A/N: A deep thank you to all of you for reviewing!

I am going to keep the Yggdrasil system completely different from the SMS System of Shield Hero for the purposes of this fanfic.

I will be playing fast and loose with established rules a bit since I want things to fit in a certain way, so I hope that won't be too much of a problem.

Filo will still be appearing- don't worry about her. I still do think Suzuki is kind of a wuss while leading because his NPCs do so much wrong he normally wouldn't tolerate and he goes along with them rather than admitting they did a mistake (mostly with Demiurge).

"So, don't be shy," Rifana, a young girl, asked her friend. "Who do you love?"

This question was directed at Raphtalia, another young girl. Both of them would've seemed to be like ordinary human children save for their dog-like ears and tails- indeed, they were both mixes of Racoon and Tanuki, in other words, demi-humans.

"I love my father," Raphtalia said without hesitation.

Rifana sighed. "That's not the kind of love I'm talking about. Pick someone your own age."

Raphtalia thought about it for a while. "I guess if I had to choose... I would say Keel! He's the coolest one around!"

Raphtalia could never say those words to that boy in question, however. Not in a million years.

"What about you, Rifana-chan?" Raphtalia asked.

"The Shield Hero," Rifana said without a moment's hesitation.

"Shield Hero?"

"Yes," Rifana said. "My parents told me all about him! How the Shield Hero was the only one of the Four Heroes who was nice to use demi-humans! He was really cool!"

Before they could get any further, the sky turned a dark shade of red and cracks started to appear in the sky.

"What's going on?" Rifana asked.

"Come on," Raphtalia said, grabbing onto her hand. They had been seated a small distance away from their other friends.

"Hey, let's check it out," Keel, the aforementioned boy that Raphtalia had been talking about, said.

"No!" Raphtalia said. A bad feeling welled up in her as she looked up at the sky. This was not good. "This isn't safe- we have to go back!"

Seeing her expression convince everyone else, and they hastily made their way back to their village.

Raphtalia quickly spotted her father as he approached the village square, a bit out of breath.

"Raphtalia, we have to get ready," he said as he scooped her up.

"What's happening?" she asked. Everywhere she looked, the villagers wore panicked expressions.

"I'll tell you in a moment," he said and then called everyone's attention to himself. "Everyone! We have to get ready! Monsters are going to appear from the sky very soon!"

"Monsters?" one of the villagers cried out in panic.

The hunters, the most capable fighters in the village, were all out fishing. Sadeena, another rather powerful individual, was nowhere to be seen- meaning their military capabilities had drastically been reduced. This was the worst time for something like this to happen.

"Yes, let's try to remain calm and get our weapo-" Rapthalia's father got no further as monsters rained down from the skies. Zombie soldiers and other monsters quickly moved towards them.

"[First Holy]!" Rapthalia's father shouted as a spell collided with a zombie, turning it to ash. However, the spell could only hit one target, and there were far too many of them.

"Get to the shore!" someone shouted and many of them made a run for it.

Raphtalia quickly realized what they were thinking: it was unlikely that these monsters could swim, which meant that if they could reach the boats, then they would be safe or could at least sail to safety.

However, such a strategy meant that some people would be forced to stay back to hold the line against the monsters- one of whom included her father.

Raphtalia quickly prayed for her father's safety as she ran on until she heard a terrible noise.

From the cracks above, a wicked three-headed dog emerged and began rapidly approaching them. With a snarl, it slashed Raphtalia's father.

"No!" Rapthalia screamed as the somewhat organized retreat of the villagers turned into a stampede as they all suddenly panicked. If Rapthalia's mother had not decided to shield Rapthalia with her own body she would'vesurely been trampled underfoot.

As the beast raised its heads to strike again, it suddenly cried out in pain as a lance blossomed between its torso. The lance withdrew and cut all three of its heads off with a single stroke.

"Excellent work, Shalltear," a man said. The lance was wielded by a warrior wearing armor which was the color of blood, and the man was unassuming save for the shield on his right arm. In front of their eyes, the shield changed into a bright golden one with the symbol of a god none of them knew about on it. "Activate skill! [Turn Undead]!"

Five or so zombies paused in their tracks and were turned to dust instantly.

The man then examined the wound on Raphtalia's father's shoulder. "Hmm... Shalltear, do you have a healing potion on you?"

"Umu, sorry," the warrior in red said. Surprisingly, the voice was that of a woman's.

"Here, Momonga-sama," a butler said as he handed a red vial to the man. To onlookers, it appeared as if he had manifested out of the shadows themselves.

The potion was the color of blood itself, and the man poured it over Raphtalia's father.

"Agh!" he said, not expecting the sudden splash of cold liquid. As he opened his eyes though, he saw that the liquid had not stuck to him at all or even stained his clothes. As a matter of fact, the wound he had sustained was gone now.

Rapthalia's father looked up at this man. "Shield Hero?!" It was both an exclamation and a question.

"Uh, yes, I am the Shield Hero," the man said.

Suzuki was utterly confused.

On the one hand, they had managed to win the first part of this wave, but to any onlooker their team would've looked like a ragtag group of mercenaries with no coordination in-between them. All of them were just doing whatever they wanted.

This shameful lack of organization could only be blamed on one person: him. After all, he was the leader of the organization. He was doing a miserable job of it though.

How was he supposed to coordinate over seven hundred people though? He had only ever been a salaryman and had no experience in comm- wait a minute! Something clicked in his mind. The CEO of a company, ergo, him, would almost never interact with the everyday workers himself. He would have a board of executives working beneath him- in other words, the Floor Guardians.

"Alright! Listen up, we will break ourselves into factions! Demiurge, take all of our winged members and control the sky- monitor the area and try to destroy the monsters before they even hit the ground! Shalltear and Coccytus, lead our troops in a frontal assault on the remaining monsters on the ground! Albedo, I need you to hold our reserve forces and assign them to wherever they're needed! Pestonya, set up a camp along with any of us who have healing abilities, and heal any of the wounded villagers and keep all of them there! Albedo, keep the reserves surrounding this area for now! Aura and Mare, scout out the land in all directions! Send the Hanzos and any members with stealth abilities to pick out the villagers and bring them to the safe area! Pandora's Actor, transform into whoever you think will be most useful for the situation." He then paused. "If any of you are confused, pick whichever role you think suits you most! All other vassals are to work under the Floor Guardians! Also, we are to save the villagers, not harm them!"

Thankfully, the enemies sent down by the Wave were marked specifically as such on his screen (so he assumed it was the same for the others), making it easy to distinguish who was friend and who was foe.

"Understood!" shouts came from all around him.

The demi-human in front of him seemed to panic as the forces of Nazarick emerged from the surrounding area. "Relax," Suzuki told him. "These are all my comrades. We will deal with the monsters as much as possible. Please, help get the rest of your villagers to safety."

A female demihuman holding a child ran up to them.

"Understood, Shield Hero," the male demihuman complied. "I only have one request however- will you take care of our child?"

"Eh?" Suzuki asked, a bit shocked by this turn of events.

"It will be risky gathering the others, and I can think of no safer place for my daughter than under the great Shield Hero's wing," he said.

The female demihuman added, "I know it is selfish of us, but please take care of our Rapthalia, will you?"

Suzuki had no idea on how to take care of children, but he also felt that he couldn't reject their request outright if he wanted their cooperation.

Plus, this was just for a while, right?

"Alright," Suzuki said, accepting the child in his arms.

"You have our deepest thanks, Shield Hero!"

"We will carry out your commands with every fiber of our beings!"

With these words, the two adult demi-humans left, leaving Suzuki alone with this one.

"Alright," he said as he gently set her down. "Don't worry- uh, your parents will be along soon. And you'll be safe here."

Suzuki sat down on the grass along with the girl. The thing was that at this point, Suzuki was more of hindrance than he was of help to the forces of Nazarick and it was best if he stay put and let the others guard him.

He gazed out at the battlefield- his plan was not perfect, and if this had been a guild raid, he would have spent months going over various details in preparation. But, the suddenness of this all had prevented this. Still, the overall plan was not too bad and someone like Albedo could work over whatever kinks emerged in it.

"Ah!" the girl shouted out and pointed behind Suzuki to an undead even more massive and terrifying than the ones attacking the village.

"Relax- that's just a Death Knight summoned by one of the librarians, it's on our side," Suzuki said and smiled. He wasn't sure if that had reassured the girl, so he took her hand in his in a comforting fashion. She did not resist. "See? It's killing the other monsters. It's with us."

As he said that, the sky turned blue again and a message popped up.

Wave concluded! Would you like to stay in this world, or return to the earlier one?

Given the fact that Nazarick was in the old world, there was no question in the matter.

Suzuki was rather happy that there were only two parts to the wave. In Yggdrasil, there were nine worlds, so he had been afraid that they might've had to go through nine of these things. But it appeared that they only had to suffer through two.

The residents of Lurolona Village all gazed up at the now-clear sky.

The ordeal was over, and many of them began talking about the monsters- not those of the wave, but those which had appeared and fought the wave off. Some of the strange visitors had even healed their injuries.

"Who were those people?" someone asked.

"It was the Shield Hero!" Rapthalia's father exclaimed. "I saw him- and he was just as amazing as all the stories say! All of those other monsters were his party members!"

He quickly made a headcount and saw that everyone was safe- anyone with injuries had been healed completely and it looked like they had managed to get through the Wave unscathed.

There was one problem though- one person was missing from the area, whom they couldn't find no matter how hard they tried.

"Rapthalia!" her father cried out to receive no response.

Suzuki Satoru felt himself land on the grass once again. The sky was clear- so there was no wave, and he found himself in the village where they had been earlier. It appeared that their mission had been a success for now.

"Um, Shield Hero?" a voice next to him piped up.

He turned his head to see that there was still someone grabbing onto his hand- the girl from earlier.

"Ah!" he said, a bit startled, which in turn startled her. "Wait, calm down, let me get you back to your parents. Shalltear!"

Shalltear hopped on over to him. "Yes, Momonga-sama?"

"Please take her back to the village we were at earlier," Suzuki said.

Shalltear cast a [Gate] spell but before she could take a step further she was suddenly blown back and the [Gate] closed. She tried again and got the same result. "I'm sorry Momonga-sama, but I can't get through."

Suzuki frowned. "Fetch me a scroll."

Suzuki used it to cast the [Gate] spell but as he visualized that village he found a strong gale seemed to be emanating from the portal which he could not overcome no matter how hard he tried.

Error! Travel between worlds is only possible during the Waves!

What? What kind of nonsense was this? Even in Yggdrasil, the [Gate] spell could be used to transverse between world with ease. One could go from Midgard to Asgard within seconds so long as they had been there before.

With teleportation magic no longer a possibility, that meant that they would have to travel between world manually somehow. This was possible in Yggdrasil through various means, but Suzuki had no idea if such similar method worked here.

"Um, what is your name, kiddo?" Suzuki asked the girl.

"Raphtalia," she said.

"And where are you from?" he asked.

"Lurulona Village," she said.

"And where is that? Which country?"

"Um... I think it's called... Melromarc!" she said.

"Alright, um, Raphtalia, we're having a bit of trouble getting you back to your village right now," Suzuki said. "But it'll all be okay, alright? For now, um, hey Sebas! Can you take Raphtalia here back to the Tomb? She'll remain as one of my guests, okay?"

Suzuki realized that what he had just done, even if it was by accident, could very well be classified as 'kidnapping' and he wanted to avoid a scene as much as possible. Raphtalia looked a bit confused but slowly nodded as Sebas led her away.

Suzuki looked around and saw that they were still surrounded by many confused and frightened villagers.

He ordered away the bulk of Nazarick's forces to return, leaving behind Aura, Mare, Shalltear, Albedo, Demiurge, and (once he had returned) Sebas with him. In addition, there were units skilled in stealth hiding in the nearby areas.

"Do not panic," Suzuki said as he approached the villagers. "The monsters you saw were summoned by me and my compatriots. We had come to save you." He then paused and considered something. "However, this is not for free. I will be expecting some form of payment."

A man who was the village chief lead him away to his house along with his wife.

There, Suzuki was able to get a bit more information regarding where they were as well as some other details.

For one, the events of the day were slightly confusing to the villagers. First, they had been beset by knights dressed up in the garb of the Empire of Baharuth, a neighboring country. The knights began indiscriminately slaughtering the villagers, when suddenly the sky turned red and monsters began to rain down. The knights were slaughtered by these monsters, but the monsters soon turned on the villagers before being saved by Nazarick's forces.

As far as they could tell, the two events: the knights and the monsters were unrelated. They had also never heard of the Waves of Calamity before, and what had just recently happened with the Wave had never occurred before either. They also knew nothing of the Shield Hero or any other sort of Cardinal Hero for that matter.

As for their current location, they were in the Kingdom of Re-Estize in a village called Carne. To the East was the Baharuth Empire, though Suzuki suspected that it was a possibility that the knights were actually soldiers from the southern nation of the Slane Theocracy who were disguised as Baharuth knights in order to precipitate war between the two countries.

They had never heard of a nation by the name of Melromarc or a village by the name of Lurulona before, but they confessed to knowing little of the world, so Suzuki couldn't discount the fact that they might simply not know anything about it.

He tore off a corner of the map they had presented him with and added it to his shield to get the Cartographer Shield, and he found he could access the map from his mind. The edges of it were darkened, which made him think that perhaps if he explored those regions they would reveal themselves to him.

In addition, he found that this world's currency was quite different from that of Yggdrasil. He added a single silver piece to his shield to get the Banking Shield.

Banking Shield [Convert Currencies At 3% Penalty]

Suzuki quickly figured out what he could do with it- he could add some Yggdrasil gold pieces to it and was able to transform them into an equivalent amount of silver pieces, though as the shield said, there was a 3% loss of money while doing so. He had only thrown two Yggdrasil gold pieces in, but had gotten 388 silver coins back. From some simple mathematics, he found that a single Yggdrasil gold piece was worth two gold pieces in this world.

"So, that all is fine, but is there anything else strange that happened here?" Suzuki asked.

He was told that there was a strange hourglass which appeared a few days earlier- coinciding exactly with the time that he had arrived in this world.

Suzuki went out to the village square to see the thing and he had to admit that it looked way out of place in this dingy village.

As he approached it, his shield seemed to connect with it and a timer appeared on his screen.

38:12:25:14

The timer was counting down, so Suzuki figured it was talking about 38 days. Most likely, this meant that the next wave would strike in that time, but-

Demiurge appeared behind him suddenly, startling him.

"Forgive me, Momonga-sama, but there are some armored men approaching this village," Demiurge said.

"Alright," Suzuki said and reassured the villagers that he would handle it.

He, along with the other NPCs gathered near the village entrance as a group of soldiers on horseback rode towards them.

The lead amongst them dismounted. He was a man who was by very appearance a seasoned warrior with bulging muscles and a stern expression. He turned to the village chief after being slightly taken aback by Nazarick's forces.

"My name is Gazef Stronoff, Chief Warrior of the Kingdom of Re-Estize," he said. "What happened here?"

"We were attacked by knights," the village chief said. "But Suzuki-dono here and his team saved us from them."

"Hmm..." Gazef said. "Tell me, did the sky turn red and monsters begin dropping down here too?"

"Indeed, but Suzuki-dono took care of that as well."

Gazef turned to Suzuki and then bowed. "I cannot express my gratitude enough for saving this village."

"It was nothing," Suzuki said, waving his hand. "Did you also encounter any monsters?"

"Indeed we did," Gazef said. "The sky tore apart and monsters rained down upon my men. We were lucky to overcome them with only a few scratches. You wouldn't happen to know anything about it, would you?"

"No, I was wondering if you happened to know anything about it," Suzuki replied.

"Can't say I do, it was the first time I ever saw something like that in my life," Gazef said. He then passed a curious look over Suzuki's comrades. "Are you all mercenaries by any chance?"

"After a fashion," Suzuki said.

"Chief Warrior!" one of the mounted soldiers said. "Men are surrounding this village!"

Suzuki sighed. How many times was he going to be dragged into a fight in one day?

"Those are Archangel Flames," Gazef said, peering out of the cabin they were in. "Given their number, I'd wager that the attackers are from the Slane Theocracy. Only they could come up with these many priests." He turned to Suzuki. "You don't know anything about them do you?"

"No," Suzuki said. That left only one option. "So they're after you I guess?"

"Indeed," Gazef said. "This whole scenario seems to be an ambush." He turned to Suzuki. "I would like to hire you to fight these people off."

Suzuki sighed. It didn't seem that there was any easy way out. "You cannot have me, but I will devote some of my forces to this cause."

Suzuki Satoru

Shield Hero: Level 9 [+5 Yggdrasil Levels]

Suzuki was well aware that he had little chance of beating anyone- even a horde of Archangel Flames, in his current state. As such, he would have to send out his NPCs to fight for him.

"I intend to send out a three-pronged attack led by Aura, Albedo, and Shalltear with your forces," Suzuki said. Coccytus would've also been an acceptable choice, but he had been sent back as he was not humanoid enough.

"I see," Gazef said. "I will trust your strategic intellect then."

"Before we go though," Suzuki said. "Have you heard of a nation by the name of Melromarc?"

Gazef pondered the name for a while before saying, "No, and neither have I heard of that name in any legends or records before. Is that the country you come from, Suzuki-dono?"

"No," Suzuki said. "However, if you were willing to do me a favor, could you see if any records of it exist? Perhaps in the royal library or the equivalent? You may consider it part of my payment."

"I will do so then," Gazef said before setting out.

Mare and Sebas would remain guarding him and the villagers, and Suzuki had a special assignment for Demiurge. Suzuki whispered his orders to Mare, who transmitted them to Demiurge with a [Message] spell.

It all was going well until there was a minor commotion outside. Suzuki exited the building to see what was the problem.

"What's wrong?" he asked.

Albedo blushed, clearly flustered. "Momonga-sama, I was going to mount my Bircorn, but for some reason it won't let me."

She tried to sit upon the massive beast again, but it moaned and collapsed nearly instantly under her. Being a level 100 monster it should've had no problem lifting her up though.

"That is odd," Suzuki said. He felt as if there was something about this situation which he should know about, but whatever fact it was was lost to him. Ah, maybe he would remember it later on. "For now then, just borrow a mount from Aura then."

Aura was mounted on a large chameleon-like monster, Shalltear rode a Cerberus, and Albedo was riding a giant wolf. Gazef and his men seemed to be quite surprised by the choice of mounts, but none of them voiced their concerns.

Nigun Grid Luin gritted his teeth.

He was an unremarkable man with blonde hair- and the captain of the Sunlight Scripture.

The special forces of the Slane Theocracy were organized into six scriptures- of which the Sunlight Scripture was the weakest.

The Theocracy had long since grown tired of the Kingdom of Re-Estize. The Kingom was blessed with a wonderful geographic location, few enemies, and plentiful lands- but corruption had laziness had overtaken it so much that it had turned into a toxic cesspool of human misery despised by the Theocracy.

The Theocracy could not conquer the Kingdom outright given it would put their borders near the Argland Council State. That country consisted of various races- and given the Theocracy was a human supremacist country it would lead to outright war.

As such, they were content allowing the neighboring Baharuth Empire to conquer the country.

Eliminating the Chief Warrior, one of the strongest men in all of Re-Estize, who had slain two of the Four Imperial Knights, would greatly hasten the Empire's conquest.

To achieve this, with the cooperation of some of the Kingdom's own nobles, they were able to first strip the Chief Warrior of his most important weapons, and also to send him out to some remote villagers which the Theocracy was burning, disguising themselves as Baharuth knights all the while.

The goal was to lure the Chief Warrior to a remote village, and then ambush him with the full force of the Sunlight Scripture.

Two problems had occurred however. One, none of the disguised knights they had sent out had returned back alive. Secondly, the sky had turned crimson and monsters appeared out of nowhere to strike at them.

The Sunlight Scripture could easily handle them, but their man was now slightly depleted.

But Nigun wasn't worried at all. He still had an ace up his sleeve- the gift from one of the Six Gods who-

"Captain! There's a problem!" one of his men shouted. "Four of our members have disappeared?"

"What? They're dead?" Nigun asked.

"No, Captain, they're just gone with no trace left of them," the man answered.

This was very odd. The Sunlight Scripture were old hands at this sort of thing. They would not have wandered off for no reason- or did all them go to the bathroom at once without telling anyone else?

Before he could think of an answer, two flashes appeared. One from his left, the other from his right. Wherever they landed, the heads of his men were separated from their shoulders.

"What?"

Before he could get anything else out, the world spun around him as he was decapitated and fell onto the ground.

"So that's that then," Suzuki said as he waved Gazef and his men off. Demiurge had captured a few of the Sunlight Scripture as ordered to, and they would be interrogated by Neuronist for more information. He turned around and sighed.

"That was so cool though!" Albedo said. "The way you gave around orders, Momonga-sama!"

"Yeah, sure," Suzuki said, too tired to argue at this point.

Though he didn't know it yet, his levels in Tactician and General had given the others minor stat buffs along with the other buffs from some of his shields, though they would have all won regardless of these things.

"Let's just go home for now," Suzuki said. He had had enough excitement for today, and as he could see, the villagers of Carne were performing funeral rites and he didn't want to disturb them.

A/N: Quick question- does Naofumi also lose levels when he goes to another world? Or just Raphtalia and the others?