruction on what he wants to be done.
The group finally came inside the office as they bow to their God, "Thank you for allowing us to be in awe at you lord Bakugou. How may we be at your service?" he asks toward his god.
Bakugou quickly gets off the desk and hands him over the large piece of paper of names he had Loria write down, "First I want every single person named on that list to be pardoned." he gives his first order.
As the disciple along with a few others reads through the names they were confused by it as they recognized a few of them, "Pardoned from what my lord?"
"From there excommunications dumbass, I want every one of them to have their branding tattoos removed and be no longer consideredheretics or whatever by the church got it?!" Bakugou answers startling the group almost jumping in shock at the request.
"Are... are sure about this?" one questioned.
"Yes, I'm sure! Get those poor saps here and get rid of those stupid tattoos." Bakugou reinsures his intentions.
Though the disciples weren't too big on the idea, "But.. But.. But Lord Bakugou many of these people on the list have spoken ill of your church before, disgraced it, and spread lies. They were marked for a reason." one of the disciples tried to talk Bakugou out of it.
But all it did was annoy him, "Excuse me but what is the name of this church?" Bakugou asks of them.
"Uh... The Great holy shield hero church." one answers nervously.
"And who is the shield hero here?" Bakugou asks.
"You... You are?"
"Precisely, my church, my word, my will, and my rules. And I say these people are to be pardoned. AND I WILL NOT BE TOLD OTHERWISE!" Bakugou explodes at the group wanting to permantely drill in his point with the terrified group nodding up in down quickly fearing they have angered their god.
Bakugou then continued, "I also want all human slaves the church has direct control over whether here or at any other church or on church properties to be sent off to where the others are going to be at in Hielta, after that I want to get someone in charge of the staff of Siltvelts castle here so I can also discuss the same thing with all the slaves at the castle and the dungeon, I also want to meet with those that are pardon of there excommunications as I plan to sell some of our church lands off to them, then I want all those still working under the church who are not priests or higher up to be all given raises, exactly triple the pay for all of them and are guaranteed two days off per week, and then I want a writer to be sent here so I can make some changes to the shield hero Bible to my liking. Now do any of you idiots have any questions?" Bakugou finishes with the disciples just nodding no.
"THEN GET GOING!" Bakugou explodes at them as they storm out of the office to do as their hero wants them to do, and with the Patriarch in his sleep, they have no one else to ask advice from, so they just did exactly what Bakugou wanted them to do.
Bakugou then leans back on the Patriarch's chair and relaxes with his feet on his desk, "It's about time this church gets reformed. All I need now is for my sidekicks to do the rest of the plan well."
"You want all of them?" A Gemnu noble asks.
"Yes, of course, every single one of your slaves. By the shield hero's request. He is planning something big with them to screw over Melromarc and needs all of the human slaves to accomplish it." Neia responds currently in the middle of negotiating with a major Gemnu plantation owner to hand over all of his slaves.
The turtle noble was unsure on what to decide, "I don't know, as much as I would love to help out the shield hero, the harvest is nearly fully grown, so I'm going to need all of them."
"Oh don't worry the shield hero only wants them for about a week or so, you'll get them back once he is done with his major operation." Neia lies.
The noble was still scratching his chin not 100% sure if he should do it, even if it was temporary.
Neia then took out a scroll and held it out toward the turtle man, "If you do give them away now, you'll be given a certification of new land ownership, by order of the shield hero, whoever holds access to this scroll of approval will be guaranteed new land from the church, completely free that can be cashed in about 6 days from now." She bargains with him.
After hearing that the noble was almost immediately on board, "Really?! Ha, I have been wanting the fertile sumieria hills for year's but those stubborn church fools would never sell it. It looks like they finally came to their senses with the shield hero in charge. If it's only for a week, then very well, take all of the monkeys with you." He finally agreed with Neia handing him the certification as they shake hands. Course little did the noble know, Bakugou was already in the process of giving away almost all of the church lands to the pardoned excommunicated demi-humans. So by the time he and the other nobles try to cash them in, the church won't have more any land to give out to him or any other noble who got fooled into taking the scroll certification. They basically exchanged all of their slaves for worthless pieces of paper.
Neia then orders the troops to safely gather the nobles' slaves and to get them ready to be processed and sent off to the valley location Bakugou wants them at, "Sergeant get them ready and see to it the families stick together."
"Yes ma'am we'll do our best to care for the slaves." the soldier responds.
"Say uh, do you also know where Melty is at?" she asks the sergeant with a less enthusiastic face.
"The human girl, yeah she is down at the town handling the local slave trader," he responds.
Neia then made out a big sigh, "Thank you, I'll be off meeting with her, continue with the rest of the nobles in the region, and be careful with the slaves." she orders with the sergeant and the rest of his men nodding as they gather the slaves with care.
Thanks to one of the flying shusaku soldiers Neia was able to get to town relatively quickly not too far from the slaver's shop, which looked more like a large cattle house than anything else.
Neia continued in to find who she was looking for until she heard some yelling.
"This is absolutely outrageous! How can you fools listen to this shit flinging brat!?" yelled the slave trader an Alligator demi-human who owned the place as the soldiers tied him up to be arrested, "What the hell am I being arrested for anyway!?" he continued.
Right in front of him was Melty holding up a scroll, "Mr. Bitus, you are under arrest by the authority of the shield hero for crimes of trafficking free humans and sexual assaulting various women." Melty announces with authority in her tone.
"What goddamn proof do you even have!?" the slaver yells again struggling to get freed.
One soldier quickly puts out a crystal ball in front of him that showed off him a recording of him drunk, going off punching and inappropriately touching and groping many lower caste demi-human women.
"Where the fuck did you get that?!" the Alligator man yells in surprise.
"It turns out the church and crown like to keep these sorts of secrets to protect their supporters, or be safely hidden away with bribe money, or use them when it best suits them for blackmail. But now it's being used so people like you are served justice." Melty responds.
The Alligator slaver continued to thrash around, "NO! NO! NO! I'll kill you little brat! I'll.." He yells until the soldiers finally just tie up his snout with a rope to finally shut him up.
The soldiers take off with him to be trialed as soon as possible and imprisoned for his crimes.
After that Melty turns toward the other soldiers, "Now please get all of the slaves out and send them safely off to Hielta valley."
"Yes ma'am." the soldiers respond.
After that little fiasco was dealt with, Melty turns and to her surprise saw Neia again just standing there, now both of them had an awkward look on their faces.
Neia knew this was the time to finally just talk to Melty, but it was hard for her to finally say something.
Melty tries to look away just as awkwardly, attempting to be quiet but it only made things worse, "Oh... Uh, I'm sorry miss Varon.. I'll just head off to.."
"No wait do go yet!" Neia immediately shouts softly making Melty stop from walking away as she looks back confused.
Neia then let out a big sigh not wanting to say it, until she finally stop the silenace and said, "Can we please go somewhere private, I need to say something with you."
Melty wasn't sure why Neia wants to talk now, but she wasn't going to say no, "uh.. Of course, I think I need to say something to you as well." she agrees with Neia nodding softly agreeing to that.
The two sidekicks then moved away to a private room where no soldiers or anyone else can hear them.
After shutting the door, the two looked silently at each other with nervous looks. Neither wanted to say anything, afraid of what the other would say back, and this went on for a good 30 seconds.
Finally though, both Melty and Neia took deep breaths and said.
"Melty"
"Neia"
"I'm sorry."
They both said together at the same time, the girls now looked surprised to be hearing that from one another.
Melty spoke out first confused, "What.. what are you sorry for? You did nothing to me, my family and I were the ones in the wrong."
"No, you had nothing to do with that whole event. I was stupid and was throwing all my anger at you for what your sister and father did."
"No no, I should've been more considerate of you and your feelings about my family, and I acted like nothing was wrong, without thinking about your feelings.
"Melty I was the one who wasn't thinking. I've taken my feelings for your sister and threw them at you when you did nothing wrong. You are nothing like your sister and I shouldn't have judged you for what she did."
The two stop for a few seconds as they both sighed in relief at the same time, happy to get the feelings out of their chests, Melty then spoke up again, "We both made mistakes toward each other miss Neia. But mines are far worse than yours, I'm supposed to be the future ruler of Melromarc and for me to make a mistake like that just makes it even worse. My mother would never allow such a misunderstanding to happen and hurt your feelings." she sulks feeling worse about herself.
Neia then placed her hand on Meltys shoulder, "You weren't the only one who had big expectations to deal with Melty. My family is famous back at home and big expectations were always placed on us, including me. But there I was considered a big failure and an embarrassment, no one in my family was giving me a chance to improve or do better. They saw me as deadweight to the bloodline and did nothing to help me in my banishment. It wasn't until I met Bakugou when he saved me and gave me a chance to improve myself. I don't want you to go through what I've been through, not giving you a chance and judging only by your bloodline." Neia finished as the two moved closer together now understanding one another.
Melty began to smile again, "I guess we have more in common than expected? Huh Neia?" the two then lightly laughed with each other
Neia smiles lightly then suggests, "How about this Melty, why don't we just start over? Just pretend all the stuff that happened on the first day we met never occurred and start anew."
Melty smiled even bigger than before liking the idea greatly, "I agree, let's start anew."
And with that, the two hugged each other in forgiveness holding each other greatly wanting to hold out as long as possible to express their forgiveness of one another.
After a minute the two finally stopped hugging and now looked at each other with cheer and happiness. Now starting their new journey together.
Neia then looked toward the door, "Ok then, why don't we get back to our jobs of collecting the slaves and gifting out the orbs to the lower caste groups."
Melty nods in agreement, "Of course, there is another town not too far from here that specializes in raising livestock and will certainly have enslaved needing our help there."
Neia nods back to that and the two move their way toward the door, "Oh and after we're done for the day, can you still give me those water magic lessons you offered before?" Neia then asked.
"Of course, anything for a new friend." Melty quickly responds as the two walk away from the building, now starting a new beginning with the two's now blooming friendship.
Over at another region of Siltvelt, Daven was now someplace where he hasn't been inside for years after being kicked out and taken away.
Home
More specifically his family home manor that his mother's family lived for generations, which was stolen from them by his bastard father and stepmother.
Now he was back, and with the shield hero's help he can finally take it all back.
But first, he must confront with the most hated people in his life.
After knocking on the mansion doors a human servant allowed him in as he was escorted to a study room to where his father and stepmother were at.
When Daven finally arrived in the room and after all these years he finally sees Allen and Mellia again, reading through from some novels on their chairs next to an active fireplace.
Daven's father Allen was a black-furred adult cat demi-human who looked more or less an older version of Daven, but with a narrower face and had an average built body far less muscular than his own son.
And right next to him was Mellia, a half bird-woman who would look human if not for her clawed bird feet and wings on her back with both red feathers and short hair on her head. If Daven didn't see through how ugly she was on the inside she would be considered quite beautiful, but she was nothing more than a pretty little colorful poisonous plant.
The two aristocrats looked surprised at first but then quickly grinned in delight to be seeing Daven again after so long, especially when they heard that he became a companion of the shield hero of all things, though it was less about being proud of Daven and more how this will advance their status even more than it already has.
Allen was the first to walk up to his blank faced son, "Well well, look who has finally come back as a new man. We have heard about everything that happened recently. Once a spoiled and ungrateful brat has become a proper man."
Mellia then walked up to Allen holding onto a decorated fan as she waves it on herself, "You see, I've told you, sending him off to the army would discipline him good. Now I hope you finally love your step-mommy now, my little Davy?" she speaks with a condescending attitude feeling accomplished of being a stepmother to the companion of the shield hero.
Daven looks on more annoyed, but kept his cool, "Yes I have mother, I've learned from my mistakes as a child and am ready to embrace my new family." he lies while secretly grinding his teeth to this horrible woman.
Mellia just smiles feeling accomplished of herself as she makes a smug smile.
Allen then moves toward Mellia and kisses her on the lips, "We can now be a proper family. With you as the shield hero's right hand, we can advance greater than ever before, imagine what the shield hero can do for all of us. Move to an even bigger estate, ruling and governing over a proper city than this dirt dump town, enjoying the balls at the capital, to be on the sides with the council and the king of Siltvelt. All of the money and wealth. And more importantly, our names are being immortalized in history with the shield hero. My God will it be beautiful." he then kisses Mellia again as she loves the sound of that as well.
Mellia now knew she made the right choice in seducing him and removing his old wife from the picture. She was now above all of her siblings and the rest of her family, and she was set to rub it in all in their faces once she sees them again, "It will indeed be beautiful, imagine what many gifts the great shield hero Bakugou will give to us for what the boy has done for him." She speaks out loud.
Once Daven heard that, he knew that was the right opportunity to say, "Actually, Lord Bakugou wanted me to come all this way to give you a gift for raising me to be such a great companion to him. Here it is." Daven says as he takes out a large bottle of expensive wine.
Mellia immediately takes the bottle and was already loving the gift as she recognizes what the wine was, "Ah, quite the present. Deep fermented champagne, over 500 years old from the Chozaro dynasty. Would cost a fortune to even get a cup of this stuff. And here we are with a full bottle of it."
Allen then went to pick up some glasses, "Why don't we get a taste of it right now. To celebrate our newfound statuses. To be greater than kings, to be the right hand of God." He speaks up as he hands a glass to Mellia as she opens up the bottle while he gives one to Daven as well who continued to smile and played along.
Once she opened the bottle Mellia started pouring the wine to the 3 of them.
Once she placed the bottle on the table the three raised their glasses up high, "To a greater future for all of us. And long live the shield hero!" Allen toasts as the three clank their glasses together.
Both Allen and Mellia immediately drank down their glass, while Daven made it look like he was drinking while not letting a single drop go into his mouth.
Quickly enough they were finished drinking the old wine, But in just a few seconds the two started to feel tired all of the sudden as if the energy in the body was sapped out of them.
"Wow this.. this wine sure has the alcohol content in it. I think.. We... We should.." Allen then falls forward on the floor now snoring asleep.
Mellia just drops her glass as she moves back, "Not a bad idea... We could... I..i..i." Mellia finally fell forward on top of Allen as she falls asleep too.
Daven now smiles smugly, happier than he has been in years.
The servant from before finally came back into the room as he looks at his masters sleeping on the dirty floor, "What on earth happened?! Did they really pass out drunk that fast?" he asks in confusion hoping for answers.
Daven just hands him over a scroll, "Read this and you'll understand." he says as he goes into his bag to get the tool he needs to use next.
After reading through the scroll the servant was quite surprised, "Good lord, is this real? The shield hero has ordered this to them?" he asked in shock.
Daven ignored him as he founded what he was looking for, a branding iron that had a familiar mark on its end, after he puts it in the flames at the fireplace to get it burning hot, he looks down at his drugged-out sleeping Stepmother and father. He was now ready to screw them completely over and bring justice to his family, "Let's see how they like it to be forced to live on the dirty streets!" he shouts as he lunges the iron at the two's faces.
Meanwhile far away again from Siltvelt in Queen Fitoria's sanctuary.
It was now morning, over one whole day after the night Fitoria had her talk with the sword hero with things being quiet since then, Scarlet and the rest of the filolials were continuing to eat the thrown together meals as they dig in. Scarlet was starting to grow worried though as she hasn't seen much of Ren since this morning after barely talking yesterday, with Queen Fitoria being just as distant. She had been mostly minding herself as she starts to play with her food.
But then suddenly the peace got disturbed when she finally saw Ren again with a worried look on his face as he runs toward her.
Once next to her near the table Ren with a deep fear in his voice, "Scarlet we must leave now!" he shouts at Scarlet only confusing the girl.
"What do you mean master Ren what's going on?" she quickly asked now starting to look worried.
Ren then grips on her shoulders and kneels to her level on one knee, "it's hard to explain Scarlet, but Fitoria thinks the cardinal heroes are unworthy to save the world and want all of us dead. Come with me quickly and we can get out of here before.."
"Liberation! Wind prison!" shouted a voice, making the two turn to see the Queen Filolial herself with her arm out and activating magic out of her hand.
And without a second to react, Ren is suddenly enveloped by powerful wind magic forcing him into some sort of air prison.
"Master Ren!" Scarlet shouts as she watches Ren get trapped in the magic prison and be lifted high in the air until he was flown toward Fitoria. Even though she was her Queen Scarlet jumps up and yells at Fitoria, "What are you doing to Master Ren!? Let him go!"
"I'm afraid I can't miss Scarlet. The sword hero's incompetence and stupidity must be punished. This world is in danger and needs its cardinal heroes to protect it. But if they are just wasting their time's squabbling with one another, then I must do what is good for the world and kill the cardinal heroes so new better ones will replace them, starting with the sword hero."
"No! You leave him alone you meany! Or I'll kill you myself!" Scarlet continues yelling back.
Fitoria though just looks down unimpressed, "Would you really challenge your Queen? For an incompetent human?"
"I don't care if Master Ren is human or not. He is my family, my father, and I don't care if you are a Queen, your just a big bully like the Spear and bow meany's!"
Ren from his prison looks down at his filolial as she stands up for him as he looks on worried, "Scarlet! Just get out of here!"
"No, I won't! You wouldn't abandon me like this so I won't abandon you either master Ren!" She answers back as she spreads her black feathered wings out ready to fight Fitoria to the death if she has to.
But the Queen Filolia just sighs still not reacting much to her threats, "Very well then. Miss Scarlet, challenge me to a duel in our human forms, and if you can beat me then you and your master can go free. If not though, I will kill you both."
"Yes, I accept the challenge!" Scarlet immediately agrees.
"Scarlet!" Ren shouts as he attempts to use his sword to break free, either through a skill or blunt force of the sword, but Fitorias magic was too powerful and did nothing to his magic cage, "Your way higher level than her! She just had her class upgrade only two weeks ago! This isn't fair for her!" he yells to the Queen.
"What level she isn't shouldn't matter, all that matters is her skills and willpower to fight.", Fitoria lowers herself to Scarlets level, then she waves her hand around and creates a magic dome barrier around the area so Scarlet wouldn't make a run for it if things go really bad for her.
But it didn't change Scarlet's resolve as she looks on to her queen with her bright red eyes in an intense look.
But Fitoria was not changing her stance as she continues to look on with a blank face, "We may now begin."
Scarlet immediately charges at Fitoria with a clutched fist using her speed ability to quickly take the queen out.
But once she jumped and threw the punch, Fitoria just casually dodges her, "To slow." Fitoria then with the side of her hand knocks Scarlet away until she smashes into a pile of rocks in the arena.
"Scarlet!" Ren shouts seeing one of his party members in pain again because of him, his friend being beaten down. He continues hitting the prison with his sword but still had no luck with it.
But despite the pain, Scarlet got herself back up again going into a fighting stance not going to give up that easily. With her wind magic, she sprints herself out to punch Fitoria. She tries over and over but Fitoria continues to dodge them like nothing, "You will never win at this rate." Fitoria then just blasts Scarlet away again this time being blasted at the magic barrier.
After Scarlet recovers, she acted quickly deciding to remain up in the air using her limited levatation magic. Fitoria does the same as she jumps up in the air and starts launching out magic attacks at Scarlet who does her best to dodge them. She at the same time tries to strike Fitoria who continues to dodge each punch or kick. When Fitoria started to fire more aggressively even getting one hit on her again Scarlet had to back away and tried to think of what she can do to defeat Fitoria knowing now trying to punch her directly won't work.
Ren shouts, "Scarlet don't forget you can use magic attacks too!"
Scarlet heard that and took it to heart, her magic might not compare to a centuries-old queen, but it was all she could do now to even remotely win.
"Hurricane spin!" Scarlet shouts as she uses her wings and air magic to create a cyclone around the area with Fitoria being caught in the middle of it. Fitoria looked somewhat intrigued but still looked calm.
It was using a great deal of her mana, but she knows it would be worth the effort as it gave her an advantage over Fitoria. Scarlet quickly threw out a few wind blade attacks at the queen who doesn't even dodge but just backhand's away the attacks like they were nothing.
Scarlet then flys down to the rock pile she was thrown into earlier and lifts the rocks and boulders up with her magic as the spin around in the air with the cyclone's winds.
With the rocks and boulders in the air now, Scarlet kicks a bunch of them toward Fitoria to smash them at her.
But no matter how big the rocks were Fitoria just easily blasts or slices them away like they're made of paper, "These attacks are still too weak, you will never free your hero through this." she scolds Scarlet as she continued to kick rock after rock at Fitoria.
When Scarlet kicks one boulder right in front of Fitoria she grabs two smaller rocks and crushes them within her palms with an idea she has come up with.
There was just one big boulder left and it was the biggest of them all and from a punch of Scarlet's fist, she sends the giant rock right to the Queen.
Once at her though, Fitoria just blasts the huge thing into a billion pieces with her magic. And after that was dealt with, she looked around the wind cyclones area to see where her opponent was at but couldn't see where she went with her eyes, "I hope you haven't given up already. That would be disappointing." she speaks out loud.
But as a large chunk of debris passes behind her, Scarlet was sitting right on the flying rocks and with Fitoria's back turned she jump right at her. With the Queen Filolial finally sensing her close, she turns with Scarlet throwing the crushed rocks and dirt at her face intending to stun the queen and then attack.
After throwing the crushed rocks Scarlet jumps and intends to punch Fitoria right in the face again.
But then a hand stopped her fist. It was Fitoria's hand as she still remains the same despite the crushed rocks and dust on her face, "Not too bad of a strategy, but unfortunately your opponent has other senses than sight to rely on." she lectures again as she immediately punches Scarlet in the stomach causing deep pain for the young girl.
After that, the wind cyclone disappears and Fitoria backhand's Scarlet across the face, then with quick speed got behind her and kicks her right in the middle of her back. And with one more quick attack, she hits Scarlet's head downward with the sides of her hand sending the young pale black-feathered Filolial down until she smashes into the ground in pain.
While Scarlet remains flat on the ground barely able to move from the pain, Fitoria descends near her with an unimpressed look on her face, "Your a big disappointment, I expected much more out of someone breed buy a hero." she then turns toward Ren in his prison who is still struggling to get himself out of it, but it was no use.
Scarlet could barely keep her head up as she saw Fitoria raising her arm out toward Ren as she charges up a powerful energy attack intending to one-shot the sword hero, "It is time to be rid of the incompetent heroes, now starts anew for the hope of better one's.". She says as her energy attack grows stronger and stronger.
Ren can only look on in fear as it appears that this could truly be the end for him, no extra lives, no continues, no cheat codes, or anything. His life was about to end once again, but rather than from a blade of a mad serial killer in heroically sacrificing himself to save his friend, this time it was by his own failures, not just as a leader of his own team, but as a hero, making so many mistakes and never taking it seriously soon enough. And now he has to die again for it. This time though he was willing to accept it, and if he either ends up in hell or just gets reincarnated again in some other world but this time as a weak shielder, he'll accept it as his punishment for being such a failure, and has no one to blame but himself.
Fitoria was almost ready to fire and kill the sword hero for good, but then she started to hear some groaning and as she turns her head she saw Scarlet barely keeping herself up.
Despite the pain, Scarlet was not going to let herself remain down while her father's life was on the line. Her fatigue then starts to disappear as she looks back at Fitoria, "You leave him alone! I will not let you kill him!"
Fitoria just sighs to herself as she stops her energy building and points a weaker energy attack toward Scarlet, "Your willpower alone is not going to save your master. He didn't teach you properly, your weak, and can barely stand up anymore. Just give up and you'll at least live." she warns Scarlet one last time.
But all it did was motivate Scarlet even more as both her fatherly love of Ren and her hatred of the Queen made her more motivated then ever and it appeared that an energy force begins envelop around Scarlet as her red eyes began to also glow brightly. Surprising both Ren and even Fitoria as Scarlet's mana skyrocketed, "I... I will not let you hurt him. He would do the same for me... In fact, he has already done the same for me a few days ago... I will kill you first to protect him!"
Fitoria then jumps herself on a rock platform as she looks down at the angry young Filolial, "Why do you care so much to risk your life? To a human?"
"He is not just a human! He is my family! No matter what mean things you say to him or anyone else! I WILL NOT LET YOU HURT HIM!" Scarlet finally screams at the top of her lungs as her red aura consumed her body granting bird girl a tremendous amount of power as she sprints herself toward Fitoria.
The Queen herself was somewhat caught off-guard and launches out a bunch of power magic attacks at Scarlet, but the girl's powerful aura allowed her to dodge all of them.
Fitoria quickly jumps out of the way as Scarlet smashes the rock platform into pieces as she then jumps in the air with Fitoria and starts to rapidly throw punches at her faster than ever before surprising even the Queen herself as she was now struggling to dodge them.
Fitoria once again blasts magic at Scarlet as she spins and dodges all of them.
Scarlet then sprints and jumps around all around the Queen as she has trouble keeping track of her anymore.
Scarlet continues to be aggressive as she jumps and kicks and punches over and over all around Fitoria as even her reflexes couldn't catch up with her.
And finally, when Scarlet saw a quick opening after Fitoria turns her head, Scarlet takes in all the mana she has left forming it all into a fist. With all the power behind it, in just half a second, she finally gets a punch on Fitoria with the shock of the punch causing a big cloud of dust and particles to go all over the place.
Ren from above couldn't see anything yet as he was surprised to see his bird monster girl to be that powerful all of the sudden, from just the love and passion for him.
But after the dust was cleared, unfortunately after all of that effort all that was shown was Fitoria still standing up with Scarlet's fist at her cheek. Now with it all out of its power and mana, leaving only a simple bruise and a small cut on Fitorias cheek. The attack barely did any damage but Fitoria still looked surprised and was even impressed that Scarlet had managed to actually hit her and left a mark, something she never had happened to her in decades.
"I... Will... I will... I will not give up, no matter what stupid powers you have. All to save master Ren." Scarlet talks back as she loses her powerful aura and returns to normal, feeling weak and helpless now.
Fitoria then finally smiles as she turns back to Scarlet, "That's enough now Scarlet, I believe you have beaten me."
Scarlet immediately looked on confused, "Wh..what?"
Ren from above also looked just as confused when he heard that.
"And you earned Sir Ren's freedom." Fitoria continued as the large magic barrier around them disappears. She then brought Ren's magic cage down near the ground and with a wave of her hand she destroys the cage setting Ren free.
"Master Ren!" Scarlet shouts in joy as she jumps into Ren's arms with them both happy for each other to be alright. Neither wasn't sure how Scarlet passed by not really defeating Fitoria but either way, they were happy that it was over.
Fitoria then approaches the two as she heals them both of any injuries she or her prison had inflected on the two, with neither sure what to think of the Queen after all of this.
After she finished her healing Fitoria spoke once more, "I'm quite glad you were able to pass the trial."
Both Scarlet and Ren looked on in confusion, "Trial? What trial?" Scarlet asked with Ren just as curious as she was, and he hoped it was a straightforward answer not more riddling talk.
"A trial to see if you were worthy," Fitoria responds with.
"Worthy of what?" Scarlet asked again
"To be my successor, to be worthy of being the next high queen of the filolials. That battle was to see if you were able to overcome such impossible odds and not only touched me but to still be standing tall and strong to the people you love. The only one that is worthy to be a future queen."
Both Scarlet and Ren were surprised to hear that answer, the fact someone so powerful would give such a reward to a month old filolial. But they weren't going to protest it either, they actualy were both quiet happy to hear it, "Oh I see, so you had me caged up like that and was bluffing about killing me to get Scarlet to fight you harder." Ren comments.
"You're partially right, I did all I could to make Scarlet fight with everything she had, but it was never a bluff, if she did fail I really would have killed both her and you," Fitoria answered bluntly.
Ren looked uncomfortably deadpan after hearing that, "Eh... Well thanks for clearing that up for me, I guess."
Fitoria then raised her arm out and from her hand, a magic glow appeared until that magic forms into a small magic silver crown with blue and red gems on it, "This is my reward to you, for overcoming my trial. Please lower her head for me."
Scarlet was still overwhelmed by all of this and looks up to Ren who just nods in approval of it.
Scarlet then lets go of Ren and walks right up to Fitoria and kneels down for her.
Fitoria then places the crown on her head, "Scarlet I officially declare you my next successor." And after that, the crown itself started to glow as the object becomes ingrained into Scarlet's mana pool. And with that, all of the wild Filolials all around began to squawk out loud in celebration of their future queen, with Ren just as happy and proud to see his little bird girl grow up so much so fast.
Eventually, the crown poofs away into sparkles and suddenly a large strand of Scarlet's black hair rose straight up on her head, "Ah what has happened to me!" she shouts now noticing that hair sticking out in front of her face.
"It's a symbol of Filolial royalty like mine. You will start to grow more as you age and level up, so you might as well get used to it." Fitoria responds as she points toward her own 3 hair strands that stand up.
"Heh, I think it looks cute on you." Ren jokes as he continues to smile.
"No no no no! It looks ugly on me, it's going away!" Scarlet then rips the hair strand off her head with her strength. She smiled to see the hair gone, but in less than a second later a new one pops back up like nothing, "NO!" She shouts again as she pulls this hair off and yet again another one pops up. She does this over and over again as she starts to form up a small pile of long hair on the ground.
"That is not going to do anything, you'll just run out of mana first and fall into a deep sleep afterward, that hair isn't going away," Fitoria responds with Scarlet still pouting in anger at the cowlick sticking out in front of her face.
Ren then chimes in, "Maybe you can put on a cute helmet or a hat, that's what kids in my school use to do to get rid of bad bedhead. "
"No way am I going to wear a dumb helmet to hid this dumb hair." Scarlet complains not likening the idea, that was until she had thought up her own idea to solve her problem, "Hey Fitoria is there a way to get that crown thing to come back?" she asks her.
"There's not much of a point to it but for appearance, but if you can concentrate the mana upon your head you can make the crown appear again if you want it back so badly," she responds.
And without hesitation Scarlet concentrates her mana near the top of her head and out pops up the crown again on her head. Scarlet was happy to see it once more as she lifts it up and places the strand of hair under it, she puts the crown back on and with that her hair problem was instantly gone.
Scarlet was now happy again as she spins and skips around the two, "This is so awesome master Ren, I'm now the princess of the filolials."
"Ha, so does that make me your knight in shiny armor." Ren jokes happily to see Scarlet excited again with energy after what just happened a few minutes ago.
Scarlet stops as she puts her hand on her chin, "No I think you be better as someone higher up... Hmmm... Oh I know, you can be my prime minister who will always be next to me and do any boring ruler stuff I request to be done."
'Honestly, I'm surprised she even knows what a Prime minister even is?" Ren comments in his head.
Fitoria then took out a strand of her hair off of her head with one immediately growing back, and hands it over to Ren, "This is also my reward to you Sword hero."
Ren didn't hesitate to take it and immediately puts the hair in his sword, and just like that he instantly gains a bunch of Filolial related swords and abilities unlocking the entire filolial set. Most were still behind levels and other barriers though, so he would have to work and level up some more to be able to use them, but having them at all was still good enough for Ren.
But after that Fitoria got back on topic, "Sir Sword hero, I am still serious about the heroes not needing to fight with each other the night before. I hope you have a response for me on that."
Ren sighs, he knew this question would be brought up again, it was something he kept thinking about all day yesterday. He sees getting the other 3 heroes to work together to be a hopeless task, but at the same time if he doesn't try Fitoria was going to kill them all anyway and she has the power to do so. Still the fact she was willing to give him a chance to make right what he did wrong to a fellow hero is something he can't turn away from. He knew it won't be easy, but hey if a shielder can be the most compenent hero out of all of them then nothing is impossible.
Ren then responds, "Alright Fitoria as a promise, I'll get the cardinal heroes to work and fight the waves together. And I'll start by making it up with Bakugou and own up to my original mistake."
Fitoria smiles, happy to hear that answer.
Scarlet on the other hand wasn't too big on it, "But master Ren do we really have to? That loud shield guy always makes my ears ring and he has that stupid smelly dragon with him all the time."
But Ren just pats her on the head with the crown, "Sometimes we have to suck up our pride for the greater good Scarlet. This isn't just about us anymore, but for the world."
Scarlet was still not liking the idea of making friends with a dragon, but she knew there was no arguing with her master and didn't say more about it.
Fitoria then spoke up again, "Though the two of you did just got here, before you go why don't we celebrate Scarlet's coronation together?"
Ren immediately nods in agreement, "Definitely after all the crap that we had happen to us lately I think we deserve a little break."
"Oh boy, does this mean we get to eat more of that soup stuff you made master Ren, I want more," Scarlet asks letting her stomach speak for herself again with Ren rubbing her crowned head again.
Ren though turns his head toward Fitoria one more time, "Actually if you don't mind, can we stay here for a few days, not only to recover, but I think you can teach us some stuff both to Scarlet and me on filolial magic and some sword skills?" he requests, he knew how tough of a fighter Bakugou was and after fighting Motoyasu and Itsuki he knew he needed all the help he could get to not be slaughtered by either group.
Fitoria scratches her chin a bit until she spoke up, "Very well, I guess a few days won't hurt to get you two stronger. But only a few days and that's it. I'm not the best with swords though, I practiced a bit of fencing, but no major techniques."
"Then just tell me about the skills I can learn them easily and not waste too much time." Ren responds
"Sir Sword hero you can't just rely on skills alone, you must learn how to properly use a sword as well. Just like any tool a skill can only be as effective as the users who can properly use the tool. If I'm going to tell you anything, you must learn the basics of proper sword fighting. Mindless swinging might work with a club but not with a sword." She answers and lectures him.
Ren didn't want to waste time on boring sword lessons when he can just use his swords abilities, but then again it probably wouldn't be wise to say no to a queen who can crush you like paper after she offers you help, so he just agrees to, "Well I guess so. If it can get me stronger it will be worth it."
Scarlet then butted in again, "Say Miss Fitoria, could you possibly teach me how to fly as well?" she asked
"You mean levitation? You seemed to already have a good understanding of it from our fight, but if you need to have more practice we could..."
"No no no not levitating?! Flying, like way up in the sky for long periods of time like all other birds do."
But Fitoria just shakes her head to that, "I'm afraid Filolials cannot truly fly Scarlet even with my magic it's far easier to fast travel with my carriage."
"Uggghhh. But I wanted to learn how to fly." Scarlet whines
"Flying is for dragons Scarlet, no need to waste time on something lower intelligent lifeforms succeed at.
"But that is why I need to fly, to prove those stupid dragons how much better we are... That and it seems like a lot of fun."
Ren once again rubs her crowned head, "I'm sure you will learn to fly one day Scarlet, but for now let's allow Fitoria to teach you stuff that will be more useful to us now."
Scarlet looked away annoyed again as her dreams of flying were dashed away once more.
Fitoria then spoke up one last time, "Why don't we worry about training a little bit later, lets just celebrate now and enjoy the coronation party.
"Yeah let's eat!" Scarlet shouts excitingly as she heads toward the food pots to eat some more .
And both Ren and Fitoria weren't too far behind as they followed.
Fitoria still had some doubts on whether the sword hero can succeed or not in his promise, but at the same time he was the one who raised Scarlet her future successor, so maybe it wasn't completely hopeless after all.
Only time will tell and in the meantime, she just sits down at the dinner table and relaxed as she plans to improve the two heroes to be able to handle both the waves and anti-human nation of Siltvelt, and being able to make the decision on to save the world or to save its people.
Over five days had passed since the council, Patriarch, and King got stuck within their deep sleeps, and Bakugou's crew have been all over Siltvelt, going to almost every single person who owns a slave across the country whether just a single one from a household or a full field of workers, and taking them in. The nobles and slavers either gave them all willing to support their god, through bribery with the church's money, by the their fake free church land certifications, or just arresting them and confiscating the slaves with blackmail material the church and council had.
At the same time, Bakugou's team and the soldiers had been distributing crystal balls to the lower caste groups, like those in farming, mining, manufacturing, or bureaucratic work all across Siltvelt, though they were requested by the shield hero to not activate them until the after 6 days which was tommorow.
Right now it was early in the morning with the sun barely up at Hielta valley there was lots of activity as almost all of the Siltvelts slaves were now gathered around in this area, well over tens of thousands of slaves that also contained thousands of large wagons with horses and filolias drawing them. Many of the slaves were assigned a wagon as a group, usually with family members and relatives, many who never saw each other in year's from parents to children, aunts and uncles to nieces and nephews, siblings to siblings, or grandparents to grandchildren they were all united once more. But those without family's were assigned to friends or groups they were acquainted with like with other slaves that worked on the same field or masters together.
And just as Bakugou ordered each wagon had over a month's supply of food and fresh water, along with other survival items, and chests with 1000 silver coins each only openable with a key given to the head person assigned to the wagon.
They also had their slave crests removed from their chests, Bakugou told the soldiers that they might as well go as he didn't have enough blood to assign every single one of them as his slaves and it makes his big plan easier to do without each crest different rule sets messing anything up. Or well that was the excuse he gave them anyway, he had a different idea of what he wants from them. And with all the soldiers around the human slaves knew it was risky to try to make a run for it.
Bakugou himself was up at a tall plateau as he overlooked the whole operation as the assigning was finally completed, General Tarn then walks up to Bakugou, "Lord Bakugou we have finished organizing the slaves with their families or groups and their assigned wagons, what do you want us to do now?" he asks still wondering what this whole thing was about.
Bakugou just smugly smiles as he walks up near the edge of the plateau, "I'll tell you soon, first I need to make my first order to my slaves." he answers the general as he looks outward to the display of wagons and groups of humans together. He then yells, "OK! LISTEN UP!" he screams across the valley with everything going silent as the soldiers and humans listen in toward the shield hero, "Ok, then for my first order to all of you humans, I want all of you to get on your wagons and head east, and keep going east no matter what until you get near a big stoned wall. Don't stray off or stop for anything, keep going at the path at all costs, or you're dead! That is all I ask of you and don't any of you dare try to screw or assault anyone else's wagon, or the punishment will be castration! Do any of you have any more complaints!" he shouts toward the crowd, but no one said a thing not wanting to question the one the soldiers see as their god.
After a minute of silence, Bakugou finally shouted, "Ok then my slaves! Head east!" he ordered and like clockwork, the slaves all got on their assigned wagons and were all ready to head east. And little did all of them know this would be the first and last order they would be given by their new master.
After that Bakugou turns back to the general, "Ok your new order is to keep an eye out for them, make sure they don't encounter any monsters, bandits, or other life-threatening obstacles until they are no more the 10 miles away from Melromarcs border, then you and the rest of your troops are to leave them alone and head back to your original posts." he ordered.
Though the general still couldn't wrap his head on this whole thing, "I understand Lord Bakugou, but what is exactly the point of this whole thing? What is sending the slaves toward Melromarc going to accomplish? No bombs or explosives planted, no deadly diseases, no devastating curses, or anything to help cripple Melromarc?"
"You'll see soon asshole, this is part of my master plan to conquer all of Melromarc soon, so quit questioning it and just do your damn jobs!" Bakugou shouts at him doing his best to brush the whole thing off.
The general still didn't understand what this was going to do, but he wasn't going to question the will of his god and just nods, "Very well, we'll protect the slaves from anything until they are near Melromarc and return to the capital and listen to your next order." He responds with Bakugou just turning away to activate his map shield again to fast travel back to Siltvelts capital to the cathedral again.
Little did any of them know, this whole scheme was basically Bakugou's elaborate way of freeing almost all of Siltvelts slaves.
At the bordering wall of Siltvelt and Melromarc sat a large garrison of soldiers who were all alert and had been observing the other side of the wall, in the fear of Siltvelts forces eventually coming to attack their nation. Even with a decent-sized army camped out on the Melromarc side, the anxiety has not stopped.
At the wall was the man in charge of the whole thing, High General Richeart. Other than the Queen and King of Melromarc and the cardinal heroes, he was the highest ranking individual in Melromarcs army. He's a great patriot who loves his country, but not to a fanatic degree as he understands its flaws and wishes to keep its people protected from enemy armies.
He was assigned there by King Aultcray to inspect and keep an eye on the border and respond as soon as possible when Siltvelt and the shield hero attack. He would have to be the nation's first line of defense against an enemy invasion. He was also assigned to keep a lookout for the sword hero trying to escape Melromarc, though unlike the former he wasn't big on the latter order.
"General we inspected the wall from all sections of the Merdark province and have begun to check on the Lincark province." a knight captain explains to the general.
"Good, make sure both sides of the wall are in good shape, can't let the back be weak in an invasion. And to be honest we should be more concerned of an attack on the Melromarc side." the General responds.
"Are you referring to Lord Reichnott, his noblemen followers, and the sword hero?" the captain asked confused.
"No, neither of those two have done anything wrong. They have all the rights to have their views. It's actually Aultcray I'm worried about." he responds. lately he has been losing more and more respect for his King, his position and rule as regent was already stretching legal lines as it was, but his increasing paranoia of the Shield hero and anyone who criticizes his order or laws was scaring him. And with what recently happened with Lord Rabiers castle and the sword hero completely disappearing after being reported to have been witnessed there fighting a giant monster, it was making things look scarier.
The Captain was silent for a second but understood his commander, "I don't blame you things have been crazy lately, I just hope our Queen returns soon enough to straighten this whole thing out."
"I hope so too. We need her here back before her husband makes things even worse. The end of Aultcray's deadline to Reichnott and his supports has already passed and I know nothing good will come of it even after all of Aultcrays supporters got vaporized." the General responds in a somber tone fearing more of the threat inside his country than of what's outside it.
He continues to walk around the wall to see the countryside of his homelands and the army below, ready for anything.
Until he heard, "General Richeart! You have to come and see this!" a soldier yelled from the top of a garrison tower holding onto a pair of binoculars.
Richeart was quick to respond as he rushes himself in his heavy armor up the stairs to the top fearing for the worst, "What is it soldier? What's going on!?" he shouts hoping it wasn't the Siltvelt invasion here already.
"There is a giant force of wagons heading our way hauled by horses and filolials, it looks to be in the thousands."
'Wagons?" the General thought to himself wondering why that be the case, "Is it carrying the Siltvelt army?"
"Uh... No sure, from what I can tell, they're all humans." the soldier answers.
"Humans?! With wagons in Siltvelt? Give me those binoculars now soldier." the General ordered with the minor soldier not questioning his superior and hands it over.
"Just over the ridge sir." he points to as the General looks through.
And after only looking for a few seconds after adjusting the lens he himself saw the huge gathering of wagons heading toward this direction, and after getting a closer look on the ones holding on to the reigns of the horses and large birds were not Demis of any kind, but of humans with a few looking tired and dirty clearly showing their years of slavery.
The General finally puts the binoculars down with the soldier speaking up again, "Now you see what I mean? What are we going to do when they all get here?"
The General still didn't know what all of this meant, but he knew they were in for a big event and had to be ready for it. He turns and heads down the stairs of the tower, "Turn off any magic defenses we might have on, get the men ready, and have everyone be all hands on deck, tell them it's not of an invasion of demi-humans. But one of refugees." he orders to a bunch of soldiers and captains listening in and after that, they had all scattered to be ready for the incoming swarm of caravans.
And just a half an hour later the huge force of wagons finally came, gathering near the border gate with most of the former human slaves of Siltvelt in it, with the Melromarc army on the other side ready for anything.
The mass of wagons had finally stopped by at the wall gates as their shield hero ordered, waiting for something to happen.
The general yells out from above the wall, "Who goes there!? Why are you here for?!"
An elder from the front of the wagons stood up to speak out for the former slaves, "Is this the way to Melromarc?!"
"Yes, but why are you here?!" The General yells
"We were ordered to come here by the shield hero? Gave us the wagons and everything in them!" the elder responds.
"Wait the shield hero, is he being serious?" a soldier asks as the other soldiers gossiped to each other about the whole thing.
The general was just as stomped to why the so call shield devil did this. He can quickly tell this was not remotely an army or bait or anything like it. Was the shield hero really just freeing all of Siltvelts human slaves?
After thinking to himself about all of this for a minute Richeart finally ordered, "Start letting a few of them in at a time."
"Wait a second Sir are you sure about this? What if it's a trap conducted by the shield devil to destroy the wall?" a paranoid soldier spoke up about this with him and a few others thinking the same.
But it was up to him to keep order, "No this is not any trap, I would know of one when I see one. If it was only a couple or a dozen wagons I would be suspicious, but no way would Siltvelt waste so many resources on slaves and wagons just to sabotage one part of this wall. Let a couple in at a time and inspect the wagons though just to be safe. After you find nothing suspicious start letting more in to be inspected. And if there cleared help these poor souls out in any way you can." he ordered with his men nodding in agreement.
And finally the wall gates opened with a dozen or so wagons coming in at a time. The soldiers below quickly inspect each one of the wagons as well as the humans in them and ask them some questions.
When it became clear that this was not some sort of elaborate trap the general ordered more and more to come in and more and more soldiers got involved.
And after that over 16 hours later, every single wagon had gone through that gate as the former slaves had all officially escaped from their Demi-human overlords.
And with that the gates shut again, there was now nothing Siltvelt could do about this, as the former slaves were within Melromarc borders now.
As ordered the army was helping out the escaped slaves in any way they could, providing aid and healing for these people. But there were a lot of them, more than the army can handle at the moment. Richeart knew they needed more manpower to deal with all of these people.
The General turns toward another captain, "Get in contact with King Aultcray as soon as possible, this won't be enough to help all of these poor souls."
"Yes sir, but I still don't understand how this could've happened? According to almost all that we questioned they said the same thing of the Shield hero collecting them and just letting them go. What do you think all of this means?" the captain asked.
Richeart was silent for a few seconds until he finally came to his own conclusion, "It appears that the so-called Shield devil. Wasn't much of a devil after all."
Back at Siltvelt in the next morning at the mining town of Edvie inside one of the town's mines, many of the digger and miner demi-humans were all exhausted as they take their 5-minute breaks from mining all day for the past few days. Ever since their company had "temporarily" gave away their slaves by the shield hero agent's request they were forced to work double the shifts to make up for the loss of production for the missing slaves.
But then there team leader Danar the mole demi-human arrived at the scene holding onto a crystal ball, "Everyone listen! Today is the day we are supposed to turn on the crystal ball given to us by miss Rino and hear what the shield hero has to say, so please listen up to lord Bakugou." he announced to his crew and fellow workers knowing this was the best time to activate it.
Most of the mineworkers quickly gathered to listen as Danar activates the magic orb. With all eyes on it as the crystal ball activates and an image recording of Bakugou appears from the ball that finally speaks.
"Hey Workers of Siltvelt, this is me your shield hero god or whatever. I'm just here to tell you something or give you advice. Many of you have broken your backs to some overprivileged asshole for all your lives, all for work you probably didn't want to do in the first place but had to because of the stupid ass caste system. Well, I just wanted to say, all of you deserve better, and you shouldn't take constant shit from the council of Oligarchs and the Prime Minister that runs this country. If you're forced to basically work as slaves, they might as well pay the deserving amount to compensate you and give the days off you earned. And if they refuse, I say go on a strike. Stop working your asses off for them and see if they can make any more profits if your not providing anything for them, make them see what you are really worth, and protest the shitty work conditions and the dumbass caste system, make some signs and chant what you really want! So go out there and strike! Oh and one more thing, DO NOT GET VIOLENT! You are better than those assholes so keep your protests as peaceful as possible and don't try to assault or kill anyone, self-defense is fine, but don't go antagonizing anyone. Did you all get it? Good! Have fun." After that, the image turns itself off.
All the workers go on to look at one another all nodding with each other, they all feel the oppression and unfairness by their owners and nations leaders over their work and caste. And to be encouraged to stand up for themselves by the shield hero, their god it was more than enough for them to take his word and go on a strike especially since all the slaves were removed from the mines, so the owners no longer had leverage over there jobs anymore.
Then a large male Aotatsu dragon newt comes into the area, it was the owner of the mine and he was not looking happy, "Hey! Your five-minute breaks are up! Get back to work you dirt eaters!" he yells at them.
But rather than instilling fear like it usually does, being encouraged by the words of the shield hero the workers all take off their mining helmets and started throwing them at the dragon newt man.
"We are not slaves to the likes of you! If you want to treat us like slaves when we are not, then we ought to use our rights as non-slaves, come everyone let us go on strike until we are paid fairly and have better work conditions!" Danar yells making all the other workers cheer in agreement. The workers continue to throw the rest of their equipment on the ground and all start to leave the mine in mass to begin the long strike.
The mine owner just turns away pissed, "Fine go ahead and leave! You're all fired!" he then turns to a higher-up worker who was not leaving to protest, a bureaucrat who was in charge of keeping things in order and report to him of events such as this, "John, get in contact with the nearest slave trader and rent out as many slaves as possible to work here. Let's see how long those losers protest when the monkeys take their jobs. They'll be back and I'll have an excuse to deduct their pays when they're begging for their jobs back."
The bureaucrat though looked nervous as he scratches his head, "Uh, sir that isn't going to be possible?"
"What the hell do you mean not possible!? Just get a bunch of those stupid monkeys to work here and when the shield hero is done with whatever he is doing we will have our old slaves back and have them get back to work as well!"
"Uhh... Actually, it relates to the shield hero, he also had bought out or shut down almost all the slave shops all across the country, and confiscated all of the slaves. And the slaves themselves, uhhh... From what I've heard, they're all in Melromarc now."
"WHAT!? Are you saying all of our slaves were just let go!? And there is nowhere else to buy more slaves at?!"
"Well, I... I uhh... Unfortunately yes."
"Damn it! Then go out to find more jobless dirt eaters and get them to work and officially fire those whiners!"
"Sir I've checked all week and there are no more digger castes that can work here. They either went to work with the new lords that we're granted church land or are working in other mines, and from what rumors I'm hearing the other mines are also dealing with protests themselves."
"There has to be some sort low intelligent louts out there that can replace them? There has to be?" the owner yells now looking genuinely worried about the state of his mine, how can he make money off of selling metals if there is no one to mine them?
"The only ones available are demi's of different castes, but if we hire them to work outside their caste, we could be facing a ton of legal trouble from the crown. And even then they're demanding higher wages than what we already give to the striking employees."
"So you're saying there is nothing we can do to replace the whiners?"
"I'm afraid not, the only thing we can do is either give in their demands or wait it out but who knows how long that will last, if they are working together money and food won't be an issue so they could go on for weeks maybe even a few months. And who knows if our company will last that long."
The mine owner didn't know what to say anymore, he was now having a panic attack on the prospect that his business could go bankrupt if the metals aren't mined out soon. He moves away to his office intending to go to his liquor cabinet and relieve some of the stress from this horrible event.
And right outside of the mine, all of the workers had already begun their strike as they protest peacefully until their bosses give in.
And it was not just here, this was happening to almost all mines, farms, and manufacturing areas all across Siltvelt. All from the words of the shield hero.
By the next day in Siltvelt, Mellia and Allen had just woked up from a deep sleep. Despite the long nap, the two felt like garbage suffering from the side effects of their advanced sleep potion, though to them they think they are just suffering from a gigantic hangover.
"Uggh, good lord what in the hell was in that wine? I think for now on we avoid drinking century old wine." Allen groans as his wife gets herself up feeling just as bad as he was.
But as the two look around they noticed that they were not in their manors master bedroom, they were in some low-budgeted inn.
Being of high class this immediately disgusted Mellia, "Yuck disgusting! Why the hell are we in a low caste pigsty!?"
Though Allen was not in the mood to be feeling the same, "Whatever? Let's just get back home and get back on our silk beds and hire a doctor to get rid of this massive headache."
After that not wanting to stay in this room any longer they just left the inn without bothering with anything else.
Thankfully for them, they were still in the same town they lord over so they just walk their way to their manor.
As they were walking though they were hearing quiet gossip from the townspeople talking about their lords behind their backs.
The two nobles didn't care what they were talking about and just wanted to get back home. As they try to get over the sideeffects of the potion they did notice a weird patch on both of their faces on the left cheek. They didn't know why it's there, though they both figured it was probably a cut or something when they got dead drunk from the wine and left them on for now just in case until they get a doctor to come by at the manor.
But as they got to their manor they saw a weird sight. There were a bunch of soldiers all around their property guarding the area and what looks like them throwing out stuff from their own house on the dirty ground. That stuff that turned out to be their prize possessions and paintings of themselves just being thrown out into the mud.
When they got right up to the gate, a large rhino soldier got in the way, "Halt, who goes there."
"Move the hell out of our way you tower of lard. I like to be in a proper bed now!" Mellia yells at him not having the patience with this nonsense.
"This is the private property of the Lord of this area, turn back now?" The soldier responds.
After hearing that both Mellia and Allen were wide awake in shock to be hearing that, "What the hell are you even talking about!? I am the lord of this land!? This is my property, so get out of my way and stop throwing out my stuff!"
"Ha not anymore your not." the soldier mocks back.
"What do you mean not anymore!? Who in the hell is then!?" Mellia raises her voice demanding answers.
"Lady Loria Serita is officially the lord of this region again."
The two were in absolute shock to be hearing that name again, "Loria!? That can't be!? That old whore had disgraced the name of the church and is excommunicated, she is no more than a scavenger on the street!" Allen raises his voice not wanting to believe that his old wife has come back to haunt him.
"Nope, she has recently been pardoned and her excommunication was lifted." the soldier continued answering the questions.
"Pardon!? Who in hell's name pardoned that low caste fleabag!?" Mellia demanded.
And the soldier was quick to answer, "The shield hero pardoned her among with many others."
The two dropped their mouths when they heard that name, "The shield hero! Why the hell would he...? Whatever the damn excuse is, this is still my property as was given to me and my wife at the divorce courts."
The Rhino soldier then corrected them again, "That also been recently voided. Lady Loria was given back all of her money, assets, and property. You two were given nothing as true excommunicated scum deserve."
"Excommunicated!? what are you..." But as the two looked at each other's cheeks with the bandages, they immediately ripped them off and saw they were hiding. They were both branded with the heretic mark, they were now the excommunicated ones.
"You imbecile this was clearly a setup of some sort! Do you think a good woman of the church like me be accused as such a thing as heresy!?" Mellia screams at the soldier who was just enjoying the show with a few of his buddies watching.
"Nope, that was also a direct order by the shield hero. You both were marked as heretics and were appropriately excommunicated. He had also confiscated any slaves you had in the estate so don't bother to look for them either."
The two were utterly confused by this whole thing, "But how can he...? What does he... Who would even say anything about...?" Allen stopped when he finally realized who was truly responsible for this, "That little bastard! Where the hell is my son Daven!?"
"The shield hero's companion has been around the country lately collecting human slaves and he has recently returned back to the capital." the soldiers answered their last question.
Allen was pissed off pressing his hands on his face, "Shit! Shit! Shit! How could have this happened? Loria should've starved to death years ago. And how did the spy corps not disciple that brat!? I need some time to think of something to get the courts to overturn the shield hero's nonsense, then maybe we could wait for a-ah!" Allen thinks then he screams as Mellia pulls on the collar of his suit and starts dragging him.
"I do not have time to wait on bullshit for that garbage eater whore! We're going to the capital and confront that damned Shield hero directly and kill that damn son of yours!" Mellia shouts as she starts to spread out her wings, and with a few quick flaps, she was now up in the air flying higher and higher as she drags her husband with her on the way to Siltvelts capital to fix this disgrace that had fallen upon them.
At the Shield hero cathedral, the patriarch was at his bed now awake from his slumber drinking some headache potion suffering from the sleeping potion's side effects. He can't remember too much the night before, all he remembers was promising the human princess to baptizing her into the church and he just clocked out.
He wasn't sure how much he drunk that night, but he just wanted to remain where he was to be in peace and quietness.
"I DEMAND TO SEE THE SHIELD BRAT NOW!" he heard outside of his bedroom. He wasn't sure what that was, but it was not stopping and was just hurting his head.
And it went on and on none stop, the Ox man couldn't take it anymore and decided to leave his bedroom so he can make it stop.
After leaving the room and walking down the hallway he saw a group of church disciples dealing with very angry priests, priestesses, and a few nobles with their worthless land coupons. After rubbing his eyes to confirm it, he wasn't sure why they're are hear and are yelling and complaining.
And within the group a church disciple tries to ease the situation, "Please ma'am this is a place of Holy Spirit, if you d not calm down we are forced to.."
"DO YOU HAVE ANY IDEA WHAT THE HERO HAS DONE? He has literally given everything away other than the churches themselves and the property on them. I demand to speak to that little piece of shit RIGHT NOW! A priestess continues to yell at the terrified church group. They were about ready to call the guards, but their fears died down once everyone saw the Patriarch coming his way down the hallway after being asleep for almost a week.
Once with the group the Patriarch the wanted to know what is going on, "Why are all of you here and why are you so mad?" Ozsan politely asked trying to defuse the situation.
A different priest then spoke up, "Patriarch Ozsan, we demand an audience with the shield hero and have him fix all the grave errors he has been making."
"Errors? What errors are you talking about?" Ozsan asked wondering what Bakugou could've possibly done to them after he just finished a wave last night.
A different priest stormed up to him, "He has been ruining our church, pardoning sinners, and has given away everything the church holds any value to!"
Ozsan was now alerted and shocked to be hearing such things to be related to the shield hero, "This sounds terrible, but there must've been some misunderstanding or something. No way would the shield hero be destroying the integrity of this church."
"Oh really is that why the people outside are burning your old holy book." A different priestess responds sarcastically back.
"Of course, we do all we can to... Wait there doing what!?" Ozsan shouts in shock to hear such a thing. His headache completely disappeared and before saying anything else he ran off toward the entrance of the cathedral.
And his fears were realized, he was witnessing a large fire being burned right outside his church's grounds, and he was horrified t be see what is being burned in it, the holy shield hero Bible.
He was witnessing numerous people throwing the good book into the fires as their holy pages burn into ashes. And saw his church disciples cleaning the ashes acting like this was nothing.
The Patriarch immediately ran up to the cleaners, "What in heavens name is going on here!"
"The book-burning sir, we are merely cleaning up the mess." one of the cleaners responds.
"Well make it stop! This is all heresy on the highest level! I demand everyone participating in this to be arrested and all be excommunicated at once!" Ozsan yells.
But the disciple cleaners were ignoring the order, "But my lord the old book is considered heresy now. That is why we are all burning them."
"What!? By whose authority?!" Ozsan demanded
"The shield hero, Katsuki Bakugou. He has declared the old Bible as blasphemous heresy and has recently published a new revised Bible, the Katsuki Bakugou Bible." the cleaner responds as he goes through his robes and showed the shocked Patricah of the new Bible, which the front cover has an illustration of Bakugou making a smug face and was titled, "Katsuki Bakugou's Holy shield Bible".
Ozsan was completely confused by this and demanded answers, "Where is the shield hero at now?"
"He is currently in your office. Most likely conducting more orders or selling off the last of the church's lands."
"He's done what?!" Ozsan shouts in shock and immediately turns to run back to his cathedral and get to Bakugou before he could ruin his church anymore.
He even ran past the complaining priests and nobles groups now more focused on saving his church than anything else.
A priest was puzzled by the whole thing, "What the hell is going on here?"
another of them then spoke his mind, "I think the Patriarch had realized what he has slept in on."
At the Patriarch's office, Bakugou had his feet up on the desk as usual as he discusses with a priest through a crystal ball held by a disciple, "Lord Bakugou are you sure about ending the church monopolies? They're a great source of revenue for the church?"
"Yeah just get rid of them, we don't own any more silver mines or wine farms or whatever anymore anyway. Might as well dump it. And we make more than enough plus extra from donations so we don't need them." Bakugou orders casually more focused on the dartboards he's made with pictured illustrations of King Aultcray, Malty, Itsuki, and Motoyasu with numerous darts on each of them.
"But... But sir we might need them for.."
"Excuse me, what the hell is the name of this church?"
"Uh, the holy shield hero church?"
"And who am I?"
"Uh, the shield hero?"
"Good, now we are on the same picture, DO WHAT YOU'RE TOLD!"
"Uhuh, yes my lord the monopolies will be canceled immediately, sorry to bother you." the priest finally cuts off turning the orb off.
Bakugou smiles loving how everything has gone lately as he throws a dart with it hitting Maltys picture in the eye.
But just after that, the doors of the office opened up with Patriarch Ozsan panting and breathing heavy trying to get there as fast as he could, "Lord.. Lord Bakugou what have you been doing?!" he asked still breathing heavily.
Bakugou noticed but wasn't paying much mind, "I've been making new changes lately, changes that will make my church even better."
"Better? From what I've told while running here, you pardoned all the excommunicated from their punishment?"
"Yeah so?"
"My lord, these people have been disrespectful of you, told lies about our church, and are nothing but trouble makers."
"Not in my eyes they weren't, so I pardon them of their dumb crimes."
"But then you ended up giving away most the churches territories, all to those people."
"Yeah, my church my land, so I can do whatever I want with it and I gave it away to people more deserving of it than any of you assholes."
"But you just freed all of our slaves, and gave all that is left of our bottom workforce huge pay raises and giant pay deductions of those higher up?"
"Yeah and they were my slaves and my employees, so I'll do whatever I want with my slaves and pay however I want for my employees."
"But... But... This revision of the Bible, why didn't you wait until I helped you to approve it?"
"Because I didn't need help or your damn approval. Oh yeah, I like you to read this section to keep you up to date on your job." Bakugou then showed off his bible on a specific page forcing the Patriarch to read it.
After reading through most of the page he got to a part that he couldn't believe what he was seeing, 'The power of excommunication, is restricted only to the shield hero himself, no one of any other authority in the church will be allowed to administrate one without the direct approval of a living shield hero, those that fail to do so will be immediately excommunicated themselves. If there is no current living shield hero, the power of excommunication will be completely dissolved until the coming of a new shield hero.'.
Ozsan now looked completely baffled as he takes the book and looks over more random pages and he couldn't believe his eyes on things like allowing all marriages to be valid regardless of one's class, race, or gender, the disapproval of structures like the caste system, removing the idea of holy wars and forced conversions, and removal of anything anti-human relate from the old bible, as well as any sort of real authority or powers the church had outside of religion.
Ozsan was baffled and had to drop that book, "But... But my lord Bakugou, how... How are we to spread your word and enforce it if you.."
"Excuse me, who is your damn God here!?"
"Uh..uh.."
"It's me Jackass! I'll say the same damn thing as I've had said with these other idiots! I'm charged here, and I'll do whatever the damn hell I want with this church and you fools! So don't try to revoke a damn thing I implemented or your fired! And I'll brand your literal ass as a heretic! GOT IT!" Bakugou yells at Ozsan.
Ozsan could barely think straight, not knowing what to say, "I..i...i... .. ... Where is Lord Trinock and the council at?"
"Oh, those assholes should be up at that fort Titan place, say hi for them to me and see if they like how I've changed the place." Bakugou mocks as he throws another dart this time hitting at Motoyasu's pictures crotch.
Ozsan was having a complete panic attack as his whole world crumbles before him, as any sense of power he had before the shield hero had arrived completely disappeared. He storms out of the room and on his way out of the church toward fort Titan hoping the council or Prime Minister could somehow fix this mess.
"Ugh... Good lord, what the hell was in that damn wine?" Lady Shellina complains as she has an ice pack on her head along with the rest of the council and Trinock as they were now at Fort Titans hospital recovering from massive headaches they suffered from.
"I told you those damn church do-gooders are not processing it right anymore. I knew that giving them the monopoly was a giant mistake." Lord Rehu brings up.
The five got up a few hours ago and were told Bakugou had left the fort awhile ago to do some errands, which they didn't care about as long as he was back to start negotiations with the demi-human kingdoms for the confederation tomorrow.
Things had been mostly peaceful at the place as the five relax their way to recover from their long slumber.
But that peace ended as the doors to the hospital busted open.
The five turned to see Patriarch Ozsan who was barely breathing from exhaustion and was sweating like mad getting here by horse and then running through the large fort on foot, "My lords... My Lords... We have a huge problem."
Trinock got himself up as he walks toward the churchman, "What is it this time Ozsan? You should be getting the preparations started to declare a holy war on Melromarc." he demands from the churchman, not in the mood for politics from the massive headache he and the others are suffering from.
"War is the least of our worries right now. The... The shield hero, he is ruining the country!" Ozsan informs all of them
"Ha don't be ridiculous Ozsan, what could have that brat done in one night to be so bad." Larq brushes off
"It has not been one night! Our drinks were drugged, it's been almost a week and the shield hero was active the whole time."
After hearing that from Ozsan it was now making Trinock look nervous with him and the other councilors now listening in.
"Active in what?" Lord Valnar asked.
"He's been ruining my church, selling off all of our lands to a bunch of pardoned excommunicated heretics, and freeing all the churches slaves."
"That's hardly a big deal, just re-enslave them again and rebrand the heretics not long afterward." Lord Rehu brought up
Ozsan then explained the terrible truth to to, "We can't there all gone, he just sent them all off to Melromarc, and there is nowhere to buy any more slaves at, but he not only freed the church slaves, but he has freed away almost all of the slaves from all the estates all across Siltvelt."
"He did WHAT!?" the council and Trinock shouted in unison.
"Yes, he freed all of them, and now there also protests of the lower castes all across the country demanding all kinds of things and are refusing to work anymore by the encouragement of the shield hero."
Trinock quickly grabs the holy Oxman by his robes up to his face, "Tell me this is just some stupid joke your making?!"
But all Ozsan could answer was, "Have you ever known me with any sort of sense of humor?"
"NNNNOOOOO!" Trinock shouts now realizing what the shield brat has done.
"No this can't be happening!" Valnar shouts as he and the three other councilors ran off out toward the exit heading right for their estates hoping their own slaves weren't gone and their workers were not protesting.
Trinock threw the Patriarch on the ground and starts stomping his way out of the fort, but not to his estate, but back to the capital, with his eyes grow deep red in anger, "That brat will PAY!"
Far away from Siltvelt back at Melromarc inside the capital's castle, King Aultcray was on his way toward a chamber where he will be communicating with Reichnott and a few other noble representatives as his deadline to them had expired a few days ago, but as of now he no longer had the force to make up his threat before to arrest them as all of the nobles and high merchants that supported him were all reduced to ashes by Rabiers castle exploding leaving only Pope Balmus as its only survivor.
And speaking of Rabier as he walks to the chamber his advisor was with him walking along to update him on him on the knight unit sent to Mirso, "I hope you have good news for me." Aultcrays asks
"Uh unfortunately Sire, well... The entire unit was wiped out."
"Wiped out! How in the hell were our greatest knights unable to kill and package away a bunch of dirty animals!?" Aultcray yells at the advisor.
"I...I don't know sire that is what the reports are saying, not a single survivor was found, not even Rabier who's corpse we did found floating away in an old creek... or what barely resembles a corpse anyway, we can tell he did not have a pleasant end."
"Damn it all! Can't anyone do anything right!? Send out another unit and just kill them all off."
"But... But sire, the troops have been getting very distant from your rule lately, they are starting to ignore direct commands from you."
"And why is that?!"
"Well combine your campaign to hunt down the sword hero and threatening to start a civil war in the middle of the wave events has made most of them doubt your sanity or rule. They are also nervous by the whole Rabier castles and Mirso incident, they think you have lost the blessings of the heavens and are being punished for it and don't want to get involved in them. At least those are the rumors anyway." the advisor explains.
"Whatever, I'll deal with those cowards and traitors later, right now I need finally deal with the ultimate traitor, Reichnott." Aultcray brushes off as he approaches the chamber.
He wasn't alone either, with him was Malty, Motoyasu, Itsuki, and their respective parties being ordered back to the castle.
The King approached them, "Motoyasu, Itsuki did any of you find any trace or leads to the sword hero?"
"I'm afraid not sir, we looked everywhere, but he just disappeared, after the lead we got for the Lord Rabiers territories after the explosion and monster attack the most we found in the area was some giant skeleton that was picked clean," Motoyasu responds with Aultcray annoyed by how the sword hero can just drop off like this with no trail to follow.
"I told you we should've gone east, that was clearly where he was going but you had to waste time looking around the damn lake area." Itsuki ridicules Motoyasu trying to make his own failure look like it was all Motoyasu's fault.
"What are you talking about? You didn't say anything about looking east, you said we should had toward the mountains where the sun was rising up and all that was there was just more mountains and rocks."
"That was east dumbass, the sun always rises east and sets in the west, so that was east." Itsuki corrects him in an angry tone.
"Then why the hell didn't you just say East then? Why make it intentionally cryptic!?" Motoyasu raises his voice at Itsuki.
You're in college aren't you?! You should've known this crap already, or did your pandering parents just pay the courses for you that you probably never paid any attention to! And besides you weren't even trying, you were more focused on looking at the female soldier's asses than looking for the bastard that cracked your nuts."
"I was not looking at asses! Actually you know what? I was looking at one, in fact I'm looking at the same giant ass right now and he is about two heads shorter then me."
"Why you!" Itsuki finally jumps at him again
And the two were now at each other's throats ready for another fistfight, until Aultcray ordered the guards to remove them from each other.
"Enough, right now it is no one's fault but the sword devils fault, that is why I brought you back in the first place, so we can talk and think about where the bastard has gone to together with what clues we have."
Malty then approached her father, "And where the hell is that pompous pope at? I still have a billion things I like to say to that damned old fool." she asked still wanting to get payback on Balmus for the failed branding iron.
Aultcray tried to calm her down, "Now now my dear, Balmus is currently off at a church in a different region of the country to recover from his injuries, he barely survived Rabiers castle destruction, so he needs time to heal up, both physically and spiritually." he responds on to what Balmus told him, which was far from the real truth.
Malty still looked pissed by the whole thing but she remained silent wanting to just get this meeting over with.
Once that was done, the meeting began with various knights holding crystal balls to create the images in them. Normally such a meeting would be done at the throne room in person, but Reichnott and the other nobles didn't trust Aultcray in his own castle surrounded by his loyal soldiers, so this was the only way for them to talk with the king and with the deaths of his loyal supporters and the increasingly disloyal army Aultcray didn't have much of a choice to argue against it.
And with that, the images of Reichnott and a few other noblemen appear from the crystal balls as they begin.
"King Aultcray, I hope you gained some sense and are here now to make peace with your opposition," Reichnott asks in a serious tone.
"I'm here to demand to know when your troops are ready to march off to Siltvelt. Otherwise it will be treason." Aultcray demands sternly
"Aultcray when will you realize that is not going to happen anymore, your supporters are gone, your army is already ignoring your orders, and the remaining nobility have agreed to go against the war. So it's over."
"It is not over Reichnott! I don't care what you or these other idiots say against me, I will not stop until my children are safe and sound while she is being held hostage by those monsters."
"This again Aultcray, there is not even any solid proof she was even kidnapped other than a few unreliable witnesses." another noble speaks up referring to Malty.
This of course did not make the princess happy, "You dare say I'm not a reliable witness! This is my baby sister we're talking about!"
"Considering you're the one who would gain the most out of her death, we can't look past how you could've been involved in her sudden disappearance."
Motoyasu of course defended her, "How dare you accuse Myne of such things! She would never harm her sister like that."
Reichnott then spoke up, "Spear hero do you not remember the night you fought against the shield hero."
"Ugghh, I wish I can forget." Motoyasu moans with that fight still haunting him long past that night with people still mocking him for it.
"If you can recall, Malty completely made up a crime and falsely accuse the shield hero's partner of thievery. Do you really think that should be someone we should trust?"
Motoyasu was silent, wanting to argue against it but he didn't have anything to say to defend his partner/girlfriend with Malty growing madder by how nothing was going her way anymore.
When Motoyasu couldn't say anything else Reichnott continued speaking, "In fact, not one day after the assembly diet, I called for a minor investigation on princess Meltys disappearance, and from all the witnesses that we investigated and questioned that were nearby when the shield hero left, and they all claimed princess Melty was never kidnapped and in fact was willingly joining with the shield hero."
"And you believe the word of a bunch of filthy peasants over me the crowned princess of Melromarc!?" Malty defends herself, but she was not convincing any of the noble leaders.
Aultcray then spoke up again, "Well I trust in my own family than a bunch unloyal, self-serving, demi-loving traitors!"
"Aultcray think about the implications or consequences of starting a major war on weak pretenses with the waves in mind. You're letting your own anti-demi-human bias get the better of you."
"You don't know anything about those murderous monsters. While you were still sucking on your mother's teet, I was fighting against those evil bastards left and right as they attempt to enslave all humans. You act like nothing is wrong when an entire castle of nobles was murdered! You think that is something to not worry about!?"
"Have we even done a proper investigation of that event either? You're not looking into anything, you merely draw into your own conclusions and are acting rashly because of it." Reichnott points out.
Another noble from adifferent crystal ball then spoke his mind on that event, "I agree for all we know, this could have been the doing of the bow hero."
"What!? Why the hell would that have anything to do with me!?" Itsuki yells at the noble.
"Considering the fact you already murdered a couple of nobles all for so called "justice" and attempted to murder the King of Tervein. You have more of a motive to kill a bunch of mad and corrupt nobles than even the shield or sword hero."
"Silence! I will not let you go off and slander the heroes, and making crap up." Aultcray yells defending Itsuki
"That's rich coming from you considering that was all you and the church have been doing with the shield hero and now the sword hero because unlike those two suck ups currently next to you, they knew how mad you've become." another noble argues
"How about you idiots get to whatever points your making?!" Aultcray shouts wanting to get on with it.
Reichnott then pushes up his glasses to say, "Aultcray we are demanding you to step down your duty as regent of the realm and allow someone more clear-minded to take charge until Queen Mirella returns. If you do it now, you and your daughter will not face any major punishment from us."
Aultcray clutches his fists harder in anger to hear such demands, "You're basically telling me to step off my throne so you would take it for yourself! How about you and the rest of the traitors follow your king's orders or I will have every single one of you charged and then executed as traitors!"
Reichnott just shakes his head in annoyance and disappointment to see the once great king be reduced to a blabbering mad man, "You do not have the power or support anymore Aultcray. Even you know as of now if you start a war with us, it will just end with your head rolling on the ground."
The two men looked intently at each other with neither wanting to change their stances, with the heroes and Malty on the sidelines watching the show.
That was until, "Your Majesty! Your Majesty!"
"What the hell is it, don't you see I'm busy dealing with these buffoons!?" Aultcray yells at him.
"But... But my lord, it's general Richeart. He has something important to say to you!"
The King was now immediately curious but also had some fear in him if this could mean a Siltvelt invasion already. Though if it was one he can now rub it at Reichnotts face of how right he was. Reichnott himself also listens in, "Very well, get him here now." Aultcray ordered as the servant carried in another crystal orb into the chamber.
And quickly the image of General Richeart appears as the general from the orb looks around to see the image of his king as well as Reichnott and a few other important nobles listening in.
The general then places his arm across his chest, "My lord I'm here to inform you of a great crisis that we need more aid. Food, troops, supplies, anything.
"What is it you require aid for general? Have you been seeing any Siltvelt armies stationed or camped not far from the border?" Aultcray asked
"No my lord, it has nothing to do with Demi-humans at all. It's humans."
Everyone in the room was now confused especially Aultcray, "What do you mean humans?"
"Not to long ago, thousands of former human slaves had come to the border in mass on wagons. We allowed them all in, and they had nothing suspicious in their wagons. We are still counting heads, but the wagons have totaled well over 10,000 with each having about 7-10 humans in each one. Many had gone through a lot of hardships with many still needing help and comfort, and we don't have enough men to help sort it all out. So we are requesting more aid at my outpost and perhaps some ideas on what to do with some of them, like if some of the noble lords are willing to take some of them in as new residents into their territories." the General explains as he moves his body away from the orb to show off the huge camps of refugees below the wall he was standing on to give an idea how big this was.
This info was hard to process for most of the people in the chamber, just a huge mass of former slaves just showing up at Melromarcs door and by the sound of it, they didn't face any major resistance from escaping their former masters grasps.
Aultcray was the one wondering the most, "What has happened for all of them to be there? How did they escape from their masters?"
The General quickly gave his answer, "According to almost all of them, the Shield hero had servants and soldiers go around to buy or confiscated them from their masters, and once he gathered them, he had them all sent off to the border and here they are now."
"Wait a second, Mr. general guy sir? Are you saying that Bakugou had just freed thousands of human slaves from Siltvelt?" Motoyasu asks surprised that he of all people had done such a thing
"Don't make me laugh Sir Motoyasu, those fools probably have no idea what they are talking about and are babbling nonsense about the shield devil." Malty dismisses not wanting to accept that Bakugou would do this to make fools out of her and the other heroes even outside of Melromarc.
But the general just shakes his head, "No, these people may have been through a lot, but they are not stupid or delusional, almost all of them are confident that the shield hero was the one that had allow them to go free."
Malty just grits teeth with her face in anger, this event will no doubt give the shield hero good publicity and ruin her chances to start the Siltvelt war where she can get her brat sister to be killed off, while Motoyasu was just rubbing his head in genuine confusion to why someone supposedly so scummy that tried to rape Myne would weaken the nation that is supporting him and helped out Melromarc. Itsuki was just standing silent but was also very pissed off as he grips his bow in anger as he feels like this was another way for Bakugou to show off and make him and Motoyasu look bad.
After that Reichnott spoke up wanting to offer help, "General my domain has many areas design to help many former demi-human slaves, it shouldn't be much different for former human slaves, I just need some..."
"Send them back." ordered a voice and the room was shocked to hear who made it. King Aultcray.
This quickly confused the general, "My lord what do you mean send them back?"
"Forced these "former slaves" back to Siltvelt." Aultcray emphasizes.
"Wait what? Why?" the General asked to clarify.
"Don't you see that this is just a plot by that damned devil to sabotage our nation and then attack us during the ensuing chaos? And you're just falling right into it." Aultcray explains his reason, believing this was not an act of kindness for humanity from the shield devil, he refused to believe such a thing.
The General was baffled by his king to come to such a conclusion, "My lord, we investigated the wagons and questioned and interviewed most of the former slaves and there is nothing remotely suspicious about them."
Malty then walked up to take advantage of the conversation, "Of course he wouldn't make it obvious, you expect that demon to put a sign that says 'obvious trap here'. It's clear that this freeing slaves thing is nothing more than a plot to cripple our resources, spread diseases, or many other things to destroy us from the inside."
Aultcray nods agreeing with her, "I believe my order was clear, send them all back to Siltvelt as soon as possible, and if they resist resort to deadly force."
"But my lord these are humans who have been slaves for all their lives, including children and infants. Please at least.."
"Richeart! I gave you an order and you will not question it! I swear almost all of you new bloods are filled with nothing but dirty animal lovers and naive cowards. I will not allow that devil to deceive and destroy this country I dearly love. I'll say this again one more time Richeart! Send them all back! No exceptions!"
Richeart couldn't believe what he had just heard from his king, a man who was once seen as the savior of humanity, the man who saved Melromarc from destruction was now ordering humans to be forced back to their demi-human slavers. Richeart at that point refused to respond and just stood there in the image in silence with a look of angered disappointment in his eyes.
Aultcray then turns back to Reichnott's ball image, "And you! I will give you just two more days and that's it! If you or any other nobleman or army commander that supports you won't cooperate, I'll be sending off Sir Motoyasu and Itsuki to arrest and then execute the lot of you!" he then turns to the two and Malty, "I have had enough of this stupidity, let's just leave."
Without any protests from heroes than some sighing Motoyasu and Itsuki followed Aultcray to discuss how they could find Ren and how they will be dealing with the likes of Reichnott after two days.
Once they were out of sight Reichnott himself sighs in great disappointment, "He could've ended this peacefully, he could've just stopped. But now he has gone mad by his power, and allowed his daughter to manipulate him like a pet." he says out loud to himself.
But just before a servant turns off the magic transmission Richeart shouts, "Wait stop! I like to say something to Lord Reichnott first."
After hearing that the servants stopped with Reichnott turning toward the other ball image now with the young noble listening in, "What is it that you need General?" Reichnott asks.
"I want to meet with you in person as soon as possible, we need to talk about what has happened today at your mansion, tomorrow morning if you don't mind? I think it's about time we talk about Aultcray and what needs to be done."
While the general doesn't explicitly say it, Reichnott knew exactly what the General wants to talk about. He could only agree and nods toward the general's crystal ball, "I have no problem with that, come by as soon as possible tomorrow I'll be ready for you."
"I will, see you tomorrow." The general finishes as he turns off his crystal ball with Reichnott and the rest of the important nobles doing the same ending the major meeting.
Little did anyone of them know including Aultcray, a spy of the three heroes church was hiding the whole time with his own crystal with a figure in it watching the whole thing.
The spy then looks into the ball, "Did you get all of that my lord?" the spy asked.
The figure smiles from the image and out of the shadows of it was none other than Pope Balmus, "Indeed I have, good work. Now the enemy have made their moves, on the chess board, time to see there pieces fall down one by one."
Authors note: Good lord, I thought this chapter was going to be shorter then the last one, I swear I'm not doing this on purpose to make each chapter longer then the next one to see how far I can get away with. I guess I had more to write about then I originally expected. I think for now one I'll keep my chapter word limit to be only about 50,000 words per chapter just so the later chapters don't get to bloated not just for you but for me as well as it takes me forever to edit and spell check these long chapters, and if they do end up exceeding 50,000 words I'm just going to split the chapters up into two but still release them on the same day or not long after.
And I know it's a lot with a bunch of dialogue and exposition in the chapter, I hope I didn't bore anyone with how bloated this chapter was alone, especially with the different views of the story we have now with Bakugou, his sidekicks, Ren and Scarlet, Motoyasu and Itsuki, King Aultcray and Malty, Reichnott, Siltvelts ruling council and there Prime Minister, etc. But things will start get to more interesting soon in the next chapter as things advance.
Thank for all of your patience, and I hope to see you again soon and hopefully not with a chapter exceeding 50,000 words.
